Scientific American has a piece on the differing opinions between scientists and the rest of us on various issues (some political, some not).
The biggest gap that I am on the commoner side of things is world population (23 points). After that, it’s offshore drilling (20 points), vaccination requirements (18 points), and fracking (8 points). All of these are subject to nuance, however. It’s possible that on the world population question it could be hashed out over a beer into more agreement than a boolean answer allows for.
So where do y’all fall on the side of the commoner and against those pencilnecks in lab coats?
Category: Newsroom
About the Author
7 Responses to Scientists vs Commoners
Leave a Reply
please enter your email address on this page.
I disagree with them on the effects of increasing world population, but then that’s a social scientific question that “scientists” (which without qualifier for some reason always means natural scientists) have been getting wrong for close to half a century now, at least since Garret Hardin’s 1968 article “The Tragedy of the Commons.” So, frankly, natural scientists’ opinion on that should be viewed as commoner opinion, not expert opinion.
Agreed, though had they framed it as a resource shortage, I’d rate it as more possible. Would still probably disagree, though because technology is awesome.
Shortage of some specific resources, sure. An overall resource shortage, no.
The question to me is a shortage of critical and irreplaceable resources. Water and (affordable) energy in particular.
Plenty of water, I think; the issue is distribution. Energy’s a political problem, not a technical one. We have coal sufficient for a couple centuries and nuclear for many more.
I’m hoping that energy solves both the water and and water distribution problems through desalination and pumps.
Yes.