Distinguishing science from pseudoscience
When I was in college majoring in microbiology, we were taught that diseases like scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jacob and kuru were caused by “slow viruses.” Over many years, it has become clear that misfolded proteins, not viruses, are the cause of these and other spongiform encephalopathies. Stanley Prusiner struggled for a long time to convince the scientific community of prions, for which he eventually got the Nobel Prize.
There are many historical examples of orthodoxy overturned by better science. Science thrives on paradigm shifts. But not every challenge to orthodoxy has equal merit. The molecular cell biologist Peter Duesberg is one of a handful of scientists who have challenged the HIV basis for AIDS. The success of anti-reverse transcriptase, HIV protease inhibitors and HIV integrase inhibitors in stopping AIDS seems to support the HIV hypothesis.
Science doesn’t deal in proof. Science deals in the weight of evidence. To critically assess the weight of evidence, though, requires expertise. Opinions are like nose hairs: everybody’s got ‘em. Ideas are cheap. What’s valuable is the evidence to advance those ideas.
The lay public seems to have a hard time distinguishing between arguments from authority and arguments from evidence. This is not only because scientific data is difficult to interpret without expertise, but because the internet offers a unlimited fund of pseudoscience that is difficult to distinguish from real science for those without the expertise.
As a scientist with significant expertise in molecular biology, cell biology and genetics/genomics, I find the willingness of people to be gulled by cranks and frauds to be troubling, since the data debunking the misinformation is a click or two away on Google.
Ask questions, my friends, but don’t forget to listen for answers.
There are many historical examples of orthodoxy overturned by better science. Science thrives on paradigm shifts. But not every challenge to orthodoxy has equal merit. The molecular cell biologist Peter Duesberg is one of a handful of scientists who have challenged the HIV basis for AIDS. The success of anti-reverse transcriptase, HIV protease inhibitors and HIV integrase inhibitors in stopping AIDS seems to support the HIV hypothesis.
Science doesn’t deal in proof. Science deals in the weight of evidence. To critically assess the weight of evidence, though, requires expertise. Opinions are like nose hairs: everybody’s got ‘em. Ideas are cheap. What’s valuable is the evidence to advance those ideas.
The lay public seems to have a hard time distinguishing between arguments from authority and arguments from evidence. This is not only because scientific data is difficult to interpret without expertise, but because the internet offers a unlimited fund of pseudoscience that is difficult to distinguish from real science for those without the expertise.
As a scientist with significant expertise in molecular biology, cell biology and genetics/genomics, I find the willingness of people to be gulled by cranks and frauds to be troubling, since the data debunking the misinformation is a click or two away on Google.
Ask questions, my friends, but don’t forget to listen for answers.
What Is a Prion?
Scientific American – Oxtober 21, 1999
Are Viruses Alive?
Scientific American – August 8, 2008
Weird ‘Obelisks’ Found in Human Gut May be Virus-Like Entities
Scientific American – February 24
err, February 16
It is said that ‘organic’ material has been raining down on our planet for billions of years. Could it be there are lots of these oddities in our biosphere, as yet undiscovered?
@Fred,
“Could it be there are lots of these oddities in our biosphere, as yet undiscovered?”
Sure. Of course, the word “could” is doing all the work in that sentence.
joel
i think you may have answered your own question: “look it up on google.”
google may be the greatest source of misinformation in history. of course, some of it is true or even useful, and if one knows the “right site” even authoritative [argument from authority?]
so at the least, google is part of the giant misinformation machine that keeps people from believing in anything…except, of course, those eaisly gulled by “strong men” who agree with them about all their phylogenetic impulses to just get what they want by force.
for most people “science” is just another authority. and it is one that they don’t trust because of personal encounters with those who say “you can trust me, i am a doctor [scientist]. or national failures of big science [there have been a few, not all of them made up to feed the gullible.]
please understand i am not arguing with you about the vaccines, or anything Covid, or “science” as a pretty good way to avoid and correct mistakes, or about your own faith in science, i am just saying that there are people who disagree with you. you don’t convince them by calling them names or endorsing forced vaccination. t the least you are not doing yourself any good by “hating” them [quotes because hating may be too strong a word,,, maybe just letting yourself get upset by them.
i think we are in pretty good shape as far as “the science” is concerned. it’s “the politics” we seem to be loing pretty badly at.
as for prions…not exactly on topic [dobbs, not me]
i was all over prions when i first read about them in scientific american. haven’t paid much attention lately. but it seems to me the issue was something like “how can a non-dan molecule be infectionus.”
i think that there is no issue about whether they ARE infectious, or the need to find ways to cure or prevent prion disease. or as one of my daughter’s professors liked to say “theories come and theories go, but the frog remains.”
typos
non-dna
infectious
i think [actully I know] that t.s. elliot wrote something similar about the hippopotamus and the true church.
which i only mention because we need a little more than science in our diet.
Poems (Eliot)/The Hippopotamus – Wikisource, the free online library
The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery
The corundum is going from science to a thing that benefits humanity, and is safe and suitable.
The one remaining mystery about prions – why in hell did Prusiner decide that the word should be pronounced ˈpraɪ.ɒn https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/prion ?
@Bob,
I and everyone I know pronounces it “pree-on.” Neither I nor anyone I know cares how Stan Prusiner pronounces it.
joel
oh goody, something else we can fight about. i pronounce it pry-on, because that’s the way i first heard it. language is like that. you say potahto, i say potato…
no. that’s the way spell check says it when you are not looking even after i told him i say it po-tay-to.
it’s going to be so much fun when computers do all the work for us. it reminds me of Russian propaganda: keep lying about everything; eventually people will give up trying to think about anything.
“You say po-tay-toe, I say poh-tah-toe…”
Potato | 7361 pronunciations of Potato in American English
When I went off to college, I was exposed to a 3rd pronuunciation: buh-day-duh.
Which I later learned is very common in western Massachusets.
“Po-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe, buh-day-duh, buh-dah-duh! Let’s call the whole thing off!”
Dobbs
yes, that was my point. though remember the thing being called off in the movie was the romance.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off