Skepticism doesn’t equal question all teh things
This is a great PSA from the folks who moderate the Science on Google+ community. There is also confusion about love for science and skepticism. As a moderator and someone who writes science posts, I get people who argue that everyone should be a skeptic. However, the list below has no room for skepticism in general. Scientists certainly debate new findings in those areas but the foundations (evolution for example) are not up for debate and skepticism.
Originally shared by Science on Google+
PSA: Evidence-Based Science on Google+
Some scientific facts aren’t up for debate in our science community. As scientists, we follow where the evidence leads, and the overwhelming evidence supports anthropogenic climate change, the efficacy of vaccines, the soundness of evolutionary theory, and the safety of GMO. There is vigorous debate within various scientific disciplines on how these settled areas of science work and what future outcomes of (for example) climate change or evolution will be. However, debate over mechanisms and outcomes should never be considered debate over the basic facts of a subject. A person claiming, for example, that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax is making an extraordinary claim against a huge body of peer-reviewed evidence, and barring extraordinary, credible, peer-reviewed evidence to support that claim, a post making such a claim will be removed from this community. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
The focus of our community is on research trying to address these issues, and not to rehash or debate the evidence. Unlike politicians, we don’t take positions to win votes or gain popularity. Rather, we ground our positions in the best evidence available to us, recognizing that scientific evidence may be incomplete but is constantly self-correcting.
What is scientific consensus? : https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Scienceongoogleplus/posts/5LRg4oTFAFU
Cartoon credit: http://joyreactor.com/post/805720
#ScienceSunday
May 6, 2015
Actually, there’s a small number of people who fan Tesla not in the fanboy way but in the historian way.
May 6, 2015
Andres Soolo I am a big fan of Tesla. That is why it distressed me so much when I see the bulshit claims made about his work.
May 6, 2015
Andres Soolo and David Westebbe, the moderators of the Science on Google+ community have a problem with fanboys who treat Tesla as a demigod. ‘Normal’ admiration of his scientific work is perfectly acceptable. We’ve had too many posts derail into Edison vs. Tesla or Einstein vs. Tesla. It’s very silly. Sadly we had to add that to our guidelines.
June 4, 2015
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