as long as you accept the data
Ehhhh, data isn’t necessarily sacrosanct. Bad methodology, bad equipment, or bad presentation can lead to biased or misleading data. Hell, every once in a while purely fabricated data slips through the cracks.
It’s still the best guide we have, and mountains of date from disparate sources should be very suggestive indeed, but science involves being able to question even well-accepted hypotheses, on the slim-but-not-zero chance that all that data was based on some common methodological flaw. If the hypothesis is correct, it’ll stand up to scrutiny.
Yeah, you’ll get some whackadoos with their thumbs in their navels, but those whackadoos are an important part of the scientific ecosystem; random mutations in scientific evolution which every once in a long while turn out to be useful, of only in getting serious scientists to look at a program from a new angle. Stagnation’s a bitch.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Pretty sure OP was not referring to those pseudo-science nut jobs.
I, for one, do not understand a lot of things and will (in good faith) question scientific principles to help better my understanding of things. I hope that does not label me as a belly-button-thumb-poker-gay-frogs-vaccine-shedding complainer.
ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The better phrasing is definitely “Questioning science in good faith is science”
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Nutjobs and charletains often hide behind “I’m just asking questions” rhetoric, and pretend that their inquiries are equally valid to actual science.
The most famous scientists of all time are remembered for challenging, and changing, the assumptions that everyone took for granted. Questioning science is always important, as long as the questioning is sincere. So no, I wouldn’t immediately assume you were a nutjob or charletain simply for asking questions. The critical differentiator is how receptive you are to the answers.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Very well said. Thank you!