Why Do People Challange Salient Scientific Concepts

Has Social Media Destroyed Scientific Communication?

It is my belief that scientific education takes a back seat in this world of social media. I am getting a little bored of being told I am wrong based on other peoples’ opinions, mostly which are based of anecdotal evidence and not actual scientific foundations. I've made my feelings (as has an entire scientific community) on the subject of anecdotal evidence extremely clear; it has absolutely no place in science.

People, like I study for degrees. We work hard to learn the foundations of science and explore subjects around that, we are taught the skills to analyse and critique any science put before us, which is a fundamental of science. That is everything we need. Now, this isn't easy, a scientific education does not teach you everything. Nobody leaves university ready to take on every bit of the scientific world, it's very tough. Then there are people who didn't study any aspect of science since high school (in which you learn some ridiculously basic concepts that will help you out in many of these arguments), whom of which haven’t learned any kind of critical analysis, how to read scientific studies, statistics, where to find them, verify them and the ability to just know if a scientific concept is just built upon something that isn't true. That is fine, not everyone wants to enter that world, I have no problem with that. However, my problem begins and ends when you try to weigh in on massively sound scientific concepts that are agreed upon the scientific community. For example, I am fed up of being called a 'shill' or the end all of an argument being 'big pharma'. Big pharma is not out to get you. Pharmacology has a lot of sub-branches within it, all of which are explored when a drug is developed. It is well established that all drugs can have an adverse effect within some individuals. We call these 'side effects'. For example, if one drug didn't work for you because of the side effects, then don't go telling people they didn't work at all. They're useless. They're not, they're useless for you. Whilst we are at it; chemtrails aren’t real, GMO’s are safe, homeopathy doesn't work and the earth isn’t flat (that last one is a genuine thing, this is how far science denialism has come).

 Scientists work hard to develop careers, just like everyone else, and they get the hardest pushback for it. People dedicate their lives to things like drug research to be told by someone without any concept of science that they are just paid by big pharma. At this point I feel I should ask who else is going to pay them? Institutions like universities don't have the money to fund a drug trial, it is beyond millions of pounds to do. Scientists come up with the concepts and drug companies fund them, sometimes they fail, sometimes they pass. It is most definitely not without faults and it has certain caveats. But the idea of every scientist being involved in some form of cover up for something like big pharma is idiotic. Scientists have integrity, and yeah, some don't, and they are a disgrace. That doesn't change the view of the profession, some people are just wrong. To paint that they're all in companies’ pockets is disheartening, discouraging to younger scientists and just plain disgusting.

I sincerely enjoy being challenged on an intellectual level and I am always up for discussing scientific articles that I have read, but don't bring your opinions to a scientific discussion. I will, and rightly so, dismiss you. This appears on every blog I post, I get pushback from people who have differing opinions of what the science actually states, telling me I'm in the pockets of people because they don't believe in the theory of gravity. I can assure you, no one is paying me to plug gravity to people.I do this all off of my own back, I use my education and training to carefully research everything I post, write and subsequently have to defend to people who couldn't tell me the difference between cohort and review study. Empirical evidence is actual evidence that we can work with, anecdotes are and mean nothing to the scientific community. I don't care what you saw, heard or felt, as blunt as this article is, I (like many others) simply do not care. If you want to argue science, use science to do it, that is how we move forward. 

   

I've been told that what I am doing is holding the world back of scientific discovery in the world of holistic treatments and that helping big pharma by commenting of accuracy of statistics in studies, which only correlate with their view, is 'sickening'. I shouldn't question paucity of studies and I shouldn't decrypt scientific nonsense. I know I am not alone in this and people get this crap far worse than me every single day. If we don't question data and studies that's how cretins like Andrew Wakefield created a world where anti-vaxxers are basically allowed to murder their children based on pseudoscientific claims. Which is apparently okay to do as we have just all lost our freaking minds.

We have too many people, without knowledge of what goes on in studies, clinical trials, cohorts or any of it, weighing in and having opinions on scientific principles they know absolutely nothing about. You may see this article as me saying 'scientists are smarter than you' – if that's how you read it, then that is your decision. I will state that it is most definitely not, I am saying I am a scientist and I am saying that you are destroying intellect and holding us back when you say idiotic, baseless claims that destroy scientists reputations and livelihoods all because you have a jumped up, preconceived notion that doesn't fit the scientific consensus. You don’t need a formal education to critically analyse, I am stating that the path I have chosen for my degree has taught me that, as with many scientific disciplines. There are some phenomenal books, websites, videos and podcasts aimed at people who would like to be more critically minded and be able to disseminate studies, I encourage you to do so, especially you people who will no doubt e-mail me hurling abuse, again.

 

So to sum up: stop questioning the fundamentals of science; stop calling people shills; the government isn’t poisoning you; big pharma isn’t poisoning you and let scientists do their damn job. I do what I do because I would love for the world to be a much more rational, critical thinking place and if I have made just one person think more, question more and research more then I have achieved that.