Answer

Why We Should Trust Scientists

            For a long time, people have trusted scientists but they have ended up being disappointed. As a fact, they have established that almost all scientific theories that have been formulated are wrong. Despite these disappointments, people should understand that scientific methods and inventions are what have enabled them to live in the way they currently do. Currently, people have things that their forefathers could only dream. Thus, they trust scientists and admire them. In his article, Matt J. Michel argued that scientists should not be trusted because they ignore negative results and that scientific methods are only aimed at making profit (Michel, 2015). Notwithstanding these arguments, people should trust scientists since they are ordinary people who can make mistakes just like others.

Matt J. Michel arguments can be summarized as shown below:

 P1.  Scientists usually ignore negative results in their scientific results.

P2.   Scientific methods are all about money.

1. Therefore, scientists should not be trusted since they ignore negative results and only conduct researches to earn profit and get most of their papers published.

Motivation for P1:  Conventionally, an experiment should yield either negative or positive results. Moreover, any scientific research should not support more than 10% of the hypotheses (Oreskes, 2014). Unfortunately, most of the scientific experiments only tout positive results. These publications contain positive findings that interest publishing firms. Due to these publication biases, people should not trust scientists because they publish misleading information. For instance, anyone using certain medications can be lured with these misleading findings because these findings only show the effectiveness of the drug and ignore detrimental effects of such medicines. Thus, professionals, particularly doctors may falsely believe that certain drugs are effective based on the positive reviews they can access while in real sense, such drugs have several side effects.

Motivation for P2:  Findings of scientific researches are supposed to be published free of charge and made available to everyone. However, this is not the case since publishers usually require scientists to pay some money for their papers to be published and read. This according to Oreskes (2014) hinders scientific progress and accessibility of information. With the profit earning mentality, fake publishing forms continue to publish any paper without checking at the quality, thereby providing scientists with the opportunity to develop their resumes using poorly written researches and inaccurate findings. Some scientists also use fake publishers to champion their personal agendas instead of offering results that help people.

Objection

            An objection would emanate from the second premise that states that scientific methods are all about money. I do agree with the fact that most scientific methods have been wrong. However, the issue of wrong findings should not be pegged on scientists but on contemporary publishing companies. This objection can be summarized as shown below;

A1. Ignoring negative findings should not be pegged on scientists but on the contemporary publishing firms.

A2. All scientists are ordinary persons and can make mistake like ordinary citizens.

Motivation for A1:  A reason to object the argument that people should not trust scientists is that ignoring negative findings is not a problem of scientists but rather a challenge of contemporary publishing firms. Undoubtedly, every valid and reliable source usually publishes only valid researchers. As a result, the issue of ignoring negative findings should not be pegged on scientists but rather on contemporary publishing companies.

Motivation for A2. Scientists are not superhuman beings and therefore can make mistakes that ordinary people make.  We live in an era where all papers are published regardless of their quality. As such, we should believe scientists since their findings and scientific techniques are what have transformed the contemporary societies.

            In conclusion, although being suspicious is justifiable at times, it is prudent for people to trust in the modern scientists. Moreover, trusting in scientists similar to the science itself must be founded on evidence.  For this reason, scientists must become effective communicators. In fact, they should reveal what they know but how they know such information.