Science Isn't Dogma, You're Just Stupid (Response to Formscapes) 

It's funny how here in the real world, instead of being silenced for proving science wrong, you get a nobel prize.

"scientists never point out problems with general relativity" Physicists everywhere: *talking about all the clashes between general relativity and quantum mechanics and trying to come up with a demonstrable theory for everything *

"Why would you trust science, which can sometimes be slightly wrong and then fixes itself, when you could instead be abjectly wrong all the time on purpose about everything?"

"Science makes mistakes, so we can't follow it. Believe the bogus that comes out of my mouth instead."

Prof Dave clearly has never read Calvin & Hobbes. Tigers are more than capable of firing guns (using water) at unsuspecting humans. Much more plausible than it seems.

"the victim was shot by a gun, how did a tiger do that?" is probably the best analogy for pseudoscience i've head

He criticizes scientists, claiming that their findings are published without proper scrutiny. Then, he criticizes scientists for applying proper scrutiny to outrageous claims.

I feel like this guy took a look at Warhammer 40 Mechanicus and decided that's how real scientists act.

>"For good reasons" >Gives no reasons at all How do people fall for this

I think most scientists are happy to send you a paper they wrote for free if you reach out to them asking directly, as well. They want people to read them!

As someone who recently got to do actual research in a lab for a university, can indeed confirm that most research is just, “here’s some stuff we did”, like I was just comparing 3D printer filaments

As an undergrad medical biologist who does research on molecular biology studying antibiotic resistance (NIH) I’m more then grateful for this video and the rest that you post. We need you in this fight against morons.

Also what these people fail to understand is that science is SUPPOSED to discredit new papers, that’s the idea. Thesis defense much?

"Science doesn't offer anyone delusions of being special." Freaking love this line.

As much as I typically am very supportive of your videos, Prof. Dave, I feel you’re glossing over some of the truly significant problems in research in the understandable desire to defend the scientific effort in general. The Replication Crisis in psychology, for example, is serious enough that Kahneman himself has written on its implications. And the findings of large-scale fraud, duplicated images, etc in highly cited papers by esteemed institutions & researchers, can not be understated. Is the scientific method still the best we have? Absolutely, 100% YES. Does it need to be much more stringently regulated? Also YES. Does more work need to be done to replicate existing work? YES. Do we need to keep pushing to pre-register all research projects and there goals and require publication of negative results, such that bad results aren’t covered up or ignored? Damn straight, Gorski’s project in that direction needs support from around the world. Does the scientific publishing industry, such as Elsevier, charge sickeningly exorbitant fees of universities, colleges, and other institutions that goes far beyond “just making a living” while severely restricting the availability of knowledge to the public? Hell yes, that’s why some countries and universities are fighting back to stop the insanity. Is Formscape wrong about almost everything? Of course they are. But don’t gloss over legitimate, large scale problems within research either. Edited to add: you did indeed pick a video that illustrates almost every anti-science talking point perfectly. And your rebuttal/takedown also covers all the answers THOROUGHLY.

My hypothesis is that these people go "I don't have time to figure out all the science behind everything, therefore nobody does, therefore everything is false". I really doubt any of them know what a scientist even does at work, they must think that science is a hobby or something.

I had to write a 50 page research paper in college, to graduate with honors. I don't think me researching virtual machines and virtual private networks was very religious lol.

31:41 It was Tony the Tiger. Evidence: 1. Tony technically doesn't have hair. 2. He can wear shoes leaving *seemingly* human footprints. 3. Being a huge cereal mascot, Tony makes lots of money and owns a house. He doesn't need to live in a zoo. 4. He has Human-like hands easily capable of holding and firing a gun. 5. Being an intelligent being, he can easily plant fingerprints and blood. Checkmate science.

I'm in the social science field, and we talk about variables that can affect studies all the time. It's so aggravating that people believe that we do our job without any thoughts of our own. There are many different opinions in sociology and anthropology where people in the same fields disagree with each other. It would be very boring to work with science if everyone had the same opinions on everything. 😅

"People don't waste billions of dollars on pride" well...

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy- oh shit, he's got a Glock!"

The irony of using a cellphone or computer to propagate science denial is appaling

As a grad student in theoretical physics and currently in a GR lab, you have no IDEA just how much beef there is between general relativity researchers. “No skepticism allowed” buddy even the experts are skeptical of each other. And that’s great! It’s encouraged so long as you can back yourself up! Sometimes that’s what conferences are for! Also lol’ing at this guy whining about dark matter. Get him in a MOND lab immediately

Mr. “Science is dogmatic” talks like someone who just learned big words and really wants to show them off

formscapes sounds like the title of a really bad mobile game

"Scientists are meanies because they don't think my unsupported, patently absurd ideas are as cool as i do". That's pretty much what I get from most of these "science is dogma" people.

There is just one point you made which I am compelled to dispute: "People don't waste billions of dollars for pride." Bruh have you checked the climate lately? The fossil fuel industry literally sold out the future of the entire human species to make a quantified abstraction of their personal "value" even more obscenely inflated than it already was. There are absolutely people looking to fund bogus 'studies' in order to manufacture 'facts' for their agenda, and threatening to pull funding for studies that don't fulfill it, or that can't be editorialized to fit it -- just look at the history of food industry lobbying and its effects on dietary guidelines. Of course, the solution to this problem is... everything else discussed in this video. Contrary to what 'community' might imply, the entire point of the scientific community is to facilitate scrutiny, discussion, and rebuttal from numerous unaffiliated research initiatives.

Could science denial be a universal problem that ends technological societies and prevents them from advancing enough to colonize the universe?

The thing is, even in an absurd hypothetical world where a radical new theory that upends most of known science is validated, we would then study and expand on that new theory the same way we do science now.

"Your inability to grasp science, is not a valid argument against it."

It must be so exhausting to believe so hard that reality is just a conspiracy.

"Science isn't Dogma" Until it is treated as such by those who simply repeat what they are told without exercising due diligence and research into what the science actually says. Yes, "science" in the sense of the way the culture and politicians can weaponize it, can be Dogmatic. Science, the tool and base of knowledge that tool helps us to generate, when used properly, isn't Dogma.

Oh! I remember that video! The comment section was full of comments like "when I was doing research for my post-doctorate degree, I was surrounded by people who would believe all kinds of disproven science. I was the only free thinkiner in a sea of sheeple and I just couldn't accept it" What did they research? No one could say. Where did they research? Not a peep. But they definitely did, they promise.

"People don't waste billions on pride" Elon Musk has entered the chat.

"People don't waste billions of dollars for pride. Period" *glances at Twitter* Weeeell....

There was a time when I thought Electric Universe was legit science, but that was when all I knew about it was its name. When they started trying to describe what it was is when I stopped thinking it was legit.

8:17 man, I didn't believe him at first, but now that he put a meme on screen, I do think he has a point.

To be fair, people (especially the Media) tend to phrase the word *Science* completely incorrectly, as if Science is a physical material or something. No idea whatever the guy was talking about btw.

“Look! Look! I saw a unicorn! … Prove it? Oh you’re one of those science dogmatists. It’s people like you who kill unicorns with your doubt.”

"I dont like science!!!" "Oh, you dont like cars, phones, hospitals, movies, or food and fresh water?" Friends, remind our anti-science cousins that the cell phone is the Science Bible. BAM

What these people doesn’t understand is that if they were right, they wouldn’t destroy science, they would be science. Ironically, the only thing that could prove science wrong is science. Scientific theories has proven other scientific theories is wrong several times. In short “Ideas that can’t prove a theory wrong, won’t prove it wrong” it is that simple.

The difference between science and dogma is pretty clear. Dogma - we believe x y and z because we're told to Science - we believe x y and z because of *insert supporting empirical data*

Tigers learning to use firearms would be a very serious development...

Publishing houses are a scam, period. It does not cost thousands of dollars to select and forward a paper to someone who then reviews it FOR FREE (you think those reviewers are paid? think again!). However that does not mean the process is a scam. So really the whole "booo publishers" is a complete misdirection.

I am a researcher in MINT. Just 3min into the video, but the paywall-access to scientific research is much debated and challenged in the science community as well, up to the point that a lot of open-access initiatives have started in recent years.

“I distrust science!” Said the people who live in dwellings with heating systems, then drive cars or otherwise ride vehicles over bridges, use the internet, watch TV and use cell phones.

Hey as a Physics/Chemistry teacher I absolutely LOVE your channel! I guess we are both going to keep on fighting the good fight on ignorance and academic laziness.

Take a shot every time he says "The science" you'll be dead before the first 30 minutes

23:21 "Those who are well-informed and well-educated believe certain things. I do not believe such things, because I am neither well-informed nor well-educated."

Is there dogma in science? of course. Science is done by people, and people can become dogmatic. To quote: "I represent science" Is science dogma? No, by definition. Dogmatic scientists are doing it wrong and I'd argue they shouldn't be called scientists anymore.

"Its not mainstream, so it must be true!" A very dangerous line of thinking that can lead you down some dark paths, and Im not just talking scientifically

I just noticed in the list of video suggestions that there is a video from Formscapes named "Dear Mr. Professor Dave; Science and Scientism" dated 2 months ago. Probably (well, most likely) a desperate attempt at damage control, but could be worth watching for some laughs...

As a representative of the schizophrenic wizard community, we in no way claim formscapes

love how his main argument against science is "correlation doesn't equal causation" like bro how do u think we figured that out LOL

My former best friend has gone off the deep end in the last 15 years, he used to be a really great guy, now he's into every conspiracy spouted by some bro in a backwards baseball cap. He's never been a smart guy but he craps on all the work done by brilliant people who have advanced civilization forward to make life easy for us. I've told him scientists love to prove other theories wrong, that's how things move forward but no, according to him they're all in a big conspiracy to fool the public for...what reason? Who benifits? People like my former friend are the targets for these people, and it's all for clicks, they make $ convincing them that they're not stupid, everyone else is.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned in the comments but reading back copies of the UK satirical magazine Private Eye would have revealed that most of Maxwell's corruption was known. The history of Private Eye and Cap'n Bob as they referred to him is interesting.

Dave:"People don't waste billions of dollars for pride" Elon Musk: "Hold my beer"

“Science is bad because it doesn’t accept my unscientific ideas!”.

After seeing this video in my recommended for over a month, I finally got around to watching it in full, and while I don't anticipate that you'll consider my criticisms, I wanted to at least formalize them for myself. I'll start off by saying I entirely agree with the content of your arguments, in fact I never didn't believe them, some points here or there I might have argued differently, some other points I thought you did a really good job with. That actually fits into my first critique, which is for anyone who regularly watches your content, or is already thinking critically about science, most of the arguments are trivial enough to not warrant an hour video response. Everyone who will actually listen to you is probably familiar with the scientific method, and well aware of the idea of accepting the most plausible explanation for a given phenomenon. I would though make an exception for your argument on replicability, I think that was actually a good point that I hadn't heard before. Either way that leads me to my second, and major critique, and that is how you effectively demean those who might be inclined to believe something like electric universe. Even in your title you refer to them as stupid, and I can't agree with that. Plenty of people who are very much competent, if not genuinely intelligent in their life, and work will fall into things like genuine conspiracy theories, or even things like cults, due to situations beyond their control. Not everyone grows up with adequate education, or has their life centred enough around science to dismiss claims of dogma, or corruption. Demeaning these people comes off as arrogant, but more so ignorant, to their potential circumstances. More so still, you not only baselessly insult these people, but you drive them away by doing this, you are creating division, and that really is something that someone who parades for scientific literacy should be interested in avoiding. From my point of view as a student pursuing academia, I look at you, as while having cogent points about science end, to end, miss the goal of scientific literacy entirely, and instead seek to preach to the choir of people that already agree with you. The result leads to the opposite, and you end up driving more people away from science, and confidence in it, which is precisely what someone like Formscapes does with his videos, just in the inverse manner. If you have actually read this, and by some miracle end up agreeing with me I urge you, it is not impossible to change the minds of people who even staunchly disagree with you, but you need to treat them with respect, and empathy, even just that I guarantee you will convince people, thank you for your time.

I'm a computer scientist. How did we learn how exactly a computer works? We designed one, down to the level of individual wires. How did we learn how machine learning works? We programmed stuff - from simple movie recomendations up to neural networks capable of finding various objects in video. How did we learn how to create videogame AI? We made bots for various games including SCBW, UT2004, SMW and other. This is how university works, you're guided but in the end pretty much all of the knowledge is proven to you or straight up use to do something. No teacher will ever tell you "my source is: trust me bro".

“heres some stuff we did, toss it on the pile of human knowledge” sounds so cool

The idea that you can 'debunk' the natural sciences by pointing to the problem of 'value judgement' in 'social science' is beyond ridiculous and just demonstrates either ignorance, malice or both.

In some ways, there was at one time a dogmatic science. It was the teaching of Aristotle's works on Nature (Physics) in universities at the time of Galileo. Students learned and regurgitated what Aristotle wrote and did not test anything. Galileo questioned and tested some of Aristotle's assertions about motion and the heavens. The results showed Aristotle to be wrong on some things. That, to me, is why Galileo was one of the first true scientists using the experimental method and publishing his results for others to study and try to replicate. It is alleged that once Galileo set up his telescope and directed it to show skeptical Aristotelians things like the phases of Venus of irregular edges of the moon or Jupiter's moons, all of which contradicted Aristotelian ideas. One Aristotelian is described as refusing to look, justifying this by saying, "If it shows me what I know it must, then it has shown me nothing I did not already know. If it contradicts what I know then it must be an illusion." I think Galileo was persecuted more because he upset the Aristotelians rather than the church. I suspect they used their influence to convince the church to attack Galileo. But since then, science has generally rid itself of doctrine and dogma in place of the current best evidence and confirmed hypotheses.

"Science isn't dogma. You're just stupid." Simple and direct. I love it!

"Unobservable entities like black holes" Um... we observed one just a few years back. Was global news.

'Not available to the general public" isn't true. I can wander into my local university library and read a hard copy of any journal I want. With a little effort, I can access a computer and read any of the important journals.

"people don't waste billions of dollars for pride, period" .... Have you heard of Elon Musk? Otherwise in 100% agreement with this awesome video.

"Science isn't Dogma, you're just stupid!" needs to be on a t-shirt.

“People don't waste billions of dollars for pride. Period.” Yes. Yes they do.

56:51 Bringing out the kids toy as an analogy is absolutely diabolical and amazing 😂

I'm glad there are people like you, who can express so clearly, what most scientific people (at least me) can only think but not phrase in a way that makes it clear, that those people have no idea about how the universe works, whatsoever. And also no idea how to evolve theories correctly.

The assertion that science is dogmatic is pure projection. Such people -- and I've run into a few -- witness the passion, vehemence, and (sometimes) arrogance of scientists, and subconsciously graft their own dogmatism and authoritarianism onto them.

I love how he complains about a Replication Problem within science, but every single "experiment" done outside of mainstream science can never be repeated ever; the steps are never even given on how to do it in a coherent way.

Prof Dave, the phrase "trust the science" is also a favourite mantra of politicians as well as deniers. There's undoubtedly a correlation between the two, I just haven't done any research on it.

The way he says "the science" like it's a slur.

“This notion that science education = indoctrination, is the most transparently idiotic narrative imaginable, exclusively peddled and believed by people who have never taken a single science course in their entire lives” That is the most succinct way I’ve ever heard that put.

I can still hear my Jesuit math/biology teacher Father F yelling, 'SHOW YOUR WORK!' Some prople are just so far down the rabbit hole that there is no more light.

The scientific method is so easy, and yet so many people doubt it. It's literally what you do all the time. Person A: "Yo look at this cool new trick I found!" Person B: "That's cap, let me try" Then, either Person A or Person B is found right or wrong, or perhaps both are right or both are wrong depending on the scenario. You've done this before, I'm sure you have. Someone else tells you there's some trick in a game you both are playing, you try it, and it either works or doesn't. Isn't it so simple and obvious that this method of "alright, let me try" is valid? Now imagine this, but about serious topics, and it's not just two people. Does it become invalid? Of course not! It only become stronger because more people try and say yay or nay. Scientific illiteracy is going to murder our species.

I remember you saved my chemistry grade with your oxidation and reduction half-reactions under basic/acidic conditions video, and even some calculus material, so seeing this kind of video is very funny. Gonna save it in watch later. Thanks for professing.

As a PhD from the third world, I don't think it is a stretch, at all, to call the academic publishing industry a racket. Never knew a scientist who saw a dime for their published article or reviewing work. Publishers leech on this "free" work, which is paid for by universities, grant agencies and often by the public. Proof of that is the widespread acceptance and acclaim for sci-hub among scientists.

To be fair, scienfitic publishing really does need to change. It is unfair that the general public does not have access to many new sceintific papers, it is an affront to progress that researchers (and their university/company) feel the need to 'publish or perish' (and the fact that to many, a negative result is about as good as no result at all - despite negative results being extremely important in science), and it is simply a waste of money in the end - for everyone involved. A simple way to prove this is the case is to simply ask any scientist who has published an article for it directly. Almost always, with no questions asked, they will give it to you. Why? Because publishers don't propagate knowledge and they don't funnel money to the people making new knowledge. There is absolutely zero benefit for any scientist to have their papers published, other than the fact our culture built on publishing will simply ignore their paper otherwise, because we've convinced ourselves (with the publishers help, of course) that a paper that isn't published is as good as a crackpot's proof of the Reimann hypothesis. There is something to be said for moderation (in the 'online forum moderator' sense, not the 'not too much not to little' sense), but I don't think such a thing would cost anything close to what publishers make. If anything it should be a government run thing, or a community run thing (I mean, that's what publishers do anyway, they don't pay the people doing peer review - why don't we just cut out the middleman?)

this guy reminds me of ben shapiro. he just uses big words hoping that his audience won’t understand half of what he says and just accept the other half as fact because they think he’s smart

"Yes, pseudoscience is charlatanry masquerading as science. Like Deepak Chopra, whom he flashes from this famous clip, where Sam Harris shits all over him to thunderous applause." 😆😄😆😂🤣

Literally the entire point of the scientific pursuit is an endless cycle of fact-checking each other to the cutting edge of knowledge. The entire point of pseudoscience, in contrast, is to "Yes, and-" each other into dizzying new levels of fractal madness.

_we should not confuse (...) confidence with correctness_ - golden words

Prof Dave, I have read and subsequently watched a few videos which claim that big G changes over time and that these measurements are averaged and then are reported as if everyone, everywhere, measured the same gravitational constant. If that is true, might it be possible that big G actually varies due to some unknown external factors. What are your thoughts, and might you release a video someday on the subject?

If these guys spent half the creative energy they use to make these videos on writing a book or something, I swear to god they would be best-selling authors. I gotta give them one thing, their ability to invent stories and make them almost believable is fascinating and also quite sad they never actually use that creativity to benefit anyone.

This exact video showed up in my feed recently and angered me beyond comprehension. I am so glad to see you responding to it now. Thank you, Dave.

Anyone who says science is unscientific and dogmatic has never talked to real scientists before. Scientists dont all believe in the same thing and the academia is far from a unified consensus.

Is that Ben Shapiro narrating? As a soverign citizen I will no longer obey the laws of gravity, leverage or motion. I will toss the shackles that bond me to the earth

The perfect clip to skewer Tour is that spluttering insistence that SELECTION could not be occurring in biogenesis because there was no CONSCIOUSNESS to "do the selecting". He thinks someone has to PICK which life forms thrive?

Replace each time Formscapes said “Science” and replace it with “God” and it almost works.

If I had a dollar for every time you said “Science isn’t dogma, you’re just stupid”, I would be out of debt in an instant.

Thank you for destroying this non-believer, Science Overlord Dave. Now I can back to quantuming my theories and generaling my relativities with my fridge and lightbulb.

I love this devastating, 'industry' destroying 'replication crisis' that I've literally never heard of as a STEM major and someone who pays attention to mainstream scientific discourse.

I know you really enjoy making educational content and I love to see it but the little goblin inside my brain loves your debunk/dunking content

I know it's nothing new but this whole, "Scientists are dogmatic because they don't believe I can communicate telepathically with my cat," routine is so exhausting.

Science is dogma... Dogma nuts

I've worked in biotech. Not as a scientist. But as IT assisting the scientists. If there is any flaw in science it is that it is almost entirely driven by capitalism now. This gets in the way of the free flow of information when a company forbids it's researchers from publishing until after a patent is granted. Which can be very long time. I've also seen research that would have been life changing for millions of people get canceled because it is not seen as a path to profitability. This is in the very competitive biotech world. I'm sure there is plenty of research out there not tied to IPOs and such.

What's even more ironic, is that it's actually the propagation of pseudoscience that is politically motivated, since an uneducated and unthinking populace makes for more reliable voters to some politicians.