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I am 100% sure those kind of articles contribute nothing to distrust in science. I bet you a $100 the people who are anti science never read article like that.

I am 100% sure those kind of articles contribute nothing to distrust in science. I bet you a $100 the people who are anti science never read article like that. Dipping toes in flat earth community, when I still believed that its largely a 'for the lulz' community, there are predictable patters of how those are formed and propagated/sustained. There are few opinion makers that use techno/science babble to create theories that have easy to grasp headline so it easily spreads as a meme in the community. I strongly believe vast majority of those people are scams, selling books to their followers. But their followers dont read anything but their own post,headlines, materials. All easy reads exposing some secret knowledge kept from the people. In fact those communities are almost identical to religions, only their dogmas are still shifting, forming, spliting and evolving. But one universal mechanism for all is conformity to the dogma, any outsider get shutdown as an enemy and their ideas gets thrown away.

runjake 5y ago
They said "distrust in science", not "anti-science". Those are two entirely different things. Speaking as an American, most Americans see "science" in the news media and assume it's 1.) accurate and 2.) actual science, and then it turns out to be fringe, or the media got it entirely wrong and it gets stored in these people's personal caches of "How scientists are always wrong." Eg. the American debate on climate change.
- jerf 5y ago
  I endorse this reply. I'm thinking not "flat earth" here, but people who are legitimately exhausted from the scientific media telling them eggs are good for you one month, and then that they're bad for you the month, and repeating that for literally decades. It is a rational conclusion to devalue science, or at least devalue science journalism, at that point. Science journalism should not be so free in giving people rational reasons to discount them.

runjake 5y ago

They said "distrust in science", not "anti-science". Those are two entirely different things. Speaking as an American, most Americans see "science" in the news media and assume it's 1.) accurate and 2.) actual science, and then it turns out to be fringe, or the media got it entirely wrong and it gets stored in these people's personal caches of "How scientists are always wrong." Eg. the American debate on climate change.

jerf 5y ago
I endorse this reply. I'm thinking not "flat earth" here, but people who are legitimately exhausted from the scientific media telling them eggs are good for you one month, and then that they're bad for you the month, and repeating that for literally decades. It is a rational conclusion to devalue science, or at least devalue science journalism, at that point. Science journalism should not be so free in giving people rational reasons to discount them.