Most commonly misunderstood field of study?

[Middleclass]

Everyone on the streets seems to have some economic ideas, almost all of which can be shown wrong by a first year econ student. I think, however, that Anthropology is more commonly misunderstood.

I will have to disagree with that. Certainly, anthropology is misunderstood by many, many people, but the idea that it is more commonly misunderstood than economics sounds wrong to me. I think that the view may hold water if you limited the scope of the arguement to America, but there are many countries that have little problems with fundamentalists muddying the water. Economics, wherever you go, tends to have people who are distorting it one way or another, or just flat out ignoring it. The Fundamentalist of Economics is the political idealouge, and every country has a glut of them.

[Zaia]

I don't believe that science in general is as misunderstood as some people in this thread think it is. Some branches of it, yes, definitely (like what IB said about genetics and cloning), but not science as a whole. In my opinion.

[haas mark]

Wow. My second statement seems to have been missed completely ...

See below before mouthing off, asshole.

Excuse me for writing my post before you had posted your second one.

Irrelevant to the fact that a regular person can identify a car when they see it, music when they hear it, or a lightswitch when they use it. People do NOT know how to differentiate science from pseudoscience.

...But people know what science is, in general. You pulled that out of nowehere.

I just showed you, moron. People CAN'T EVEN TELL WHETHER SOMETHING WHICH IS PRESENTED TO THEM IS A SCIENCE OR NOT.

I didn't deny that. But you're presuming that memorization of something negates basic knowledge of something.

[qutoe]How many fucking times do I have to explain to you that people don't even know what science is, and how many fucking times do you have to PRETEND that you've understood this point when you clearly have not?[/quote]

I DO understand that. I am trying to say that AS A WHOLE people understand WHAT IT IS, but NOT the mechanics of it or what it entails.

See second paragraph, moron. People do not know how to distinguish science from pseudoscience. People do know how to distinguish music from static.

People know how to distinguish basic chemistry from basic biology, too.

Your imbecilic attempt to pretend that knowledge of trivia somehow equates to comprehension, even at the basic level, merely betrays that YOU fall into the category of people who don't know jack shit about science.

Funny. Real funny. I didn't say anything about comprehension on anything but the most basic level. I'm merely stating that knowledge of basics of something constitutes understanding that it is or is not science. Whether it's pseudoscience or not is something else entirely, and it should be understandable that a normal person probably won't be able to distinguish the two..

[Edi]

Just give it up, Ver, you're already backpedaling in that last paragraph there and getting nowhere fast. I'd post more, but gotta run, have a job interview to go to.

Edi

[Darth Wong]

Excuse me for writing my post before you had posted your second one.

You're honestly too stupid to realize that I've merely been making the same point over and over, aren't you?

Irrelevant to the fact that a regular person can identify a car when they see it, music when they hear it, or a lightswitch when they use it. People do NOT know how to differentiate science from pseudoscience.

...But people know what science is, in general. You pulled that out of nowehere.

Are you really this dense? How can people "know what science is, in general" if they can't even recognize it when they see it?

I didn't deny that. But you're presuming that memorization of something negates basic knowledge of something.

No, I'm saying that it is irrelevant when we are talking about comprehension. You can get somebody to memorize the multiplication tables, but that doesn't necessarily mean he understands the concept of multiplication. Get it yet?

How many fucking times do I have to explain to you that people don't even know what science is, and how many fucking times do you have to PRETEND that you've understood this point when you clearly have not?

I DO understand that. I am trying to say that AS A WHOLE people understand WHAT IT IS, but NOT the mechanics of it or what it entails.

I've refuted this point several times already, and it seems to be bouncing off your thick skull. By all means then, explain how the average person would define science. And don't give me this "I know what it is, even if I can't define it or recognize it when I see it" bullshit.

See second paragraph, moron. People do not know how to distinguish science from pseudoscience. People do know how to distinguish music from static.

People know how to distinguish basic chemistry from basic biology, too.

No, they can distinguish "working with chemicals" from "working with animals", neither of which are necessarily science. They can not distinguish whether a statement relating to chemicals or animals is scientific.

Funny. Real funny. I didn't say anything about comprehension on anything but the most basic level.

And for the umpteenth time, nothing is more basic than knowing what something is. What part of this do you not understand?

I'm merely stating that knowledge of basics of something constitutes understanding that it is or is not science. Whether it's pseudoscience or not is something else entirely, and it should be understandable that a normal person probably won't be able to distinguish the two.

You obviously don't get it; SCIENCE IS DEFINED by its particular method of approaching the facts; the fact that the average person can't tell it from mumbling with jargon (ie- pseudoscience) proves my point; people have no idea what science is.

[haas mark]

I'll look your last post over later, but we're not hitting on the point.

Science is misunderstood more than music - I concede that (for like the millionth time).

But the field of study.. that is where I disagree with you, but only because to me, it doesn't matter *what* misconceptions there are - if a person knows no more about the field of studying science than the field of studying music, then the difference is negligible.

[Baron Scarpia]

I would like to reiterate the point that there is a big difference between not understanding something and misunderstanding something. I don't think many people misunderstand music. They don't, generally, have completely false ideas about how music works. The same is not true of science, as most people (from what I've seen) have flat-out wrong ideas about how science works. This is why Creationism has enjoyed the success it has, because it preys on people who misunderstand science and counts on them to think about it wrongly.

[Master of Ossus]

I will have to disagree with that. Certainly, anthropology is misunderstood by many, many people, but the idea that it is more commonly misunderstood than economics sounds wrong to me. I think that the view may hold water if you limited the scope of the arguement to America, but there are many countries that have little problems with fundamentalists muddying the water.

I don't think that's true at all. Many countries have exceptionally poor records of dealing with evidence for evolution, and many many many people have problems with other fields of anthropology as well. I'm willing to bet that a substantial fraction of people around the world will not even know what linguistical anthropology is. The fact that many universities don't even offer anthropology courses, and many of the ones that are offered are not particularly rigorous, is further evidence against this view.

Economics, wherever you go, tends to have people who are distorting it one way or another, or just flat out ignoring it. The Fundamentalist of Economics is the political idealouge, and every country has a glut of them.

Almost any Saudi has at least some grasp of economics, and many of them understand fairly intensive cause-effect relationships within it (ie. If OPEC reduces production, the price of oil will rise and the quantity of oil traded will fall. This will increase the profits of OPEC and its constituents because the price-elasticity of demand is so much smaller than the price-elasticity of supply. However, if the price charged is too high then OPEC would risk sending its buyers into a recession, which would lower profits). However, if you ask them about anthropology they will probably hand you the Koran. I'm sure that other people, elsewhere, have superior understandings of anthropology than that, but anthropolgy is far less studied, offered in practically NO high schools in ANY country, and ignored by the masses.

[Middleclass]

I don't think that's true at all. Many countries have exceptionally poor records of dealing with evidence for evolution, and many many many people have problems with other fields of anthropology as well. I'm willing to bet that a substantial fraction of people around the world will not even know what linguistical anthropology is. The fact that many universities don't even offer anthropology courses, and many of the ones that are offered are not particularly rigorous, is further evidence against this view.

I guess the jury will have to remain out on that one, due to lack of good figures. If you have figures, by all means send 'em my way. It'd be my first concession on SD.net. Flowers! Great joy!

Almost any Saudi has at least some grasp of economics, and many of them understand fairly intensive cause-effect relationships within it (ie. If OPEC reduces production, the price of oil will rise and the quantity of oil traded will fall. This will increase the profits of OPEC and its constituents because the price-elasticity of demand is so much smaller than the price-elasticity of supply. However, if the price charged is too high then OPEC would risk sending its buyers into a recession, which would lower profits). However, if you ask them about anthropology they will probably hand you the Koran. I'm sure that other people, elsewhere, have superior understandings of anthropology than that, but anthropolgy is far less studied, offered in practically NO high schools in ANY country, and ignored by the masses.

Thanks for the S&D refresher.
Granted, in the middle east, econ may have more prevalence than anthro. But you have to admit, this is still a bit selective. I think that most countries that are not plagued by a swarm of fundies will have the situation the other way.
In any case, unless a study is done, we may never really know.