See Inside
In the 24/7 Internet world, people make lots of claims. Science provides a guide for testing them
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "War Is Peace."
Lawrence M. Krauss, a theoretical physicist, commentator and book author, is Foundation Professor and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University (http://krauss.faculty.asu.edu).
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145 Comments
Add CommentDear Dr. Krauss:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree wholeheartedly with your Dec. 2009 Scientific American article War is Peace. The exponential growth of nonsense on the internet is both disheartening and distracting. The internet was expected to provide free and open access to information, but the unintended consequence has been that it has unexpectedly increased the noise to signal ratio. Worse yet, some of the bits floating around in hyperspace are not just distracting noise, but are noise bits masquerading as signal!
The longer I am involved in the field of science and the our companies field of renewable energy, the more I seem to be drawn to the conclusion that all responsible technology development is about creating a more desirable set of future problems. I dont mean this to sound cynical or pessimistic. Quite the contrary. I am optimistic that we can improve the future and become better ancestors if we try to exercise some technical foresight regarding issues we have to work on in the future. No matter what we do, there will be new challenges created by any technology or political trajectory we encourage as a company and as a nation. Regarding Renewable Energy, we should focus on the long term changes and impacts of agriculture on the American landscape. We need an awareness of how corn based ethanol emerged on the scene 30 years ago, survived through the 80s and 90s due to multiple benefits provided by the industry, shot past a tipping point in the early 2000s, almost went exponential before contracting recently, and how it might evolve in the future. It should also address the energy and political context in which ethanol currently exists, and attempt a rational response to the food/fuel debate. There are many reasons to be optimistic about the future, but the politics of sensationalism and the need for sound bytes overwhelm any pragmatic scientific discussion of the pros and cons of future economic and technology development strategies in the renewable energy field.
I suspect that most academics and thought leaders are becoming deeply frustrated with the internet monologues (also known as blogs), that dominate discourse on numerous issues on the net. Unfortunately, as Elvis says, we are caught in a trap, and cant get out. My suspicious mind tells suggests to me that most internet based discussions deteriorate to a series of screeching attacks and attempts to score points on diverse topics , narrowing the space and excluding opportunity for positive dialogue, rationale discourse, and advancing whatever the issue may be. Few blog type comments and media reports actually engage with the issue they purport to be commenting on, but instead take a polarized stand for or against the concern or subject of the day. This leads to a series of circular arguments on virtually every issue, with similar opinions being recycled time and time again in a series of rebuttals that dont advance topics but actually cause them to stagnate. Endless attempts to prove the other side wrong further polarize issues and narrow the space for rational thought and possible identification of solutions/opportunities for improvements. If a better way is developed by those on one side of an argument, future dialogue once again has the potential of disintegrating as the opposing side focuses only on the unintended consequences of the better way. I believe in renewable energy and what we doing at Poet, but I also recognize there will be new challenges (unintended consequences) that arise as a consequence of any technology trajectory that we decide to pursue. Although the future challenges resulting from a course of action could be more desirable than the current side effects of existing technologies, we have been conditioned to expect automatic preordained reflexive future attacks by opponents who will undoubtedly seize upon any negative aspect of whatever we do. This makes it difficult for companies aspiring to be completely candid regarding any unintended consequences or side effects of new technology trajectories. No matter what we do, out of the 100s of possible consequences, some will be less than favorable. Our job is to make sure the positives far outweigh the negatives so that we can, in effect, create a more desirable set of future consequences. Scientifically informed technical foresight is needed, but I fear it will become increasingly difficult within the polarized environment of the web.
What is the result? Parties on opposite sides of every debate dig in their heels, and the circular arguments begin again. One can only hope that a better way forward spins out of the cycle, but the chances of that happening become diminished when parties become polarized and case hardened against each other. See http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-politics-of-me-me-me for much of the argument of the preceding paragraphs.
For those of us on the science and technology development side of things, the cycle of monologue posing as dialogue is frustrating. At some point you have no choice but to get involved, answer back, and say here are the facts as I see them, good and bad. As a scientifically literate society we need to rise above the automated arguments of the blogs and the media. We should make a sincere attempt to advance the issue beyond the current pro/con circular arguments that have become all too familiar.
Thank you for a very insightful article which I feel addresses one of the major challenges our democratic society faces in the future.
Dr. Krauss:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou state that Science is 'proving things to be false'. This is probably not accomplished by ad hominem attacks on 'right wing fanatic radio hosts', 'moronic ex-governors' or 'zombie-like protesters to Washington'. Surely you must realize that there are a lot of people who will be insulted and angered by comments like these. How do these general attacks further your argument?
Perhaps your considerable talents would be better and more effectively used by proving the ideas presented by these people to be false.
You leave the question: 'Can Science Fight Media Disinformation?' essentially unanswered. It's an interesting and important question deserving rational, unbiased examination. I believe this approach would have been appropriate in a science magazine.
I applaud Krauss' statements about right wing idiot extremists, scientists can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch politicians and their ignorant constituents destroy this world. Its time to speak up and join the battle or all of our work will be for nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the blatant nonsense uttered with impunity above. The following statement shows the author's total lack of regard for the facts in the healthcare debate:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"the effort to bring the U.S. into alignment with other industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health care for all its citizens"
The fact is that the bills under consideration will increase health care cost faster than would occur without any change. The robots at the CBO even admit this. If you believe that care can be made more affordable by instituting limits on co-pays and deductables and by forcing insurerers to take anyone with no real enforcement that everyone maintain coverage, you are as economically illiterate as Pelosi, Reid and Obama.
"The fact is that the bills under consideration will increase health care cost faster than would occur without any change."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFact? Where is the evidence?
Perfect example of what the article is talking about.
Ad hominem arguments such as "you are as economically illiterate as Pelosi, Reid and Obama" or "right wing fanatic radio hosts" are not compelling to a rational audience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The fact is that the bills under consideration will increase health care cost faster than would occur without any change. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProve it. Or, as Harry Truman might have said, "Show me!" Have you read all 2,057 pages of the bill? Can you point to the sections and clauses in the bill that "will increase health care cost?" Your use of the word "will" shows no lack of uncertainty, but, like the talking heads and fanatic Republicrats, Krause mentions, you proffer NO proof, nor even evidence your statements might be true.
As for Krause's statement, "... into alignment with other industrial countries..." is demonstrably true, though I might have said "some alignment." Further, the unassailable evidence derived from the experience of every single Western European country, lower infant death rates, rising average age, and functioning economies where the loss of jobs has been nowhere near the magnitude of that here, strongly indicates that public health care works. Sure, one hears complaints, but I'd rather complain about a delay in receiving some elective care, than not receiving the care at all, which is the case for something like 46 million Americans.
Frankly, Soccerdad, your comment comes under the heading of Q.E.D.
Sorry, the first clause of the 4th sentence in the second paragraph should read "Your use of the word "will" shows no lack of certainty..." My ire steamed up my glasses and I couldn't see what I was typing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, is it "religious fanaticsm, simple ignorance or personal gain" that enables left wing policy makers to suggest that a way to pay part of medical cost is too tax medical device manufacturers. Pay for something by making it more expensive??? Can anyone really believe that such a tax will not be simple pass through?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've got this perpetual motion machine; anyone interested in investing?
Krauss' Marxist baby talk amply demonstrates that being a scientist is no guarantee of "fair and balanced"
From the CBO:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt the same time, premiums in the new insurance exchanges would
tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law
individual market—again with other factors held equal—because the
new policies would have to cover preexisting medical conditions and
could not deny coverage to people with high expected costs for
health care.
"So, is it "religious fanaticsm, simple ignorance or personal gain" that enables left wing policy makers to suggest that a way to pay part of medical cost is too tax medical device manufacturers. Pay for something by making it more expensive???"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStatement, argument or question?
Taxes do not automatically lead to increased point of sale prices.
"Can anyone really believe that such a tax will not be simple pass through?"
This is not a comprehensible sentence.
"I've got this perpetual motion machine; anyone interested in investing?"
Faulty analogy fallacy: Economics is not the same as energy production nor is this example.
"Krauss' Marxist baby talk amply demonstrates that being a scientist is no guarantee of "fair and balanced"."
Personal attack: not an argument
I do not necessarily agree with the current bill I am simply am demonstrating that no rational audience should be swayed by these arguments.
"I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the answer to your question. This is how science can fight disinformation. All of the misinformation is not going back in the box, nor should we try to stuff it back in there. The way to counter the misinformation is not with the correct information, but by arming people with the capability to discern the misinformation and understand empirical questioning. We need to teach that "process for weeding out nonsense to get closer to the underlying beautiful reality of nature" not only in schools, but in the public forum.
It is not enough to present grand and awe-inspiring pictures of the universe, or stacks of studies disproving bad science if a person is unable to comprehend what any of that even means. That person will question the information, but they don't know how to question it empirically. Instead, their questioning is purely cynical. When that person is confronted with "What you hold to be affirming and unchanging is wrong, this is what is right," and they lack the capacities to understand why, or to be able to see the benefits in empirical truth-seeking, that confrontation is taken as an insult to both their intelligence and decision-making abilities, and as a malicious attack on their very foundations. Consequently, they will retreat even further from the right information and embrace that which gives them comfort.
Part of it is biology: it's how our brains work. Our brains may gravitate to the confirmation of our biases, tending to make irrational decisions for the benefit of selfish, short-term gain, if only of the comfort of knowing one is right, and the social belonging of having that rightness confirmed by another human being.
If people were aware of how their brains are tripping them up, and learned so empirically by actually engaging in tests of their rational thinking abilities and seeing their own results--something as simple as a quiz!--they might become more conscious of the why of the choices they are making and they might become more critical, discerning thinkers, able to sail unscathed through vast oceans of misinformation.
I think that this process is what needs to be taught in schools. Maybe we can try it out on adults too, perhaps through serious casual games and social networks.
Ug. "misinformation" = "disinformation" throughout in my last post. I shouldn't write before breakfast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHighly ironic that the article lamenting disinformation was, itself, one long piece of disinformation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood is bad,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoor is rich,
Up is down,
etc, etc, etc
Statement, argument or question?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTaxes do not automatically lead to increased point of sale prices.
True. The tax burden can also be absorbed by reducing costs. The highest single cost a business sustains is employees.
"Can anyone really believe that such a tax will not be simple pass through?"
This is not a comprehensible sentence.
I comprehended it. Pass through taxes are one where the original taxed entity passes the cost on through increased price.
"I've got this perpetual motion machine; anyone interested in investing?"
Faulty analogy fallacy: Economics is not the same as energy production nor is this example.
The analogy is a rhetorical tool used to illustrate the absurdity of attempting a scientific impossibility. Economics is a science. The analogy stands.
"Krauss' Marxist baby talk amply demonstrates that being a scientist is no guarantee of "fair and balanced"."
Personal attack: not an argument
Right-wing extremist is a personal attack. Correctly identifying the rhetoric used by an individual is not a personal attack. The argument does use emotionally charged words, but the assessment is basically accurate. The substance of the author's remarks are based in marxist thought, and his intellectual analysis of the subject matter is shallow.
Examples?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"they might become more conscious of the why of the choices they are making and they might become more critical, discerning thinkers, able to sail unscathed through vast oceans of misinformation."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhysician, heal thyself. You earlier stated the brain was hardwired to certain thought patterns, now you are saying that human intelligence is independent of that brain wiring. You, yourself are engaged in muddy thinking colored by your personal biases.
It's clear some of the posters clearly didn't get (I am not a scientist, I can say that). This piece is not about the subjective statements of the author and his view on wacko-s on one side of an argument or the other, but rather how those and much more dangerous ones become fact on the internet. All the in reverse of how you would think it would go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have an unrealistic hope that the next few generations will understand that not everything on the internet is true. Of course there has been a non-fiction section in the book store since the second book, but not all the books there are true (what section is the bible in anyway?).
"Centrally coordinated and fully effective reinvention of reality has not yet come about in the U.S. (even though a White House aide in the past administration came chillingly close when he said to a New York Times reporter, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”)."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"we create our own reality" is seen by the author as being "chillingly" close to fully coordinated and effective reinvention of reality, even though the quote was lambasted as an attempt to do that very thing, and therefore, by definition, failed in its purpose.
This same author completely ignores the continual statements by President Obama, repeated without protest by the press, on the specifics of his health care plan, when, in fact, he has not authored a bill, and no bill existed during the majority of time he was making such statements.
Similar examples of disinformation exist in the article. I leave them for you to discover.
MR Krauss, while the disinformation is certainly a serious problem that deserves attention, It is not a new problem whose cause is the internet. You yourself give the example that the idea existed when George Orwell wrote 1984. Blaming the internet as the cause of disinformation is disinformation in itself. I would very much like to see the same scientific method you speak of applied to this problem to prove that the internet is actually making this problem worse. Nowhere in your article did I see of evidence of this. Further, putting the remainder of the article behind a pay wall would logically make your article less competitive with some of the same blogs that you disparage as they are free and therefore economically more desirable. Not only are they economically more desirable but secondary effects from the perceived hassle of registering for a digital subscription and logging in also lowers the value of your content. I suspect you are in favor of pay walls for content, but I would suggest that it will lower the value of your content while raising the cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorting valid information from the noise of opinions is a invaluable skill that is hardly stressed in many curricula. Yet the medium by which disinformation is spread should not be singled out as the culprit. I suspect that if a study could show a rise in disinformation, there would be negligible differences on the amount dependent on medium with the possible exception of peer reviewed publications. What might be more useful to study however is the method by which critical and scientific evaluation of ideas could be encouraged and expanded upon. I have a hunch that the internet and widely available information can just the positive effect i am talking about...
maija , great post and more fully developed than the author in some respects. nice work
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContradictory hypothesis in science by separate scientists does not logically mean our thinking is muddy via scientific process, but rather our thinking lacks depth to describe the full complexity of nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"'we create our own reality' is seen by the author as being 'chillingly' close to fully coordinated and effective reinvention of reality, even though the quote was lambasted as an attempt to do that very thing, and therefore, by definition, failed in its purpose"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I agree that the article is ironic, The example you gave was not in my opinion the most clear one. Also, the omission of specific disinformation by the press is not a an act of spreading disinformation. Further the healthcare bill, while mentioned in this article, is not the primary subject of it.
"Can anyone really believe that such a tax will not be simple pass through?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not a comprehensible sentence.
I comprehended it. Pass through taxes are one where the original taxed entity passes the cost on through increased price.
The argument was weak but stands that grammatical errors exist and it is therefor grammatically incomprehensible.
"I've got this perpetual motion machine; anyone interested in investing?"
Faulty analogy fallacy: Economics is not the same as energy production nor is this example.
The analogy is a rhetorical tool used to illustrate the absurdity of attempting a scientific impossibility. Economics is a science. The analogy stands.
True, although classifications do not validate an analogy.
"Krauss' Marxist baby talk amply demonstrates that being a scientist is no guarantee of "fair and balanced"."
Personal attack: not an argument
Right-wing extremist is a personal attack. Correctly identifying the rhetoric used by an individual is not a personal attack. The argument does use emotionally charged words, but the assessment is basically accurate. The substance of the author's remarks are based in marxist thought, and his intellectual analysis of the subject matter is shallow.
'Right wing extremist' is a personal attack when directed at a person. That is not the case in this article. Baby talk would in general be considered a personal attack as it was directed at the commenter and was meant as an insult.
"The argument was weak but stands that grammatical errors exist and it is therefor grammatically incomprehensible."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, I but do not understand what you were trying to say.
"I've got this perpetual motion machine; anyone interested in investing?"
Faulty analogy fallacy: Economics is not the same as energy production nor is this example.
"The analogy is a rhetorical tool used to illustrate the absurdity of attempting a scientific impossibility. Economics is a science. The analogy stands."
Faulty analogy fallacy: because if one puts money into an economic system one can get more out; such as a business. It is called profit. This does not properly or logically correspond to a perpetual motion machine which is about total energy production.
"Right-wing extremist is a personal attack. Correctly identifying the rhetoric used by an individual is not a personal attack. The argument does use emotionally charged words, but the assessment is basically accurate. The substance of the author's remarks are based in marxist thought, and his intellectual analysis of the subject matter is shallow."
I agree; also a personal attack and I disagree with the author for presenting it that way.
Ah .... this is discouraging. I am a retired Canadian who at one point in a very varied career got to study health care systems around the world. When it became evident over two years ago that the U.S. was going to become once again embroiled in the health care system debate I went looking for a site, a blog, letters to the editor etc. where I could share what I had learned with American friends. I had hoped that there might be at least one place where I could engage in a reasonable fact based discussion with some American citizens who wanted to work out a political position that, if nothing else, pleased themselves and addressed their health care problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo such site exists.
All that I have read in the last two years are screaming, name calling stupidities -- closed to any rational discussion. On the right is a market place ideology that factually has nothing to do with any market place or macro economics that has ever existed or is likely to exist. And, the proponents do not even have the simplest sense of the most basic numbers you would need to even hold a market place discussion. From the left, there has been nothing much more than a continuous stream of anecdotes, whining about how much some health misfortune has cost and that everybody else should pay for it.
No one wants to actually address the real problems with your health care and why it is probably to the benefit of all Americans to fix it.
There is an old political maxim: "Read newspapers [substitute 'media'] for today's gossip. For facts, read a learnéd journal". Alas, for this health care debate there doesn't seem to be a learnéd journal -- not even SciAm.
"At the same time, premiums in the new insurance exchanges would
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law
individual marketagain with other factors held equalbecause the
new policies would have to cover preexisting medical conditions and
could not deny coverage to people with high expected costs for
health care."
So, all you got out of that is that costs to you might go up, not that people who would've been dropped by their current insurer would now be getting the care that they need? This is the "I would rather you die than I pay higher taxes" argument, and I'm sorry that you're a selfish prick, but the rest of us don't share your sentiments. Everyone in support of a public health plan is fully aware that it's going to cost more simply because everyone will have access to it. Costs are something we can deal with AFTER we've gotten everyone access to the care they need. Let's deal with the important bits first.
"I comprehended it. Pass through taxes are one where the original taxed entity passes the cost on through increased price."
You comprehend the basics of it, but haven't thought it through which is the point of the original article. Let's take an example: Let's say I manufacture a widget that I sell to the world for $10. Virtually unheard of in the manufacturing sector, let's say I have a profit margin of 30%. That means, for every widget I sell, I make $3. Again unheard of, but let's say my taxes are 30%. Those taxes aren't on the $10, they're on the 3. That means my taxes on each widget is 9 cents. If the evil government comes along and raises my taxes by 3%, as Obama has promised, that means instead of 9 cents, my taxes are now 9.9 cents. So, to ensure I'm still making the same amount of money, I raise the cost of my widget by a penny. The cost to the consumer has been raised one tenth of a percent.
Now, the obvious response is "well, that cost goes up, plus all of their vendors go up so their costs go up, and anyone they're selling that widget to will have to increase THEIR costs as well, all of that passes on to the consumer in the end". True. But, the argument above has as its basis the concept "taxes go up 3%, the cost of everything goes up 3%" and that's simply not true. The cost increases will be a percent of a percent. It's not a one-to-one correlation. My numbers aren't perfect and they gloss over a lot of details, but they gloss over a lot less than the parent did. The parent's suggestion is that any increase in taxes is the end of civilization as we know it, and that just ain't truth.
Fanatacism makes no distinction between empirically confirmed reality and ideological belief patterns. A fanatic's belief is unstoppable, no matter what the actual facts may be. Certainly, many posts here verify this. Whether adjoined with "left" or "right" wing doctrine, fanactics care not for actual facts, but only for ways to alter facts in order to support their own agenda. That modern day fanatics receive such wide attention due to the current nature of the media is increasingly disturbing and ultimately dangerous to not only democracy, but to civilization itself. Thank you Dr. Kraus for your addition to this subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA quick correction: 30% of $3 is 90 cents, not 9 cents as stated. However, I agree with your post's message.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe Lewdog was much more elegant and fair than the original article. The article by Lawrence M. Krauss appears to given an opinion or political stance in disguise of the an important topic of "fighting media disinformation". All the examples provided are on one side of the political spectrum but I submit both political sides are guilty of this disinformation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLewdog gives a more balanced treatment to this important subject.
This is what I get for doing math at work with a ton of distractions. I was looking at that and thinking "why is this so much less than I remember it?" :) Thanks for pointing that out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs long as shareholders in pharmaceutical companies expect their dividends to go up, as long as corporations compete for CEOs with ever larger salaries, as long as unions strike for higher wages than the average non-union member makes, as long as politicians expect their law making to get them re-elected and/or personal financial gain, as long as individual persons look for ways to get something for nothing, the cost of medical care will continue to escalate. The problem is human greed. That particular element will be a major component of any system put in place at any time, across the world. When a company has the fear factor in their favor they would be stupid not to take full advantage of it, right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile the American medical model can't be beat for treating trauma or critical conditions, it is designed to prevent people from being truly healthy because healthy people don't use medical care or pharmaceuticals. The objective of pharmaceutical companies is to keep people on 'maintenance doses', not to get them off meds. Else why are vitamins and minerals always downplayed or even ridiculed? Did you see the commercial about a year ago where the pitch was made to start taking a certain perscription drug now so as to avoid getting diabetes later? Why not teach people that diabetes is a lifestyle disease for the vast majority of people, and motivate them to eat right? Because that makes no profit for anyone, that's why.
After 38 years of studying and practicing nutrition and seeing folks building health by providing the body what it needs to do its job, I've seen this too many times. When a baby or child has an ear infection, doctors are taught to give it the powerful antibiotics at a cost of several hundred dollars per week, but never even to suggest to the Mother that most ear infections are a result of Vitamin A levels being too low, something that can be totally cured and prevented from recurring by a $4 bottle of Vitamin A&D capsules each month or two.
The UK model, the Communist model, whatever model you choose, is based on profit for someone, businesses or beaurocrats. People go into business to make a profit. Healthcare is simply a means toward that end. They will not shoot themselves in the foot by teaching the public how to be well. And politicians are not going to alienate such a large part of the economy unless there is some way to keep all that cash in circulation, preferably through their own pockets or their own voter base. Just learn how to eat right and avoid the vast majority of the mess
SoccerDad,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou fail to prove your point with the CBO quote. Of course the premiums would tend to higher BECAUSE the insurance company will try and protect their profit margin and thus maintain their status on Wall Street. What the CBO fails to mention is the increase in premium paying customers that rightfully mandated coverage would bring. If the premiums do rise, they should be legally capped. Healthcare costs have risen DRAMATICALLY over the last ten years and the question is why. Provider incomes haven't gone up and in fact have decreased for many...where is the money going? It isn't going to hospitals, it isn't going to docs, nurses, etc., Look at insurance company profit and you have your answer.
If the measure of a country is how we treat our citizens in times of need...we fail.
Absurd ad hominems in this article! Also, the argument is that national healthcare will be bad for scientific research and industry development as far as medical breakthroughs and pharmaceuticals are concerned. Another thing this article completely fails to discuss is tort reform. I give this article an F-.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGo get 'em lawrence!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReplying to each ill-informed assertion in this thread piecemeal would be like trying to get rid of mosquitoes in a swamp by swatting each one individually. Not going to work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a greater systemic malaise at work. It is a widespread lack of understanding of basic scientific method and its tremendous power.
A demonstrated understanding of scientific method should be part of school graduation requirements at every level, adjusted to the cognitive abilities at that level. For elementary school kids, there should be mandatory simple questions to test basic understanding of scientific method . For high schoolers, test questions, essays and an oral exam should be implemented. This should be done under proctored conditions. This is too important to allow for cheating. If understanding of scientific method is not demonstrated on several levels, no diploma.
For many jobs, a demonstrated understanding of scientific method should be made as important as having a valid driver's license. Otherwise, dangerous drivers will be allowed on the information superhighway in droves (which is what is goign on right now).
There are many incidences in history of a very powerful individual forcibly imposing his/her wiser perspective on the masses. Sometimes that is all the masses can "hear." Some would say that there is no such thing as a benevolanet dictator. I strongly disagree. Soemtimes a benevolent dictator who is willing to use brute force is the best option. What was D-Day? It was a benevolent dictator (the Allies) usign brute force to overwhelm an appalingly misinformed group of nations (the Axis).
With the internet as it is, we have given the keys to drive on the internet highway to a bunch of two-year-olds.
Egalitarianism has its limits. If you don't understand and use scientific method, and make use of the information it has provided, you are more stupid than if you do use scientific method. Sorry if this bothers you. Time to call a spade a spade. Deal with it.
All htese pseudo-scientific people out there bringing our civilization down are like little kids playing dress-up. They call themselves "doctors" when they aren't, cite mickey mouse findings that are worthless, and so on. They are playing house, and people are taking them seriously. Not OK. They literally don't know what they are talking about. The danger is that the think they do know what they are talking about. Gentility and collegiality will not cut it when dealing with these loose cannons/canons.
To quantum flux:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf this article is graded an F-, then what would you grade an article worse than this article?
You extremism makes your assertions automatically suspect.
I'm glad to have this opportunity to point out that people tend to take a negative view of being marginalized to insignificance by sciences eminent domain perspective on the survivability of perceived genetic weakness. Socially and functionally this arrogant assumption turns the triangle on it's tip, but nobody seems to mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople are always falling all over themselves to abandon virtue, sighting its hackneyed inefficiency and moralistically superior tone. But Darwin, along with so many other aspects of pop science, represent a facilitation of aggression through reason. A checkbook and a well groomed argument, kept in the proper context, blend narcissism and Nietzsche make possible a "weeding out" Hitler never had the time to craft. Subtlety is largely ignored in a forensic study of the history of species, but it's evidence is everywhere around us presently. It's the active involvement of science, through schools and now socialized medicine, that changes a possible interpretation into a foredrawn conclusion, a catastrophic (for some) self fulfilling prophecy.
Science has been an excuse for cruelty much more frequently than is remembered in your textbooks, or even in it's history, I can personally attest to this. and don't think that the knowledge gained through that cruelty hasn't gone directly into prevailing modern theory, you stand on that notion as you reflect your position.
What really is the "betterment of mankind" anyway? pretty high jumping adroitly cruel sexual demonry, or compassionate nurturing longsuffering procrastinators of destiny. You bet your reputation on your rightness among your affiliates, but natures assessment of your successes and failures may be so far from your intent the generations could never perceive it. Nature is at times slow or cruel, but nature is never wrong.
If you are depending on the compassion of your colleagues to avoid these impending pitfalls I've never heard mention of it, only names like moronic, a medical term fallen into disrepute but well respected in it's day. This is indicative of the type of "scientist" that is positioning for the first working intellectual control of special advancement.
So you are saying science is good? If so I agree!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is the only real and good process humans have come up with.
Isn't it amazing, when the greedy are asked to contribute to something, they squeal the roof down. Their simplifications, generalizations and appalling command of logic only make their whining more risible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWRQ9:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy impression of your post:
You are angry because there is something you want that you haven't gotten.
Instead of working to get what you need, you are making a hyper-intellectual and wordy criticism of science.
Wouldn't it be easier to to just work hard for what you are needing instead of blaming science?
I am guessing that somehow you have an income, and therefore have the time to be sour grapes.
This is science???????
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is evolution so hard for creationists to understand?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause they haven't...
The trouble with conservatives and other purveyors of disinformation is that they lie even when the truth is easier to tell. This isn't my opinion. It's an observable fact.
They literally say and even force themselves to believe that war is peace because their world view comes from a fiction that requires constant validation to sustain. This is, of course, not an observation but rather my opinion.
What is missing from the scientific "sales pitch" is the element of emotion. All the lies of conservatives and religious hucksters are spread and sustained by frothy emotional appeals. Most scientists are put off by emotion, especially when it is attached to propaganda. So, we tend to dispute emotional appeals however dishonest those appeals may be with cold honest reason.
That is unlikely to work in the real world where you have people who operate on emotions first and use reason to justify how they feel.
Scientists are not lacking in emotion. We have heated debates over experimental results, hypotheses, and explanations. But when it comes to dealing with the public, we put all that away and turn into Al Gore.
Here are my suggestions:
Insult those who lie and spread lies. Talk down to them and treat them like the idiots that they are.
Poke fun and make jokes about religious nitwits and right wing blowhards. Rush Limbaugh is a junkie who said all druggies "should be sent up the river". His money defeated justice but it need not defeat our sense of humor.
We might not be able to legally waterboards Sean Hannity who described waterboarding as a mild discomfort and challenged people to waterboard him. Let us never tire of pointing out his cowardice for refusing to make good on his word. Bring back cockfighting, put him in the ring, and watch who jumps out first.
What science.It seems for every study there's another saying something different.How are we to know who's right?It seems we are entering the next dark ages, because of to many studies ,and no way to tell who's telling the truth.It would appear that in the end who every has the most money will win, whether they are right or wrong.A sorry state of affairs indeed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStick to the theory of physics, Larry. One wonders over the number pompus, bald assertions you make with no substance to back them up -- not even an effort. Any fair minded -- and mindful -- analysis of your missive can see its vacuous, albeit passionate core. Fervid believe is no substitute for measured quantification. I shiver at the thought of the product of your "science." Bugger off, dork.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would have to say that ""right wing fanatic radio hosts" is not an ad-hominem attack. I doubt even right wing fanatic radio hosts would deny that they exist, and it's hard to argue that such people didn't campaing strongly against Obama's health care bill. otoh, "moronic ex-governors" seems aimed at a particular person and probably is ad-hominem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was glad to see an article on this subject here. I was wondering if I was the only one who was deeply concerned about the number of fraudulent statements being made nowadays.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the problem is multifaceted and does not have a single simple solution. Part seems clearly to be that people with vested interests are allowed to make factually false statements with impunity. Like the way the tobacco industry kept claiming for years that there was no proven connection between smoking and various lung diseases. The solution here is legal rather than scientific: better anti-fraud laws. If someone makes a "factual" claim that does not stand up, they should be held financially liable for it, the same as they would be if they mad false claims against a person.
The problem with the internet is that people with these financial interests can state their lies with impunity due to the anonymous nature of most posts. I do not know how many times I have seen posts which looked pretty obviously done by someone from a business profiting from a false statement, but pretending to be an independent outsider. (Including here on Sci. Amer.).
Another aspect of this, one which I think science can help, is with those who have a so-called "emotional vested interest" who do not seem able to admit to facts which go against their beliefs. Psychology could be a big help here in learning why and how people get into this state of mind and how to get them out of it.
I would love to see more science on this topic here. This subject seems to me to be a very basic one in getting more rationality and less emotional manipulation in discussing society's problems.
US health services aside, the drivel the majority of people add to comments such as these makes me (an average reader) use my scroll function on my mouse excessively. How disheartening it must be for authors of intelligent debate to read the nonsense the majority of people write. I ask are these comment features worth while on Magazine or news sites? There are certainly not worth reading.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Further, the unassailable evidence derived from the experience of every single Western European country, lower infant death rates, rising average age, and functioning economies where the loss of jobs has been nowhere near the magnitude of that here, strongly indicates that public health care works."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow. Really? Do you mean all of those powerful, huge countries in Europe that don't have a military, or the ones like England and Scotland who run massive deficits and have experienced worse economic plights than America. Call the UK and ask if the NHS has been an economically viable option. Why are they debating scrapping the program? Why do they beg for students to enter medical school - and ultimately have lower standards for medical school than they do for regular university admissions. Please challenge me on this, I lived there the past four years. NHS is hell. Most importantly, the quality of health care is terrible. The best and brightest are not becoming doctors. Furthermore, Scotland has the highest rate of heart disease of any western nation. I'm about to write a contrary to fact conditional, so don't misread this... If you were right about their economy (and you're not), how does that demonstrate an effective health care system?
We need health care reform, but the current proposal by the Dems is not it. It is a way to backdoor into a NHS. The majority of Americans get health care coverage through their company, and eventually companies will choose the cheaper option. The government is low balling the competition, will then raise costs and eventually "streamline" the healthcare industry by taking over payments themselves. Good luck with rationed healthcare in the meantime. If you're satisfied with how the public schools (or post office or medicare or SS...) are operating, then you'll love a NHS.
Yes. I'm in favor of universal single payer. I recognize that costs will rise for two reasons: more people covered, and catching up with decades of neglected health problems. SO F---ING WHAT? Use some of the "national security" money being spent to protect oil in the MidEast. Health security is as important as terrorist security.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see this targeted misleading nitpicking about costs as evidence of bad morality, since it is a way to avoid the real issue, which is leaving sick people by the roadside so the others can get richer.
Face this issue: do we help sick people or not? Don't tell me we can't afford it. We can afford a giant military that WASTES more than the differential between the wasteful system we have, and Medicare for all, WITH dental and vision.
I'll bet that this post will be answered with evasions and duplicity.
Got any of those specifics, or are you just making stuff up?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Bible is fiction, and teaches faith by authority, and thus is a major cause for the inability to bravely face uncomfortable truths, the real reason for the mass inability to sort information. Why sort for pain?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuit pussyfooting. You're advocating voting licenses, and I agree with you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbsolutely agree. The nexus of criminal lobies with mentally sick and fascist government going all out to create their own truth and imposing on the globe is chilling. That can be seen everyday all over. These western fanatics are far worse than Al-Qaeda. The latter does not have means to inflict as much harm as western evil empires with their cheerleading media has.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for myth masquerading as news: see above.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI share the concern of Lawrence Krauss, however I don't think that the fault lies with the internet. I think that the problem started before the internet. My guess is that it goes back to post-modernist philosophy in which there is no objective reality only perception. Journalists were taught to find "both sides" to every story. So when writing a story about climate change, talk to Al Gore and then to James Inhofe. Unfortunately, since it cost money to get a story out, those with the most money can get the most air-time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a university professor, my student often wanted me to do the same. They wanted me to present the ideas of Darwin and the ideas of creationists and let them make up their own minds. I told them, that my job was the search for truth. Although I was taught as a child that the earth was created in six days, after many years and much reading, I became convinced that evolution was the best explanation for the variety of life on earth. Similarly, I was taught that the earth's continents were fixed and yet after reading the evidence that indeed the continents move and go through considerable change.
There is objective truth, and science has been the greatest force to the discovery of that truth and its incredible -- galaxies, prions, vaccines and so on. And yet I am dismayed that our media and our educational systems produce a public where large percents of the population do not except the reality of evolution or climate change, even some among the readers of Scientific American. Even on health care there is little discussion about some of the objective facts like reality that we pay more per person than any other country for our health care and yet we have a child mortality rate that ranks us along side many developing countries.
I have no magic solution to this problem and I fear that if we don't solve this problem we will find ourselves sliding back to the dark ages of ignorance. We already are finding that parents are not giving their children vaccinations and ignoring the fact that vaccinations are one of the greatest and most effective measures for public health.
The American healthcare system delivers less service per dollar than the government run system in Europe. The cost of the American healthcare system is growing much faster than inflation and is not sustainable. The European government run healthcare systems produce better outcomes than the American system. The American government run healthcare system (medicare) provides more efficiently healthcare than the so called free market system and covers the most expensive sector of the population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current American healthcare system places the costs for the majority of the old, the sick, & the poor onto the backs of the tax payers, leaves tens of millions uninsured, and hands over the healthy and wealthy to private insurance companies that then deliver the most expensive healthcare on planet earth. So to argue that any government run system is worst than the system we have now is ridiculous. That's the arguement I think the author is making. Peace is war. All government healthcare systems are bad.
As for the current healthcare bill, I think it's sorely lacking. The bill seems to be protecting all the excesses of the private healthcare business and still tries to cover everyone. Seems to me that will cost more. So I guess we just keep paying through the nose until 100% of our pay is going for healthcare.
What chills me in these comments is that, presumably, the people who cannot comprehend the point of the article and so instead actually prove its point are "here" (reading an article presented by a magazine with a basis in science). It frightens me that somehow there are people who willingly read about science but do not or cannot actually understand it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo they think they do? I teach and so I have encountered adults who are unable to follow an argument, but I've never encountered an adult with a scientific background who was unable to do so. Is it flawed logic or flawed literacy we see here?
I am chilled by this discussion because I do not see how science can combat the views of those who can read science but still, somehow, adamantly create their own reality. The basis of science is, after all, observation.
"I would very much like to see the same scientific method you speak of applied to this problem to prove that the internet is actually making this problem worse."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you know what is referred to as the "scientific method"? Your comment illustrates you do not since at the heart of that method is NOT "proving" something is true, but rather than something is false.
Please, please help youself just a little bit by taking a moment to look up "the scientific method" and then come back and re-evaluate what you read here. This is part of the problem: people think it is acceptable to argue a point without understanding its basis. This is not insult--it is mere fact, as factual as the clear indication that the poster does not understand the term "scientific method" as it is used BY scientists.
Were it not for the obvious left-wing bias of the piece I would be very pleased. There is quite obviously some truth in the fact that the truth is skewed by the very people who should be trusted to report the truth. Journalists. However, one expects left-wing bias from colleges. It's been that way for 50 or more years. Be aware. Toss in a grain of salt. Think for yourselves!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome time ago - not very long! - NS touted a new commenting policy in which comments which attacked basic science in an ad hominem manner would not be published. I applauded that development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is a suggestion for an additional policy that is roughly along the same lines, and equally necessary.
When contributors (or should we more accurately call them 'distributors'?) make claims that most reasonable people would recognize as "bloody unlikely", without providing ANY support for the claim, those comments would be scrubbed.
It may not be a perfect solution, but a perfect solution may not exist. So: it is just an ordinary solution.
But something DOES need to be DONE about all the rubbish pervading the net etc. It doesn't "merely" have the effect of separating the foolish from the rest of us, it unfortunately makes a great many of the rest of us gravitate toward that very foolishness. Only a single-digit percentage of people really understand how to sift through the way science is reported now. That's not enough. Nowhere even near enough.
I believe this is an important issue, and that a considerable amount of work needs to be done, soonish.
Wishlady, have you ever stopped for a moment--just one little bitty moment--to analyse WHY institutions of higher learning, otherwise known as colleges, tend to have a left-wing bias? Have you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd while you are not thinking, let me pour a little more into your brain: Do you believe in sending kids to school? Why? If the vast majority of educated individuals tend to lean left, why "trust" them with any responsibility for educating the young? If you don't believe the people doing the educating are educated enough to make a reasoned and (most importantly) MORAL decision about which way this country should go (such as by being morally against entities making a profit off of people's health needs), then why bother with public education at all? Clearly, you don't think that educated people are of any value to society, in spite of the fact that the most important discoveries and decisions ever made were made by them...
Y'see why your side is viewed with utter disgust by ours? You are irrational.
I have always found the Internet a tremendous source of information and hope that it will remain open and free to all participants. When using the Web for serious research I hope it remains my responsibility to investigate the difference between "what fails the test of empirical reality" and what is pure entertainment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason disinformation is so widespread and readily accepted and repeated is that it's disinformation that we want to believe: That global warming is natural and probably good for us. That our health care is the best in the world. That there's plenty more oil to be discovered. That housing prices will always go up. Even those seemingly disturbing beliefs about 9/11 being a government operation and vaccines being dangerous, appeal to those who spread them as confirming their view of events driven by powerful agents - sort of like believing in dragons and ghosts and angels. It excuses one from doing something mundane and unpleasant about the problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe internet has become the de-facto source of information the majority of us, as we search for fast information. The fast pace in which we live does not allow for thorough due-diligence and proper fact finding expeditions. We tend to accept conventional wisdom as it was truth itself and while doing it we turn wishful thinking and self proclaimed assumptions into prevailing truths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShim Marom
quantmleap.com
The internet has become the de-facto source of information the majority of us, as we search for fast information. The fast pace in which we live does not allow for thorough due-diligence and proper fact finding expeditions. We tend to accept conventional wisdom as it was truth itself and while doing it we turn wishful thinking and self proclaimed assumptions into prevailing truths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShim Marom
quantmleap.com
Misinformation on competing political policy for healthcare is not quite the same as disinformation about measurable evidence that doesn't care what wing it has, left or right. Rising ph levels in oceans, the effect of jet vapour trails cooling the earth while it is warming, decreasing sexual potency, etc. If we choose to deny that our world is being made unhealthy and wish to avoid medical expenses concurrently, we may be able to learn more from India that may be poor but is on average, better educated. Simply choosing more comprehensive health insurance will not guard us against yet another financial crises when we should be helping each other filter data for themselves. Humans are by nature, altruists yet competition exists between us for clarity, logic and mutual respect as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday's fast pace world does not leave people with enough time, or inclination, to test first hand all those claims thrown at them over the internet. One area where this can be easily seen is the popular claim that most projects fail (up to 70% according to some published research). This claim, although questionable, is taken for granted by a large number of people and is therefor being propagated in discussion forums and blogs. This conventional wisdom is probably not entirely correct as closer analysis demonstrates. see a detailed discussion in www.quantmleap.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are two old sayings that could illuminate this issue. the first is "paper will take on anything" - and that counts for an unregulated internet. The second is "put your money where your mouth is". If those asserting "facts" on the internet had to guarantee them with some sort of financial bond which was forfeit if these assertions were successfully challenged, facts that passed scrutiny could be labled as having some reliable basis. Some might say that would be restricting freedom, but should freedom not carry it's own burden of responsibility for the consequencies of it's exercise?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould someone who stood up in a crowded theatre and bellowed "fire" through a megaphone bear no penalty if people were injured as a consequence. Fees could be collected with the internet provider's fees. One could probably insure against inadvertant dissemination of misinformation, but persistent offenders would have to pay for their pernicious pollution. At the very least opinion would have to be clearer in identifying itself.
Based on the comments above, I would like to make three points:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Media commentators, regardless of political stripe, have one overriding concern; they must increase their ratings. In order to attract attention, their rhetoric is ratcheted up beyond the point where it becomes outrageous and plainly wrong. In my opinion, right wingers do it better than left wingers - but left wingers should not be let off the hook because they do it badly.
2. The scientific method is indeed about disproof rather than proof. But it is not about disproving every nutty statement that comes along. Rather, it is about formulating carefully a testable hypothesis, testing it rigorously - without bias, and publishing the result so that others can do the same.
3. I find it difficult to imagine that anyone can be too liberal (greatest good for the greatest number and all that). Nevertheless, it is important to remember that adherents to all political ideologies come to grief when they become arrogant. Curiosity, skepticism and openness to change will beat those who "stand athwart history, yelling stop" every time.
Education is the answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe uneducated; brain washed religious right are not valid participants in a logical debate.
Yet the well educated are perhaps too smart for their own good. You can’t fight faith with facts.
The scientific community fights ignorance with their conclusions; however the ignorant don’t understand the equation.
The mass delusion that religion is; and it’s acceptance by so many "must" be a positive evolutionary trait, so let's embrace it, doesn't work.
Religion is the source of uneducable people; time to embrace separation of church and state.
You cannot get anything for free. Who is going to pay for health care, and all these other utopian programs for so many more people? Money must be removed from someone to pay for greater expenses by this program. The easiest target for extracting money is by increasing the cost to taxpayers. Deeply entrenched institutions are not going to relinquish power easily. Corruption does not seem to be declining under the new 'change' of political power. If corruption continues even at its prior levels, there can be no confidence in any explanations of where other sources of money can be funded for this expensive healthcare program. The taxpayer will get socked again at a time when the average middle class citizen with less real income is being asked to subsidize global warming energy programs, high unemployment, more costly medicare, foreign wars, and higher costs to local and state governments. The usual socialist explanations do not hold water , because the usual socialists do not seem to understand basic economics. It is socialism that has bankrupted budgets in the past with programs that cost more than revenues can cover. During hard times, without some contingency reserves, the costs go through the ceiling, and the poor middle-class citizen has to suffer the consequences. A lack of foresight for the producers of money(wealth) now will just about certify our decline to a secondclass nation. A second class nation no longer has any moral clout over what others do in this world, and it will be a hard education for those who are not familiar with the real politic harsh realities that are perpetrated on people in many other countries as well as passers by from first world nations to these countries. If we have no influence as a member of a rich influencial nation, as we have been in the past , we will no longer be safe or secure from the casual abuses that can be inflicted on visitors to these nations. Our statesmen will be at risk, our good will ambasadors will be at risk, and our do-gooder morality and ethics will be severely curtailed. Our political agenda for a new world of free people will give way to a world run by dictators and warlords. Economics is not that complicated, but those who fail to observe its' realities will be forced to endure its consequences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the author should apply science to his support of Health Care. What scientist would give his support to a scientific view he never even read as the Congress is doing? I doubt the author of this article read it either. Scientific American was a great science magazine but I think true science is beginning to be lost as more and more liberal non-scientific views are being espoused in the magazine. I have read the magazine since high school in the 50's but am now considering looking eksewhere for a more fair scientific magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is truth to scientists, but to non-scientists it is a mysterious realm of complex concepts that are more obscure than apparent. Most people who do not fully comprehend science tend to accept its revelations more or less at its face value. This leads some to distort or mesrepresent their findings in the interest of hidden agendas. This goes against the entire dogma of the scientific method, which one would hope would be the guiding light for all research and publication. Politics has crept in to our scientific world, and the vested interests of many groups have inevitably made their views known, authoritatively or not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can science remediate a problem in which it has become so deeply entrenched without resorting to a police state mentality? Science can only preserve its reputation by instituting more solid concrete fundamentals of its own institutional laws and guidelines into the public mind. Better education for the lay person will not only clear up many misrepresentations, but also fulfill a fundamental platform for the methodology of logical interpretation of all that goes on around us every day. Americans today have a very superficial view of much that is presented to us daily. An inability to sort out the key ingredients from the rubbish is not a measure of intelligence, but of knowledge.
Science is beautiful, it should be made apparent to everyone.
We need adult education for all those who were intimidated by it in their prior schooling. It needs to be easily accessible. There are many retired scientists who would like no more than to fill this need for our society.
We all need to see the unvarnished facts so that we can avoid wasting our time and valuable resources on unproductive enterprises.
The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance, or personal gain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are more options than those given by the distinguished doctor. How about political machinations (a.k.a. Wag-the-Dog?) When I saw the title of the article, I was heartened&at last an emotionally neutral look at how to dispassionately look at opposing view points. Maybe even a set of usable criteria to aid us in using our God-given moral agency&I was sorely disappointed by this eminent scientist. He did not present me with anything that I could use to rebut the political right. Oh well, just because you claim to practice the Scientific Method doesnt mean you arent biased.
In response, &fanatic radio hosts& Could they be the dreaded R-word? Rush? As in Rush to Judgment in the 1960s? &moronic ex-governors& as in Jerry? Or Janet or Katherine or how about my own behind-bars ex-governor&Donald Siegelman? Both ends of the political spectrum have their morons. In fact, I thought that characteristic was a pre-requisite for running for public office. Many opinion polls ranked politicians one level above used-car salesmen&you know about them&having lived in California& Would you buy a used car from this man& ilk.
I have read and re-read the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four several times. The criticism is about INGSOC (acronym for English SOCIALISM) my dear doctor...not militaristic leaders. I, especially, paid attention after Secretary of State Hillary said that it was one of her favorite books&.along with Animal Farm. Of course the current administration was weaned on the likes of Saul Alinskis Rules for Radicals.
"Centrally coordinated and fully effective reinvention of reality has not yet come about in the U.S. (even though a White House aide in the past administration came chillingly close when he said to a New York Times reporter, Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality ). I am concerned, however that something equally pernicious, at least to the free exercise of democracy, has.
Buddy says that must be like the recent example of the NEA conference call. Or how about the White House directed actions for grade school kids and the Obama letter? If George Bush had done this the political Left would have gone absolutely Bonkers! Least you Blame the Fox News about this one, it was reported by ABC, Brietbart, Washington Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc.
Nonsense claims had more difficulty gaining traction in the days when print journalism held sway and newspaper editors had the final word on what made its way into homes and when television news consisted of a half-hour summary of what a trained producer thought were the most essential stories of the day.
Thank you very much Dr. Krauss for saying what Ive suspected since my formative years in the SDS&The news is managed. Why of course, Virginia, just look at the 1898 Maine controversy&.or how about the 1916 Zimmerman controversy&or how about&news coverage of the Kulaks in the 1930s or the Jews in Germany in the 1940s¬oriously absent and silent. What I dont understand is why other people feel the need to tell me what to believe? My measured IQ is between 128 and 142 depending on the test. I should be intelligent enough to make rational decisions on my own, shouldnt I? But, of course, you are a prime example that intelligence does not confer wisdom or political neutrality.
I do agree with Doctor Krauss on one thing&the public schools do a terrible job of educating its customers (students) about how to separate nonsense from truth. Pilate asked the most important question in the world, What is truth? Forgive me, its that time of year. Allow me to offer a hypothesis. Could the mission of public education be to mold and socialize citizens to be subservient to authority? After all, it makes for better workers even if we dampen protesters. We cant all be in the know about what to protest and what not to. So, I would hypothesize that schools are oriented toward the average student&whomever that is&and that is the real problem.
“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance, or personal gain.”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are more options than those given by the distinguished doctor. How about political machinations (a.k.a. Wag-the-Dog?) When I saw the title of the article, I was heartened…at last an emotionally neutral look at how to dispassionately look at opposing view points. Maybe even a set of usable criteria to aid us in using our God-given moral agency…I was sorely disappointed by this eminent scientist. He did not present me with anything that I could use to rebut the political right. Oh well, just because you claim to practice the Scientific Method doesn’t mean you aren’t biased.
In response, “…fanatic radio hosts…” Could they be the dreaded R-word? Rush? As in Rush to Judgment in the 1960s? “…moronic ex-governors…” as in Jerry? Or Janet or Katherine or how about my own behind-bars ex-governor…Donald Siegelman? Both ends of the political spectrum have their morons. In fact, I thought that characteristic was a pre-requisite for running for public office. Many opinion polls ranked politicians one level above used-car salesmen…you know about them…having lived in California…”Would you buy a used car from this man…” ilk.
I have read and re-read the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four several times. The criticism is about INGSOC (acronym for English SOCIALISM) my dear doctor...not militaristic leaders. I, especially, paid attention after Secretary of State Hillary said that it was one of her favorite books….along with Animal Farm. Of course the current administration was weaned on the likes of Saul Alinski’s Rules for Radicals.
"Centrally coordinated and fully effective reinvention of reality has not yet come about in the U.S. (even though a White House aide in the past administration came chillingly close when he said to a New York Times reporter, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”). I am concerned, however that something equally pernicious, at least to the free exercise of democracy, has.”
Buddy says that must be like the recent example of the NEA conference call. Or how about the White House directed actions for grade school kids and the Obama letter? If George Bush had done this the political Left would have gone absolutely “Bonkers!” Least you “Blame” the Fox News about this one, it was reported by ABC, Brietbart, Washington Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc.
“Nonsense claims had more difficulty gaining traction in the days when print journalism held sway and newspaper editors had the final word on what made its way into homes and when television news consisted of a half-hour summary of what a trained producer thought were the most essential stories of the day.”
Thank you very much Dr. Krauss for saying what I’ve suspected since my formative years in the SDS…The news is managed. Why of course, Virginia, just look at the 1898 Maine controversy….or how about the 1916 Zimmerman controversy…or how about…news coverage of the Kulaks in the 1930s or the Jews in Germany in the 1940s…notoriously absent and silent. What I don’t understand is why other people feel the need to tell me what to believe? My measured IQ is between 128 and 142 depending on the test. I should be intelligent enough to make rational decisions on my own, shouldn’t I? But, of course, you are a prime example that intelligence does not confer wisdom or political neutrality.
I do agree with Doctor Krauss on one thing…the public schools do a terrible job of educating its customers (students) about how to separate nonsense from truth. Pilate asked the most important question in the world, “What is truth?” Forgive me, its that time of year. Allow me to offer a hypothesis. Could the mission of public education be to mold and socialize citizens to be subservient to authority? After all, it makes for better workers even if we dampen protesters. We can’t all be “in the know” about what to protest and what not to. So, I would hypothesize that schools are oriented toward the average student…whomever that is…and that is the real problem.
There needs to be a focus on critical thinking in our education system. Not only do we need to know what critical thinking is, we need to constantly practice it's application in all aspects of our lives. This is not simply thinking with reason. Reason is always flawed by an individuals preconceptions and stereotypes. Critical thinking is the practice and art of reasoning despite your self.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Prof. Krauss:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know what to make of your statement on science being about proving things false.
I've always thought that a sane reasoning principle is "things don't exist until proof to the contrary". Otherwise, one could postulate all manners of deities and horoscopes and then say "go ahead and prove them false".
I just don't think it works that way.
"Science has been an excuse for cruelty much more frequently than is remembered in your textbooks, or even in it's history, I can personally attest to this."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo you can't. I have four words that completely negate your argument:
crusade
inquisition
witch trial
You should stop talking now.
irondoc is obviously oblivious to economic reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can take out all insurance company profit and barely dent the total healthcare cost in the US. Their profit margins are around 4%, which is less than most industries. Let's say this entire 4% profit could be eliminated through this sham of a bill. Since private insurers cover only about 1/2 of all Americans, this would be a 2% reduction in overall health care spending. On the other side of the ledger are the added costs. Mandating lower deductables and copays as well as adding preventative services will increase the cost. So will guaranteed issue. And don't forget all the new taxes on device makers and drug companies. These factors will overwhelm that paltry 2% savings.
Please name one thing that is in this legislation which will actually reduce costs.
Does SciAm have a comment filtration system, that's designed such that it can protect against the effect that Mr. Krauss's column decries?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Mr. Krauss: thank you for this piece. Why isn't this topic more frequently discussed in science journalism circles?
Talk about " the pot calling the kettle black ". I had to chuckle when reading Lawrence Krauss' Critical Mass column this month. I understand his point that the Internet has regrettable comments . However, what Mr. Krauss fails to notice is the comments are from both sides of the political spectrum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDepending on scientists, politicians and the mainstream media to filter the information for " the illiterate masses " sounds admirable. But I think I'll pass! There are many points to free speech. One them should be to allow people to express their ideas. Once they are expressed it's up to each of us to decide what has been " proven " and what has not.
It appears Mr. Krauss is aware of George Orwell's masterpiece " 1984 " but misses the point of having all our information presented to us by the powers in charge. He states the that " nonsense claims had more difficulty gaining traction " in the past when they were filtered by newspaper editors and trained producers. Hogwash!
The past is full with scientists, politicians and others who take the " newsbirds " word as gospel. If the truth be told scientists have in the past and will in the future promulgate their ideas as " absolute truths " to achieve their own ends.
I am happy to see that Mr. Krauss does give teachers the benefit of the doubt for the nonsense in public discourse especially since he is a " Foundation Professor " himself. Jonathan Swift would have been proud!
The simple reason why any sort of rubbish can be circulated in the USA is the first amendment of the constitution wish guarantees people's right to lie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo we should shut down the First Amendment of the Constitution because according to eco-steve and folks that think like him are the sole arbiters of the " truth "? I'm glad to know that everybody who disagrees with anybody is lying. It explains alot. The only problem with that logic is that it depends on who is deciding what is rubbish in the first place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a bit disappointed to see this on sciam.com. The problem with the media, particularly 24 hour news is that there are two options, one right and one left. This leaves the citizen in a forced choice situation and results in the citizen being pulled to one of two poles, resulting in a more divided U.S. As an example I offer the news day of November 16th. One channel had 45 minutes per hour of "What a divisive character Sarah Palin is". The other had 45 minutes per hour of "Oh no, did you see Obama bow to the waist in front of the Emperor of Japan?". Neither of these stories was near worth the time spent on them. But, sadly, that's what you had. Calling people you disagree with z,ombie-like, and their opinions oxymoronic only serves to further the divide. I'm afraid that you, my friend are part of the problem as opposed to the solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease compare and contrast the actions and words of Sean Penn and Chris Matthews with the "right wing idiot extremists" of your choice. ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdrayebaseball : In the USA it is a serious offence to lie on oath before a judge. So this twists the neck of the first ammendment, and replies to your question of who are the arbiters of truth. In France you can be convicted for denying the holocaust, as many long court cases have proved the truth of their existence. It should be the same in the USA. As for the reality of Evolutionary Theory, begin by asking creationists to prove the existence of God, while scientists demonstrate the reality of evolution using genetics.... This would then clear up a lot of the rubbish being bandied about by the media.....while not impeding the right of truthful speech!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEoRaptor013, you are throwing out a bunch of statements that can be shown to be grossly inaccurate...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...unassailable evidence derived from the experience of every single Western European country, lower infant death rates, rising average age, and functioning economies where the loss of jobs has been nowhere near the magnitude of that here, strongly indicates that public health care works."
For brevity let's look at just one of your statements, "lower infant death rates". US Infant Mortality ranked 29th in the world by CDC:
The bottom line with these rankings is that you are comparing unlike infant populations and comparing highly homogeneous populations like Japan and Norway with very heterogeneous ones like the US.
The US counts ALL births with even the most minimal signs of life (a single breath or single heartbeat) as "live". Other countries do not and have different standards of "live birth". For instance, Austria and Germany the baby has to be at least 500 grams to be considered "live". In Switzerland the baby has to be at least 12in long to be "live". France and Belgium exclude babies that were less than 26 wks along in their infant mortality stats. All these varying standards of "live" prevent meaningful comparisons.
There is another more compatible metric standard that you can use though that isn't reported in the media for whatever reason; the WHO Neonatal and Perinatal Mortality where the US ranks 16th in the world. This statistic counts mortality rates for babies 22wks to 7 days after birth.
You want to take a guess why these countries with socialized medicine put these stupid restrictions on what is "live"? Perhaps pump up their standing and maybe save medical care costs by not having to save a baby they don't consider even alive? Maybe you should take a deeper look into the reasons you consider gov run healthcare to be a great way to go.
EoRaptor013, you are throwing out a bunch of statements that can be shown to be grossly inaccurate...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...unassailable evidence derived from the experience of every single Western European country, lower infant death rates, rising average age, and functioning economies where the loss of jobs has been nowhere near the magnitude of that here, strongly indicates that public health care works."
For brevity let's look at just one of your statements, "lower infant death rates". US Infant Mortality ranked 29th in the world by CDC:
The bottom line with these rankings is that you are comparing unlike infant populations and comparing highly homogeneous populations like Japan and Norway with very heterogeneous ones like the US.
The US counts ALL births with even the most minimal signs of life (a single breath or single heartbeat) as "live". Other countries do not and have different standards of "live birth". For instance, Austria and Germany the baby has to be at least 500 grams to be considered "live". In Switzerland the baby has to be at least 12in long to be "live". France and Belgium exclude babies that were less than 26 wks along in their infant mortality stats. All these varying standards of "live" prevent meaningful comparisons.
There is another more compatible metric standard that you can use though that isn't reported in the media for whatever reason; the WHO Neonatal and Perinatal Mortality where the US ranks 16th in the world. This statistic counts mortality rates for babies 22wks to 7 days after birth.
You want to take a guess why these countries with socialized medicine put these stupid restrictions on what is "live"? Perhaps pump up their standing and maybe save medical care costs by not having to save a baby they don't consider even alive? Maybe you should take a deeper look into the reasons you consider gov run healthcare to be a great way to go.
What an ironic article, we have the most fanatic, extreme leftwing administration in history inventing Orwellian terms such as "man caused disasters" that has been populated by a group of communists, 9/11 Truthers, and Mao admirers yet this author worries about right wing extremism?? He is obviously trying to prepare the public for censorship of the Internet as Cass Sunstein wants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother liberal zealot using his position as a scientist to propagandize. There is no better example of disinformation than the title of his article: War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation? The real question posed here is can a scientist attempting to disguise political opinion as serious science be taken seriously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother liberal zealot using his position as a scientist to propagandize. There is no better example of disinformation than the title of his article: War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation? The real question posed here is can a scientist attempting to disguise political opinion as serious science be taken seriously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan science fight media disinformation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if the lunatic statements one finds on the Internet really influence public opinion. It seems more likely that they simply appeal to readers who think alike. Everyone has access to the Internet, and web content reflects people's level of intelligence and education. Rather than forming public opinion, the Internet probably just shows what's out there.
The nonsense you find on the world wide web doesn't threaten democracy; it simply shows the ignorance of the electorate and that ignorance is the threat.
A bit of common sense is really all it takes to recognize baloney. But does common sense really require a grounding in science? And would the lunatics and ignoramuses who read and write this drivel be interested in, or even qualified for, basic science training?
I worry less about the garbage you find on the Internet than about authorities who might use this sorry state of affairs as an excuse to censor Internet content, for the benefit of the general public of course.
I was surprised by the content of Lawrence Krauss's editorial and wondered when Scientific American became so politically biased. I started reading the comments, curious to see what other people thought of it, and just finished reading all 93. I found the opinions and subsequent debate over health care reform to be really interesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't usually read the comments following an article, so I checked back to a few that I've recently read. Some had zero comments, others had just a few, but none generated anywhere close to 93!
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've been involved in an experiment! It appears that science will fight disinformation with healthy debate and discussion. Very clever Lawrence Krauss and Scientific American!
Why is this "article" in this publication? If I want emotional political diatribe I'll pick up a copy of the Washington Post thank you very much. Mr Krauss may be a brilliant physicist--I am sure he is--but his "article" leads me to an inescapable conclusion: that his knowledge of the complexity of the Amercian economic and political system is a half mile wide and an inch deep, and that the best way to argue your point is not to be so absolute or dismissive of others. Is there not room for people to honestly dissent from the likes of Mr Krauss when such a significant shift in the economic center of gravity of the nation is envisioned to occur? This is no small matter. And as for "EoRaptor13"--do you seriously expect anyone to write into the proposed bill(s) that costs will increase? To think so must preclude any practical knowledge of the way congress, the media, business and the executive works! Less histrionics, less name calling (surprised I didn't see "fascist" in the comments somewhere--but there is still time) less anecdotes, less political posturing and hackery and more science. I liked the article about why human testicles hang down. But couldn't they write that mens' testicles hangdown or is that considered too un-PC?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis was one of three articles in the current issue that needlessly expressed a left leaning. I don't mind a leftist or rightist argument, but being politically correct for the sake of being politically correct is another way kill meaningful public debate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLoftusRoadLad (and all others complaining about the "liberal bias" of the article) - "the best way to argue your point is not to be so absolute or dismissive of others. Is there not room for people to honestly dissent from the likes of Mr Krauss when such a significant shift in the economic center of gravity of the nation is envisioned to occur?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you would say that Rush Limbaugh is a scientifically objective source of information, and that the health bill would indeed empower "death panels"? The point you are missing is that the Krauss article is arguing against blatant nonsense presented as facts. It is not arguing that all opposition to the health bill is blatant nonsense. Admittedly, due to the politics of the situation, there's no escaping the conclusion that the blatent nonsense is coming from the right.
One of the best articles Sci Am has published. The right-wing in America is increasingly losing touch with reality and demanding attention to their deranged demands while the media plays along.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, the press has given little attention to a recent Harvard University study (in the American Journal of Public Health) that estimates that 45,000 Americans will die each year due to lack of health insurance. Unfortunately, the current reform bill has already been so watered down by blue dog Democrats and Republicans, that it will do little to stem the health care crisis for those Americans who lack insurance.
How dare we suggest we join the rest of the civilized world in making government protect the basic welfare of its citizens?
I heard that private insurers spend 30% on administration vs. medicare which spends only 4%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's where the big savings are to be had -- not from profits of the private insurers, but from the puffed up "administration" costs (read: second and third homes in the Hamptons or Malibu for the morally malignant execs).
These clowns are selling us down the river because they don't want to be embarrassed when they go to cocktail parties with their rich friends. They don't have enough backbone and self-discipline to quit looting the kitty.
I have been reading Scientific America for about 40 years. In that time I have watched this august magazine drift deeper into politics, and worse, left wing politics. Green issues, "peace issues" and anti-American attitudes now play a prominent role. It's so sad. I don't buy the magazine anymore, though I do sometimes scan the web site.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPrue:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAppreciate your perspective.
I am a big reader of magazines. I am always receptive to knowing about good magazines. What magazine currently available do you think is like the Scientific American of decades past (that you so ably described)?
Thanks in advance.
It's a little difficult to see how science is fighting disinformation about a purely political subject such as health care insurance proposals. I suggest you stick with subjects which lend themselves to scientific solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is difficult to see how science could influence a purely political issue such as health care insurance proposals. I suggest the technique be used in situations which lend themselves to scientic solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false. " This is Karl Popper, it is falsificationism, it ignores much work that has been done on inductive logic, and so it is very misleading, even in the context of popular science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConservatives on the radio? Mistakes on the internet? Oh, Lord! Whats next - lions and tigers and bears? Krauss managed to find some mistakes among the millions of statements and comments posted on the web. No doubt there are many more. So what? This does not constitute brain washing of the proletariat any more than do mistakes and misleading comments on public radio, network television and in established newspapers. Didnt the NY Times fire an up and coming reporter a couple of years ago for filing reports that were, apparently, complete fabrications? The point is that the internet and AM radio do not have a monopoly on mistakes and advocacy journalism. Scientific analysis of news stories and current events would be fine. Unfortunately, what Krauss offers is nothing but an emotional rant full of gratuitous insults directed at people who have the unmitigated gall to disagree with him. His editorial seems less scientific analysis than a call for fascistic control of the news media. The readers of SA deserve better than this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough I agree with Dr. Krauss's opinion on health care, I think that his essay misses a couple key things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, misinformation is nothing new. It has nothing to do with the Internet or cable TV. When I was a kid, I got a book from the library claiming that the lost city of Atlantis was an advanced technological society with lasers, jets, and nuclear power. Yellow journalism and slander predate all of us.
Second, the real problem with getting health care in this country is political. It is much easier to tear something down than build it up. A quote from the essay makes my point, in an odd way:
"I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false."
This is a poor characterization of science. Proving things false is only the easy part of science. The important part is getting a better understanding of how the universe behaves (I do agree, this is not "truth"), so that we can find new things to explore, and eventually manipulate them to our advantage as technology.
Scientific American generally does a great job of presenting progress in science. The technology that results speaks for itself. Health care is very different. It is an "experiment" we are asking everyone to participate in. For this, we do need trusted scientists to speak clearly, but mostly we need our politicians to be masterful in getting the law passed.
Why should we ape the health-care plans of the other industrial nations? Read the article "An Open Letter to President Obama" by Don Crawford in the December issue of Liberty magazine for an excellent alternative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, it is scary indeed that Humanity seems more likely to follow the dictates of a self-proclaimed prophet, who would fly in the face of common sense, with only the slightest of evidenced based reasoning, supporting that person's contentions, than to demand a more thorough investigation of all the possibilities derived from a more diligent, evidence based approach.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is scary indeed when Humanity follows any form of non-evidence based fanaticism, preferring mass media misinformation and deliberate disinformation above the rigors of the scientific method, in all its efforts to reach the actual facts in the world around us. Unfortunately, that is not the agenda of many who would lead us astray, for purposes other than getting to the basis of empirical reality. Amen
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn amusing example of the current fashion in Liberal GroupThink. Given this bias and immaturity of the staff, how can we trust the science in SA? Sadly, I will not be renewing my subscription.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find Krauss's article distressing in that he fails to recognize in his comments the "blatent nature" of his own prejudices. There is nothing wrong with his vocing a political position, holding it strongly, and believing in it fully. But for a scientist to do so under the guise of concern for a lack of rigorous, dispassionate thinking among the general population is amazingly hypocritical. Did he not proof his own writing? Does he truly not recognize his ideology here? Whether one agrees or disagrees with the state of health care in this country, for someone of his stature to "go off" emotionally, while professing objectivity, is disconcerting. If we can't expect dispassionate, critical thinking from a scientist such as he, from where will it come? I too now worry, Mr. Krauss. And you have given me sufficient reason to do so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI usually skip the opinionated pieces and go for the interesting features. But I made the mistake of reading this opinion article. Though I was quite amused by the authors assertions, LMK seems to have missed the boat on why a government take over of health care isn't a good idea. 'Death panals' is just a straw man arguement for the left and a rallying cry for the right. The REAL problem is what should be in the bill but isn't. As a REAL health care provider, I can tell you where the problems need to be be fixed. First torte reform, one of my collegues pays 350K each year in malpractice insurance alone, who do you think pays for it? Patients do, its part of the overall cost of doing business. Second, insurance companies need to be made non-profit, and be required to pay a specific amount out in claims every year or refund part of the premiums. Thirdly, when a hospital or physician treats an uninsured individual, give them a tax break. Fourth, if you want cheaper drugs limit the lawsuits. I'm in favor having drug companies shielded from lawsuits as long as their research passes the FDA tests. Every single penny collected in a lawsuit is paid by the person who buys the next prescription. If they faked their tests, sue their socks off. Otherwise, get educated and accept some personal responsibility for what goes in your body. Everything has risks associated with it. Your odds of having a life threatening adverse reaction is far less then getting killed in a car wreck on your way to work tomorrow, yet most people drive a car. Adding another layer of government beauracracy doesn't make things cheaper it inflates the cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLastly, as for LKM's comment on science not being taught well in schools, he needs to look in the mirror. His obvious liberal bias has clouded his ability to use the scientific method on his own opinions. Since a vast majority of teachers are self proclaimed liberals, backed by numerous research papers, what does that say about liberals and their inability to teach or use the scientfic method?
quote:"What makes people so susceptible to nonsense in public discourse? Is it because we do such a miserable job in schools teaching what science is all about—that it is not a collection of facts or stories but a process for weeding out nonsense to get closer to the underlying beautiful reality of nature? Perhaps not. But I worry for the future of our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExactly - I await for Scientific American to start defending empirical reality instead of taking political stands like this article - conveniently veiled as an objective argument.
Meanwhile, us uneducated boobs will continue to hold to science and reason and continue laughing at the blatant political exercise that has become science... your editorial is a perfect example.
ps. I have a subscription waiting for your magazine when you return to science.
Wow, what a lot of vitriol here. I have to say the comment from Philip Avon St. Cyr to WishLadyA was the veritable definition of a self righteous statement. (not the only one I'm sure, but the tone was unmistakable) Obviously Mr. Krauss' opionated piece brought out some emotions and indeed was filled with the same self righteousness which pervades Progressive thinking today - and is in fact the same self righteousness which is so decried when exhibited by Christian Fundamentalists. Again - wow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I found particularly disturbing about Mr. Krauss' myopic view was this idea that anyone opposing the current health care reform efforts was somehow misinformed or misguided. I would love to see meaningfuly health care reform - my own plan is considerably more expensive and offers less coverage in the coming year (perhaps in expectation of increased tax burdens on my employer?). If Mr. Krauss can tell me (and the general public) with a straight face that the 2000 page offerings of the House and Senate, crafted in backrooms by crooks masquerading as public servants (to paraphrase Mark Twain - loosely, but I think, accurately) and their special interest lawyers, then perhaps Mr. Krauss would like to purchase a bridge I have for sale - I'll sell it for pennies on the dollar - it connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. LOL.
I think I'm blackrifle at this point - after almost 20 years I think I am ready to let my subscription to SA lapse. Too bad, it was once a great magazine. Oh, and sorry for a couple typos in my previous post - more fodder for the progressive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a Soccerdad, it appears that you have no clue as to what is going on in the health reform area. Another product of our educational system? Maybe Dr. Krauss is right, after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a Soccerdad, stick to soccer. You have absolutely no clue as to what is being argued in the health reform discussions. So, you are just regurgitating the misinformation that Dr. Krauss talks about. Do you realize you just proved his point? I take it you are another fine product of the educational system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's coming from all sides--yours and Mr Krauss'--that's my point!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's coming from all sides--yours and Mr Krauss'--that's my point!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Dlove--You can't help yourself can you? You write in absolutes. I don't listen to Limbaugh or any other talk radio--and it's presumptive of you to infer so. Again, consider this as a matter of a massive social and economic implication and then you'll better understand why people get so worked up--you for example. Read some Neibuhr for goodness sake!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this really what passes for scientific thought at Scientific American? "Right-wing fanatic radio hosts", "moronic ex-governors". This article reads like a Daily Kos post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least it was timely, arriving as Climate-gate is hitting its stride. You write of Orwell's prescience but attribute it to the wrong group. These "scientists" couldn't rely on their own data to support their claims, but resorted to fudging the numbers, black-balling skeptics, and destroying data to protect their "settled" science. They are Orwellian in their attempts to label skeptics as "flat-earthers" or "holocaust deniers" while using circular logic to declare a consensus on the issue.
This scandal will be our generation's Piltdown Man. This is the type of topic you should be covering, instead of the mindless drivel which theoretical professor Krauss submits.
SA keep the political stuff out--it's rubbish! This was a horrible thought piece that really added little to the discussion. Might I suggest more science--otherwise I shall have to reconsider my subscription.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it UNBELIEVABLE that a science magazine would allow a left wing ideologue to sully its pages with the drivel espoused by L. Krauss. Since when is dissent from the right (or anywhere) to be disdained and put down in a publication? Since when? Since the Obama administration and the left wing media decided that their policies were BEST - independent of what anyone else thinks. Krauss supports his position by defining the scientific method. Too bad scientists are also covering up their ideology by falsifying and destroying data (climate warming) that doesn't agree with their PRECONCEIVED ideas of how the earth works. Krauss should not be allowed to spread ideology in the pages of a science magazine. Now I question the validity of anything that SA has to say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSelf-righteous, murrayz? Where was the "self" in my comment to WishLadyA?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd how about answering the question I asked, huh?
Y'see, YOUR side's idea of debating an issue is ad hominem attacks and distraction. You make no effort to answer questions with logic, reasoning, evidence--nothing. I listen to CSPAN day in and day out to exactly the same kind of "argumentation" from our elected officials (on both sides). And, of course, it dominates the media, too.
Again, I'm shocked by the responses here. For people to read a scientific magazine, yet not be able to comprehend (or investigate and then comprehend) what the scientific method is, is pretty sad.
FYI, here's a decent link, if you really do want to educate yourself: http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node5.html
Dr Krauss: Unfortunately your article seems to have revealed that many readers of Scientific American are not necessarily advocates of science (i.e. the scientific method) nor of empirical reality, particularly when (or because) those things clash with their political system of belief. I think your last sentence pretty well sums up the current state of affairs in this country: "I worry for the future of our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe rather hysterical responses in opposition to this article actually mirror the very point being made in the article; that some people are outrageously misrepresenting the truth, and other gullible people are being led by the nose. The truth (of the article) hurts, and therefore the response has been to attack on a side issue - your sympathy with the proposed legislation. One may debate the merits of the health bill, but that does not diminish or even impact the essential truth of the idea you are discussing in the article.
Editor,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComment on War is Peace article by Lawrence M Krauss, Scientific American, December 2009, page 40.
Mr. Krauss, your portrayal of the nonsense being presented on the internet reveals a strong personal bias. You apply a derogatory label of right-wing fanatics and moronic ex-governors to the portrayers without any presentation of proof that it is actually nonsense. There is an equal or larger group of left-winged political figures, news media and extremists who dump their own biased views into the public information channels. But you chose not to mention them. Are newspaper editors or trained TV producers any less biased?
Personal bias clouds the empirical bias of science . Asking science to be the reality arbitrator would be hopeful if our own dispassionate track record wasnt so severely marred. A case in point: The recently revealed emails and documents from The University of East Anglia, one of the primary international repositories of climate change data which cast doubt on the integrity of another segment of the scientific community. The science pathway is littered with the wreckage of distorted experiments and fudged data.
Science, practiced well, may in fact be objective when we are dealing only with pure analytical data, but all scientific results are filtered through the minds of people. Once we form a hypothesis, present a theory or reach a conclusion, the null hypothesis tends to be stuck in the drawer and we rise in defense of our positions. In the end, scientists, reporters, politicians, the general public and science commentators alike all prove to be people. Since we are all flawed with our own opinions, only unbridled dialog and dissent can bring truth to the surface. Perhaps we will have to learn to live with and respect each others biases and opinions on this information highway.
Where is the scientific outcry over the CRU documents and emails. Will science police itself or will the scientific community hide behind its profession? My work in the wildlife field exposed me to the multiple realities of scientific data and bias, social data and bias, educational data and bias, political data and bias and public data and bias. It is professional arrogance that indicates that only scientists have the real truth. In a free world, we will all need to learn how to filter out all bias and distortion, professional and private.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Krauss, your portrayal of the “nonsense” being presented on the internet reveals a strong personal bias. You apply a derogatory label of “right-wing fanatics and moronic ex-governors” to the portrayers without any presentation of proof that it is actually nonsense. There is an equal or larger group of left-winged political figures, news media and extremists who dump their own biased views into the public information channels. But you chose not to mention them. Are newspaper editors or trained TV producers any less biased?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonal bias clouds the “empirical bias of science”. Asking science to be the reality arbitrator would be hopeful if our own dispassionate track record wasn’t so severely marred. A case in point: The recently revealed emails and documents from The University of East Anglia, one of the primary international repositories of climate change data which cast doubt on the integrity of another segment of the scientific community. The science pathway is littered with the wreckage of distorted experiments and fudged data.
Science, practiced well, may in fact be objective when we are dealing only with pure analytical data, but all scientific results are filtered through the minds of people. Once we form a hypothesis, present a theory or reach a conclusion, the null hypothesis tends to be stuck in the drawer and we rise in defense of our positions. In the end, scientists, reporters, politicians, the general public and science commentators alike all prove to be people. Since we are all “flawed” with our own opinions, only unbridled dialog and dissent can bring truth to the surface. Perhaps we will have to learn to live with and respect each others' biases and opinions on this information highway.
I too am appalled by the blatant lack of fact checking on the internet, and I support these comments, although I question the wisdom of using insulting adjectives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it objectionable when an obviously intelligent person uses: "As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors .....". Whatever the author's opinion about the individuals, the use of these descriptions leads the very people he addresses to turn off the message. We should be able to make our points without resorting to insults.
I see a lot of criticisms of the health care plan possibilities but no solutions offered, other than to stay in the same miserable state of health we (meaning the US as a whole, not just you lucky ones with money for good insurnace) now enjoy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeanwhile, wasn't Dr. Krauss's article speaking about disinformation being widely spread, and not specifically about health care? He is talking about the problems of unreviewed ideas being spread around as factual information. I think one solution could be to pay attention to your source of information. Is it someone's blog or editorial type column (which can be filed under something like gossip, though not necessarily a negative thing) or is it a scientific article from a university site (i.e., .edu address) or a scientific journal? If it is in fact a blog type source, do they note their sources of information?
Personally I am not interested in he-said-she-said type sources. And unfortunately I think Dr. Krauss's posed possibility is the reality. We still do not do a proper job of presenting science to our children, probably because we ourselves often do not understand what it is.
"Where is the proof?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe, at least, he is regurgitating quotes by right wing extremists have taken from Congressional Research Services Health Care Reform: An Introduction by Bob Lyke, April 2009 (http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40517_20090414.pdf), you know, the one and only AUTHORITY Congress uses to determine the cost and impact of bills. I would hope and am fairly certain that someone in congress uses other sources for information in the debate. But simply going by my understanding of the above article, if CRS says more people will be left without coverage, costs will go up, and there is no reason to believe quality will improve, should not we all just take them at their word? Despite the fact that I would agree with their position, I do not support centralization of information dispensation. It is worth pointing out, but no justification for censorship of less authoritative opposition.
I love crap like this about how our democracy is threatened by the free exercise of speech and the press. It is fun to compare pro censorship literature of the past 100 years to today and see how their tactics have improved, but always coming back to how people need to be protected from themselves, and from their own ignorance. The best part is that of course they are never talking about the reader; the reader is smart because they are reading their article. It is all those other people out there that don't read or can't understand the brilliance that is Lawrence M. Krauss that are the idiots out there we could help so much if they would just do what we say, and read what we write. After all, this is Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy Health Care is fine. I like my doctor, and I don't think under any condition I will ever "like" hospitals (oh well). In my experience, government is just the biggest corporation around, and like many monopolies once powerful enough rarely needs to listen to the customer to keep conducting business as it pleases. Academia tells us that government is the voice of the people, but the reality of which person is being heard leaves a lot to be desired.
I think there is a lot that could be done to improve health care in the United States and the world for that matter. In my understanding of the bills as I have read them and listening to the range of opinions on specific issues, I do not like any of the proposals getting serious attention. I am very skeptical that this congress will be able to produce a decent bill. I would be more open minded if congress would at least begin by looking at some of the many social welfare programs and regulations concerning health care that have not been as effective as intended.
The fanaticism in this debate, as the author likes to put it, is the idea that something must hurriedly be passed, whatever it is. "Death Panel" is a buzz word no matter who says it that relates to actual fear (rational or otherwise) some can't easily dismiss, and controversies over how specific provisions of the various bill provisions will actually be interpreted and executed (no pun intended).
And if the scientific method as a whole is going to be brought into this debate, let us consider some principles of engineering. Great designs, in reality, are only as good as they can be explained. If a majority of people can not be more greatly persuaded by truth than by lies, maybe some of the burden lies on you to improve your documentation if not also the design itself. Blaming the reader, investor, or customer for simply not understanding your brilliance is a cop out. And if there really is an emergency, all the more reason for due diligence, not blind faith.
In response to some of the comments made by readers of the article:
"Where is the proof?"
I believe, at least, he is regurgitating quotes by right wing extremists have taken from Congressional Research Services Health Care Reform: An Introduction by Bob Lyke, April 2009 (http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40517_20090414.pdf), you know, the one and only AUTHORITY Congress uses to determine the cost and impact of bills. I would hope and am fairly certain that someone in congress uses other sources for information in the debate. But simply going by my understanding of the above article, if CRS says more people will be left without coverage, costs will go up, and there is no reason to believe quality will improve, should not we all just take them at their word? Despite the fact that I would agree with their position, I do not support centralization of information dispensation. It is worth pointing out, but no justification for censorship of less authoritative opposition.
We should put a cap on the price of all goods and services!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJympton at 04:12 PM on 11/20/09
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Isn't it amazing, when the greedy are asked to contribute to something, they squeal the roof down. Their simplifications, generalizations and appalling command of logic only make their whining more risible."
Your kidding right?
Blah blah blah
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisno war for oil
blah blah
Bush lied -people died- dolphins cried
blah blah blah
Haliburton
Blah blah blah
Blackwater
Do you really expect us to be stupid enough to believe that Stephen Hawking goes and sits in line at his local natl health service office like everybody else does?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissounds like you are spewing a little moronic nonsense yourself
Oh for the days when a few networks could tell us the right thing to think. When elections could be changed by falsified documents to ensure the right candidate would win and no one could post evidence of the fraud. When "scientist" could conspire to falsify research and no one could post their duplicity on the internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou sir are a hypocrite. Your ears do not hear what your mouth says. First you quote yourself, The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain. But, you forgot "political chicanery" from your list; how else explain such gems as "This war is lost" from the likes of Senator Reid or the slanderous remarks by Senator Durbin that Guantanamo compare unfavorably with the Soviet gulag. So. you missed a bit, but then you go on to say, "As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors in response to the effort to bring the U.S. into alignment with other industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health care for all its citizens, it seems that things have only gotten worse in the years since I first wrote those words." "Right-wing fanatic radio hosts" "moronic ex-governors". How do these stand as reasonable discourse? Why not the stupidity of the Cambridge police department or the Speaker describing folks at townhall meetings as Nazis? Shame on you. You believe because you do not have a nasty bone in your body that what you say is covered by good intentions. I say Baloney.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also would like to thank Krauss for his article. I am a Canadian residing in the US, while my husband works for a healthcare software company. I have had as many as 20 surgical procedures, most in Canada, but several here. I would choose the Canadian healthcare system over the American anyday! But my issue, is like Krauss, the fear tactics and lying that occurs with in the right wing news media. I do not know a single Canadian who would switch what they have or what we deal with. People have criticized the Canadian government for 'make work projects'. The US healthcare system is the 'hugest' of all make work projects, but in the wrong areas....dealing with insurance paperwork rather than dealing with patient care.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhilip, I have a strong hunch that the troglodytes posting in this forum are not people with a scientific background, nor are they readers of Scientific American--magazine or website.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe far right in this country has organized its shock troops to mount attacks like these on websites. Their blogs tell them where to go.
I'm not 100% certain of this, but it makes more sense than to think that these are actual Scientific American readers, doesn't it?
BTW if you want to know where these folks do come from, the National Center for Science Education documents a poll of high school biology teachers from a year or so ago, showing that a majority do not teach evolution in their bio classes--or quickly skim over it.
The far right has learned not to tangle with educated people in the courts or even in state legislatures, by and large. Instead they go at the weakest link in the chain--high school teachers--and intimidate them from teaching anything contrary to what a fundamentalist parent wants his kids indoctrinated with (they don't believe in teaching--just indoctrination). They've also managed to intimidate state school textbook approval committees into ghettoizing evolution in a separate chapter that's easy to skip.
but it's not just evolution that isn't being taught--it's thought itself. Science is turned into a stack o' facts instead of a weltanschaung.
That's how you get the posts you see here.
I talk more about this on my own blog. Just Google my name.
The more I read of Mr. Krauss's article, the more convinced I became that his search for truth is a process of weeding out the false can only be true if the majority of scientists are radically different than Mr. Krauss.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThoughts like: "amazingly open to ideas different than his own"; "not a hint of arrogance when describing those with opinions that differ from his own" came to mind. None appear to apply to Mr. Krauss.
Mr. Krauss appears to be the perfect associate of Phil Jones at
the University of East Anglia: "facts be hidden", "destroy those with opposing viewpoints", disguise refuting data to look supporting".
If Mr. Krauss represents today's "scientists", God help our search for the truth, and the future of science.
Interesting!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Kraus presents some great points and I would agree with them. However his comments about commentary amount to an opinion and has nothing to do with science. Hence proving his own point with his own article. He talks about weeding out nonsense until only truth remains. Great, but which lens of truth is he looking through? It sounds like he is looking through the lens of socialism. And there is nothing wrong with that either as long as that is made clear in the beginning. In science, the mass balance equaiton is central. If that is applied to the health care debate, how can you insure millions more people with less money? Talk about weeding out nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is very characteristic for people from left-wing to treat all others that do not share their (the only rightful) views as idiots. Dr Krauss is not an exception. Meanwhile it is well known that socialism, so beloved by Dr Krauss, is a political system that heroically faight against problems not know in other political systems. So called public health care is one of them.
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