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I came to the same realisation about a decade ago, after being a "science" enthusiast growing up. As you said once you see it you can't unsee it. Most of science is just a scam. The exceptions are those fields backed up by real world engineering. All of social and most of biological sciences are worse than useless, they are outright dangerous.



>Most of science is just a scam

Most of the scientists are not scammers. So if you believe that all science disciplines other than engineering are wrong[1], you should use another word that doesn't suggest researcher malice.

[1]Which is a very strong statement, because you claim to be an expert in all science disciplines at once.


At minimum the social and even a fair bit of medical science are scams, as they rarely have enough evidence to definitively draw claims due to a mixture of flawed methodology, small sample sizes, and lack of additional studies to reinforce their claims. See for instance the claim every man makes at some point, that “going braless makes breasts perkier”. Small sample size that isn’t indicative of all breast sizes/shapes, few if any studies supporting their findings. At least with engineering experimentation is far easier, can be extrapolated, and can even be simulated reliably.

And no, one does not claim to be “an expert in all disciplines at once” by pointing out the objective fact that we lack concrete data in a lot of fields.


I think there’s clear evidence that a sizable portion of “science” is indeed a scam for prestige and funding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis


I think you are overreaching with that. Science at its core is curious and open minded problem solving combined with an anti-authoritarian skepticism- you accept things once you can understand and confirm them for yourself. Ideally, it is also Bayesian- e.g. considering all of the evidence, even weak evidence like personal anecdotes, while correctly keeping track of how strong or weak each bit of evidence really is.

You have the courage to trust what you understand deeply even if other powerful authorities disagree- and take the responsibility to make sure you do actually understand deeply (the conspiracy theory crowd is missing the second bit). As a practicing academic scientist, I feel like the vast majority of my colleagues with research focused academic careers also see it this way.

Nearly everything called "science" in popular culture (including school science classes, pop science books, etc.) is actually a sort of dogmatic religion that idolizes science. One of the weirdest things for me, is coming on here and when I share the type of creative thinking that actually leads scientists to new hypotheses, I am insulted and accused of being an "idiot" or "anti-science" by mostly career programmers for whom science is a religion, and not a creative process. When they talk to a scientist, they see someone that doesn't align with their fixed dogmatic views, and label it as basically the opposite of what they are actually encountering- real science looks like "pseudoscience" to them. These people would even attack someone like Isaac Newton as an idiot for daring to discuss something new that seems "weird" and idolize, e.g. a medical doctor repeating some old official stance from an institution that has been thoroughly disproven by new research.




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