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Yep. This is why it makes me nearly physically ill when I hear people use terms like "science denier" or say things like "<insert political party here> don't be

Yep. This is why it makes me nearly physically ill when I hear people use terms like "science denier" or say things like "<insert political party here> don't believe in science" or "our laws should be based on science". It is invariably some of the most scientifically illiterate, ideologically entrenched, and intellectually lukewarm people who spout this garbage as a retort to any sort of argument with which they do not wish to engage.

bdowling 3y ago
My favorite term like that was “scientific consensus”. I used to point out that up until the 17th century the scientific consensus was that the Sun revolved around the Earth. I would get nothing but blank stares in response. It turns out that people who talk about “scientific consensus” typically don’t know whether the Earth revolves around the Sun, or vice-versa.
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  It is especially frustrating when scientific ideas are applied to moral dilemmas. I see this from the far left wing frequently. The irony is that this same mindset is what led to the proliferation of eugenics apologists in the 1800s. The scientific consensus had absolutely no objections to eugenics on scientific grounds. In fact, "science" would seem to support it. Yet it is widely agreed that this practice is morally reprehensible nowadays, because humans were able to put aside their hubris and apply their moral reasoning.
  - rnk 3y ago
    Plenty of people realized that eugenics was unacceptable who were in the scientific world then, just like plenty of people understood that slavery was wrong. Which doesn't take away from the fact that plenty of terrible policies came out because leaders did have those views. I don't know what left wing ideas you've seen that are wrong, I'm sure that I've seen some left wing ideas that are wrong. I'm more worried about what do the leaders and the effective speakers in groups promote. Saying that I'm making you more free by taking away your choice of library books, or your choice about medical care, that's not an extreme view that only 1% of people have. It's pretty much the consensus leadership view of Republicans.
- o_____________o 3y ago
  I'm staring blankly too. The idea is to forever invalidate consensus because people were wrong in the past?
  - bdowling 3y ago
    Consensus means that people agree; it doesn’t mean that they are right.
    - o_____________o 3y ago
      Yeah, but it means they're far more likely to be correct. Iconoclast / Galileo gambit outliers are near nil. We collectively know more about everything every year, science has generally given us a self-correcting living corpus. The argument you're making is the same made by anti-intellectuals: don't trust institutional knowledge and consensus because it's been wrong in the past, look at mistake X. It's something like a systemic ad hominem.
      - jeegsy 3y ago
        > Yeah, but it means they're far more likely to be correct I know what this means from a statistical perspective but I dont know what it means with regard to practical day to day decision making. > The argument you're making is the same made by anti-intellectuals Isn't there some sort of fallacy that you are yourself deploying here?
        brutusborn 3y ago
        The fallacy is assuming that consensus = probably true. This is only correct when we have good evidence and good methods. That is why consensus breaks (like heliocentrism) occur during technological changes (development of telescope). The critical point the parent is missing is that many fields have terrible data and terrible methods so the ‘consensus’ isn’t likely to be true (eg smoking is good for the nerves, butter is bad for you, the globe is too big for humans to cause changes) It takes a lot of intellectual integrity to admit that many disciplines are not generating anything resembling ‘truth’. It’s easier to ignore and say: but the consensus is the best we have! Sometimes the heterodox view is the best.
arp242 3y ago
The tricky bit is there really are people who think that science is "just an opinion, man". See e.g. "teach the controversy" regarding evolution vs. creationism. There's certainly a place for "<X> don't believe in science" and "our laws should be based on science". But the argument is so often misapplied that it's become meaningless. I have argued against 5G deployment for example, not based on outlandish "zomg Bill Gates George Soros mindcontrol!!!11" or "brain tumours!!!11" nonsense, all of that is clearly nonsense. But the science is a lot less clear that there are zero effects than is sometimes made out to be, and there are also the ethical considerations of informed consent. I was, of course, immediately lobbed in with the crazies and called a science-denying conspiracy theorist, by someone with no expertise in the field who said I need to "listen to the science", in spite of my argument looking nothing like the anti-scientific nonsense from David Icke and the like. Don't even get me started on COVID – any attempt to inject even the slightest sort of nuance was met with "you are literally murdering people with your unscientific nonsense!" and you were immediately lobbed in with COVID-denying anti-maskers or whatnot. At some point this stopped being a debate about trade-offs involving science and medicine on one hand and basic liberties and freedoms on the other and became some sort of moral crusade (and it seems it still is; there was a conference this month where masks at all times, full proof of vaccination, and a PCR test was still required, which seems a bit much for 2023). A big issue is that any sort of nuance is often met with the most uncharitable interpretation because the genuinely crazy people have been getting so much attention.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  You're right about this. And it makes discussion, much less "debate", so difficult. I'm pro-5G but willing to entertain the anti-5G evidence because what if there was some and it was true or at least unexplained?
- brightball 3y ago
  The thing is, based on so many examples of people who cite “the science” that are clearly exaggerated or unsupported “just an opinion” isn’t too far off. It shouldn’t be this way, but there’s a lot of undermining of trust in science because of this stuff. Take evolution as an example. How many layers of scientific expertise have to be understood to really claim that you understand how evolution works? Archeology, biology, history, geology, genetics…potentially more? At some point there’s a trust factor involved in accepting evolution. Now apply that same realization with climate change. The more complex, the more moving parts, the easier it is to find a part to be skeptical about and people will do exactly that. Especially if they are given reason to believe that the science is just there to support a political objective. In the end, unless science can be easily replicated and demonstrated (gravity, boiling water, killing bacteria, generating power, flywheels, etc) it will boil down to trust for the vast majority of people.
l33t233372 3y ago
One problem is that often science says nothing about policy. _Science_ doesn’t say we should ban fossil fuels, but it does make predictions about what will happen if we continue to use them at the current rate. It’s not science denial to be against the policy.
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  yes certainly science can inform policy decisions. How do I put this... Science has nothing to say about what we should set as the objectives of our policy. Science can, however, inform our approach to attaining that objective.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    To oversimplify my view: Politics = applied philosophy Science = applied epistemology Pretending that science can create policy leads to things like eugenics (but Darwin said it would make us fitter so it must be ‘good’!)
- rnk 3y ago
  There's another important part of this though, oil companies pay scientific researchers to publish views against the veracity of climate change, research and predictions. That's why they say it's science denialism because those people are making shoddy arguments. Disagreeing about whether you care about global climate change is not science denialism but making up things to say there's no science is denialism.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    That’s an important distinction, but is lost on 99% of the population. Try to voice any skepticism about climate change policy and most people will call you a climate denier. Same with vaccines; express a skepticism of efficacy and suddenly you are an anti-science anti-Vaxer. The irony is that skepticism and asking annoying questions is essential to science. Ignoring ‘anti-scientific’ arguments is inherently anti-science.

bdowling 3y ago

My favorite term like that was “scientific consensus”. I used to point out that up until the 17th century the scientific consensus was that the Sun revolved around the Earth. I would get nothing but blank stares in response. It turns out that people who talk about “scientific consensus” typically don’t know whether the Earth revolves around the Sun, or vice-versa.

DontchaKnowit 3y ago
It is especially frustrating when scientific ideas are applied to moral dilemmas. I see this from the far left wing frequently. The irony is that this same mindset is what led to the proliferation of eugenics apologists in the 1800s. The scientific consensus had absolutely no objections to eugenics on scientific grounds. In fact, "science" would seem to support it. Yet it is widely agreed that this practice is morally reprehensible nowadays, because humans were able to put aside their hubris and apply their moral reasoning.
- rnk 3y ago
  Plenty of people realized that eugenics was unacceptable who were in the scientific world then, just like plenty of people understood that slavery was wrong. Which doesn't take away from the fact that plenty of terrible policies came out because leaders did have those views. I don't know what left wing ideas you've seen that are wrong, I'm sure that I've seen some left wing ideas that are wrong. I'm more worried about what do the leaders and the effective speakers in groups promote. Saying that I'm making you more free by taking away your choice of library books, or your choice about medical care, that's not an extreme view that only 1% of people have. It's pretty much the consensus leadership view of Republicans.
o_____________o 3y ago
I'm staring blankly too. The idea is to forever invalidate consensus because people were wrong in the past?
- bdowling 3y ago
  Consensus means that people agree; it doesn’t mean that they are right.
  - o_____________o 3y ago
    Yeah, but it means they're far more likely to be correct. Iconoclast / Galileo gambit outliers are near nil. We collectively know more about everything every year, science has generally given us a self-correcting living corpus. The argument you're making is the same made by anti-intellectuals: don't trust institutional knowledge and consensus because it's been wrong in the past, look at mistake X. It's something like a systemic ad hominem.
    - jeegsy 3y ago
      > Yeah, but it means they're far more likely to be correct I know what this means from a statistical perspective but I dont know what it means with regard to practical day to day decision making. > The argument you're making is the same made by anti-intellectuals Isn't there some sort of fallacy that you are yourself deploying here?
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        The fallacy is assuming that consensus = probably true. This is only correct when we have good evidence and good methods. That is why consensus breaks (like heliocentrism) occur during technological changes (development of telescope). The critical point the parent is missing is that many fields have terrible data and terrible methods so the ‘consensus’ isn’t likely to be true (eg smoking is good for the nerves, butter is bad for you, the globe is too big for humans to cause changes) It takes a lot of intellectual integrity to admit that many disciplines are not generating anything resembling ‘truth’. It’s easier to ignore and say: but the consensus is the best we have! Sometimes the heterodox view is the best.

arp242 3y ago

The tricky bit is there really are people who think that science is "just an opinion, man". See e.g. "teach the controversy" regarding evolution vs. creationism. There's certainly a place for "<X> don't believe in science" and "our laws should be based on science". But the argument is so often misapplied that it's become meaningless. I have argued against 5G deployment for example, not based on outlandish "zomg Bill Gates George Soros mindcontrol!!!11" or "brain tumours!!!11" nonsense, all of that is clearly nonsense. But the science is a lot less clear that there are zero effects than is sometimes made out to be, and there are also the ethical considerations of informed consent. I was, of course, immediately lobbed in with the crazies and called a science-denying conspiracy theorist, by someone with no expertise in the field who said I need to "listen to the science", in spite of my argument looking nothing like the anti-scientific nonsense from David Icke and the like. Don't even get me started on COVID – any attempt to inject even the slightest sort of nuance was met with "you are literally murdering people with your unscientific nonsense!" and you were immediately lobbed in with COVID-denying anti-maskers or whatnot. At some point this stopped being a debate about trade-offs involving science and medicine on one hand and basic liberties and freedoms on the other and became some sort of moral crusade (and it seems it still is; there was a conference this month where masks at all times, full proof of vaccination, and a PCR test was still required, which seems a bit much for 2023). A big issue is that any sort of nuance is often met with the most uncharitable interpretation because the genuinely crazy people have been getting so much attention.

pmarreck 3y ago
You're right about this. And it makes discussion, much less "debate", so difficult. I'm pro-5G but willing to entertain the anti-5G evidence because what if there was some and it was true or at least unexplained?
brightball 3y ago
The thing is, based on so many examples of people who cite “the science” that are clearly exaggerated or unsupported “just an opinion” isn’t too far off. It shouldn’t be this way, but there’s a lot of undermining of trust in science because of this stuff. Take evolution as an example. How many layers of scientific expertise have to be understood to really claim that you understand how evolution works? Archeology, biology, history, geology, genetics…potentially more? At some point there’s a trust factor involved in accepting evolution. Now apply that same realization with climate change. The more complex, the more moving parts, the easier it is to find a part to be skeptical about and people will do exactly that. Especially if they are given reason to believe that the science is just there to support a political objective. In the end, unless science can be easily replicated and demonstrated (gravity, boiling water, killing bacteria, generating power, flywheels, etc) it will boil down to trust for the vast majority of people.

l33t233372 3y ago

One problem is that often science says nothing about policy. _Science_ doesn’t say we should ban fossil fuels, but it does make predictions about what will happen if we continue to use them at the current rate. It’s not science denial to be against the policy.

DontchaKnowit 3y ago
yes certainly science can inform policy decisions. How do I put this... Science has nothing to say about what we should set as the objectives of our policy. Science can, however, inform our approach to attaining that objective.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  To oversimplify my view: Politics = applied philosophy Science = applied epistemology Pretending that science can create policy leads to things like eugenics (but Darwin said it would make us fitter so it must be ‘good’!)
rnk 3y ago
There's another important part of this though, oil companies pay scientific researchers to publish views against the veracity of climate change, research and predictions. That's why they say it's science denialism because those people are making shoddy arguments. Disagreeing about whether you care about global climate change is not science denialism but making up things to say there's no science is denialism.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  That’s an important distinction, but is lost on 99% of the population. Try to voice any skepticism about climate change policy and most people will call you a climate denier. Same with vaccines; express a skepticism of efficacy and suddenly you are an anti-science anti-Vaxer. The irony is that skepticism and asking annoying questions is essential to science. Ignoring ‘anti-scientific’ arguments is inherently anti-science.