2/
This attitude reminds the first, perhaps most obvious, of the four "coping strategies" on #uncertainty in the #SciencePolicyInterface, as discussed by @Jeroen_van_der_Sluijs

[2]"Monster-exorcists want to expel the monster. Uncertainty simply does not fit within symbolical order where #science is seen as the producer of authoritative objective #knowledge"

[2]Variant: "keeping the uncertainties in knowledge claims deliberately under the table because they do not fit a political agenda" [2]

3/
However, "findings can be overturned when new evidence arises" [3]:

"how communicating and explaining #uncertainty around scientific findings affect trust in the communicator when findings change" was found [3] not to be so obvious as in the "default" guess [1].

Sometimes, "communicating uncertainty buffers against a loss of trust when evidence changes" and "explaining uncertainty does not appear to harm trust"

[3]A commentary by @hildabast on the study [3] offers a broader perspective

4/
The commentary by @hildabast (web.archive.org/web/2025062315…) reflected on how "#ScientificUncertainty enables people to lead themselves, and others, astray" providing "a lot of space for bias to flourish"

Controlled experiments differ from the "messier" real life, but the commentary noted:

"Someone being prematurely very sure may convince others that they really know what they’re talking about. But they are at the mercy, then, of their biases. Pretending uncertainty is not there is a minefield"

Scientific Uncertainty Isn't a Justification for Getting Things Seriously Wrong - Absolutely Maybe

The authors got me thinking about the ways scientific uncertainty enables people to lead themselves, and others, astray. That wasn

^{Hilda Bastian (Absolutely Maybe)}