Submitted 5 weeks ago by LadyButterfly@reddthat.com to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Small rant, but people saying they believe in science is a pet peeve of mine. Belief has no place olin science.
You can’t “believe” in science any more than you can “know” in your religion.
Belief and faith are the realm of the unknowable. Knowledge and fact are the realm of science.
When people say they “believe” in science, I think they mean they are putting their faith into the scientists performing the science. That whatever conclusion they come to after an experiment or study is the correct conclusion.
I’m sure you can find the flaw in doing so, as science is constantly being debunked. A good example that comes to mind is the alpha wolf theory.
It can be argued that while science strives to be in the realm of knowledge and fact, it doesn’t always succeed in doing so. At least not in the first rounds of study. And I think that’s what its strength is; being able to correct itself in the pursuit of knowledge and fact. All the same, science is run by humans, and humans are fallible. But despite that fallibility, some people are willing to put their faith into scientists because of their constant pursuit for the truth. Even if what they said yesterday got debunked today, it doesn’t make yesterday’s scientists any lesser. It only means we are all better for it.
When people say they “believe” in science, I think they mean they are putting their faith into the scientists performing the science. That whatever conclusion they come to after an experiment or study is the correct conclusion.
That’s literally what they mean, where “scientists” may as easily mean real scientists as charlatans.
It’s still completely antagonistic to how science is practiced (if scientists behaved like that, they would never learn anything), and something closer to religion than science.
I think they mean they are putting their faith into the scientists performing the science
It’s not just the scientists, it’s the whole process. You trust that the journals are selecting articles based on their scientific merit. You trust that the journalists reporting on the stories are doing their best to accurately summarize the scientific articles, and that if they get it wrong they’ll issue a correction. You trust that when science makes it into textbooks that those textbooks are accurately summarizing and maybe simplifying the science in a fair way. You trust that teachers or professors who are explaining the science to their students are doing it faithfully and accurately.
The Alpha Wolf theory shows how that sort of thing breaks down. There was a scientific study, and at the time there was no reason to suspect it wasn’t legitimate. The scientist who did the study was accurately describing what he saw. The journal that published it had no reason to doubt it was good science. The peer reviewers did their job well. It just turned out that he was studying captive wolves, and that wolves in the wild didn’t behave the same way. Unfortunately, “wolves live in family units where the parents are in charge” isn’t as interesting a story, so while scientists have been trying to correct the record for a while, there are still people who have been taught by “science” or at least “the modern media and educational system with science at its base” that think that there are “alpha wolves” who take charge of a pack based on being strong and aggressive.
they are putting their faith into the scientists performing the science.
This anti-science ideology is usually called scientism.
I am not smart enough to come to my own conclusions about a lot of science, so yes I must believe what the collective scientific community asserts, because I have no other way to prove things that happen. For me, that means putting my faith in their accuracy. So yes, I believe in science.
It should also be noted that there are people out there that treat science as a religion; that it is infallible, and cannot be changed, and to suggest otherwise is blasphemy. 🤷♂️
No you don’t have to believe whatever you hear. You can be critical instead. You can also accept the results of science up to the boundaries of the results presented. Etc. There’s absolutely no need for faith.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe
“To consider to be true or honest”
I don’t know what you think believe means but you’re wrong
Literally the second definition “To hold as an opinion”
You can believe that an answer can be found scientifically. You can have faith that what you see with your eyes, and that what happens during experimentation is accurate and not a fluke or trick of some sort.
Just because religion dominates most belief, and there are strong religious groups that hold that belief and faith are binary with no wiggle room whatsoever does not mean that it’s the only way they can function. On can still test faith and belief without losing them, and changing those beliefs to what holds more truth.
Holding that that belief and faith have no part in science… is a belief in and of itself. A particularly contradictory one at that.
Knowledge is itself a justified true belief. Also, the scientific method is the best way of obtaining empirical knowledge, but the idea that empirical evidence is true is still a belief, and not even that justified. Also also, science is constantly trying to prove itself wrong. It’s unlikely that what we think now based on scientific methods will be the same we think in the future.
Sounds like someone needs to spend a day or two going down a wikipedia rabbit hole about the concept of knowledge.
“believe in” religion
“understand” science
Hello, Ordo Machinum? This heretic right here!
Knowledge and fact are the realm of science.
No this is wrong too. Probability and likelihood are the realm of science.
Just because I don’t follow the recommendation doesn’t mean I disbelieve it. Science also says I should eat better and exercise more and do less drugs 🤷♂️
Drugs are made with science
counterpoint:
The first reliably documented report of Psilocybe semilanceata intoxication involved a British family in 1799, who prepared a meal with mushrooms they had picked in London’s Green Park
It’s true in that almost every food item is made “with science” (university-educated food technicians etc.) these days, but you hardly need science to make common drugs like alcohol, caffeine or nicotine. Coffee and tobacco are just plants, and fruit will spontaneously start fermenting all on their own.
some things we do just to see how bad they’ll make us feel
I get why you shouldn’t use it before bed but why not after waking up? If it keeps you awake shouldn’t it help you wake up?
allegedly
you are priming your brain for distraction
that info comes from Julie Morgenstern, an organizing & productivity consultant, so I dunno how scientific it is…
That’s a good way to start my work day then because I’m constantly moving from one fire to another.
This stuff is sciencey, not science.
Just because I believe doesn’t mean I listen.
Science is totally right here, I have no doubt. It’s just… that I have zero regard for my own health.
Me using phones : wow, I can sleep at 1am, great.
Me “just going to bed” : great, it’s 4am and I’m still overthinking my shortcomings!
Yep. Numbing the thoughts away with constant input helps the body gain the upper hand and let me go to sleep.
Yeah this is me as well. I just overthink for hours without a distraction. Give me a phone or something to watch and I’m out in 15 minutes honestly. I feel bad because I know I’m probably degrading my sleep but…as least I’m sleeping.
I recently tried audio books and they worked surprisingly well for me. I tried some of those “bedtime stories for adults” at first but they were kind of lame. Stephen King’s short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes did the trick.
I believe what science is saying. I’m just not going to follow it. If I try to sleep without reading something my brain will start ruminating on things and then I’m definitely not getting to sleep. All my reading materials are on a screen.
It’s not a settled issue. There are research papers that show evidence that blue light affects sleep, which is not the same thing as blue light makes your sleep worse.
I tried buying more physical books. I have a small stack of it, but I can’t motivate myself to actually keep reading them. And there’s always the danger that I find a page turner that’ll keep me reading the entire night …
I just listen to podcasts at a volume low enough that I have to try to listen, tires my brain out
For me i trained my mind to quiet when i hear wreck of the edmund fitzgerald. I also use sleep talk down videos, audio only, to distract my brain long enough for sleep to strangle it into submission to avoid yhe darkness.
What’s this about right after waking up? (I may have struck this from memory)
My circadian whatever has had all my life to get used to it. I don't accept complaints now.
If’s hard to believe when my cirdwdiab rhythm was still fucked long before I had a screen I could take to bed.
im not a cicada. i do not concern myself with these matters.
I have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome… light has no effect on me. Checkmate scientists!
I have a strong feeling I do too, inherited from my mom (both of us self-diagnosed). I also appreciate you calling it a syndrome and not a disorder. It’s only a “disorder” because society decided to only accommodate one type of circadian rhythm. Humans have needed people on night watch forever, my money is that this was an advantageous phenomenon.
Me too!
Question: does your schedule slowly morph and change over time or does it stay consistent?
Because I think I have non-24 on top of it and I was wondering if it was part of the normal symptoms or not.
If I let myself I will easily fall into a 28-30 hour cycle and end up only going through 5 or 6 “days” in a week.
How were you diagnosed? I’ve experienced a similar difficulty keeping a consistent sleep schedule but I’d always assumed it was screen related
When it didn’t go away when I was temporarily taken off my adhd meds as a teen. Before that they thought it was just because of the meds. That was apparently also the earliest indication that I would have adult adhd. If you have an adhd doc talk to them about it, it’s pretty common to have both.
Not OP but I was diagnosed by being sent to a sleep specialist. I complained of fatigue to my PCP so they checked me for sleep apnea and during the initial meeting I described my schedule and what is typical for me. At the end of the questioning I said “yeah, I’ve suspected I have a sleep disorder or something” and she said “you definitely have delayed sleep phase disorder” and BOOM it was in my chart.
Easiest diagnosis ever. It helps if you keep a sleep log for a little bit. I can’t guarantee the ease of your diagnosis but mine was just being honest instead of lying and pretending to have a normal day walker schedule.
I believe science, that’s why I use my tablet instead
I’ve been trying to talk my wife into dropping the brightness to 50% for years. Her phone is so bright it keeps ME up at night on the other side of the bed. I have to set up a light shield to go to sleep :P
Monkey brain need dopamines 🥺
It’s a matter of effort vs reward. Will it make it easier to sleep? Yes. Will it make it easier enough to be worth not using my phone? No.
If you really wanna ruin your day, apparently late night eating and skipping breakfast also fucks with the rhythm. The body has a few things it uses to keep the internal clock going, not just light.
I didn’t know my mom was on Lemmy…
Did you do your homework? No TV until you’ve done your homework.
When I wake up all I can think about is brushing my teeth and eating breakfast
What if I’m used to eating late?
Y’know, that’s what I was wondering when I heard the report on the study. I’m not sure they actually know (plus many of us, myself included, have a naturally later cycle anyway).
Never liked breakfast. Always made me sick. I’ll stick with my pot of coffee and noon banana.
I know it’s bad for me.
I’m just too tired to care.
I’d rather spend one hour on my phone before bed than three trying and failing to get my brain to shut up ¯\(ツ)/¯
The effect of circadian rythm in mammals doesn’t really have the scientific evidence people think it does. Most people, even highly educated ones, are unwittingly creationists.
What does the validity of the circadian rhythm concept have to do with creationism? Being wrong about one thing doesn’t suddenly mean you believe in ghost stories.
Here is a review paper listing many peer reviewed sources relating to the circadian rhythm:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8800593/
The circadian rhythm in mammals has a large body of scientific evidence.
Source: I pulled it out of me unwashed arse
Also, FYI, when scientists say “blue light” they don’t mean literally the colour blue, they mean short wavelength light typically emitted by LEDs.
As far as the hue goes, the results in animal testing have been inconsistent, there’s a paper from 2022 that says it has no influence, and this one from 2020 that actually found the opposite to be the case www.cell.com/…/S0960-9822(19)31368-5
In my personal experience I do the exact opposite of all conventional advice as admittedly a diagnosed ADHDer.
I cannot sleep without a good scroll and never have, before phones I had books and before I could read as a child I had music and my mom to read to me.
As an adult if I keep listening to something or reading something intently while comfy I will eventually and fairly quickly fall asleep.
I also sleep much better when I sleep immediately after or while scrolling/reading/doing anything than if I try to sleep “normally”.
The number one way for me personally not to fall asleep is to “try” to sleep. Any sort of “ritual” around sleeping or attempt to deprive myself of stimulation and my mind will go pretty crazy with infinite thoughts and infinite random bullshit and I will fling out of bed in an hour full of energy and start projects, after working on something for 10-20 min I’ll feel sleepy again and could even fall asleep while doing them easily, much more so than in plain dark.
It also helps me to not have any sort of ritual and just sleep whenever I feel sleepy if the circumstances allow. I have no idea why or how neurotypicals have sleep schedules and I’ve given up on understanding it. For me, as long as I get 8 hours or so it doesn’t actually matter at all when I get them, i will feel as fresh and awake waking up at 3AM as I would at 10PM or 7AM as long as I get my hours.
So I pretty much get 8 hours, and sometimes more every day and I feel nice and fresh when I wake up usually with sad exceptions during particularly rough work weeks where I end up staying up way late.
All’s I’m saying is YMMV, I’ve never had any issues with sleep nor do I feel particularly tired, I don’t drink coffee nor alcohol, but if I ever explain this to a doctor they go nuts and assume I have insomnia, they try to offer “treatment” when I literally don’t have any problems with this at all.
Fine! I’ll use my laptop instead.
Just bekause you believe it doesn’t mean you have to obey it
I work incredibly hard during the day so it’s not hard for me to fall asleep at night even if I’m staring at my phone and even if I stare at it first thing when I wake up in the morning. My circadian rhythms cannot be defeated. I love sleeping all night & working me arse off all day.
I don’t use my phone, but I do use an ereader. Maybe when real books become cheaper or the library becomes more convenient I’ll ditch that habit.
I need my nebuliser ASMR every morning I have to go to work or I will be very grumpy all day
I stopped doing a screen detox because Im depressed.
Now that you mention it, my phone is by far the most reliable alarm clock I’ve ever had. It does DST switches for me. The battery recharges itself. I just never noticed because phones sucked at first.
Science means knowing better than trusting results that affirm preconceived notions.
minnow@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I mean, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. I can believe the science AND ALSO engage in behaviors it says are unhealthy for me.
danc4498@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I have night light mode on my phone. So I’m good!!!
VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
That’s not a scientific thing tho ! Proven to have no effect in fact.
anothercatgirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
I agree. I believe science but I seriously think the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) is wrong. They made SI bad by glossing over the necessary base unit of angle, there should be 8 base dimension, not 7.
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Except it’s not a unit, it’s a unitless ratio. You’d have one for every number of dimension. The mol is arguably the extra one.