Commentary: Science Skepticism vs. Science Denialism

Is the Earth flat or a sphere? Are vaccines beneficial or harmful? Is human-caused climate change a fact or a hoax? We live in a time when mainstream science faces increasing skepticism, and these are among the questions, from silly to serious, that skeptics are addressing.

Skepticism is healthy; it’s an integral part of the scientific process itself. Not all science is good science, so scientific claims need to be put through the wringer to determine whether or not they are true. How does that process work? How can we tell whether something we hear or read is accurate? How can we be rational skeptics, distinguishing between fact and denial of fact?

It’s simple 2^nd grade arithmetic, right? 1 x 1 = 1

Not according to Hollywood actor and self-proclaimed math and science visionary Terrence Howard, who has promoted his treatise “1 x 1 = 2” on the Joe Rogan podcast. Howard claims to have made earth-shattering discoveries that “expose a loose thread within the fabric of our understanding, a loose thread capable of unraveling the very ground rules of mathematics.”

Terrence Howard, courtesy of Wikimedia

A rational skeptic might just use a calculator. √2 = 1.4142135624. (OK, math geeks: Approximately 1.4142135624)

A detailed, blunt review by astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, provided at Howard’s request, completely discredited the work.

In what may have been a retaliatory comment aimed at Tyson, Howard told Rogan: “The world is changing so quickly and so is everything around us. Unfortunately, we have chosen to remain handcuffed to antiquated and obsolete beliefs. We have put an enormous amount of faith into the methods and practices of old that are as dead today as the men who propagated the notion that the world was flat.”

“Regarding your world was flat reference,” Tyson responded, “the idea of a flat earth predates the introduction and development of the methods and tools of science as we practice them today. Those processes date back to around 1600, coincident with the invention of the microscope and telescope. Before then, truths were whatever seemed right to the senses. Afterwards, and to this day, truth was whatever the verified data obtained by your instruments forced you to believe...”

Flat Earth

“A number of ancient cultures believed that the Earth was flat because, simply, they didn’t know any better,” writes Paul M. Sutter, astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook. “But incredibly, there are people today who still believe that the Earth is flat, despite centuries of evidence proving the contrary.”

“By claiming that Earth is flat, people are really expressing a deep distrust of scientists and science itself.”

Flat Earth model, courtesy of LiveScience.com

Howard aligns with that distrust, implying that revolutionary ideas are automatically rejected by the mainstream.

“Science is about reproducibility,” Tyson retorts. “I can have the most brilliant, crazy, fun idea ever, and if I perform an experiment and no one else can duplicate that experiment, it belongs in the trash heap. I will further affirm that just because an idea sounds crazy doesn't make it wrong. The system of research and publications in peer-reviewed journals has the capacity to spot crazy-but-true ideas, provided they're supported by compelling arguments and ultimately supported by experiments and observations. Newton's laws, Einstein's relativity, quantum physics were all revolutionary ideas that appeared in peer-reviewed settings or journals”.

Tyson connects Howard’s conceit with the Dunning Kruger effect: “It's possible to know enough about [a] subject to think you're right, but not enough… to know that you're wrong.”  

Dunning Kruger Effect

“To become an expert means you spend all this time. It doesn't happen overnight. You can't just sit in an armchair and say ‘I'm now an expert’. It requires years and years of study, especially looking through journals where new ideas are published and contested. That's what we have learned is the most effective means of establishing that which is objectively true or determining that which is objectively false.”

Vaccines

A paper on the National Library of Medicine (NLM) website on the Anti-Vaccination Movement states: “There has been a recent surge in the opposition to vaccines in general, specifically against the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, most notably since the rise in prominence of the notorious British ex-physician, Andrew Wakefield, and his works. This has caused multiple measles outbreaks in Western countries (currently in Texas and New Mexico) where the measles virus was previously considered eliminated.”

Wakefield’s paper in a medical journal, The Lancet, gave credence to the claim of a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism in young children. His work drew severe criticism for his flawed and unethical research methods, including mistreatment of children in his study and falsification of data. A journalistic investigation revealed that Wakefield had an undisclosed conflict of interest, having received £435,643 from litigants against vaccine manufacturers to discredit the vaccine. The Lancet retracted the study, declaring it “utterly false” and Wakefield was barred from practicing medicine in the UK.

He moved to Texas, continuing to promote anti-vaccination disinformation in the media and on the internet. While there are benefits to laymen accessing medical information online and working more collaboratively in decision-making with their physicians, false and misleading information can lead to negative consequences, such as parents withholding consent to having their children vaccinated. The referenced Anti-Vaccination study found 32% of vaccine-related YouTube videos were anti-vaccination as were all the top 10 Google search results.

At the time of this writing, there’s a serious measles outbreak in parts of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico where vaccination rates are low. Of the initially reported 99 cases, 20 required hospitalizations, all of whom were unvaccinated. On February 24^th, a child died.

What can a doctor say to a patient who tells him, “I’ve done my research and I’m not taking that vaccine”? That research likely consisted entirely of reading someone else’s opinion on social media. There are experts who do have the knowledge, who have read, questioned, and understood the papers and have reached a consensus: There is no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Climate Change

Fact: After decades of research, a scientific consensus has emerged on the cause-and-effect relationship between human activities, notably burning fossil fuels, and climate change. In 2013, a published estimate was 97% of peer-reviewed climate science papers supported that conclusion. A 2015 review of the 3% of papers denying human-caused climate change found technical flaws in all of them. A summary of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology review states: “Many had cherry-picked the results that conveniently supported their conclusion, while ignoring other context or records. Then there were some that applied inappropriate “curve-fitting”—in which they would step farther and farther away from data until the points matched the curve of their choosing. And… sometimes the papers just ignored physics altogether.”

A 2021 statistical analysis of 88,125 papers published since 2012 concluded that the consensus had reached 99.9%: Human activities are the major direct cause of climate change.

Public perceptions are another matter. A 2023 Pew Research poll found 14% of Americans deny climate change even exists, and 26% believe it is due to natural patterns (which has been disproven). Political rhetoric dismissing climate science as “a hoax” provides an excuse to skip the hard work of studying and critically assessing the science. It’s convenient and comfortable to reject the work of the experts and accept misleading talking points from people of the same political persuasion. That’s not skepticism, that’s denialism.

“When different experiments give you the same result, it is no longer subject to your opinion. That’s the good thing about science. It’s true whether or not you believe in it.” – Neil Degrasse Tyson

This is not a discussion of policy; it’s a discussion of fact, which is prerequisite to crafting effective policy.

In a world where understanding complex scientific truths is often beyond the limited training and experience of non-experts, greater value must be placed on what has been learned through rigorous experimentation and brutally direct reviews by experts. Failing that, we become easy marks for hucksters and charlatans who are pushing an agenda likely to benefit themselves at everyone else’s peril.

Goshen resident Michael Edison has been a working chemical engineer for more than 50 years, and has authored, peer-reviewed, and edited technical papers in a number of professional