And there has been this background ambient energy of "Big Pharma is evil, the Sacklers ..." (which I find rather scapegoaty for the Sacklers in particular) which just immediately ran afoul of "You should definitely trust in these vaccines produced by Big Pharma, the ones we have been telling you are so greedy/evil/incompetent."
Then you have some discussion of what "gain of function" means and ...
Well, the distrust the American public has in Science! has been earned over decades. The ever-changing food pyramid (according to the whims of whatever lobbying group), reefer madness scares leading cannibis to be Schedule I of all things (harmful, of no utility), cigarettes are healthy, we need to put these forever chemicals into your sofas so you don't catch on fire (oh well they don't work but we are leaving them in), thalidomide, diethylstilbesterol ...
And all of it has been sold with a pat and a don't worry your pretty head about it. COVID-19 is just another photon in the background radiation of Science We Tell You To Trust.
It's a shame, my BS was in a hard science, but when I run into skeptics, well, they've learned it and we've earned it.
> Well, the distrust the American public has in Science! has been earned over decades.
If we split apart what the power structures say is "Science" and what Science actually is, we find the same dynamic as been since time immemorial. A priestly class with their guarded knowledge, meted out to us poor rubes in oversimplified commandments. A monk class whose esoteric studies are hidden from view, filed away in the annals of religious letters, Scientific journals, dissertations in libraries...the like.
What a time to live in though! The internet and YouTube and open access journals--Science has never been more accessible and understandable, animated, and illustrated, like it is now!
But we are in a wash of disinformation and misinformation and lying and rage, too.
Yes, the power structures are coming unglued. But Science is about truth. If only we could get our pants on and coax the crazies off the ledge.
> it has been sold with a pat and a don't worry your pretty head about it.
It's because we are treating grown adults like unruly children, dumbing everything down to the least common denominator, at times striking them with an iron rod, at times bending over backwards because Biology class was boring in highschool and the last thing we can afford in the age of distraction is to be boring!
No! We should make Science fun! If we are going to treat people like kids because they don't know Science then at least make it fun for them to catch back up! We should get people excited about discovering and learning new things again, the way a Carl Sagan could. Instead of threatening, we should be seducing and luring people into the terrifying prospect of finally figuring out how shit works.
> the ones we have been telling you are so greedy/evil/incompetent."
I haven't seen any claims of incompetency, only of greed (to the lev of being evil) - is that an actual theme or did you just lump that in? It's a significant different in this context.
The American has good reason to distrust science (see my other comments), but Thalidomide is not one of them. To its credit, the FDA did not approve thalidomide at the same time as other countries thus mainly preventing the birth defects.
Of course, then you read about Diethylstillbesterol, and your faith in american public scientists is once again crushed.
Is this not the same pattern that happens to every human endeavor though, and not just science? Business interests step in and market themselves as good faith experts creating enlightened progress, when really they're con artists trading on the reputation of the real experts to sell harmful products.
The same problem happens in the tech world with two decades of "don't be evil" and messaging about the fantastic future, culminating in the Big Tech dystopia. The whole time it has been obvious they've been building a massive humanity-crushing surveillance/control machine. But up until recently, even on HN, the prevailing groupthink has been to unquestioningly drink the corporate kool aid. "It's hard to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it"
Technologists, scientists, etc themselves aren't the problem. The real problem is that our society encourages con men at every turn - from the individual rejection of boring experts (filled in by charismatic charlatans), to advertising (since everything is relative, fraud is fine), to the utter lack of punishment after a con blows up ("white collar crime"). We've put business expedience above honesty, essentially equating morality with profitability, with the result being that every institution has become hollow.
Then you have some discussion of what "gain of function" means and ...
Well, the distrust the American public has in Science! has been earned over decades. The ever-changing food pyramid (according to the whims of whatever lobbying group), reefer madness scares leading cannibis to be Schedule I of all things (harmful, of no utility), cigarettes are healthy, we need to put these forever chemicals into your sofas so you don't catch on fire (oh well they don't work but we are leaving them in), thalidomide, diethylstilbesterol ...
And all of it has been sold with a pat and a don't worry your pretty head about it. COVID-19 is just another photon in the background radiation of Science We Tell You To Trust.
It's a shame, my BS was in a hard science, but when I run into skeptics, well, they've learned it and we've earned it.