Alternet has interviewed Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker [1]on the credibility of science. Pinker’s answer bears on many of the discussions we’ve had at this site. In the following excerpt, Pinker distinguishes the scientific method from the “method” of politics, though his logic applies to most things that are not science (e.g., religion):
Jeremy Adam Smith: Americans seem to hold science and scientists in high esteem. Do you think this trust is justified?
Steven Pinker: I think it is. Not because scientists are necessarily trustworthy people, any more so than anyone else, but because the institutions of science are set up to reward finding the truth and to punish hiding it. So, as a matter of self-interest, scientists are nudged toward the truth. They suffer a loss of prestige and esteem if someone else fails to replicate an experiment they have used to back up a claim.
Likewise, if there is some obvious flaw in an experiment or in an argument, the mechanisms of peer review will ensure that they don’t get their next grant or don’t get their next paper published. And they will be humiliated if the paper does come out and the flaw is exposed afterward. If they say something patently false during a public meeting, there will be consequences.
In contrast, I think politicians have low credibility because our institutions at present don’t reward truth-telling among them. Quite the contrary. It’s easy to get away with blatant lies and misleading euphemism and doublespeak. So the incentive structure favors bending the truth among politicians, more so than one finds in the institutions of science.
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