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<blockquote data-quote="Mishihari Lord" data-source="post: 6642544" data-attributes="member: 128"><p>That first bit's not true at all.&nbsp; A successful scientist has to be a PR person, politician, and marketer to win funding and other resources for their work.&nbsp; Convincing people of the value of their work is part of their job, and if they can't do it they don't get far.&nbsp; Politics in academia can be vicious, and in the corporate world it can be bad enough.&nbsp; Decisions do get driven by social dynamics rather than data, and when they do, it's reasonable to call it &quot;stupid,&quot; although you can soft-pedal it with other terms if you wish.&nbsp; Freyar pointed me to some info that showed that the emphasis on dark matter is reasonable than I had thought, but based on my previous readings the research emphasis looked a lot more like something driven by social dynamics than by data.&nbsp; Your &quot;trust the experts&quot; stance is not always helpful because sometimes the experts act like a herd of lemmings.&nbsp; Umbran's &quot;you must not understand science&quot; approach is not helpful because it doesn't convince, and just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they don't understand.&nbsp; Frex in my case, I've participated in research so it was a bit insulting.&nbsp; Freyar's approach of engaging on the subject matter is the one that's useful.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Mishihari Lord, post: 6642544, member: 128"] That first bit's not true at all. A successful scientist has to be a PR person, politician, and marketer to win funding and other resources for their work. Convincing people of the value of their work is part of their job, and if they can't do it they don't get far. Politics in academia can be vicious, and in the corporate world it can be bad enough. Decisions do get driven by social dynamics rather than data, and when they do, it's reasonable to call it "stupid," although you can soft-pedal it with other terms if you wish. Freyar pointed me to some info that showed that the emphasis on dark matter is reasonable than I had thought, but based on my previous readings the research emphasis looked a lot more like something driven by social dynamics than by data. Your "trust the experts" stance is not always helpful because sometimes the experts act like a herd of lemmings. Umbran's "you must not understand science" approach is not helpful because it doesn't convince, and just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they don't understand. Frex in my case, I've participated in research so it was a bit insulting. Freyar's approach of engaging on the subject matter is the one that's useful. [/QUOTE]

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