Trust is a difficult thing to re-establish once broken, and the residents of Flint just gone through an ordeal where city and state officials lied to them and all but laughed in their faces about their water. Now Edwards says everything is fine and the state can go back to ignoring them. It’s hard to imagine why they’re not receptive that to that message.
What has science ever done for us?
We’ve got QT3ers advocating the weaponisation of loathing (I hear a 5 minute hate is a great way to do that!), this shouldn’t be a surprise.
And yes, it’s not all liberals, or even the majority, but the majority are silent when it happens.
Good post. Certainly confirmation bias is a problem with any group–including liberals, and kudos to Kevin for pointing that out. (He’s the most visible non-scientist proponent of the lead-crime hypothesis out there, so he has good reason to be concerned about lead levels.) That said, if I lived in Flint, I would continue to be skeptical, I would want my kids tested on a regular basis, I would want the pipes to be replaced, and I would definitely be very reluctant to have my kids drink water from the tap. BUT, I agree that Marc Edwards remains a hero and it’s a good thing that the data show that things are getting better there.
Yeah I think that’s the core of it. Every group is going to be tempted to ignore the science when it is convenient. I wouldn’t want to lose sight of this problem just because the “other side” is general worse.
The story is a Rorschach test—tell me how you first reacted, and I can probably tell where you live, who you voted for in 2016, and your general take on a list of other issues—but it shouldn’t be. Take away the video and tell me why millions of people care so much about an obnoxious group of high-school students protesting legalized abortion and a small circle of American Indians protesting centuries of mistreatment who were briefly locked in a tense standoff. Take away Twitter and Facebook and explain why total strangers care so much about people they don’t know in a confrontation they didn’t witness. Why are we all so primed for outrage, and what if the thousands of words and countless hours spent on this had been directed toward something consequential?
I know I am focusing on the wrong thing here, but he’s saying the lead levels in Flint are normalizing and are even okay… so why is that? I don’t see where he says that. How did that get better?
I believe that they implemented a bunch of mitigation mechanisms, like treating the water to de-acidify it before going through the system.
Well if that’s working. That’s good news! It doesn’t excuse what happened before, and I fully understand why people in Flint would not believe anyone when they say that, but if the data, and hell let’s pay more money and get a dozen different groups to confirm, that’s great.
If that’s the case why do need Musk dealing with the schools drinking system?
Yeah, this scientist wasn’t presenting his evidence with the goal of excusing anything. He was merely presenting the fact that the mitigation efforts appeared to be showing evidence of success
If they’re turning on the science because they want something else to happen, then yes that is stupidity. If Flint residents don’t believe the evidence, then that is not, they were lied to before. There is no reason to believe this long out anyone has earned their trust. I know he is a scientist, not so much an advocate or politician, but hopefully he can forgive people who were not just lied to but harmed by that lie for not believing him. I’d hope when he’s alone with his thoughts he can understand that.
I mean, he’s a scientist who worked with these same activists to draw attention to Flint’s problem.
And science never lies? Especially with this group. No. I’d ask for a dozen tests, probably from groups out of the country, if my child drank that water and was disabled for the rest of their life because of it. You’re asking for rationality from a population that was pretty much literally poisoned.
The rest of us don’t have to fall into that because we were not affected by it, but that group, no they have a right to doubt.
But he’s THE SAME SCIENTIST.
I mean, he personally worked with them to draw attention to their plight.
If you trust a scientist when he says things like, you can’t just attack him when he says something you don’t. That’s not how science works. Science doesn’t care what you want to hear.
He may have been the first, but presumably he is not the only person who tested the water at Flint. So as an advocate he is admirable, but as a scientist he knows that all data should have independent verification.
I’m not defending the people who are attacking him BTW. I am defending those who are merely skeptical.
I don’t trust “a” scientist when he or she says something. I trust peer review and additional tests that tell me that what the first person did is not only repeatable but also accepted in their field, at that moment, to be true or at least as true as we can have it be at that moment in time. I also trust science to revisit those facts, those truths, and I wasn’t poisoned over years with people in government lying to me about it, organizations he is working with now. They have a right to demand their trust be earned back. This is not starting at zero, this is starting at less than zero. The trust has to be earned back.
That isn’t fair. She is, correctly I may add, pointing out that the people of Flint have reason to be sceptical of any good news. The trust was broken, in a life threatening way. They shouldn’t believe any single report, and it will take time to repair that trust.
No matter the source.
I agree. I would be skeptical too if my children were drinking the water. Healthy skepticism is a part of science. That scene popped into my head becuase I watched it earlier in the week. But I bristle pretty hard at:
Which I know is making a greater point about peer review, and the scientific process as a whole, but it just makes me mad that people would even think to distrust science.
As far as institutions go, people believe in science more than a lot of other groups:
But some hilarious “Science is a Liar Sometimes” sentiment around 3 categories.
The particularly galling part is about GMO’s (which I believe a fair share of us liberals would probably be skeptical of) getting more than 50% of the population thinking there is a great disagreement about the food safety of GMO’s when the massive consensus is already in.