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Notes -
I think honestly at least in the USA, it’s largely down to how we teach science. We absolutely teach science to kids in an essentialist way, as if the theories were dictated to a scientist p-prophet in a white lab coat. And as such, unless you’re working in the field or know someone who does, science is The Science just like the Bible is The Scriptures, sources of absolute truth.
The typical way a science subject is covered is with a story that goes something like this:
Once upon a time, a famous scientist was working in his lab, and he made a discovery. For the sake of argument, it’s the structure of the atom. And thus he did some lab-magic with some chemicals, and came out saying that electrons surround the protons in the nucleus. If your school has a lab equipped to do so, you might repeat the steps of this great scientist and thus see for yourself that the prophets of science spoke the truth. The students will be taught about the scientific method, about the need to replicate, and about the need for peer review. But since most people only deal with science via the classroom lecture and lab demonstration (or played with science demonstration toys and kits), they’ve likely never conducted a real experiment that they thought of in those terms.
This I think is how we got to where we are, at least among laypeople, with scientism and other forms of pseudo intellectual bullshit. We teach people just enough about the subject that they feel like they understand it, but not enough to critically engage with the content. So when people come up against a new topic, they lack the skills to do any sort of independent analysis, or read the competing voices in the debates. Instead, much like a medieval peasant, he finds a priest. If his chosen priest sees value in the idea, then that’s good enough. More people think they know something about space because of Neil DeGaus Tyson and Michio Kakaku, even if they understand none of the scientific reasoning that leas those priests to that conclusion.
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