Thursday Things: Trust Me I'm a Scientist Edition
17 February 2022. Vol 4 No 7 By Dan McGirt. #132
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“The galaxy is overflowing with meridians. Truth is the driver of potential.” - NABG
Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash
What a great time to be a frog! Science is on the march. Or should I say, on the hop? Frogs Regrow Missing Limbs in Lab Study, Advancing Key Effort of Regenerative Medicine
[S]cientists have shown that frogs can regenerate amputated limbs, once their stumps have been treated with a multidrug “cocktail.” The findings, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, represent a notable advance in the field of regenerative medicine, which aims to replace human tissues and organs to restore normal function.
“This is really kind of a first step into figuring out what type of treatment methods might we use in the future,” said Catherine McCusker, a University of Massachusetts Boston biologist who wasn’t involved in the research. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to regenerate complete human limbs within my lifetime,” she added, “but I think that we’ll definitely be much closer, that’s for sure.”
Where did they find so many injured frogs?
They amputated the hind legs of more than 100 anesthetized African clawed frogs and treated the stumps of some of the frogs with five growth-promoting drugs.
Oh.
Well, at least they grew back. Thanks, Science. Really.
“People will believe anything if you say a scientist said it. Especially if it’s on the Internet.” — Einstein (probably). Photo by Andrew George on Unsplash
A recent experiment confirms what Einstein definitely didn’t say, as reported in The Einstein Effect: People Trust Nonsense More if They Think a Scientist Said It.
Researchers shared quotes produced by “the New Age Bulls**t Generator, an algorithm that combines new-age buzzwords and seemingly intellectual wording to create phrases that sound profound” with volunteers and attributed the quotes to either a made-up “scientist” or “spiritual leader”.
Here’s an example: “Discontinuity is the antithesis of inspiration. The complexity of the present time seems to demand an unveiling of our hopes if we are going to survive. This life is nothing short of a blossoming osmosis of mythic understanding.”
Whose nonsense was deemed more credible?
The results suggest that people generally find statements more credible if they come from a scientist when compared to a spiritual guru, with 76 percent of participants rating the 'scientist's' balderdash at or above the midpoint of the credibility scale, compared with 55 percent for the 'guru'.
It seems to me the experience of the last two years supports this finding. Many people seem ready to put their own critical thinking in park and believe anyone with a “Dr.” in front of their name or even the pronouncements of unnamed “experts” even in the face of common sense, personal experience, and readily available data. And why is that? The researchers behind this paper have some ideas:
The authors think their results could be down to what's been previously called the 'Einstein effect', where trusted sources of information are given the benefit of the doubt because of the social credibility they possess.
To a certain extent this makes sense. Do I understand relativity or gravity waves or quantum mechanics? No. So I have to trust physicists when they talk about such things because much of the topic is beyond my grasp. Also, I don’t have my own particle accelerator with which to check their work. Which is a shame.
It’s a useful mental shortcut to trust experts in their fields because none of us has time or ability to become an expert in literally everything.1 But there is a less useful side to this phenomenon:
However, in some cases, the team suggests that incomprehensible statements from credible sources may be appreciated not just in spite of, but because of their incomprehensibility, demonstrated in the speech of some spiritual leaders – we can call this the 'Guru effect'.
This is where you decide the someone must know what they’re talking about because you don’t understand what they’re saying. And they might, but this is also how people end up joining cults.
The article notes that at some point in the past scientist surpassed spiritual and religious leaders in perceived credibility, as least as far as explaining how the physical world works. That may be. And in many ways, that’s a good thing — recall last week’s item about dunking witches.2 But I wonder to what extent the scientist / guru distinction is a false dichotomy. Is it possible that we’ve simply turned scientists into gurus? When “the science” is held up as beyond question, settled for all time, and dissenters are treated like heretics, it would seem that we have.
This study3, while on the surface amusing, does have deeper implications and reminds us that we ultimately have a responsibility to think for ourselves. Just because you don’t understand a statement doesn’t mean anyone else does either, including the person who said it.
We must also remember that you and I are starseeds of the quantum matrix. This life is nothing short of a refining spark of self-aware will. The goal of bio-electricity is to plant the seeds of synchronicity rather than yearning.4
Trust me. I have a science degree.5
It’s not like scientists would ever steer us wrong, right? An AI robot nanny will care for human embryos in artificial wombs
Scientists in China created an AI robot system that cares for human embryos growing in artificial wombs … The team, from Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology in China's eastern Jiangsu province, designed the robot to constantly monitor and care for human embryos by adjusting the nutrition, carbon dioxide, and other important factors in the artificial embryos. They claim the new robot-assisted artificial womb is a safer and more efficient method for growing embryos than a natural womb, though no human trials have been conducted so far.
Seems legit. And not at all the backstory to a future dystopian nightmare world.
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Except Leonardo da Vinci. But he’s dead.
On the other hand, there was that truckload of escaped murder monkeys three weeks ago.
Hoogeveen, S., Haaf, J.M., Bulbulia, J.A. et al. The Einstein effect provides global evidence for scientific source credibility effects and the influence of religiosity. Nat Hum Behav (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01273-8
That’s from the New Age Bulls**t Generator, which I highly recommend. Especially if you want to get into the guru business.
Okay, it’s a political science degree. But science is science — that’s just science!