this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
588 points (97.6% liked)

Science Memes

10940 readers
1703 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Knowledge is never useless"

Going on a tangent here: While I fully agree with the above, there is an amount of knowledge after which fact checking becomes bothersome, and some people just skip fact checking overall. One could argue that, while knowledge is never useless, unchecked knowledge might become bothersome or dangerous.

See flatearthers, scientology, etc. for extreme examples.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Counter-point:

There are also many widely accepted beliefs in the scientific community that are based on misinterpreted data/results published by others, unconfirmed, and out-dated beliefs. I agree with you, but I also think we too quickly dismiss those who question the paradigm and many in translational/translated fields (like medicine) continue operating on out-dated beliefs because they don't want to or don't have the time to keep up with current research.

Case in point: the justification for 6-foot spacing at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Particles do not magically drop off after a few feet, this was justified in medical textbooks based on a misinterpretation of a particle physicist's publication. Another example: many organic chemistry classes still teach that FTIR is a qualitative method only despite many examples of FTIR quantitation and the widespread adoption of this method throughout companies that produce instruments and analysis software.

We should encourage trying to disprove that which we think is true and unquestionable so that we can fix our past mistakes and better inform our future work.