I think the problem is that the public is like a reinforcement learner, and won’t believe claims that are based on long chains of reasoning. Rather, the public and society at large tends to wait for the thing in question to actually happen, so that they have “proof”.
Physics is OK because it has repeatedly proved both its value in making novel and astounding predictions that were then proved correct, and because those predictions had important practical consequences. Though there are clear exceptions where dreadful public epistemology has impacted physics: overreaction to the dangers of nuclear power being one.
I think there’s a fundamental point about how public epistemology works that I want to make here: the public operates like a dumb agent that is paranoid about not being tricked, and demands real physical proof of things when the bayesian probability with respect to a reasonable prior is already 99.9999… %. Widespread denial of evolution is one case; you can’t show someone an ape evolving into a human.
the public operates like a dumb agent that is paranoid about not being tricked
Good point! Perhaps part of the problem is that the public has been subjected to at least two millenia of warnings of existential risks—by the clergy… That’s long enough, and the false alarms have been frequent enough and intense enough, that perhaps we have even genetically evolved some extra skepticism about them.
But do we (i.e. the human race in general) have any more skepticism about such claims than we used to? Most people still do believe in religions that include some form of eschatology.
It might just be that scientific talk about existential risk seems like a competing meme to religious people (you’re not allowed to believe in something that says the world won’t end the way your religion says it will), while non-religious people may tend to see discussion of global catastrophe as in the genre of apocalyptic religion.
(Then again, global warming doesn’t seem to have that problem, so maybe it’s just a marketing issue...)
I think the problem is that the public is like a reinforcement learner, and won’t believe claims that are based on long chains of reasoning. Rather, the public and society at large tends to wait for the thing in question to actually happen, so that they have “proof”.
Physics is OK because it has repeatedly proved both its value in making novel and astounding predictions that were then proved correct, and because those predictions had important practical consequences. Though there are clear exceptions where dreadful public epistemology has impacted physics: overreaction to the dangers of nuclear power being one.
I think there’s a fundamental point about how public epistemology works that I want to make here: the public operates like a dumb agent that is paranoid about not being tricked, and demands real physical proof of things when the bayesian probability with respect to a reasonable prior is already 99.9999… %. Widespread denial of evolution is one case; you can’t show someone an ape evolving into a human.
Good point! Perhaps part of the problem is that the public has been subjected to at least two millenia of warnings of existential risks—by the clergy… That’s long enough, and the false alarms have been frequent enough and intense enough, that perhaps we have even genetically evolved some extra skepticism about them.
But do we (i.e. the human race in general) have any more skepticism about such claims than we used to? Most people still do believe in religions that include some form of eschatology.
It might just be that scientific talk about existential risk seems like a competing meme to religious people (you’re not allowed to believe in something that says the world won’t end the way your religion says it will), while non-religious people may tend to see discussion of global catastrophe as in the genre of apocalyptic religion.
(Then again, global warming doesn’t seem to have that problem, so maybe it’s just a marketing issue...)