Reply to What percentage of the population is scientifically literate?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A very small percentage.  I think people who don’t understand statistics (which is most people IME) or logic (also most people) are fundamentally incapable of understanding science.

Sadly I also think the majority of people don’t have any clue how much capitalism dictates scientific study.  Not necessarily for any intentionally nefarious purposes, but scientists need to have their research funded, and journals like to have their publications subscribed to, and all of this means that what is being studied and what is being reported is heavily influenced by those (most likely scientifically ignorant) who control the purse strings.[/quote]

I agree with you.[/quote]

It’s not just what is being studied. The motivation of those involved is ultimately to get published. Scientific fraud far more common than you think…in fact, I’ve seen it in every lab I’ve worked in. Not driven by the PI, but by desperate grad students and postdocs who needed p to be less than 0.05 so they could move on with their lives. I don’t believe any dataset until it’s been replicated.

It’s also pretty astounding how many people with PhDs don’t understand basic statistics (I’m in the biomedical sciences).[/quote]

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