By Daniel Engber concludes his series on radical skepticism in Slate, with a very good look at rampant conspiracy theories in science, using the new Ben Stein movie as the foil. It's worth reading (movie review here). The fascinating paradigm here is that as we become more technologically advanced, and as more information becomes available, and as more communications options flourish, there is a corresponding backlash that rejects facts and scientific method and relies instead on belief, often unmoored or in opposition to research and facts. "Gut feel" and "in my heart" have can have as much weight as a five year medical study or deeply researched historical paper. The last three paragraphs sum the series up well:
These catastrophic fantasies may be an inevitable result of skepticism run amok. If nothing can withstand our critical scrutiny, then everything seems equally probable. (You can't prove a conspiracy … but you can't prove anything, can you?) Thus manufactured uncertainty has devalued the real thing: The less sure we are of the world, the more precision we crave. Skepticism sells itself, and the scientific consensus—no matter how considered or probable—starts to seem a little cheap.
Exactitude may sound like good science—atomic clocks, sub-micron optical tweezers, and all that good stuff we use to keep satellites in orbit and Web sites streaming. But an obsessive fear of uncertainty is the opposite of science. In Part 2 of this series, I cited the Royal Society's motto from 1663 and called it the inspiration for the radical skeptics: Nullius in verba, "on no man's word." But as historians of science Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have shown, the first society members were just as dedicated to the notion that organized science engenders trust, and that it requires the acceptance of some degree of doubt. The contemplation of nature, wrote a society historian in 1667, "gives us room to differ, without animosity; and permits us to raise contrary imaginations upon it, without any danger of a Civil War."
Expelled may not bring the nation to the brink of war, but the rise of the paranoid style forecasts something worse for science than mere animosity. In February, a measles outbreak turned up among California schoolchildren whose parents had rejected the MMR vaccine. Until 2006, the South African government was using beets and lemons to treat AIDS patients. And the United States has yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol for reducing carbon emissions. In the face of this uncertainty, it's worth taking a moment to do just as the doubt-mongers suggest, and turn skepticism back on itself. Good science requires moderation in all things. Immoderate doubt is paranoia.
As my brother the scientist always reminds me, you have to look at the source data. Also, you learn more from experiments that fail than those which simply confirm your hypothesis. My experience shows that the media is often deeply, deeply at fault in its inability to cover in a realistic way controversies that touch on scientific issues or dispute (coverage of global warming is a great example; as is evolution -- knee jerk reaction is to provide equal space to each side of the argument, as if there are two equal and both valid views of the world. See my previous blog post on this here).
One of the most interesting parts of the new communications world we live in is the explicit co-mingling of opinion and news. Bloggers, almost by nature, express opinions. Often, they also cover or spur news, rich in facts and personal expertise. This is why the medium is so valuable. When I assume our ability to parse this information is growing as fast as the information and opinion itself, I see this as a good thing; when confronted by obtuse disregard for science and scientific method and willingness to allow belief to trump facts, I am consumed with worry.