Science Skepticism Debate

Commenters argue over whether questioning scientific consensus or expressing opinions without citations constitutes anti-science behavior, versus proper scientific critique or debate. Discussions highlight tensions between personal attacks on scientists, downvoting skeptics, and distinguishing op-eds from established science on Hacker News.

📉 Falling 0.3x Science
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Keywords

HN GW r.e nature.com CSIRO USA i.e xkcd.com NASA science scientific scientists opinion unscientific offended disagree crank explaining downvoted

Sample Comments

jimmaswell Oct 18, 2021 View on HN

This sounds like "some science has said things I don't like, so you shouldn't refer to science as a point in an argument."

victor106 Oct 26, 2017 View on HN

Attack the science not the scientists if you defer with their opinion.

jerf Sep 2, 2014 View on HN

The degree of squinting you're applying to call the results "equal" is not scientifically useful.In fact I'd suggest you consider this a clue... you're clearly explaining away, rather than explaining. "Explaining away" is in a way the most fundamentally unscientific operation there is... the fact that you're joined by a number of people who call themselves "scientists" even so doesn't change that.(No joke. The fundamental breakthrough

struppi Dec 15, 2015 View on HN

I think we agree more than you think ;) In my original article, I quoted some papers and studies. And on twitter, somebody occused me that "All science is crap". So I tried to write another article with only my opinion on the subject - The article linked here on HN.

bostonsre Jan 20, 2021 View on HN

Ridiculing scientists for plausible hypothesis seems very unscientific.

Jimbob12 Nov 19, 2016 View on HN

It's not a personal attack, it's an objective observation; it's science. Surely we're allowed to discuss science here, right?

cocktailpeanuts Jan 27, 2017 View on HN

You are not confused. you just disagree with me. That's fine. Just say you disagree.It's funny that you think a comment on HN is equivalent to a research paper on a science journal.You can call me bullshit if I ever publish a paper on this with above 4 items claiming this to be "science".Well, until then.

bpodgursky Aug 27, 2013 View on HN

You're getting downvoted because- You just made up article titles to prove your point.- You call out the USA for no particular reason, because your arguments apply equally to other countries.- You don't provide any alternative to "science", which according to you is inherently flawed, which makes pretty much any discussion with you pointless.

SirChud Aug 5, 2025 View on HN

Spoken like a true zealot. Not aligning with scientific consensus doesn't make your suggestions worthless.

burgerbrain Jul 24, 2011 View on HN

"Disprove" Methinks somebody doesn't know how science works.