Is science the best response to anti-science?

When someone is on an anti-science rant ... just remind them what science is.

Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

That being said, someone who is anti-science, is actually pro-stupidity. Science is just collected knowledge.

I will give you an answer from science. No. Knowledge is a "public good." An important element of public goods is that markets under provision them. That is to say, truth isn't very valuable but lies sell.

You best respond to anti-science by changing the framing of the question and keeping the solution within their myth system.

Jimmy Carter provides a really great solution to this. He has done an enormous amount of work eradicating the guinea worm. Most people do not realize that President Carter is also a nuclear engineer. When the Three Mile Island accident happened he was able to have intelligent conversations with the scientists and engineers on the ground about what was really going on. Indeed, he had participated in deconstructing a nuclear power plant after it had failed while an engineer. He knows science.

One of the simplest solutions to eradicating the guinea worm is to filter the water. He had come across a tribe whose watering hole was sacred. There was no way to convince them that this ancient watering hole could possibly make them sick. It was holy. They showed them the guinea worms under microscopes and allowed them to believe that aliens had invaded this sacred watering hole. The tribe could act against alien invaders, but not sacred water.

The tribe no longer has problems.

You ask why "lies sell," it is simple. One of the biggest losers in this process are shaman. They would provide all kinds of services related to the infestation. None of them worked, but they were paid well. Lacking a better solution, people try anything. Some people make money and they do believe they are helping. They are not empiricists, they are shaman. They don't have a framework to measure efficacy in. They are sincere, at least most, and they don't realize they are causing harm.

When someone assigns a zero probability to a solution ex ante, it is pointless to argue it with evidence since the posterior distribution will still have a zero percent efficacy regardless of actual efficacy. That is just Bayes law.

If you want to solve a problem on an anti-science post, reframe it if your audience is the author. If the audience is a troll, then use science and tell the truth so that other readers will read the truth.

Mercer how about you answer my question and Doctor Stephen Meyers question of not being able to invoke evolutionary mechanisms to explain the specified complex arrangements of nucleotide bases alongside the dna strand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLeWh8Df3k8

Mathew I would say old earth creationism/intelligent design is more proven then the myth of evolution

I am afraid that your assumption that they want an answer is false. They do not. They simply want to try to show that science is somehow wrong with some silly cut and paste from a creationist website.

Their post is for other creationists not for scientists.

It is sad but it is true. They have no interest in the truth only in defending their belief however irrational that may make them.

p.s Matthew's answer to this question is typical. He just has a point of view and puts it down regardless of whether it is factual or not without any supporting argument. That is why it is called blind faith.

I don't think flooding the science section with nonsensical rants is a good idea. While I'd prefer it if they went to the science section if they actually cared about the truth, it's quite clear that most of them don't.

There is no such thing as "anti-science"

Only the atheist minority thinks there is an enmity between science and religion.

The religious know their argument is with atheists and their atheism, that attempts to highjack the credibility of science, because atheism has none of its own with anyone in the world except atheists..

Church of the FSM is particularly good on the technology front. of course that's slightly difficult to look in a binocular microscope once you have an eyepatch, so FSMers tend to bypass in greater for astronomy.

All true science confirms the Bible and the fact that God made everything.

Con-Science...

Those who say homosexuality is a choice are not only anti-science but also anti-common sense.