• underwire212@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Yeah I’m not so sure about this haha. I work in academia, and there is quite the abundance of closed mindedness and dogmatism.

    • stormeuh@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I think that’s just the comfortable position for humans. Questioning what you know to be true is hard, and the more fundamental the fact the more uncomfortable it is to doubt. Which is also why religion is so attractive.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I work in academia, and there is quite the abundance of closed mindedness and dogmatism

      Are we talking about discrimination against young or foreign academics not getting grants and degrees because of bias about who should be the ones leading research and hesitancy to invest time, money and political capital into new tech, or are we talking about “They didn’t want to read my paper about how I think the sun pooped out the Earth and why this is evidence for God”?

      Seriously, that’s a loaded claim, you need to provide some context and nuance there, I haven’t met many actual scientific-minded people who are dogmatic, that is usually the exact accusation thrown out by theists who are butthurt that evolution exists and can’t be disproven.

      • galanthus@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_science

        Read this. I used to favour Popper, but I now quite like Kuhn. Kuhn is based.

        My point is that the scientific endeavour according to Kuhn is not an inherently critical one(as it is with Popper, for example). Science is based on dogmas, positions and suppositions that are not questioned within a paradigm.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I am sure you know what I’m saying here, but thank you for the required-by-law pedantry that occurs every time anyone says anything.

      • underwire212@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Ah ok, so you seem to have misconstrued what I’ve said here and have added in your own assumptions and straw men. That’s ok, it happens to the best of us (myself included).

        I’m definitely not trying to equate science with religion in every way. I just think it’s fair to acknowledge that science, being a human endeavor, isn’t immune to things like gatekeeping, resistance to new ideas, or institutional biases. That doesn’t mean science as a whole is bad or anti-progress. We’ve achieved incredible feats with science; we certainly didn’t “pray” our way to the modern automobile, or to the smartphone. All I’m saying is that, like any field, it has its challenges. And those challenges and weaknesses can be more than people or scientists like to imagine. I’m simply pointing out that dogmatism can exist anywhere, even in spaces that pride themselves on being open to new information.

        The fact that you’re immediately jumping to extremes of either systemic biases in funding or absurd pseudoscience, kind of proves my point ironically. I’m a researcher at a nationally recognized university, and trust me when I say that there are many like you who seem to get their jimmies all riled up the second that someone so much as mentions that “scientific research may fall victim to dogmatism and other forms of human egoistic thought - just like religion”. It’s a strange phenomenon I’ve observed when people associate their entire identity with their specific scientific endeavors. And I get it too (and to say I don’t fall victim occasionally would be a lie). It is difficult for your ego to let go of 30 years of hard work and research, even when new data / evidence comes out to prove you wrong. It’s not easy to say “yup the research I associated my identity with the last 30 years? That’s actually all wrong”, but a good scientist is one who doesn’t attach ego to their work and remains perfectly objective. Much harder said than done- trust me.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Ah ok, so you seem to have misconstrued what I’ve said here and have added in your own assumptions and straw men.

          No I literally just asked you a question which direction you’re coming from, and the fact that you had to respond with this reactionary, defensive BS instead of using the opportunity to distance yourself from the kooks tells me you don’t have good-faith stake in this and my second option is probably true. No way I’m wasting my time reading further or engaging. Have a good one kook. Go ahead and say whatever you want, you’re blocked.

          Reminder other readers: science is not dying, science is in a good shape other than US funding, we are making amazing discoveries every day around the world. The academic world isn’t perfect but it’s working. There is no coverup or conspiracy. Whatever sensational BS you guys read on the headlines, it’s not true, I promise, please talk to people who actually work in science and academia before trusting headlines.