#1956 The Weaponisation Of "Science Tells Us"... - Harps

But you probably know because you read the post or you read the synopsis or the title, So of course I'm talking about the weaponization of the term science tells us. I feel like, I don't know how you feel, but I feel like, in twenty twenty five, we've never fucking heard that statement, that cliche, that expression, that's sentence. More often, where people to shut something down, or to manipulate someone or control someone, or to win an argument or end something,

they go, well, science tells us. And then when you do dig a little deep, you go which science, And invariably they don't know which science? And if even if I'm trying to be smart ass, here I just think that we need to be really clear about what we're saying and what we're listening to, and what we give our time and energy and focus. Because when someone says something to you, even including me, I always say, don't don't trust me or believe me just because I say something,

Go and put it under the microscope. If you think what I say is interesting or maybe relevant or even wildly mind blowing, still go test it. You still need to learn for yourself. You still need to understand things and think critically and make decisions and discuss your own

purpose path through all of that. With that in mind, the whole kind of I don't know that the habit that seems to be sweeping through social media or the regular occurrence of people just not just social media, but in conversations and mainstream media, out and about, you know, everywhere where people kind of just think that they're going to win or prove that they're right by prefacing or ending something with you know, science tells us or that

science well, that's what we know, or that's what the research says. But when pressed, people generally can't cite the research. People generally can't tell you how many people were in the study, Where was the research done, who did the research, who funded the research, When was the research. Was it done in nineteen seventy four or was it done last week? Tell me about the research, tell me about the science. And the truth is ninety nine percent? Maybe the truth.

See that's me making sit up. My feeling is that probably around ninety nine percent of people don't actually know who did the research, where the research was done, what the protocol was, if it was funded, if the researchers or the investors in the research, or the funders of the research had a particular commercial interest in the outcome. Well, of course they do. That's why they fucking fund it. Mostly, And so I don't think and this is not me

disrespecting science. I love science. I'm finishing a science doctorate. You know that, I've got another degree in exercise science. I love science. But guess what science is flawed. Science is not a perfect thing. People do science. People do science who have got agendas. People do science who get things wrong. People do science who then interpret the data the way that they think the data should be interpreted, because quite often they might want the data or the

results to align with their initial hypothesis. So that their theory, their idea, their intention has proven correct, because that gives them more credibility, makes them feel better about themselves. Of course, now am I saying everyone who does science is unethical and selfish and not at all, not at all. But what I am saying is that we need to be more aware and conscious. And you may not be a

scientific person. I suggest most of my listeners, not particularly which is not good or bad, but probably don't have a science degree or a science background. I know some of you do, some of you don't. Doesn't matter either way, and whether or not you have a science background or not, the same applies. You know. In twoenty twenty five, science tells us like science tells us. That's not just a statement. It's not just a statement. It's a sales pitch. It's

a power play. It's a psychological Jedi mind trick all rolled into one, trying to coerce or manipulate or convince someone of something. People don't say science tells us to invite a conversation. They say it to end a conversation. They don't say it to explore complexity and nuance, but rather to shut it down. They don't say it to illuminate truth, but rather to wear a lab coat of credibility while often peddling an ideology, an influence, or even to sell you a fucking shake, or to sell you

a product or a program or a pill. Science tells us, Science tells that we need more of this, and I'm selling this, and statistics tell us that this. Many people are undernourished because they're not having this, or they're whatever. It is right. It's like the ultimate mic drop. Science tells us this is the best. Therefore I'm right, you're wrong, you should do this. Translation, I've outsourced my thinking to an article I didn't read, from a study I didn't

really understand by researchers. I don't know any uni I've never heard of. But nonetheless, I'm going to say this thing, and it makes me sound credible. It makes me sound smart. Now, is everybody who says that that. No, Some people go science tells us and they know they've done. That's cool and good on them. But I think that many of us who are consumers, many of us who are students, many of us who are on the journey. It is

really easy when you want something to be true. You know, when you live in an echo chamber of belief or idea or ideology or philosophy or behavior. You live in an echo chamber that is moving in a certain direction or embracing certain like I said, ideas or philosophies, then it's very likely that you will pay attention to the science in inverted commas that suits your argument. And while that is very understandable and I'm not being critical, that

is part of the human experience. We want to be right. We don't want to be wrong. We want to belong to a group. Part of the cost of belonging to the group is that we all align and conform and think the same. But the truth is that science is not much of science is not set in stone. It's evolving. It's the way that we analyze it and understand it and interpret it and test it is dynamic, you know.

It's if we're being honest, science tells us is often almost like a rhetorical sleight of hand to impress people, to impress the uninformed, or to manipulate the undecided, or to win an argument with confidence and haughty words like that word, haughty words not evidence, to sell products that wouldn't stand up without the white coat. Cosplay and to deceive or manipulate people who trust the word scientific more than they do their own gut or intuition or understanding.

And people use it to control narratives by masking authority as objectivity. But the truth is that science is not that. Science is not dictatorial. Science is curious, Science is messy sciences. Some of science is uncertain and evolving, as I said, whereas fake science speak is rigid. It's convenient, and it often comes with a call to action or an offer or a discount code. So when someone says the science tells us we need to pause, We need to go

what science? Which science? Who did that? Whose interpretation of the data? How strong is the evidence? How many people were in the study? Did it have ethical approval? Were there twelve people in the study? Were there twelve thousand people in the study? Is there a conflict of interest? Who was financing it? And does it actually apply to me? Because in the wrong hands, science really becomes less about truth and knowledge and discovery more about disguised persuasion and manipulation.

When I first started my PhD, I was early days, and I'm still not a great academic or researcher. By the way, but early days, I mean, you know, most of you know what my study is about. It's about metaperception and metaacuracy, understanding how people see us. But it really insects with all mind stuff, meta meta cognition, thinking about thinking, theory of mind, thinking about or understanding or

having an insight into how other people think. And then metaperception, understanding how others see us, and all of that stuff. But it's all around mind stuff, and it's all it all falls loosely under the banner of social awareness, self awareness, situational awareness. And so in the first week also I can't remember, but it was very very early days. I

mean this was twenty nineteen November one I started. So I'm going to say in the first week or weeks, I decided that I would see what the research, what the literature said. Remember, and I'm looking at papers and research up to about fifty years old, So from the seventies until now, I tried to get a definition of or clarity around self awareness. And I thought, what is I have my own idea of what self awareness is, but what does the science say? What does the science

say about self awareness? So I had to look in a whole bunch of different kind of areas of psychology and human behavior, and organizational psych and social psych and clinical psych and all the psychs and all the different kind of departments or areas that are researched, and I reckon in an hour, I found in the science, in the science, in the research, in the highest level PhD and post doc research, ten definitions, give or take, of

self awareness, and none of them were the same. There was intersecting kind of ideas, and there was some consistency, some inconsistency, some familiarity between the definitions. But what was an Of course, now I look back and I go I was naive to think that there would be one unifying kind of definition of self awareness that everyone in science and everyone in research, no matter which area of research they are in, what area of research they're in,

everybody uses, Oh, Craig, here's the definition that. Well, of course, it doesn't work like that. And so even when we look at something which is really fundamental, and all of us have an idea, we all have heard the term self awareness, we all have a somewhat of an understanding of what self awareness is. And even with something as common and familiar as that term, the science says different things.

The science says different things, so you go, well, fuck, if we can't even have a total convergence or consensus on what the fuck self awareness is, no wonder everything else is fucking messy. So you know the the just trust the science, that idea, just just trust the science. Well, who's fucking science? And by the way, nah, there's a big fat nah, like, listen to the science, but make sure it's science. Make sure or read the science, but

make sure it's science. Make sure that it's not someone else's story about someone else's research, or someone else's idea of someone else's research. And by the time you get it, it's fifteenth hand and it's not science at all. It's a story about something that that person is fifteen steps away from what started as research ended up fifteen versions later as something else, with the person still telling us

this is what the science says. So we need we need to keep in mind a few things that I want to share with you, so one in a particular order of importance. So trust the science needs an asterisk because science evolves. So what's true today? We go, well, this is scientifically valid today, but tomorrow it might not be because it might be partially or totally disproven, and that's not a flaw, that's actually a strength of science.

But it also means that we shouldn't treat our current findings as gospel, as unequivocal as we well, we might find out. We might find out one day that this is this is partially true, but there's more to it than we originally thought. As we tend to, we tend to. I guess there are some areas of science if we're talking about physics and so on. But even like when we think about what we used to go, oh, this

is how the brain works. Even twenty years ago, people are like no, Like that was hard science, that was neuroscience. There was like this is what the brain does, this is what it doesn't do, this is how it works. Now in twenty five we're going fark on hell, hands in the air, emoji, who knew that the brain does all this other shit as well? And by the way,

have you heard about the gut biome? Oh my god, right, what was science around how our gut now microbiome worked twenty years ago is completely different now, And it's not

because anyone had bad intentions necessarily. Twenty years ago, But now a light's been turned on more research, more funding, more understanding, more awareness, and what we currently know about the brain and the gut, biome and the human body broadly speaking, and physiology broadly speaking, and medicines and dare I say it, even fucking vaccines right what we currently

think to be absolute science. Some of that may be much of that in fifty years or even five years, but definitely in fifty years, twenty years, people will look back and go, what the fuck were those dummies thinking? What were they fucking thinking? Now that's people who are currently running around beating their chest and pointing their finger and telling the world that the science says this. Science

is important, Science matters, Science is crucial. But we need to we need to also be open minded and aware and understanding and humble in the way that we research

and talk and think. Knowing that much of what and I've said this before, but wind the clock back two hundred years and all of the stuff or much of the stuff that we know and do and understand today with science and research and technology and medicine, it would have it would have been completely fucking in their minds two hundred years ago, impossible, not like not improbable, impossible, inconceivable, inconceivable that I can be sitting in my office today

talking to you, and then you have a device and tomorrow you're listening to me. You've got this little thing in your ear and you're hearing me, and you're being inspired or confused or educated or informed or whatever the

fuck you're being by me. Well, that can't happen. But it happens, right because as technology and science and understanding and researching all of these things evolve, there now understanding of what is possible, what is right, what humans have the potential to do, be create, It changes, It changes, So science evolves, understanding evolves. Number two why we shouldn't

trust the science. Cherry picking is like rampant people often cite a study or part of a study that suits their agenda while ignoring the full body of evidence or contradictory findings. I remember years ago reading two books simultaneously. I think one was called from Memory. This is a long time ago. It was about two thousand, so twenty five years ago, fucking you fuck. One was called protein Power. I think that's what it was called. And I forget

the other one. But essentially I back in the old days, I was often reading two or three books at once, right, i'd have a book work, I'd have a book at home. I remember on the same day reading something in the first book Protein Power, and something in the second book, which basically these two books had almost diametrically opposed viewpoints

or science. And I remember reading one saying essentially, I think we need two to two point five grams of protein per kilo of body weight or something like that. I can't exactly remember what, and then reading later in the day in this other book that essentially the opposite or very very different ideas or recommendations or science. And then when I went to the back of the book, they both were references, they both had site, they're both referenced,

they both had citations. I went into the back of the book and I went and I found the research. I'm like, wow, both of these things that these authors are saying are very different. Firstly, they're talking about the same thing but with completely different science, and both of

their claims are backed with science. And that was one of the first times for me as a young scientist and trainer and want to be researcher and understander of stuff that I went ah, it's like somebody pulled back a curtain because I was probably a little bit in. The science says that, So that's what it is. Just like for a long time, and you've heard this way too many times, but it doesn't go away and it

doesn't stop being true. I taught the food pyramid for a decade or more, maybe two decades, I don't know, way too fucking long, because I believe the science and the science was, well, this is the best way to eat. You know, there's been lots of work and research done on this, and blah blah blah bah and high high carbohydrate, low fat, you know, high sugar at times. You know, a lot of this and a little of that, and have it in this order and have this much of that.

That that's the way to eat. And by the way, we know it's the way to eat because the science tells us. Now in twenty twenty five, we know different, we know different, and maybe in two thousand and thirty five that there will be I'm almost certain there'll be a change in thinking or a change in understanding or awareness, or there will be new data or new interpretations of data. Okay, Idea number three around this trusting the science you know

carefully is is the space between correlation and causation. And so causation is obviously if I do this, then that happened. So I cause that if I if I jump out the window now and I jump onto the concrete and I'm upper floor and in my sixty year old body, I land in my bare feet, well I'm probably going to break an ankle or create a stress fracture, you know. So that's I did this thing and I created this outcome. That's causation. Correlation is most of you know, this of course,

is where two things might be linked. They might be related or associated, but it doesn't mean that one causes the other. But what a lot of people will do in the interests of convincing people, or selling people, or coercing or manipulating people, or let's be honest, bullshitting deceiving people, is that they will use something which might be correlated, but instead of talking about correlation, they will talk about causation.

They will say, people who do this up in this state, inferring that if you do that, like if you don't need enough of this, then this then you will have low bone density. Well, maybe there's a correlation, but maybe low bone density is about twenty six variables, not the one single one that you're talking about. So we need to be really mindful of and careful of understanding the

space between causation and correlation. Number four on our list is scientific literacy varies, and so often people who are talking about stuff, or even people who are analyzing research, lack the I need to be careful here, but the training I guess to evaluate to evaluate research quality, so often dodgy or poorly designed studies can be used to justify claims. I remember, so there was a I won't say what it is, but this this is interesting. The other day I saw a product which is for old people.

I mean old people, I mean people in their eighties and beyond. And it was a it was a product, it was a food supplement, and it said this increases muscle mass by something like two to three percent in eight weeks. Increases And I'm like, well, what what so drinking something builds muscle And I'm thinking, what about all the other variables? And so I went down the whole chat GPT and Claude rabbit hole trying to find the science behind that claim. And it was a and was

there any research? Oh my god, like was the research it? It was so dodgy, it was so it was so inadequate for what we would call scientifically valid research and data and interpretation, you know, of the data. And if ten out of ten is great science, this was a one out of ten research thing. There were very few people involved in the study most scientific studies, depending on

the kind of study. But we want at the bare minimum, we want one hundred people involved in research if we're going to be using humans in our research to make it somewhat valid. Hopefully more, but you know, so we just need to be careful of and aware of the size of the research or the number of participants in research. Who did it, where it was done, and it was an academic institution or was it Brian at Hisloody Personal

Training Center in Bundua shout out to Brian. I wonder if there is a Brian who has a pet center in Bundua or Scott doesn't matter who it was. But you know, what I'm saying Number five is that science is often used as a weapon, right And I spoke about that before, where people weaponize these things to win basically to win to shut down a conversation or to shut down any other kind of thinking or perspective. And part of that I think is well, obviously because they win,

they want to control. They want to win, control, manipulate. And also you find that with some people, their science, like what they think, what they espouse, what they preach, is very intertwined with their identity. Now, if you have a scientific perspective or viewpoint that is strong, and you are a big advocate for that, then your identity, your sense of self and confidence and who you are and

what you're teaching and how you're perceived is intertwined with that. Well, when a particular scientific viewpoint is intertwined with your identity, then that makes you pretty much unteachable. That makes you pretty much unteachable when it comes to unlearning and relearning should something new or different or better arise on the scientific horizon. But in truth, real science encourages critical thinking.

It encourages us to consider the fact that maybe we got it wrong, that maybe our protocol wasn't awesome, that perhaps we're partly right but also partly wrong. And my experience as an academic and a pro academic is that I have consistently got things gotten, consistently gotten things. I've consistently got things wrong. Then I've got so many fuck

on things wrong. I have consistently gotten things wrong. This is what the only child does when he's in a room by himself, talking to no one in particular at this point in time. But you're getting it. I've gotten so many things wrong back on target, And I think that's part of the liberation of being truly or trying to be open minded while also thinking critically, also loving the science and doing the research. But also we don't

want blind obedience or conformity. So the next thing we want to possibly consider it, and you've probably heard about this most people have, is that, of course a lot

of research is funded, often corporate funding. So in other words, companies who would really like a particular outcome in the science, because if the science is supportive of what it is that they do or sell or pedal, then that's going to help them with credibility and persuasion and bums on seats or products in front doors or whatever it is.

So being aware that you know there are even researchers who are good people with good intentions confine themselves in situations where there is a level of expectation and pressure to produce certain science, science that is reflective of and aligned with what the backers, what the financiers of that research would like to see. And you've got to remember

this too. I didn't really get this until I started doing my doctorate, but because I've not really been around a lot of people who are so because of their job right, spending so much time applying for grants for this and that, you know, so we don't really I think a lot of us don't realize how much you know, staying in the academic game quite often is about can

you get funding for that research? And there is a real level of I guess anxiety and pressure and uncertainty for many academics who don't know where the money is going to come from. And so when someone shows up with some dough to fund or support research. We're all human.

We're human who wants to piss off the person that's in inverted common from one of a better term, not exactly precise, but paying the bills well, and as as also humans who want to build rapport and connection with people that can help them and they you know, we're emotional, psychological, sociological creatures who who want to see certain things, certain outcomes. It's it can be tough in the middle of that. Now, I'm not talking about people's integrity here or lack of integrity.

I'm just saying that it's like having research which is funded by a particular organization that would like to see a particular outcome or particular results with the research that is going to make it tough. That is going to

make it tough. Two to go. So my second last one is falling for like we're talking about here, why trusting the science needs an asterisk, falling for the over generalization of things, like even good studies usually apply to a specific population or conditions, so that the science or the data or the research or the findings might be absolutely true and relevant and meaningful and helpful and valuable to old mate over there, but they might not depending

on what the research is about, they might not at all be relevant or helpful for you. And so knowing that a lot of the research is population specific or person specific or conditions specific, it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that that necessarily applies to you or me or everyone. So we need to be careful when we've got research that targets specific groups or populations or specific areas, especially with certain conditions. You know, there might be something done.

I'm making this up in the moment, but some let's say, some correlation between a certain vitamin or hormone or drug or something and its capacity to positively impact or treat let's say Parkinson's. And so we know that, well, the science seems to tell us that if we do take this thing at this dose, there's a positive cognitive association

for people with partner data. Well that doesn't and may that may or may not be true, but also it doesn't mean that there's a positive cognitive association for you or me. Right, So it's just understanding that there is so much science that is not relevant to a lot of the population, but some of this stuff gets globalized and pushed out beyond the initial population that it was aimed at and very much over realized. All right. Last one,

science isn't a person. So when someone says the science says, they're usually interpreting or misinterpreting it, like it's almost like they are the spokesperson for science. So I'm trying to find the gap between the person who's saying this and the actual science. Now, by the way, they could be absolutely on the money, they could be totally correct. I'm not assuming that they're trying to sell or manipulate, or

coerce or control. I'm not. But like I've said to you, what we want to do is we want to perhaps consider it, if we choose to consider it, and then go and do a little bit of investigating ourselves. So friends, things aren't always as they seem, and quite often when science tells us, science does and really tell us at all.