Another aspect of scientism: when scientists and other STEM people leverage their professional status to call for public policy to shape society in ways that they deem appropriate, with no regard for how much of a cost it puts onto the average citizen. Such as:
Doctors who label gun violence a public health issue and then call for more laws on gun ownership, while repeating all the usual misinformation about gun violence (conflating suicides and homicides, ignoring predominance of urban/gang violence, etc).
https://www.ama-assn.org/ama-calls-gun-v...lth-crisis
Scientists and engineers who call for the US to adopt the metric system, without any mention of balancing the benefits against the switching costs:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plu...-on-board/
Doctors who label gun violence a public health issue and then call for more laws on gun ownership, while repeating all the usual misinformation about gun violence (conflating suicides and homicides, ignoring predominance of urban/gang violence, etc).
https://www.ama-assn.org/ama-calls-gun-v...lth-crisis
Quote:Quote:
"With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence," said AMA President Steven J. Stack, M.D. "Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries. An epidemiological analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other health providers, law enforcement, and society at large may be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society resulting from firearms."
Scientists and engineers who call for the US to adopt the metric system, without any mention of balancing the benefits against the switching costs:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plu...-on-board/
Quote:Quote:
But the metric system is another matter. “I don’t understand why y’all don’t use the metric system” is something I’ve heard too often. I don’t argue with them because there is no technical argument for why we haven’t adopted the Système Internationale – our refusal is based on emotion and familiarity.
Our choice of unit system is perhaps more important now than in recent years. Science is conducted using the language of SI units. If we want to have a scientifically literate populace, we should make sure that scientists and non-scientists speak the same language. In terms of national competitiveness, Americans are competing on a global market of information now more than ever. We are at a disadvantage by not speaking the international language of science at a time when we are struggling with truly global issues like climate change and resource depletion.