Only 36 percent of Americans have "a lot" of trust in scientists

The part about science reporters I can understand, because there are so many cases of them getting the facts wrong or blowing things out of proportion -- but this is sad:

How much faith do Americans have in scientists and science journalists? Not a whole lot, a new survey finds.

In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, only 36 percent of Americans reported having "a lot" of trust that information they get from scientists is accurate and reliable. Fifty-one percent said they trust that information only a little, and another 6 percent said they don't trust it at all.

Science journalists fared even worse in the poll. Only 12 percent of respondents said they had a lot of trust in journalists to get the facts right in their stories about scientific studies. Fifty-seven percent said they have a little bit of trust, while 26 percent said they don't trust journalists at all to accurately report on scientific studies.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/21/faith-in-scientists_n_4481487.html

Sacrifice them to our god        
   wait    is that science

I agree it is very sad, and why all religions are a threat to humanity.

Humans by and large are stupid. It doesn't surprise me that they don't like science. They are too dumb to understand it.

http://www.upworthy.com/if-someone-tried-to-teach-my-children-this-in-science-class-id-do-more-than-cast-a-spell-on-them?c=bl3


And this:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/12/19/every-gop-candidate-for-lt-gov-of-tx-wants-creationism-in-schools/

You can't just blindly accept what people tell you just because someone slapped the "science" label onto it.
Scientists are not always right, there are many fields that no longer exist because they were proven to be pseudo-science and the like.
Then there's studies that are conducted in such a way to give a biased result and you can't deny that some scientists might even do it unintentionally, they are human after all and I imagine some purposely look for results that prove them right.

Not to even mention how the majority of the population are not educated enough on certain fields to understand what's preached as fact, there are many people who just parrot what is accepted as "scientific fact" regardless of whether or not it is correct.

Basically, blind acceptance is just as bad as stubborn refusal to accept what is regarded as fact.

That is true Knave
I always encourage everyone to educate themselves so they can understand the scientific data, like you say things like sample size and demographics plus funding all play a part in reading of scientific material.
and if they cant do that they should just trust me       .. I mean science.    . well it is better that an invisible sky giant

I think we are fairly safe on the well established disciplines.

The difference between science and religion
is you can prove one and not the other
religion is based on Faith
Faith  is confidence or trust in a person, thing, deity, or in the doctrines or teachings of a religion
science is based on demonstrable and repeatable observation
science" also refers to a body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied

Another thing I think needs to be said is that science and religion are not two fighting ideologies.
They can and should be able to exist side by side.
Yes there are some people who treat religion as an alternative to science but that doesn't mean that the two can't co-exist.
Someone can be spiritual and still accept the sciences and vice-versa.

Spirituality is different than Religion.
Religion Requires you to Believe certain things, and more importantly they are organisations saying this is a fact when it clearly is not. it is only right that such blatant false advertising is shut down. It does nothing but hider the intellect of our species.

Spirituality can exist with Science I do agree on that point.   

veya_victaous wrote:Spirituality is different than Religion.
Religion Requires you to Believe certain things, and more importantly they are organisations saying this is a fact when it clearly is not. it is only right that such blatant false advertising is shut down. It does nothing but hider the intellect of our species.

Spirituality can exist with Science I do agree on that point.   

Wait.
You advocate religion being made illegal?

Sounds like a plan lol. Organised religion definitely. People can be spiritual without linking it to a 'God'. Think of all the troubles it would stop if the 'my God is better than your God' scenario could be brought to a halt.

Science on the other hand is the establishment of facts up to a point. Sometimes, when we have gained more knowledge we discover that the 'facts' are slightly different than we imagined, but that is normally because we have found out more 'facts' and the scientists are admitting they got it wrong because they didn't have enough 'facts'. Now when have you heard a religion say that?

  GENUINE Scientists these days start from a critical, questioning and open approach to an observation, problem or question...
Where 'Empirical methodologies' rule supreme, and "healthy scepticism" isn't always a dirty word..

THOSE sell-out faux "scientists" who have often started with a pre-arranged corporate agenda are classics ~ good examples of these are those working for mining, oil, gas, pharmaceutical, agribusiness and tobacco companies for $quarter-million$+ salaries, where they simply push the company denialist platform while happily putting their own "scientific" credentials at risk..    

SOME of the classic cases of altered, selective and arranged fake results in such areas as drug trials, highly-polluting pesticides, and faulty implants are infamous from past exposures where researchers want to gain certain results and conclusions, so as to maintain or extend their research funding..

THAT people should pay more attention in such areas as sciences, maths, history, geography and commerce/economics at school would mean that they are in a better position as to be more critical of such fake "pseudo sciences" as creationism/ID, astrology, alchemy, naturopathy/homeopathy, eugenics, faith healing.  Along with suspect finical products, political and religious groups..     

BUT INSTEAD, what we see with a lot of school curriculums today is where students can choose "Mickey Mouse" low level basic Science and "Maths in Space" subjects; and History and Geography are set as electives ~ and then we see some schools offering such extra electives as :
* 'Business Studies' without an initial grounding in commerce and economics;
* Psychology or 'Environmental Studies' without minimal prerequisite science levels;
* 'Political Studies' or 'Legal Studies' without first doing some basic history, "ethics" and geography;
* Certain American redneck States continually and repeatedly attempt to force "creationism/ID" into science curriculums, against their own Federal government laws and guidelines.

AND it's certainly not helped by the current anti-science, anti-academic and anti-intellectual fads among certain "dumbing down" peer groups, parental factions, and extremist religious and political groups - especially notable RW extremists, fundamentalist Christians, Islamists and Jews and their ilk..    

Knave Of Spades wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:Spirituality is different than Religion.
Religion Requires you to Believe certain things, and more importantly they are organisations saying this is a fact when it clearly is not. it is only right that such blatant false advertising is shut down. It does nothing but hider the intellect of our species.

Spirituality can exist with Science I do agree on that point.   

Wait.
You advocate religion being made illegal?

Basically YES....
I would remove all protections they get and treat them like normal organisations and NONE of them can stand up to even the most basic investigation of their 'products and serivce'. I would allow everyone that to Sue the church of their choice for 'work of god' type loses.

and remember 'Vote 1 Skynet'  ::%:: 

veya_victaous wrote:

Knave Of Spades wrote:

Wait.
You advocate religion being made illegal?

Basically YES....
I would remove all protections they get and treat them like normal organisations and NONE of them can stand up to even the most basic investigation of their 'products and serivce'. I would allow everyone that to Sue the church of their choice for 'work of god' type loses.

and remember 'Vote 1 Skynet'  ::%:: 

There are millions who would disagree with you.

I know that..... but they all disagree with each other anyway.

I believe in technocracy, When we Make Heaven
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=e-zimmer-can-you-live-forever
we will win, as we will be able to comply with the no false advertising laws      why have faith in a highly unlikely deity when we can build the Afterlife Ourselves?

There are millions who think aliens are being covered up by our governments, that the world was created in six days and that intelligence is related to skin color. You could fill this entire website with the stupid things millions of people believe and still not list them all.

I believe that's a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum: that if enough people believe something, it must be right.

veya_victaous wrote:
I know that..... but they all disagree with each other anyway.

I believe in technocracy, When we Make Heaven
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=e-zimmer-can-you-live-forever
we will win, as we will be able to comply with the no false advertising laws      why have faith in a highly unlikely deity when we can build the Afterlife Ourselves?

::%:: 

BLADERUNNER is one of my favourite movies...

TOTAL RECALL also has some good insights hidden in there..

And, of course, we should never ignore Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS.

 ::resmahauth::

Beekeeper wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:
I know that..... but they all disagree with each other anyway.

I believe in technocracy, When we Make Heaven
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=e-zimmer-can-you-live-forever
we will win, as we will be able to comply with the no false advertising laws      why have faith in a highly unlikely deity when we can build the Afterlife Ourselves?

::%:: 

BLADERUNNER is one of my favourite movies...

TOTAL RECALL also has some good insights hidden in there..

 ::resmahauth::

That is probably a better example than Terminator and the Matrix but there are a lot of examples from Sci fi and we are actually at the point where some hybrid/combination of them may actually be 'producible' before the end of the century.

'Ghost in the Shell' the Japanese Manga is probably the closest to what we could make, but if we had that the Matrix would only be a short step. Managed properly the Matrix Could be Heaven and there is no reason we couldn't make T100 but instead of giving them AI just upload a human mind (that was living in the matrix) and send that off on a rocket to colonise other planets. Robots are much better at surviving both the extremes and time involved with Space travel        I may have given this too much thought   

Ben_Reilly wrote:There are millions who think aliens are being covered up by our governments, that the world was created in six days and that intelligence is related to skin color. You could fill this entire website with the stupid things millions of people believe and still not list them all.

I believe that's a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum: that if enough people believe something, it must be right.

That was hardly my argument.
I meant that religion plays an important role in the lives of millions of people.
You're not going to be able to ban it any time soon.

You can be highly religious and still not hate people or be anti-science. Adapt your religious myths to conform to actual facts.

Knave Of Spades wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:There are millions who think aliens are being covered up by our governments, that the world was created in six days and that intelligence is related to skin color. You could fill this entire website with the stupid things millions of people believe and still not list them all.

I believe that's a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum: that if enough people believe something, it must be right.

That was hardly my argument.
I meant that religion plays an important role in the lives of millions of people.
You're not going to be able to ban it any time soon.

All across the world, atheism is gaining. The fastest-growing "belief group" in the U.S. is people who are atheist, agnostic or indifferent to religion. Atheism is practically the mainstream in places ranging from Scandinavia to New Zealand and Australia, where they recently had an openly atheist P.M.

Also, the harder people cling to nonsensical beliefs, the more people around them start to view "belief" as "illogical fanaticism."

Give it a few hundred more years and most of the world could be atheist/agnostic/secular. Particularly as science manages to offer more hard answers about how everything came about, as humanism manages to offer more ideas about what we should be doing with our lives, and as the notion of an eternal, omnipotent spirit obsessed with what you do with your genitals becomes more of a ridiculous-sounding idea to more and more people.

Just to add -- I don't think it will need to be banned. I think it will wither to cultism, which most people will either mock or ignore.

Lurker wrote:You can be highly religious and still not hate people or be anti-science. Adapt your religious myths to conform to actual facts.

I disagree, at least with most religions, if you define your spirituality you make it a religion and as such it is set and you cant adapt beyond what you have defined. This is even more the case when your religion says 'here is a book it contains everything you need to know' like the mono-theist religions do.

You can be highly Spiritual an not be Religious. Something like Karma is a spiritual philosophy not a religion (it is part of some religions). The notions contained in religions can still be applied to a general spirituality with out the religious context (you don't need the fairy-tale to impart the moral). this is doubly proven by the fact that some many religions that evolved separately (all with their own fairy-tales) still encourage much of the same behaviour (honesty, respect, charity etc.)

These matters are in the occult. By that I don't mean any particular drama. "Occult" means inscrutable and beyond the realm of human comprehension.

As one who does not believe in the bearded old man who lives in the clouds and entertains the kids by doing magic tricks, I try not to worry about religion. But if you want to indulge yourselves, it's called the occult. Religion, or spirituality, are just subsets.

Or "other ways of knowing"   

No thanks, I'll stick to my 18 senses, thank you very much.