Is biology a pseudoscience?

Question

I'm getting a Ph.D in biology soon, but I'm noticing that a lot of people don't listen to biologists.

Even worse, my dissertation addresses potential biological feedbacks to climate change, especially greenhouse gas effects. A lot of people don't believe that climate change even exists.

Do you think I should quit studying and go read the bible instead?

btw, anyone looking to take a male, scaly "fishopod" to the prom tonight?
You'll have to pick me up (and pick me up).

zero - which part do you mean. if you're referring to taking me to prom, then i understand

(rushes into other room to cry and punch the wall)

canadaguy,
It is true that carbon dioxide levels are known to have fluxuated between about 180 and 250 ppm with respective glacial and interglacial periods over the last 450,000 years (Vostok ice record). However, we are now passing 400 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year (Mauna Loa CO2 record). This has not been a part of natural variation since vegetation took the carbon out of the atmosphere hundreds of millions of years ago.

I may be just a biologist, but I'm not a patsy.

Answer 1

I empathize with your frustration. Biology is a legitimate science, as you really know. Congratulations to you on your upcoming Ph.D.!

A lot of *misinformed* and *ignorant* people don't listen to biologists, or to science at all, for that matter. Please keep those adjectives in mind. This includes the Bush administration in America, many religious people, and hordes of gullible, uninformed, and/or crazy people who believe dozens of the actual pseudosciences.

True, many people don't believe unprecedented human-caused climate change is taking place. Many people don't believe in evolution, either, which has even *more* clearly taken place and continues to happen. But many of these same people believe in a 6,000 year old earth, man and dinosaurs living together, bottled water being somehow healthier for you, evil spirits causing disease, and the positions of celestial bodies profoundly influencing our lives, to name just a few examples of human ignorance in an age when we should know better. They're too dumb to know how little they know! And they seem to take confidence from their numbers, demonstrating that widespread belief is no guarantee against being dead wrong. (Those who dismiss the idea of human-induced global warming, or their poor children, may very well end up *dead* wrong, along with those of us whose cautionary voices are drowned out by political posturing and unreason.)

Don't let them win! Help to stop the spread of misinformation about global warming, evolution, disease, and much more. You are well on the way, with your doctorate. Don't lose faith in the endeavor, or in yourself. You will be doing important work in an important field.

I admire you -- and people owe you thanks, whether they know it or not -- for helping us all to understand ourselves and our world, and to keep both healthy. Without scientists, these uneducated people wouldn't have a highly technical forum such as the Internet to broadcast their ignorance and spread their garbage (though many are too ignorant of science's benefits to realize that), and they'd be turning to witch doctors or sacrificial offerings to cure their ills.

NO, as must be obvious by now, I don't think you should quit studying and read the Bible instead! (And I doubt you're serious, but...) please don't. We have more than enough of that. What we need is science awareness and reason -- critically. Your own experience demonstrates that fact.

With the American political and religious climate (pun intended), this is probably a challenging time to become a biologist and be appreciated for your work. But for the same reason, it may be a rewarding time for it. The climates -- both types -- can turn, and you can help to make it happen!

Keep educating people, and good luck -- including with the prom. (And if you don't go, no big deal. Really. It's not the most important thing in life, or even close. I didn't go to mine, but went to a girlfriend's a few years later. Neither missing the first nor attending the second changed the course of my life. I rarely even recall those memories. Two years or less from now you'll wonder why you cared so much.)

Answer 2

WE have been buried by the fear mongering press on the climate change issue. Intelligent people believe it exists. Exceptional people know it was happening before our major contribution ,it will continue regardless of our countermeasures, it will not be the end of the world, only the status quo. I would like to find one present day biologist that acknowledges the truth of the warm cycles in our past , the C.O.2 levels that were higher and the global / tidal cycles that contribute. this would be a refreshing bit of reality against the backdrop of political/finance fear mongering you seem to be patsies for these days. It may even renew interest in societies contributions toward the speed of the process.

Answer 3

Oh it's worse than that. The fundies all warn their followers not to go to seminary because it will turn them into atheists. So if you're going to bother to actually engage in Bible study, instead of the more acceptable route of memorizing proof texts out of context and misapplying them, you have to attend Bishop Bubba's Apostolic Full Gospel Pentecostal Holiness Church of God In Christ On A Crooked Crutch Bible School and Hairdressing Institute where the only Greek you'll study is the guy that makes the gyros at the food court.

Answer 4

I find that the more you actually know about Biology, the less people tend to listen. I'm considering telling people that I studied theology instead. But they will ask you stupid questions, I've actually had someone ask me why spiders "needed" all those legs.

Answer 5

Sorry, I'm taking a retarded fishfrogsquirrel.

Answer 6

WHAT???

No!!!