Day 349 - Science or Not - Think!

Something to keep in mind when considering and relying on science. Just because there is a study proving something, it does not mean that the study is necessarily accurate, or that it applies to the general public. I am not against science. Want to make this clear. All I am saying is that we still have to use critical thinking. When I was at UPenn, we read and discussed many studies on well-being and most of them were done on… Ivy league students. As you might be guessing, Ivy league students and their lives or thinking or behaviors are not indicative of how most of the people in this world live; all these studies would be informative of nothing else but Ivy league’s students’ little worlds and the usually wealthy families they come from. So, when you read about: "this or that is so, because a study says that this is so… before you rely on such statements or trust them blindly – learn more about the whole set up of the study. When scientist want to prove something, they are usually pretty good at setting up just the science experiment that would help them arrive where they want to arrive.

This morning, I was a guest in a presentation about the 7 Principles of Persuasion. Listening to the speaker and then the comments made me think about how so much of behavioral sciences is based on the values of the Western world. I think that persuading people that live and have been raised on the West is different than people that lived in communist countries, or people that have been raised in countries with completely different value systems and lifestyles.

When it comes to science, let’s also not forget how politics influence science, how scientist are being funded, how big business is involved in science, and how science is being used in public policy, etc. Let’s never also forget that science was used as the backbone and the justification of slavery and the Holocaust.