You’d need to significantly increase overall education (both among voters ans legislators) on how science works to make the latter feasible.
Scientists are human. Scientists have opinions. Scientists require funding. Scientists disagree.
Simple example: The heliocentric model didn’t become accepted knowledge because the “earth is the center of the universe” crowd (who *were? scientists) was convinced by scientific argument - they weren’t. It did when they died.
Science holds a lot of high-likelihood facts. This is what we call the “generally accepted body of knowledge”. We know that the earth is round. We can predict gravity in most circumstances. And yes, we know that anthromorphic climate change is real.
But there’s also a lot of “game-changing” studies/experiments out there that are still to be debunked without ever making it into said body of accepted knowledge. This is normal, it is how science works.
Yet it also means that for virtually any hair-brained opinion that is not already strongly refuted by said body of knowledge (flat earth, for example, is refuted), you can find some not yet debunked science to support it.
Separating the wheat from the chaff here requires insight into the scientific process (and it’s assorted politics and market mechanisms) most people (and voters) don’t have.
And no, just telling people whether a fact is broadly accepted in the scientific community or fringe science doesn’t work. We tried that with the topic of anthromorphic climate change.
You’d need to significantly increase overall education (both among voters ans legislators) on how science works to make the latter feasible.
Scientists are human. Scientists have opinions. Scientists require funding. Scientists disagree.
Simple example: The heliocentric model didn’t become accepted knowledge because the “earth is the center of the universe” crowd (who *were? scientists) was convinced by scientific argument - they weren’t. It did when they died.
Science holds a lot of high-likelihood facts. This is what we call the “generally accepted body of knowledge”. We know that the earth is round. We can predict gravity in most circumstances. And yes, we know that anthromorphic climate change is real.
But there’s also a lot of “game-changing” studies/experiments out there that are still to be debunked without ever making it into said body of accepted knowledge. This is normal, it is how science works.
Yet it also means that for virtually any hair-brained opinion that is not already strongly refuted by said body of knowledge (flat earth, for example, is refuted), you can find some not yet debunked science to support it.
Separating the wheat from the chaff here requires insight into the scientific process (and it’s assorted politics and market mechanisms) most people (and voters) don’t have.
And no, just telling people whether a fact is broadly accepted in the scientific community or fringe science doesn’t work. We tried that with the topic of anthromorphic climate change.