A scientist's way of thinking

Krishna: This answer is based on my own experience.

I don’t know about doctors’ and pharmacists’ views but I can tell this from a scientists’ point of view.

We spend years and years on studying, researching, and finding things by using very highly reliable methods and methodologies to establish scientific facts.

Why should we give importance to some one who just googled something on the net for 10 minutes to come to a conclusion?

We usually don’t express our opinions, because our expressions are all evidence based facts.

We use critical thinking to separate science from nonsense.

Once facts get established using highly reliable evidence, you don’t give much importance to second best or third best things.

Feelings are not facts because they are subjective and can be influenced by a variety of factors, including beliefs, cultural background, conditioning of minds and past experiences. Facts, on the other hand, are objective and verifiable pieces of information that exist independently of personal feelings.

Feelings are important only if they help in solving a problem correctly. Just because you feel Homeopathy works, it doesn’t! If your religious feelings say don’t give your children vaccination as your religious head told you that is against religion and if that harms other children and kills them, wed don’t give a damn to your feelings.

Democracy has a different meaning in science.

There is lots of misinformation going on social media. If you trust that information, because you are not trained in science and have no idea or knowledge about vaccines, and cannot analyse and pick what is right and what is wrong from the information available to you, and because of your emotional status with regard to your child's condition, your mind refuses to see the right picture and imagine what some anti-vaxxers say is right and try to spread that wrong perception to others and cause harm to the others around - like killing people - yes, if children cannot be vaccinated, they die of preventable diseases - should scientists who have full knowledge about the subject and can understand the full picture correctly keep quiet?

Should we allow democratic rights of some people kill others around?

NO!

Under normal conditions - where knowledge rules, where emotions are in check, where real knowledge guides people, where genuine evidence is considered without any hesitation, we can allow democracy to work. In such conditions people prosper (1).

In science, there won’t be two sides unless the research is incomplete or funded by industry/political/religious lobbies - the two dark sides that can be easily avoided. There will be facts and people should stick to them. True scientists cannot tolerate cognitive dissonance ( science doesn't allow for the holding of two contradictory positions). They must choose the facts and stick to them.

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter disastrous beliefs that should have been abandoned long back. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse. Perhaps that’s one reason why enthusiastic amateurs think they’re entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views “respected.” And do you respect ignorance, misconceptions and superstitions in the same way as facts based on evidence and true knowledge? How silly that looks!

What you say misconception is just your perception but need not be based on facts.

In democracies it is increasingly becoming difficult to stop anybody saying that vaccines cause autism, no matter how many times that claim has been disproven by medical science .And anti-vaxxers keep saying it over and over again to mislead people.

But if ‘entitled to an opinion’ means ‘entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth’ then it’s a serious condition in science. Democracy doesn't work like that in this domain. You are entitled to have your opinions only if they don't harm the society you are living in. If you try to tell and mislead people that vaccination is a Government's conspiracy to sterilize you like the Taliban does in Pakistan or spread rumours like vaccination causes autism like people of religion do in the US, that right should be taken away from you! Because you are refusing to see facts and causing the societies to collapse with your irresponsible behaviour.

Facts don’t need democracy. Facts need evidence based acceptance(2)

Things like feelings and opinions need not be given importance if they are not evidence based, that are not fact based if we want to have good societies around us.

Everyone thinks; it is human nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself,
is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or down-right prejudiced. Yet the
quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depend precisely
on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is detrimental to science. It also affects the standard of our living (3).

Critical Thinking is highly essential in science.

Image source: Alamy

A conditioned mind cannot think properly. Scientists can usually see when this happens with regard to facts and therefore don’t give much importance to it.

Knowledge and experience is okay. But , they are not reliable too when obtained in unreliable ways.

Let me explain this using examples, if what you call ‘knowledge’ is primitive and has a shaky foundation like Homeopathy (4), or Astrology (5) you don’t give much importance to it. Knowledge should have a solid foundation to be called genuine.

And just because you are ‘old’ and have ‘lots of experience’ doesn’t mean you can always be right. You can interpret your experience in strange and irrational ways. I see this happening all around me. How can you trust such knowledge and experience?

“Intelligence” can be interpreted in innumerable ways. What others perceive as intelligence need not be intelligence at all.

Intelligence can be considered "not intelligence" in the true sense when it interferes with the replication of the genes that created it. Without this constraint, there is no objective criteria for determining whether a solution is intelligent.

Here are some other reasons why intelligence can be not intelligence in the true sense:

IQ tests are incomplete: IQ tests are a relative measurement that only assess certain aspects of intelligence. They don't measure skills like creativity or emotional skills, and they can't capture the full range of skills that would be considered "good thinking".

Intelligence is linked to other factors: Intelligence is linked to education, social and family background, and culture of origin. People from different backgrounds have varying levels of familiarity with test concepts and structure.

Intelligent people can be foolish: Intelligent people can be foolish, regardless of how smart they are. This is because smart people may think that their intelligence prevents them from thinking and acting in foolish ways.

We spend a lot of time acquiring intelligence at the expense of developing intellect.

Intelligence is built by gaining information, knowledge from external agencies, from schools and universities, teachers and textbooks. The intellect is developed through your individual effort by exercising the faculty of questioning, thinking and reasoning. Not accepting anything that does not admit logic or reason based on evidence. Know the difference between the two. And that any amount of intelligence gained cannot per se build your intellect.

The intelligence acquired from external agencies is much like data fed into a computer. Consider a computer charged with a complete knowledge of fire extinguishers, firefighting and fire escapes. All the knowledge stored in its memory cannot help the computer act on its own. If the room catches fire, it will go up in flames. The knowledge you acquire is of no use to you without an intellect.

Image source: Freepik

You need a powerful intellect to put the knowledge, intelligence gained, to practical use in life.

Now tell me how many people have this intellectual power? Very few. Why should we give importance to a computer that just stores knowledge but cannot put it to real use when the situation demands it?

I saw several people who have high qualifications and high grade IQs but cannot even think simple things properly.

Memories can be false too. A false memory is a memory that is either fabricated or recalled incorrectly. False memories can be vivid and people may be highly confident in them, making it hard to convince them that their memory is wrong.

So my question is why should we care about unreliable things? Take them into consideration while deciding what is good or bad when dealing with the welfare of the societies we live in?

I always depend on my own intellect, high grade knowledge, evidence based facts, reliable critical thinking to make decisions and come to conclusions.

I don’t care about anything else.

Call it arrogance or confidence.

Your conclusion says a lot about your thinking and perception based on it.

It doesn’t reflect on my thinking or personality as a scientist.

Footnotes:

1. Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them - Part 152
2. In the field of science majority's opinion counts only when it matc...
3. Some questions people asked on science and my replies to them - cri...
4. This is what a liver transplant surgeon told me recently...
5. Debate between scientists and people who practice pseudo-science - ...