Cause of Bias?

Science is problematic. It isn’t value free or apolitical. In modern science, evidence especially with studies of harm, is usually cumulative and consensus driven – rarely is there a smoking gun. Conclusions are probabilistic and provisional - waiting to be disproved by new research. It’s so specialised now that even an expert in one area of medicine say, will be hard pressed to make sense of something in a very closely related area. There are vested interests of all sorts - careers, grants, institutional support etc. Science, is the dominant system of our time and the dominant ideology.

Many people are troubled by this over-reach. They find their lives been profoundly controlled by something they don’t understand, that is so patchy and so compromised. So they question scientific studies, the integrity of scientists and find alternative evidence. Mostly I think they lack skills to evaluate the data and make erroneous conclusions e.g. such as finding a big malevolent person responsible for the problem like Bill Gates - or dismissing consensus claims outright based on isolated data events. But I wouldn’t say they are entirely wrong. At minimum they’re pointing to the holes in the evidence and the unacknowledged political dimension of science. I just think they tend to lack sufficient critical thinking and default to ‘Emperors got no clothes’ a bit too much.

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