My sincere hot take on the just-announced antibody results from New York State: I can't wait to see what the experts make of it! Being able to follow real people who share their expertise for free on this site, and answer questions, is absolutely awesome.
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Something that troubles me is that genuine science is messy, which we've seen play out in public the last few weeks. But public perceptions of science are that it's deterministic and infallible. There's a big impedance mismatch between science and popular journalism as a result
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The culture of punditry is to advance a maximal claim, go at it hammer and tongs with opponents, and never back down. The culture of scientific research is to argue just as heatedly, but (one hopes!) converge on a conclusion rooted in reality, even if it takes a very long time
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In a situation like this, where everyone is wrong much of the time, the intellectual ratchet effect of punditry is very unwelcome. I am curious what working scientists can tell us about how to learn to back down from being wrong, which hurts! It dents the ego so bad.
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Replying to @Pinboard
Structure of Scientific Revolutions says they don't back down. They die.
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But that's not always true. I had a flexor tendon injury (don't recommend) and read a bunch of the literature (do recommend). The treatment dramatically shifted within one lifetime. Some of the best reviews were written by people whose early treatment was upended by the newbies.
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They don't back down is true in some individual cases but it's just not true overall in many fields, and even individually. There is a lot of backing down, changing opinions etc. all the time.
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