Science deniers exploit science’s unfalsifiability-of-proof to demand equal standing for pseudoscience.
Evidence
Other critics, however, are a little craftier and say that selected scientists are not themselves adhering to good scientific standards: that they are being closed-minded and blind to their own self-serving interests. Some of this is based on a straightforward misunderstanding (or cynical exploitation) of how science works, based on the mistaken idea that if scientists would just gather enough evidence they could prove a theory. But this is not how science works: no matter how good the evidence, a scientific theory can never be proven true. No matter how rigorously it might have been tested, every theory is “just a theory.” Because of the way that scientific evidence is gathered, it is always theoretically possible that some future piece of data might come along and disprove a theory. This does not mean that scientific theories are unjustified or unworthy of belief. But it does mean that at some point scientists must admit that even their strongest explanations cannot be offered as truth, but only strongly warranted belief based on justification given the evidence. This alleged weakness of scientific reasoning is often exploited by those who would claim that they are the real scientists—that if science is an open process, then it should not be in the business of excluding alternative theories. Until a theory is absolutely proven, they believe, a competing theory could always be true. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 58
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the fact that scientific theories can never be proven true, only strongly warranted by evidence — and why that is not a weakness.
- XREF: connects to: Politicizing science defeats even well-designed interventions meant to boost accuracy. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 153; Science’s self-correcting attitude is a model for resisting post-truth. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 332; Science deniers do not reject science itself, only its inconvenient conclusions — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 269 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Deniers invoke debunked zombie beliefs or disparage science as corrupt
#exemplifies(0.82) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2978 - Science deniers do not reject science itself, only its inconvenient conclusions
#expands(0.78) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 269 - Balanced-reporting norms let fringe deniers distort coverage of settled science
#exemplifies(0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 169 - Framing pseudoscience as a religious prohibition publicly challenges dubious offers.
#complicates(0.72) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 592