The natural world is really complicated, and that's why science is challenging. The meteo often pays a lot of attention to surprising studies because after all, it's not a story if it's not surprising. But that means that the meteo are actually biasing what they report. They're cherry picking things that are surprising, counter intuitive, weird. So there's this weird attentiont rell pressure. We want to be excited. We want to pay attention to the new, exciting things. And we don't want to be the guy standing round saying, i don't believe einstein.
In this interview, based on her landmark book, Why Trust Science?, historian of science Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength — and the greatest reason we can trust it. Drawing vital lessons from cases where scientists got it wrong, Oreskes shows how consensus is a crucial indicator of when a scientific matter has been settled, and when the knowledge produced is likely to be trustworthy.