The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience Audiobook (Free)

Attacks on science have become commonplace. Promises that climate change isn’t settled science, that evolution is normally “just a theory,” and that researchers are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the general public are staples of some politicians’ rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of technology often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without detailing exactly why technological claims are superior. In this reserve, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes research from its competitors is exactly what about The Scientific Attitude: Defending Research from Denial, Scams, and Pseudoscience he phone calls ‘the scientific attitude’-caring about evidence and being willing to transformation theories based on new evidence. The history of science is certainly littered with theories that were technological but turned out to be wrong; the technological attitude discloses why a good failed theory can help us to understand what is special about science.

McIntyre offers good examples that illustrate both scientific success and failing. He details the transformation of medicine from a practice based generally on hunches right into a technology based on proof; considers scientific fraud; examines the positions of ideology-driven denialists, pseudoscientists, and ‘skeptics’ who reject technological results; and argues that interpersonal research, a minimum of natural science, should embrace the scientific attitude.