> There is a depressing # of voices here in this discussion which argue that ignorance is better than search for, however imperfect and fractional, knowledge Y

> There is a depressing # of voices here in this discussion which argue that ignorance is better than search for, however imperfect and fractional, knowledge You are being too generous. They argue for ignorance now, only because they are forced to by the starkness of the "do or do not" research question. Otherwise they would confidently claim every notion they dislike has been widely debunked (and give examples of 19th century studies getting debunked, while avoiding mention of any post-1950s research). When pressed, they would retreat to "it's complicated", and finally to "so what/you shouldn't care anyway" [1]. And when the discussion is over, they will immediately forget it, and revert to using an absolutist blank slatist assumption (with zero basis in research) to legitimize their politics, and deconstruct [2] their opponent's. [1] "I don't have a dog. And if I had a dog, it doesn't bite. And if I had a dog and it did bite, it didn't bite you. And if I had a dog and it did bite, and it bit you, then you provoked the dog." [2] Not just delegitimize, but deconstruct, i.e. "not only should you not care about those things, those things don't even exist, they are mere social constructs with no biological basis"