Thread: More evidence scientists or people never look at all the information

Originally Posted by boa

A dermatologist has said people with different skin colour has different levels of chances for skin cancer and melanoma. Drop the slip slop slap. I have seen it before, a person has an Idea or thoughts and only looks for supporting evidence. That's were modern sciencemedicine has lost all credit. I worked with people who had a very passionate view but it limited there objective view. Passion and you believe you are right has no place in science medicine.

You do realise that a dermatologist is a specialist medical practitioner not a "scientist" per se, while medicine uses scientific methods there is a significant difference between the two.

There are many scientists in medicine and many medical practitioners are also medical scientists, but most medical practitioners are not scientists. I won't go into the difference between a medical doctor and a PhD doctor.

By definition a dermatologist focuses their practice on one single organ "the skin".

My other comments have already been covered by other members.

Originally Posted by boa

I have seen it before, a person has an Idea or thoughts and only looks for supporting evidence.

That's because you always find what you're looking for.

And suddenly all the subsequent evidence they find only bolsters their original stance on the opinion. Then they start finding people who concur with this opinion, start trying to convince others, formally and informally create groups based on opinion agreement, start dismissing people who disagree with this opinion, and slowly move away from objective reasoning or the ability to consider or adapt to new opinions. Then ten years goes by, 20 years goes by... the longer the opinion is unquestioned the closer it comes to being a fact/belief. Sometimes it never gets challenged. And sometimes someone smarter comes along and debunks the opinion with their own collection of evidence. Now go back to the start of this paragraph and begin the cycle again.


Unfortunately for humans it's impossible to know all the information - even in just one field of specialty. Just look at climate science. We all have an opinion on the topic, but if you sat down with a piece of paper and wrote what you actually know about the subject and how the whole system works (without cheating or Googling) you'd realise how many assumptions we're operating with.

That may be true, but the situation is not as hopeless as you suggest.

While one researcher may be a bit blinkered, you can bet that there are a dozen others keen to make a name for themselves by looking at the situation differently to prove him wrong.

Surely there is more kudos and more satisfaction to be gained by proving someone (or everyone else) is wrong rather than just helping to prove they are right.

What you say might describe an individual, but it doesn't describe the whole community, particularly the scientific community.

I love the distinction present in the thread title- scientists OR people.

It's something I've always known but never been able to articulate before.