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I'm starting to see anti-scientific method memes in the dark corners of the internet. I mean this literally: they suggest that the scientific method is a tool o

I'm starting to see anti-scientific method memes in the dark corners of the internet. I mean this literally: they suggest that the scientific method is a tool of the progressive left, and that the proper thing to do is reject it. They specifically call out the "I fucking love science" language used in insipid places like Facebook, and more broadly, must be referring to phrases when get cast about such as "follow the science." Of course nearly everything is politicized currently, and science has certainly been politicized in the past, (Galileo, Scopes Monkey Trial, Creationism in schools, etc.) but that doesn't make this latest round any less troubling. I want to be clear here that I'm not suggesting that science is "left" or "right," or that the left is blameless here. (they're definitely not blameless) That said, I do think it's very interesting to see a strict attack on the scientific method itself, which is at least to my eyes seems new. For example in the old Creationism debates of the 90s and early 2000s, the certainty of specific scientific evidence is what was brought into question. Perhaps that was only because the debates had to happen in the public eye, and have some air of validity though.

esja 5y ago
That’s interesting - do you have some examples? I’ve seen quite a few similar memes, including some which explicitly support the scientific method, by contrasting it with what they claim to be politically motivated cherry-picking, “scientism”, etc.
- orblivion 5y ago
  This one comes to mind: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/965/960/38a.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/965/960/38a... I've seen nobody criticize the method in the abstract. I agree with the grandparent poster that that's troubling, if you've seen it. What I've seen from the right is a skepticism of the institutions. I'll admit I share this sentiment to an extent, though my perspective is as a mostly ignorant outsider, trying to figure out who and what to trust. I have seen criticisms of the peer review system, though it came from Eric Weinstein, not a right winger. And if I had to guess, he is concerned about climate change. I don't understand the peer review system well, but it makes sense to me that that if badly designed it could go horribly wrong.
  - esja 5y ago
    That's the main one I was thinking of - thanks!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
fallingknife 5y ago
I also see stuff on the left calling objectivity a tool of "white supremacy." So yeah, very dangerous. The problem with science is that it shows the truth that both sides wish wasn't there.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  And in the middle you have the people who say they "believe the science"and are religiously unwilling to accept anything that isn't orthodoxy. Less dangerous in most cases, but kind of ironic.
- willis936 5y ago
  The history of psychology psuedoscience being used to validate racial bias is undeniable. I'm sure there are groups on the far left throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but by in large the left complain about psuedoscience being used as a tool of white supremacy.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > The history of psychology psuedoscience being used to validate racial bias is undeniable. At the time it was called just "science". Then new people entered the field, called the old things pseudoscience and started the cycle anew. I'd argue that not much improved, the social sciences was bad back then and are just as bad today and most of the things they preach today will be seen as totally wrong and ignorant and dangerous by the scientists of the future just like we view those of the past.
    - willis936 5y ago
      This makes it sound like the scientific method is somehow soft or relative. It isn't. Short circuiting the scientific method was pseudoscience then, it's pseudoscience now.
- diag 5y ago
  Are you aware of how often science and medicine has been used specifically to repress non-white populations? I'm not saying that's an inherent trait of science, but it can easily be employed in that way if people aren't actually aware of the biases people hold implicitly.
throw8932894 5y ago
"I love science" is just empty logo. Ask what papers they read/wrote recently, and it falls apart.
reedjosh 5y ago
The quotes you provide are not anti scientific method. They're meant to mock unthinking obedience to the authority figure science has become. The scientific method is great! 'Follow the science' means don't question me I'm on the side of science. Quotes like 'I fucking love science.' belie a tendency to get caught up in science's many miracles such that one can be lead by corrupt institutions claiming scientific credulity. The two quotes are used in the 'dark corners' you mention to mock naivety in the belief of purity in science.
- kiba 5y ago
  It could alternatively means rejection of scientific authority in favor of one's own view, right or wrong.
- everdrive 5y ago
  I don't disagree with the criticism that people claiming "I fucking love science" and "follow the science" are often (usually?) themselves not particularly scientific. On lousy image boards, very clever points do exist, but they're mixed in seamlessly with very poor points.
genericone 5y ago
Yes, when a museum puts out a poster saying the scientific method, rational thinking, is akin to whiteness... you know well certain that the very concept of science is being undermined as well as weaponized. I mean, someone unironically worked on this poster, its content, and its layout, probably spending several tens of hours looking at it on their computer screen, and then said to themselves and their peers, "this is fine". https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651 https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651
- everdrive 5y ago
  This remains one of the most infuriating things I've ever seen.
  - poszlem 5y ago
    Also the reason for the pushback from the right. It is actually the regressive left that started poking at it and opened the pandora box without thinking about the consequences of doing so. Now the whole scientific method is up for debate. (And I am a traditionally left-leaning person)
    - Consultant32452 5y ago
      Not just the scientific method, but base reality itself. When I was growing up the general idea was that there was a base reality and that we can perceive it to varying degrees based on our senses and other tools (e.g. electron microscopes). Postmodernism questions even the idea of a base reality and when you squeeze that lemon weird things shoot out like "lived experience" being more important than what actually happened. Interestingly, to these same people if your "lived experience" is something you felt in church then you're just a moron who doesn't follow the science. But if your lived experience is within a set of approved narratives, it's 100% fact and we are allowed to riot over it.
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
      No way, political rhetoric has exactly zero to do with anything science.
matt_s 5y ago
Do you think it is that people truly believe the scientific method is wrong or do you think it is something else? I have a theory (I'm programmer, not psychologist) that with the pandemic there is a lot of emotions (fear, anxiety, anger, unknowns, etc.) floating around people's heads that get all jumbled up and they grasp for something that they can cling to which, however illogical to many, calms those fears to a manageable level. And then they find things online which support those ideas and they go deeper with them because it calms them to have "answers". I see headlines of similar anti-vaxx, etc. things from US/EU and wonder if this is a western phenomenon? Are people seeing similar sentiments rising up in say Japan? Or other non-western countries?
willis936 5y ago
>I'm not suggesting that science is "left" or "right," or that the left is blameless here Science isn't necessarily left but the left is scientific and the right is whatever the left isn't.
- qsort 5y ago
  > the left is scientific Yeah but is it? As someone who considers himself at least culturally left-leaning, I'm definitely seeing a worrying trend of moving away from the conviction that data, numbers, science, logic are valuable and desirable tools to interpret the world. The fact that one of the catchphrases of the alt-right is "facts don't care about your feelings", as idiotic as that is, should really make you stop and think about what kind of worldview is being pushed.
  - cosmojg 5y ago
    > I'm definitely seeing a worrying trend of moving away from the conviction that data, numbers, science, logic are valuable and desirable tools to interpret the world. My favorite example of some of the fallout resulting from this trend: the vilification and abandonment of nuclear energy by so-called environmentalists.
- popcube 5y ago
  I trust it is reversed. left trust some concept and fighting for it, extreme guys never changed.(e.g., don't kill cute animals!!) right build a perfect model for exist world, and fight for keep it. scientists work for find new theory -- it is a new concept, look so good! so scientists will move towards left, when they find theory do not work, they go back to mid. but sometimes they will walk too far to back...
woko 5y ago
That is post-modernism [1], the tendencies of our era. Boghossian's commentary [2] published in 1996 is still relevant these days, though it would need to be put in context. > Postmodernists like to respond [...] that both claims can be true because both are true relative to some perspective or other, and there can be no question of truth outside of perspectives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism [2] https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/faculty-documents/boghossian/bog_tls.html https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/f...
- claudiawerner 5y ago
  > Postmodernists like to respond [...] that both claims can be true because both are true relative to some perspective or other, and there can be no question of truth outside of perspectives. I wonder who the 'postmodernists' mentioned here are; for example, Foucault, who is often grouped under that umbrella, went to pains to say that just because multiple readings are possible, it does not mean that they are all valid from a single point of scrutiny. It's also rather strange that the talk of 'postmodernists' is as if it's an academic movement rather than the state of the world today (e.g. see Azuma's analysis of otaku in Japan as symptomatic of the postmodern condition; the increasing reliance on trope and categorized personalities in modern media compared to the grand narratives of modernist literature). Theorists of postmodernism tend to argue four fronts: why we're living in a postmodern world, how we got here, and what that means for meaning (political, religious, cultural) and how to deal with that. The people who usually decry 'postmodernism' are in general perfectly happy to live in the world that word describes, with its media and piecemeal, disconnected consumption and purchase of images and simulations lacking any real narrative. Even more absurd is the tendency for some of the same people to resist narrative (e.g. "no politics in video games").
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  Whether truth is relative or not has no effect on politics, because truth is simply not a concern there. The point of political claims is political interests, not truth, so they can't be defeated by walking and talking about truth.

esja 5y ago

That’s interesting - do you have some examples? I’ve seen quite a few similar memes, including some which explicitly support the scientific method, by contrasting it with what they claim to be politically motivated cherry-picking, “scientism”, etc.

orblivion 5y ago
This one comes to mind: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/965/960/38a.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/965/960/38a... I've seen nobody criticize the method in the abstract. I agree with the grandparent poster that that's troubling, if you've seen it. What I've seen from the right is a skepticism of the institutions. I'll admit I share this sentiment to an extent, though my perspective is as a mostly ignorant outsider, trying to figure out who and what to trust. I have seen criticisms of the peer review system, though it came from Eric Weinstein, not a right winger. And if I had to guess, he is concerned about climate change. I don't understand the peer review system well, but it makes sense to me that that if badly designed it could go horribly wrong.
- esja 5y ago
  That's the main one I was thinking of - thanks!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

fallingknife 5y ago

I also see stuff on the left calling objectivity a tool of "white supremacy." So yeah, very dangerous. The problem with science is that it shows the truth that both sides wish wasn't there.

nerdponx 5y ago
And in the middle you have the people who say they "believe the science"and are religiously unwilling to accept anything that isn't orthodoxy. Less dangerous in most cases, but kind of ironic.
willis936 5y ago
The history of psychology psuedoscience being used to validate racial bias is undeniable. I'm sure there are groups on the far left throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but by in large the left complain about psuedoscience being used as a tool of white supremacy.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > The history of psychology psuedoscience being used to validate racial bias is undeniable. At the time it was called just "science". Then new people entered the field, called the old things pseudoscience and started the cycle anew. I'd argue that not much improved, the social sciences was bad back then and are just as bad today and most of the things they preach today will be seen as totally wrong and ignorant and dangerous by the scientists of the future just like we view those of the past.
  - willis936 5y ago
    This makes it sound like the scientific method is somehow soft or relative. It isn't. Short circuiting the scientific method was pseudoscience then, it's pseudoscience now.
diag 5y ago
Are you aware of how often science and medicine has been used specifically to repress non-white populations? I'm not saying that's an inherent trait of science, but it can easily be employed in that way if people aren't actually aware of the biases people hold implicitly.

throw8932894 5y ago

"I love science" is just empty logo. Ask what papers they read/wrote recently, and it falls apart.

reedjosh 5y ago

The quotes you provide are not anti scientific method. They're meant to mock unthinking obedience to the authority figure science has become. The scientific method is great! 'Follow the science' means don't question me I'm on the side of science. Quotes like 'I fucking love science.' belie a tendency to get caught up in science's many miracles such that one can be lead by corrupt institutions claiming scientific credulity. The two quotes are used in the 'dark corners' you mention to mock naivety in the belief of purity in science.

kiba 5y ago
It could alternatively means rejection of scientific authority in favor of one's own view, right or wrong.
everdrive 5y ago
I don't disagree with the criticism that people claiming "I fucking love science" and "follow the science" are often (usually?) themselves not particularly scientific. On lousy image boards, very clever points do exist, but they're mixed in seamlessly with very poor points.

genericone 5y ago

Yes, when a museum puts out a poster saying the scientific method, rational thinking, is akin to whiteness... you know well certain that the very concept of science is being undermined as well as weaponized. I mean, someone unironically worked on this poster, its content, and its layout, probably spending several tens of hours looking at it on their computer screen, and then said to themselves and their peers, "this is fine". https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651 https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651

everdrive 5y ago
This remains one of the most infuriating things I've ever seen.
- poszlem 5y ago
  Also the reason for the pushback from the right. It is actually the regressive left that started poking at it and opened the pandora box without thinking about the consequences of doing so. Now the whole scientific method is up for debate. (And I am a traditionally left-leaning person)
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    Not just the scientific method, but base reality itself. When I was growing up the general idea was that there was a base reality and that we can perceive it to varying degrees based on our senses and other tools (e.g. electron microscopes). Postmodernism questions even the idea of a base reality and when you squeeze that lemon weird things shoot out like "lived experience" being more important than what actually happened. Interestingly, to these same people if your "lived experience" is something you felt in church then you're just a moron who doesn't follow the science. But if your lived experience is within a set of approved narratives, it's 100% fact and we are allowed to riot over it.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    No way, political rhetoric has exactly zero to do with anything science.

matt_s 5y ago

Do you think it is that people truly believe the scientific method is wrong or do you think it is something else? I have a theory (I'm programmer, not psychologist) that with the pandemic there is a lot of emotions (fear, anxiety, anger, unknowns, etc.) floating around people's heads that get all jumbled up and they grasp for something that they can cling to which, however illogical to many, calms those fears to a manageable level. And then they find things online which support those ideas and they go deeper with them because it calms them to have "answers". I see headlines of similar anti-vaxx, etc. things from US/EU and wonder if this is a western phenomenon? Are people seeing similar sentiments rising up in say Japan? Or other non-western countries?

willis936 5y ago

>I'm not suggesting that science is "left" or "right," or that the left is blameless here Science isn't necessarily left but the left is scientific and the right is whatever the left isn't.

qsort 5y ago
> the left is scientific Yeah but is it? As someone who considers himself at least culturally left-leaning, I'm definitely seeing a worrying trend of moving away from the conviction that data, numbers, science, logic are valuable and desirable tools to interpret the world. The fact that one of the catchphrases of the alt-right is "facts don't care about your feelings", as idiotic as that is, should really make you stop and think about what kind of worldview is being pushed.
- cosmojg 5y ago
  > I'm definitely seeing a worrying trend of moving away from the conviction that data, numbers, science, logic are valuable and desirable tools to interpret the world. My favorite example of some of the fallout resulting from this trend: the vilification and abandonment of nuclear energy by so-called environmentalists.
popcube 5y ago
I trust it is reversed. left trust some concept and fighting for it, extreme guys never changed.(e.g., don't kill cute animals!!) right build a perfect model for exist world, and fight for keep it. scientists work for find new theory -- it is a new concept, look so good! so scientists will move towards left, when they find theory do not work, they go back to mid. but sometimes they will walk too far to back...

woko 5y ago

That is post-modernism [1], the tendencies of our era. Boghossian's commentary [2] published in 1996 is still relevant these days, though it would need to be put in context. > Postmodernists like to respond [...] that both claims can be true because both are true relative to some perspective or other, and there can be no question of truth outside of perspectives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism [2] https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/faculty-documents/boghossian/bog_tls.html https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/f...

claudiawerner 5y ago
> Postmodernists like to respond [...] that both claims can be true because both are true relative to some perspective or other, and there can be no question of truth outside of perspectives. I wonder who the 'postmodernists' mentioned here are; for example, Foucault, who is often grouped under that umbrella, went to pains to say that just because multiple readings are possible, it does not mean that they are all valid from a single point of scrutiny. It's also rather strange that the talk of 'postmodernists' is as if it's an academic movement rather than the state of the world today (e.g. see Azuma's analysis of otaku in Japan as symptomatic of the postmodern condition; the increasing reliance on trope and categorized personalities in modern media compared to the grand narratives of modernist literature). Theorists of postmodernism tend to argue four fronts: why we're living in a postmodern world, how we got here, and what that means for meaning (political, religious, cultural) and how to deal with that. The people who usually decry 'postmodernism' are in general perfectly happy to live in the world that word describes, with its media and piecemeal, disconnected consumption and purchase of images and simulations lacking any real narrative. Even more absurd is the tendency for some of the same people to resist narrative (e.g. "no politics in video games").
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
Whether truth is relative or not has no effect on politics, because truth is simply not a concern there. The point of political claims is political interests, not truth, so they can't be defeated by walking and talking about truth.