Lying increases trust in science, study finds

[Gibsonian]

And not going to get any better with science deniers and education defunders running the country.
When everyone is used to the "bleeder of the free world" lying more than not, it normalizes lying.

America in total decline today headed for Stupidville.

 

[RalphB]

Just the opposite. Everything was vetted from above to make sure that anything that was expended had to be easily justified--even down to the consumables used by the technicians and the cost of janitorial services. This extended to the architectural design of the buildings--where I saw the deputy director of the Magnet Systems Division (Roger Coombes) arguing with the architects over the costs of the architectural details of the stairways of the MDL and MTL buildings--saying the the architectural adds to soften the "look" of the austere building designs cost too much. (I guesstimated that the cost of the salaries expended on the people in the room [many people were there] probably exceeded that budget over the time that was spent to argue over the details of design--cost savings.) They were arguing over perhaps $50K (USD) per building. The Lab management were paranoid over any costs that were not justifiable. That's saying something--considering that the machine building costs were probably $20-24B USD in today's dollars. Penny-pinching. Each Collider Dipole Magnet (CDM) and Collider Quadrupole Magnet (CQM) was value engineered to get all excess costs out of them--even down to the paint used on their exteriors.

The problem was--the congressional delegations from New York (Brookhaven), Chicago (FermiLab), and California (SLAC) could see that the project was overcoming its magnet and detector technical difficulties and was going to be successful--and likely put them out of business. Their politicians moved quickly to cancel the project (one of them is still the minority leader in the Senate) and fill in the tunnels--so it couldn't be started up later. IIRC, the other labs showed up within three days to grab all the equipment not nailed down--even before the congressional vote to cancel. Really nice stuff that the general public didn't get to see: regional economics in action.

All the really good physicists I worked with left for CERN and other international projects (Japan, Germany, etc.)--thus leaving the US behind for good--because they were all laid off with two weeks pay.

Chris

That's some impressive stuff. You can't get more scientific than splitting atoms.

 

[tengiz]

Humans aren’t objective - that’s why courts are adversarial. Same with science. It works not because scientists are unbiased, but because the process forces ideas to be challenged, tested, and corrected.

But once science gets tied to policymaking, that starts to break. Policy needs certainty, and "the science" turns into something you’re expected to follow, not question. Add funding games, politics, career incentives - and science slowly becomes like the rigid system it was meant to advise. Safe ideas float to the top, skepticism gets risky, and the culture trades curiosity for conformity.

Even hard sciences aren’t immune. The closer they get to power, the more everything is made to sound cleaner than it really is. It’s even worse in fields where falsification is barely possible - think social science - where it’s easy to fake rigor when no one can actually replicate anything. Not all of it is junk, but it’s far more vulnerable to ideology, trends, and bad incentives.

And yeah, I’m biased. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. Everything came with a stamp of "scientific" authority - Marxist theory, five-year plans, you name it. You couldn’t question it, and everyone learned to nod along. So when I see that same dynamic show up here, just with nicer graphics and better branding, I don’t shrug it off.

Science is supposed to be messy, slow, and uncomfortable. When it starts sounding smooth, unanimous, and politically convenient - that’s not a sign of strength. When science is bent to serve power, and power wraps itself in science - charts, credentials, selective data - that’s not truth. That’s control dressed as credibility.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Yet it still seemed denigrating in general. however...like the id was speaking.

Here's where Slashdot picked it up (if one had actually taken a moment to read it)...

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-science.html
and
https://link.springer.com/journal/11186

Is that okay to denigrate those sources with a wave of the hand and an unintelligible utterance, too?

(Please let us know...I'd like to know if I'm P.C. yet).

Chris

One of the key things about science is something a lot of people don't know. One of the basic underlying assumptions is that current theory is fallible. I've had some amusing conversations with people trying to get them to understand that scientific theory isn't necessarily the "truth" and that scientists understand this.

 

[tengiz]

Smart people, too. In fact, I find it's more common among the intelligentsia to lie. More marketing is going on...

Chris

Because they can rationalize everything better than a peasant without a degree.

One of the key things about science is something a lot of people don't know. One of the basic underlying assumptions is that current theory is fallible. I've had some amusing conversations with people trying to get them to understand that scientific theory isn't necessarily the "truth" and that scientists understand this.

That flies in the face of the "The Science Is Settled" maxim that was megaphoned from the highest of the offices in the world.

 

[tengiz]

Really enjoyed the paper. Still not sure if it’s the real deal or some Sokal/Boghossian–Lindsay–Pluckrose-style stunt - not that it’d make it any less real. The author checks out, though. The last section: "Data availability - Not applicable." Pure gold. A perfect tribute to transparency.

Da paper - TL;DR:

Lying helps truthing, at least while the illusion holds. Once it cracks? No problem - just teach Joe Blow that messy science feels like lying anyway.

 

[BlueTunes]

As an engineer, the COVID response crushed my trust in science, scientists and government.

 

[Gitfiddle]

Really enjoyed the paper. Still not sure if it’s the real deal or some Sokal/Boghossian–Lindsay–Pluckrose-style stunt - not that it’d make it any less real. The author checks out, though. The last section: "Data availability - Not applicable." Pure gold. A perfect tribute to transparency.

Da paper - TL;DR:

Lying helps truthing, at least while the illusion holds. Once it cracks? No problem - just teach Joe Blow that messy science feels like lying anyway.

The fact that they used an AI study should tell you all you need to know about the article.

"Even experimentation on artificial intelligence has shown that, when they’re transparent about their reasoning and decision-making, they’re trusted less"

 

[tengiz]

As an engineer, the COVID response crushed my trust in science, scientists and government.

Same here - but even more disappointment in the 'civilians,' especially the educated ones, who should know better than to keep blindly trusting and obeying long after the initial grace period has passed.

 

[tengiz]

The fact that they used an AI study should tell you all you need to know about the article.

"Even experimentation on artificial intelligence has shown that, when they’re transparent about their reasoning and decision-making, they’re trusted less"

"Laws are like sausages - it's better not to see them being made."

 

[RogerSmith]

Hard to in science and laws of nature, you get what it gives you, whether you want it or not.

That is, unfortunately, quite a naïve notion of the scientific practice. Not only have been so many cases of peer-reviewed published papers, that turned out as lies long after being presented, but also even respected scientists for example grossly overemphase some effects to get more attention or founding.

 

[wadude]

Because they can rationalize everything better than a peasant without a degree.



That flies in the face of the "The Science Is Settled" maxim that was megaphoned from the highest of the offices in the world.

Interesting to hear your perspectives but it’s possible to have faith in both education and “peasants” without degrees.

 

[tengiz]

Interesting to hear your perspectives but it’s possible to have faith in both education and “peasants” without degrees.

I’m personally grateful for my education and proud of it - truly world-class in my field, and in the adjacent fields as well. But I also had to undo some of the damage it left behind - namely, the quiet arrogance that comes with the territory. It took me a long time to unlearn it on my own.

The West Wing, the series - late night, two staffers talking. One says, "You and I know this is the right call. The public? They’ll flip if we tell them the whole story." What stuck with me wasn’t the line itself, but the quiet certainty behind it - the sense that withholding the truth wasn’t deception, but duty.

That same vibe was common in the Soviet intelligentsia. "We’re educated, we understand how things really are. But the people - they wouldn’t get it." It wasn’t just credentialed elitism - it came with a sense of moral obligation. A kind of modern noblesse oblige. Lying not as betrayal, but as stewardship. Later, though, during the toothless late phase of the USSR and beyond, it morphed into its more cynical form - just plain arrogance. "I’m better than thou," minus the "I’m the responsible adult here."

And I don’t think that ever really goes away. It’s baked into the logic of industrial education. As soon as you’re trained just enough to fulfill a function - granted, a complicated one - you get to feel superior for it. That’s how you end up thinking you're a "good person" doing the responsible thing while patronizing the "peasants." It teaches you how to feel thoughtful - not how to doubt yourself.

Of course, I'm trivializing - but it is what it is.

 

[Timcognito]

That is, unfortunately, quite a naïve notion of the scientific practice. Not only have been so many cases of peer-reviewed published papers, that turned out as lies long after being presented, but also even respected scientists for example grossly overemphase some effects to get more attention or founding.

The data is data and if repeatable by others is real and that is dictated physics and chemistry. Interpretations and bad experimental design can be flawed. There is a real world like it or not.

 

[Petrushka]

The data is data and if repeatable by others is real and that is dictated physics and chemistry. Interpretations and bad experimental design can be flawed. There is a real world like it or not.

When engineers use scientific findings, false claims come to light rather quickly.

In psychology, sociology, and medicine, not so much. One of my grandfathers was an MD, and suffered from ulcers. Seventy years later, ulcers became treatable with antibiotics. The proof that common peptic ulcers were a bacterial infection required a physician to infect himself and treat himself. Why did it take half a century?

My point is that while science is self correcting, it sometimes takes a lifetime for the correction.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Because they can rationalize everything better than a peasant without a degree.



That flies in the face of the "The Science Is Settled" maxim that was megaphoned from the highest of the offices in the world.

If a responsible person says "The science is settled" it means that so far we haven't found anything that contradicts what we know at the moment and that the majority of people in the specific discipline agree.

 

[tengiz]

If a responsible person says "The science is settled" it means that so far we haven't found anything that contradicts what we know at the moment and that the majority of people in the specific discipline agree.

When used by politicians as a rhetorical device, "the science is settled" is misleading when it informs go/no-go policy with little room for nuance.

Imagine the consensus is "we don't know much" - is the science still settled? Or consider a top expert advisory panel voting 55:45 on a major consequential policy decision (this actually happened recently). That's deep uncertainty by scientific standards - but in policy terms, it becomes binary. And downstream, the messaging hardens: the science has spoken, and disagreement becomes misinformation.

When policy demands certainty, science gets reshaped to supply it - nuance not included. The inevitable side effect - public trust in science begins to erode.

 

[Multicore]

My point is that while science is self correcting, it sometimes takes a lifetime for the correction.

Max Planck said something very similar that became so famous it is known as Planck's principle. We sometimes hear it stated in the rather brutal form: science progresses one funeral at a time.

 

[Timcognito]

When policy demands certainty, science gets reshaped to supply it

Not sure about this. There is no reshaping of science only reshaping of the rhetoric about the data. The preponderance of climate change data and what it shows is a prime example. Interpretation especially about what portends for the future, of what will and how fast it will change, reasoned conjecture, but still conjecture, along the side of wishful thinking on its existence and control. Evolution is not goal directed and the past is not negotiable.

 

[tengiz]

Not sure about this. There is no reshaping of science only reshaping of the rhetoric about the data.

And this is exactly what informs the public - the rhetoric. The rhetoric becomes "The Science" for the uninformed. Most people don't read peer-reviewed literature - they don't have the time, nor the skills. What reaches them is the politically expedient narrative - not the nuance.