14 ms·

A pro-science, pro-progress, techno-optimistic health textbook from 1929

138 points by drcwpl 2y ago

mmastrac 2y ago
It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here. The history of that movement is long. Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. I think there's a certain amount of cherry-picking going on with this textbook, however, as you'd find just as many pro-science books today, and likely a number of "science is the devil"-type publications in the early 1900s. It's an interesting read, either way, with some amusing editorializing by the article's author in the middle (no spoilers).
- api 2y ago
  What is it about vaccines? Lots of anti-vaxxers are fine with other kinds of drugs and use them liberally, even in many cases street drugs. They'll eat fast food, processed food, use household chemicals, do all kinds of other things that expose them to things they don't understand and may not be good for them, but vaccines are just the devil incarnate. The word vaccine seems to provoke a visceral gut reaction among a lot of them. Like you said it goes way, way back. Something about vaccines creeps a lot of people out for reasons I don't understand.
  - tedeh 2y ago
    Fear of needles and having your skin pierced is my guess, at least for some.
    - yesco 2y ago
      I think it's simply the enforcement mechanisms make people paranoid, especially since they are usually directed at children (by schools), it all then snowballs from there. I agree the needles don't help though.
  - anovikov 2y ago
    It's about taking a drug when not sick, and doing so because government says you to.
  - profsummergig 2y ago
    RFK Jr. is such a case. Anti-vaxx, but uses something to boost his "jackedness". The dude is jacked for a >70 years old guy. Supposedly it's testosterone. If anyone knows what he uses to look so jacked, please share.
    - rqtwteye 2y ago
      That's what he says: “I’m on an anti-aging protocol from my doctor that includes testosterone replacement,” Kennedy said. “I don’t take any anabolic steroids or anything like that and the TRT I use is bioidentical to what my body produces.” I wouldn't be surprised if he mixed in a few other "vitamins"
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        He's been convicted of heroin possession in the past.
      - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        The man is confused if he doesn't think testosterone is an anabolic steroid.
    - aphantastic 2y ago
      He is vaccinated and all of his children are as well. What specifically of his statements do you consider “anti-vax”?
      - 9dev 2y ago
        Maybe the fact that he wants to let people choose whether to get vaccinated. That isn’t how we eradicated polio. It’s irresponsible.
        aphantastic 2y ago
        So not “anti-vax” but rather “pro-choice”.
  - aphantastic 2y ago
    Yes, people can choose to do some things without wanting authorities to force them to do other things. Astutely observed.
    - svara 2y ago
      So tired of this framing. We get it, you don't like the government. So what? If you're spreading lies about medicine because you distrust authority... Well, first of all, you're dumb because you believe falsehoods. But more importantly, you're a danger to my health, my friends and my families' health, and to your own health as well. Why would we have any patience for this? Your rugged self-important individualism is not worth more than any of that. You appear to be thinking that you're taking some heroic stand on principle. Your principle is leading you astray. It makes you antisocial, a danger to your neighbors.
      - insane_dreamer 2y ago
        >We get it, you don't like the government. So what? Well, if you don't trust the government, then the likelihood that you'll be willing to follow their "orders" is pretty low. > But more importantly, you're a danger to my health, my friends and my families' health, and to your own health as well. And __this__ response is exactly why people can become anti-vaxx without having a problem with medicine or science in general (which is the question being put forward by the OP). You're coming at it from a "the gov said its safe, so it's safe, and you're an idiot for not trusting the gov" (even though governments have shown themselves to be un-trustworthy many many times -- not in the area of vaccines necessarily -- but in other domains. So this type of urging to "do it because we're all doing it because Uncle Sam said so" is highly counter productive.
        svara 2y ago
        > You're coming at it from a "the gov said its safe, so it's safe, ... What makes you think so? I don't need a government to make up my mind on scientific topics, and neither should you. Ironically, it's the person who believes the opposite of what some government says that is doing so.
  - Eumenes 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > My body my choice? If being pregnant was contagious, we'd treat it as a very different issue.
      - Eumenes 2y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        Your right to bodily autonomy must always be balanced with your impact on others' rights. You can drink, but you can't drive drunk. You can shoot guns, but not at someone. Example abound in our society.
        nradov 2y ago
        Bodily autonomy for free adults of sound mind is absolute. There is no "right" to be protected against infectious disease. I am absolutely pro-vaccine and getting vaccinated is the best option for the vast majority of patients but let's not distort the discussion by inventing fake rights that appear nowhere in the US Constitution. I think a lot of the recent backlash was based on false claims by politicians and public health officials that COVID-19 vaccine mandates were necessary to protect others. But in reality the scientific evidence indicated that the vaccines had little or no benefit for reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. That discrepancy in messaging eroded public trust and made some people believe that authorities had ulterior motives.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        > Bodily autonomy for free adults of sound mind is absolute. There's no jurisdiction on the planet in which this is true. Certainly not the USA. > let's not distort the discussion by inventing fake rights that appear nowhere in the US Constitution The Constitution itself openly and clearly shoots down this idea in the Bill of Rights, in the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." George Washington himself instituted a vaccine mandate. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/smallpox-inoculation-revolutionary-war.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/smallpox-inoculation-revolu...
  - Lutger 2y ago
    Of course, in the pandemic we saw extreme versions of this. Anything to avoid vaccination, but ivermectin and other risky drugs were no problem. If vaccination would be alternative medicine and ivermection government mandated, we might see the reverse. So I don't think its vaccination perse, at least not on its own, but vaccines have various things going against them. Like someone else in this thread said, government mandate + preventative medicine has the right ingredients to form a conspiracy theory with, religious doctrine has historically amplified that as well. Additionally, there's also a distrust of 'big pharma' in general, and especially with minority groups a history of dubious or even malevolent medical experimentation by the government. A big part of the antivaxxers are now also anti 5G, advocate against the use of sunscreen, are against wind energy and EV, sometimes pro-russia, anti-deepstate, etc. Some of this is fossil lobby, some of it is the result of Russian propaganda and other parts are just organic whackyness, like the flat earthers.
    - niceice 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        Other items on the "essential medicine" list include propofol, morphine, and fentanyl. Each can very easily kill if incorrectly used, and each has serious dangers if used for the wrong conditions. Ivermectin is specifically listed in the "anthelminthics" section, i.e. for worms. It's an essential medicine because it's good at killing worms, which widely affect billions of people in developing nations. It didn't win the Nobel prize and hasn't been used for decades to treat COVID-19. Water is essential, too, but that doesn't mean a tsunami is good for you. Hydrating a sick person can save a life; waterboarding them can be a war crime. Context matters.
    - TheFreim 2y ago
      > Anything to avoid vaccination, but ivermectin and other risky drugs were no problem. This sort of language makes problems worse and even further decreases trust. Casting a wide net and calling ivermectin a "risy drug" when a quick search engine query will show it is used safely in humans as an antiparasite drug. When someone who is skeptical about vaccines reads these sorts of blatant falsehoods why in the world would they believe anything else you say? If you wanted to warn people against using forms formulated for animal consumption then you could've just said that, instead you painted with a wide brush which justifies someone to not trust you.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    > Something about vaccines creeps a lot of people out for reasons I don't understand. I think it's the fact that vaccines are heavily pushed on everyone, which is very different than a medication that you choose to take, or your doctor specifically prescribes for you, to address a medical condition. Taking chemicals to cure some disease is different than taking chemicals when you're healthy simply to decrease a risk that you may or may not consider relevant to you. Also, often vaccines are administered not for your own sake but to protect the community, and so again it's a different calculation where you're injecting chemicals (or injecting your kids with chemicals) not because you think you need them but to potentially protect others should you become ill. Also there often isn't as much explanation around vaccines (besides COVID) as to their makeup, etc., compared to some medication that your doctor prescribes to you (i.e., if my Dr prescribes a blood thinner I'm going to get a pretty thorough explanation of it and can ask questions, whereas with vaccines it feels mandatory without much explanation other than "the surgeon general said to". So it's not at all surprising to me that there is strong resistance to vaccines from some people who have no problem with medications in general.
    - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      It's the privilege of growing up in a society where most people are vaccinated. People have forgotten (or never seen) how horrifying some diseases can be.
  - niceice 2y ago
    A lot of is the abuse of the label anti-vaxxer. It's being misapplied to people who aren't against vaccine technology. RFK, who is vaccinated along with his children: "I’ve been fighting 40 years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me anti-fish."
    - mmastrac 2y ago
      I don't think quoting RFK is a good example of showcasing a rational view of vaccines.
    - supplied_demand 2y ago
      Can you explain what you mean by "people who aren't against vaccine technology?" I'm not sure I follow given that RFK has explicitly said he is against vaccines and that no vaccines are safe and effective. [0] ===In July, Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.=== ===“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” Kennedy said.=== ===That same year, in a video promoting an anti-vaccine sticker campaign by his nonprofit, Kennedy appeared onscreen next to one sticker that declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.”=== [0] https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-president-campaign-621c9e9641381a1b2677df9de5a09731 https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-preside...
      - niceice 2y ago
        He should be more careful with his words, but they're resorting to cherry picked quotes and guilt by association to mislead: "appeared onscreen next to" It's unserious. To get his actual opinion, which is nuanced, you have to go long form.
        supplied_demand 2y ago
        ==guilt by association to mislead: "appeared onscreen next to"== It was something produced by his own non-profit. Do you not think it is fair to associate him with the non-profit he founded and ran? He has had no trouble associating himself with the organization. I feel like we can make the same association without misleading anyone. This is still just a deflection from the question of what "people who aren't against vaccine technology" even means. Can you please define it? I am having trouble seeing the difference between being anti-vaccine and being anti-vaccine technology. NOTE: The comment I originally responded to has since been edited.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    Anything that people are forced to do is going to cause this sort of visceral response. A lot of things that we were forced to do during COVID still stick with me and have basically made me intensely distrustful of authority to a degree that wasn't present before. It was just bullshit after bullshit enacted in law and forced on people. Walking in certain directions in the supermarket, going outside for only X minutes per day to exercise, only X people allowed at your table at the pub, etc. Just endless totally unscientific bollocks. It's like getting into a heated debate with someone. You start out and actually listen to what people are saying, but then eventually it's just like, come on man, fuck off, I don't even care if you're right, I'm tuned out. Fast food doesn't force me to eat it under penalty of imprisonment.
    - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      Where do you live that people were imprisoned over COVID related stuff?
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    Some reasons I can think of: - Vaccines are usually injected, injection makes most people uncomfortable. Most of them get over it, but it can be panic inducing for a small number. Among street drug users, injection is usually considered extreme, as in, the thing only true addicts do. - When you get vaccinated, you are fine, and then you get a few unpleasant side effects. That's the opposite of the usual drugs you take when you are sick and make you feel better. - Sometimes, vaccination is made mandatory, many people don't like to be told what to do with their bodies, even if there are good reasons for it. - You never know when a vaccine have saved someone. Someone didn't get sick, but is it because of the vaccine, natural immunity, luck, or simply a lack of exposure, maybe he will get sick eventually, you can't really tell, and you don't really notice when something doesn't happen. However, when a vaccine hurt someone, or failed to prevent the disease it should protect against, that's very noticeable. - The most successful vaccines are now often considered useless, because the disease they protect against is so rare, why go through the discomfort of the vaccination when it is so unlikely for you to get sick either way? It is a tragedy of the commons, as the reason the diseases is so rare is because of widespread vaccination.
- deleted 2y ago
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- genghisjahn 2y ago
  >Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. And yet science says the opposite. The prevailing evidence suggests that humans are generally better suited to stable and safe environments, with danger and chaos typically leading to detrimental effects on mental health.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    The safest and richest societies are also the most highly medicated, so I would question to what prevailing evidence you refer. For an extreme example one might consider soldiers / warfighters. Very high rates of trauma and suicidality after returning from war, and this is only anecdotal not first hand but I would be interested to know what the mental health of deployed soldiers looks like in comparison (certainly there is a range of environments between 'deployed at a desk in japan' vs combat units living in 'danger, chaos and instability', so it might be a good context to study within)
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > The safest and richest societies are also the most highly medicated... That, alone, could point to two very obvious but very different conclusions. One is that people in those societies need medications more. Alternatively, people in these societies get needed medications more. I suspect the average American gets more therapy than the average Afghan, but I suspect the Afghans would still benefit from it.
      - pksebben 2y ago
        I think Maslow would have a point to make, here. Privileged societies are more medicated because the most pressing issues to them are (somewhat) soluble using medication. Because they are not imminently worried about housing and sustenance or violence. Would be odd to consider medicating for fibromyalgia or depression when you're starving and/or being bombed / shot at.
- davidw 2y ago
  > Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. That's part of what Tom Nichols has been saying: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/09/10/democracy-dies-boredom/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/09/10/democracy-di...
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    I wonder if that's the real reason he wanted the US to start a war in Iraq: to alleviate the boredom of modern life.
    - _feus 2y ago
      I have a little theory I like to tell at pubs that all of the intelligence comminities exist just because it attracts people who can't stand being bored. Advancing national security could be a thrilling entertainment.
      - tivert 2y ago
        > I have a little theory I like to tell at pubs that all of the intelligence comminities exist just because it attracts people who can't stand being bored. Advancing national security could be a thrilling entertainment. That's probably Special Circumstances in the Culture novels, but those novels are just a mashup of Iain Banks's imagination and biases, and I think they're poor approximation of anything resembling reality under any set of conditions. Personally, I think your theory would be a fun conversation topic, but I doubt it reflects real life.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    > Our politics has become all about hurting other people, instead of trying to create something positive. We used to go to the polls and say, here’s what I’m voting for. Now we go to the polls to vote against something and we hope it makes others really mad. This feels like a really uncharitable interpretation on what is going on. To me it feels more like you have two sides, the two sides have viewpoints that feel very alien to the other side, so extreme that they feel like attacks but actually it's just a clash of worldview.
- liontwist 2y ago
  The growing movement is the one that views vaccines as a categorical good and wants to unperson those who see each individual treatment as a an engineered tool with its own risks and benefits. If you know anything about marketing you know that for such messaging to be culturally pervasive is a result of years of effort and organizing.
  - deleted 2y ago
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- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here. Not surprising. I look at vaccines the same way as I look at any new medication: has it been tested long enough to know what the long-term effects of it are, and do the benefits outweigh the risks. I don't have a problem with MMR, TB and other common vaccines, that have been around for decades. If I'm traveling to East Africa I'm going to get a yellow fever vaccine. I also don't have a problem with the COVID vaccine because it was clear that the risk of not getting vaccinated was significant. But I have never gotten a "flu shot" in my life because the benefit of it is rather low relative to the risk of influenza given my demographics and health. If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it. Don't really care.
  - mmastrac 2y ago
    > If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it. Don't really care. I'm pretty sure setting a personal bar/risk tradeoff that lets you take a significant number of vaccines doesn't make you an anti-vaxxer.
    - niceice 2y ago
      That's the rational response, but in practice what we saw is that anyone who questioned the Covid vaccine was instantly labeled anti-vax. It didn't matter if they were fine with all other vaccines. It didn't matter if they just had Covid or had a complicating pre-existing condition. Anything less than full acceptance was shut down as anti-vax. They ruined the anti-vax label which was previously useful.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      I think anti-vaxxer is painted with a much wider brush than that, and somehow become automatically equivalent to "anti-science"; there is overlap but there's also a lot of non-overlap. Somehow vaccines have become an "all or nothing" proposition which is just as stupid as saying that all medications are created equal. But in any case, I'm not going to live my life by what labels others put on me.
  - snowwrestler 2y ago
- tivert 2y ago
  > It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here. The history of that movement is long. > Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. No, I don't think that's true. Humans are built to learn from experience, and one thing that vaccines do is eliminate the experiences that justify their use. That also makes the experience/knowledge of smaller dangers more prominent. For instance, a kid getting his arm paralyzed from the (now discontinued) live oral polio vaccine, looks a lot different if people are commonly getting worse paralysis from wild polio than if no one is getting wild polio at all anymore. The other thing you should probably take into account when regarding a book from 1929, is the experiences people had back then with (often dangerous) quack cures promising miracles. For instance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration#Origins_of_federal_food_and_drug_regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_A...): > By the 1930s, muckraking journalists, consumer protection organizations, and federal regulators began mounting a campaign for stronger regulatory authority by publicizing a list of injurious products which had been ruled permissible under the 1906 law, including radioactive beverages, the mascara Lash lure, which caused blindness, and worthless "cures" for diabetes and tuberculosis. The resulting proposed law was unable to get through Congress for five years, but was rapidly enacted into law following the public outcry over the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which over 100 people died after using a drug formulated with a toxic, untested solvent.
  - drcwpl 2y ago
    I had forgotten about the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, great reminder, thank you. Humans are adaptive learners, shaped by both individual experience and cultural memory. The rise of anti-vax sentiments might be better explained by psychological and sociological factors. Like mistrust of institutions, the amplification of fringe views via social media, or the cognitive biases that prioritize visible risks over abstract ones.
    - stevenAthompson 2y ago
      Those sociological factors aren't complex, and don't require an explanation of any real depth. The entire problem is this: Fifty four percent of Americans read below the 6th grade level, which means that the simple majority of Americans don't understand the world they live in and never will.
- thrance 2y ago
  I really don't like how often I have to read/hear "Humans are built to X" type arguments. I don't think the lack of a challenge is the root cause of science denialism. It's a cultural thing, coming from a lack of confidence in the elites. Elites are distraught when inequality become larger and things get tougher for the poorest.
  - pksebben 2y ago
    Could you expound on this a little more? I think I've totally misunderstood you. Like, who would you consider an 'Elite'? AFAICT, someone who's 'an Elite' thrives off of inequality, by definition. Without said inequality they wouldn't be 'Elite'. Is it possible that your definition for Elite is similar to my definition for Specialist? Like 'Subject Matter Expert'?
    - thrance 2y ago
      Sorry, I wrote my previous comment after I just woke up, it's a bit messy now that I take a second look at it. I guess the way I used "elites" in my previous comment refers more to a certain perception of society some people hold, rather than to a definite group of people. If we take the policies implemented during the COVID pandemic as an example, those came from the government, oftentimes backed by academia. Since a lot of people think the government is doing a bad job overall, they don't trust the legitimacy of those policies and oppose the scientific reasoning that led to them being adopted. When the economy is doing well, people put more trust into their government, or the "elites". Therefore, my thesis is that distrust into the institutions/science comes from a general discontent of the population, and is not a natural state of humanity.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > humans go insane in a safe and stable environment Weird that people still get raped and murdered in your "safe and stable" environment. Sometimes the perpetrators don't even see justice and get away with their crimes. How do you account for that? > a certain amount of cherry-picking Without a doubt. I don't trust authority because I've been abused by it before. I'm sure you didn't mean to punch down but that's how many of us would rationally perceive it.
tombert 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
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api 2y ago
Science has delivered a standard of living to most of the developed world that is greater than that of an Egyptian Pharaoh or a Roman Emperor in numerous ways: health, food, availability of information, ease of travel, physical comfort, etc. Yet visit social media and it's absolutely overflowing with gloom and doom and histrionic political rage and fear bait. Saw a thread recently on Reddit about how many young people in the USA are contemplating suicide because the present or the future looks so bleak to them. We'd have to fall pretty far for their standard of living to decline below that of Pharaoh Ramses II. It's convinced me that the human brain is just not wired for abundance. Our brain keeps searching and searching for the immediate existential threats that millions of years of evolution have programmed us to know absolutely must be there. If we don't see them it actually makes us panic more since it means the lion is hiding so well we can't spot it and it's about to jump out and get us.
- tombert 2y ago
  I think people are extremely sensitive to the first derivative of things happening to them, with a very short time window. Even if your life is objectively better (by any measurement you want) than it would have been 500 years ago, is it better than it was a week ago?
  - rqtwteye 2y ago
    You also tend to compare yourself to others. For example, I am not happy when CEO gets a 20% raise while telling the rest of us that money is tight and no raises can be given. We all want some level of fairness.
- edflsafoiewq 2y ago
  People don't set their standard of a good life against a 3000 year old kingdom they've never seen or think about. Nor are they impressed when people resort to mining the ancient past or far-off countries for the deepest pits of misery they can find to make things sound good by comparison.
  - snozolli 2y ago
animal_spirits 2y ago
[flagged]
- yyuugg 2y ago
  The author might be wrong. It can actually be racist in ways beyond "African people are genetically inferior." I didn't find the author to be particularly deeply invested, they seemed to want to score some points over "social justice warriors" and then backed off pretty quickly with an "it's complicated" footnote.
  - 2099miles 2y ago
    When I read that part I also thought they were just trying to pwn the libs, but the rest of the article was so good, and what they said isn’t inaccurate, so now I think I was just projecting that. Not being super invested and having it just be a small part of the article actually seems right to me so idk. I’ve hit my fair share, but this article alone in no way makes me think this person is one.
    - animal_spirits 2y ago
      I’m not pushing one ideo or another - I just don’t get why it’s flagged. We aren’t making generalizations, just talking about the article
- deleted 2y ago
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revel 2y ago
> Now, imagine the uproar that might ensue from some corners today if a textbook made this sort of direct comparison between two groups, with one group happening to be white and the other black. Some social justice warriors would no doubt raise an outcry. The book would be branded as Eurocentric, racist, and white supremacist, since it doesn’t give equal space to describing the intellectual achievements of the Zulu or to recognizing the validity of indigenous ways of knowing. The picture of the African witch doctor might be described as a “culturally insensitive caricature”. The book would also be criticized for not describing ways in which Zulu society is more healthy than contemporary American society. This textbook is from 1929 and was probably being written at the exact same time as the Snopes monkey trial (1925). You're reading science hype because science was under attack; and not from "social justice warriors" but from conservative Americans. Notice that the single most transformative discovery in all of biology, evolution, isn't mentioned. That attack on evolution is still taking place. In Texas there was an attempt to strike all references to evolution and climate change from the curriculum, along with other attempts to introduce biblical references. When did that take place? That was this year; oh, and in 2023: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/texas-education-board-backs-elementary-school-curriculum-with-biblical-references-03851ee5 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/texas-education-board-... Getting mad at "social justice warriors" for an imagined reaction while ignoring the actual attacks on science is... well, it's what I've come to expect.
- goatlover 2y ago
  Both things can be true, and there are real world examples of attacking western science as eurocentrist and what not. The imagined reaction is based on those criticisms.
- ngriffiths 2y ago
  I still thought that passage was interesting. It is a totally reasonable prediction of how much of public health would read it. The post and your comment emphasize how the impact of science depends more on the public than the handful of scientists who create it. Roughly ~0% of people understand any given scientific topic. It will always be completely asymmetric. It will always involve stuff like belief in an ideology, struggles for political power, (relatively blind) trust in a movement or leader, etc. As a result, there is no world in which scientists don't regularly harm whoever follows them, the same as any leader in an uncertain/asymmetric environment (by getting stuff wrong accidentally, or actively abusing their power for personal gain). The part about social justice warriors is actually interesting because that view will come across as "we hate science!" to some people but the real idea is somewhere between "successful science requires exerting some political power over other people" (obviously true) and "western science was built on a foundation of coercion and oppression, making lots of technological progress and causing some unavoidable tragic effects." Whatever the "truth" is, it's really complicated ethically.
pyuser583 2y ago
Ok the fact that ChatGPT recited the historical significance of the tsetse fly finally has me scared. It’s good.
melagonster 2y ago
>Now, imagine the uproar that might ensue from some corners today if a textbook made this sort of direct comparison between two groups, with one group happening to be white and the other black. I read a better analogy; they compared the life table of humans with the life table of Chimpanzee or Bonobo. The change between before and after the introduction of modern medicine is obvious.

138 points by drcwpl 2y ago

It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here. The history of that movement is long. Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. I think there's a certain amount of cherry-picking going on with this textbook, however, as you'd find just as many pro-science books today, and likely a number of "science is the devil"-type publications in the early 1900s. It's an interesting read, either way, with some amusing editorializing by the article's author in the middle (no spoilers).

api 2y ago
What is it about vaccines? Lots of anti-vaxxers are fine with other kinds of drugs and use them liberally, even in many cases street drugs. They'll eat fast food, processed food, use household chemicals, do all kinds of other things that expose them to things they don't understand and may not be good for them, but vaccines are just the devil incarnate. The word vaccine seems to provoke a visceral gut reaction among a lot of them. Like you said it goes way, way back. Something about vaccines creeps a lot of people out for reasons I don't understand.
- tedeh 2y ago
  Fear of needles and having your skin pierced is my guess, at least for some.
  - yesco 2y ago
    I think it's simply the enforcement mechanisms make people paranoid, especially since they are usually directed at children (by schools), it all then snowballs from there. I agree the needles don't help though.
- anovikov 2y ago
  It's about taking a drug when not sick, and doing so because government says you to.
- profsummergig 2y ago
  RFK Jr. is such a case. Anti-vaxx, but uses something to boost his "jackedness". The dude is jacked for a >70 years old guy. Supposedly it's testosterone. If anyone knows what he uses to look so jacked, please share.
  - rqtwteye 2y ago
    That's what he says: “I’m on an anti-aging protocol from my doctor that includes testosterone replacement,” Kennedy said. “I don’t take any anabolic steroids or anything like that and the TRT I use is bioidentical to what my body produces.” I wouldn't be surprised if he mixed in a few other "vitamins"
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      He's been convicted of heroin possession in the past.
    - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      The man is confused if he doesn't think testosterone is an anabolic steroid.
  - aphantastic 2y ago
    He is vaccinated and all of his children are as well. What specifically of his statements do you consider “anti-vax”?
    - 9dev 2y ago
      Maybe the fact that he wants to let people choose whether to get vaccinated. That isn’t how we eradicated polio. It’s irresponsible.
      - aphantastic 2y ago
        So not “anti-vax” but rather “pro-choice”.
- aphantastic 2y ago
  Yes, people can choose to do some things without wanting authorities to force them to do other things. Astutely observed.
  - svara 2y ago
    So tired of this framing. We get it, you don't like the government. So what? If you're spreading lies about medicine because you distrust authority... Well, first of all, you're dumb because you believe falsehoods. But more importantly, you're a danger to my health, my friends and my families' health, and to your own health as well. Why would we have any patience for this? Your rugged self-important individualism is not worth more than any of that. You appear to be thinking that you're taking some heroic stand on principle. Your principle is leading you astray. It makes you antisocial, a danger to your neighbors.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      >We get it, you don't like the government. So what? Well, if you don't trust the government, then the likelihood that you'll be willing to follow their "orders" is pretty low. > But more importantly, you're a danger to my health, my friends and my families' health, and to your own health as well. And __this__ response is exactly why people can become anti-vaxx without having a problem with medicine or science in general (which is the question being put forward by the OP). You're coming at it from a "the gov said its safe, so it's safe, and you're an idiot for not trusting the gov" (even though governments have shown themselves to be un-trustworthy many many times -- not in the area of vaccines necessarily -- but in other domains. So this type of urging to "do it because we're all doing it because Uncle Sam said so" is highly counter productive.
      - svara 2y ago
        > You're coming at it from a "the gov said its safe, so it's safe, ... What makes you think so? I don't need a government to make up my mind on scientific topics, and neither should you. Ironically, it's the person who believes the opposite of what some government says that is doing so.
- Eumenes 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > My body my choice? If being pregnant was contagious, we'd treat it as a very different issue.
    - Eumenes 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        Your right to bodily autonomy must always be balanced with your impact on others' rights. You can drink, but you can't drive drunk. You can shoot guns, but not at someone. Example abound in our society.
        nradov 2y ago
        Bodily autonomy for free adults of sound mind is absolute. There is no "right" to be protected against infectious disease. I am absolutely pro-vaccine and getting vaccinated is the best option for the vast majority of patients but let's not distort the discussion by inventing fake rights that appear nowhere in the US Constitution. I think a lot of the recent backlash was based on false claims by politicians and public health officials that COVID-19 vaccine mandates were necessary to protect others. But in reality the scientific evidence indicated that the vaccines had little or no benefit for reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. That discrepancy in messaging eroded public trust and made some people believe that authorities had ulterior motives.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        > Bodily autonomy for free adults of sound mind is absolute. There's no jurisdiction on the planet in which this is true. Certainly not the USA. > let's not distort the discussion by inventing fake rights that appear nowhere in the US Constitution The Constitution itself openly and clearly shoots down this idea in the Bill of Rights, in the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." George Washington himself instituted a vaccine mandate. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/smallpox-inoculation-revolutionary-war.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/smallpox-inoculation-revolu...
- Lutger 2y ago
  Of course, in the pandemic we saw extreme versions of this. Anything to avoid vaccination, but ivermectin and other risky drugs were no problem. If vaccination would be alternative medicine and ivermection government mandated, we might see the reverse. So I don't think its vaccination perse, at least not on its own, but vaccines have various things going against them. Like someone else in this thread said, government mandate + preventative medicine has the right ingredients to form a conspiracy theory with, religious doctrine has historically amplified that as well. Additionally, there's also a distrust of 'big pharma' in general, and especially with minority groups a history of dubious or even malevolent medical experimentation by the government. A big part of the antivaxxers are now also anti 5G, advocate against the use of sunscreen, are against wind energy and EV, sometimes pro-russia, anti-deepstate, etc. Some of this is fossil lobby, some of it is the result of Russian propaganda and other parts are just organic whackyness, like the flat earthers.
  - niceice 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      Other items on the "essential medicine" list include propofol, morphine, and fentanyl. Each can very easily kill if incorrectly used, and each has serious dangers if used for the wrong conditions. Ivermectin is specifically listed in the "anthelminthics" section, i.e. for worms. It's an essential medicine because it's good at killing worms, which widely affect billions of people in developing nations. It didn't win the Nobel prize and hasn't been used for decades to treat COVID-19. Water is essential, too, but that doesn't mean a tsunami is good for you. Hydrating a sick person can save a life; waterboarding them can be a war crime. Context matters.
  - TheFreim 2y ago
    > Anything to avoid vaccination, but ivermectin and other risky drugs were no problem. This sort of language makes problems worse and even further decreases trust. Casting a wide net and calling ivermectin a "risy drug" when a quick search engine query will show it is used safely in humans as an antiparasite drug. When someone who is skeptical about vaccines reads these sorts of blatant falsehoods why in the world would they believe anything else you say? If you wanted to warn people against using forms formulated for animal consumption then you could've just said that, instead you painted with a wide brush which justifies someone to not trust you.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > Something about vaccines creeps a lot of people out for reasons I don't understand. I think it's the fact that vaccines are heavily pushed on everyone, which is very different than a medication that you choose to take, or your doctor specifically prescribes for you, to address a medical condition. Taking chemicals to cure some disease is different than taking chemicals when you're healthy simply to decrease a risk that you may or may not consider relevant to you. Also, often vaccines are administered not for your own sake but to protect the community, and so again it's a different calculation where you're injecting chemicals (or injecting your kids with chemicals) not because you think you need them but to potentially protect others should you become ill. Also there often isn't as much explanation around vaccines (besides COVID) as to their makeup, etc., compared to some medication that your doctor prescribes to you (i.e., if my Dr prescribes a blood thinner I'm going to get a pretty thorough explanation of it and can ask questions, whereas with vaccines it feels mandatory without much explanation other than "the surgeon general said to". So it's not at all surprising to me that there is strong resistance to vaccines from some people who have no problem with medications in general.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    It's the privilege of growing up in a society where most people are vaccinated. People have forgotten (or never seen) how horrifying some diseases can be.
- niceice 2y ago
  A lot of is the abuse of the label anti-vaxxer. It's being misapplied to people who aren't against vaccine technology. RFK, who is vaccinated along with his children: "I’ve been fighting 40 years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me anti-fish."
  - mmastrac 2y ago
    I don't think quoting RFK is a good example of showcasing a rational view of vaccines.
  - supplied_demand 2y ago
    Can you explain what you mean by "people who aren't against vaccine technology?" I'm not sure I follow given that RFK has explicitly said he is against vaccines and that no vaccines are safe and effective. [0] ===In July, Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.=== ===“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” Kennedy said.=== ===That same year, in a video promoting an anti-vaccine sticker campaign by his nonprofit, Kennedy appeared onscreen next to one sticker that declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.”=== [0] https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-president-campaign-621c9e9641381a1b2677df9de5a09731 https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-preside...
    - niceice 2y ago
      He should be more careful with his words, but they're resorting to cherry picked quotes and guilt by association to mislead: "appeared onscreen next to" It's unserious. To get his actual opinion, which is nuanced, you have to go long form.
      - supplied_demand 2y ago
        ==guilt by association to mislead: "appeared onscreen next to"== It was something produced by his own non-profit. Do you not think it is fair to associate him with the non-profit he founded and ran? He has had no trouble associating himself with the organization. I feel like we can make the same association without misleading anyone. This is still just a deflection from the question of what "people who aren't against vaccine technology" even means. Can you please define it? I am having trouble seeing the difference between being anti-vaccine and being anti-vaccine technology. NOTE: The comment I originally responded to has since been edited.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  Anything that people are forced to do is going to cause this sort of visceral response. A lot of things that we were forced to do during COVID still stick with me and have basically made me intensely distrustful of authority to a degree that wasn't present before. It was just bullshit after bullshit enacted in law and forced on people. Walking in certain directions in the supermarket, going outside for only X minutes per day to exercise, only X people allowed at your table at the pub, etc. Just endless totally unscientific bollocks. It's like getting into a heated debate with someone. You start out and actually listen to what people are saying, but then eventually it's just like, come on man, fuck off, I don't even care if you're right, I'm tuned out. Fast food doesn't force me to eat it under penalty of imprisonment.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    Where do you live that people were imprisoned over COVID related stuff?
- GuB-42 2y ago
  Some reasons I can think of: - Vaccines are usually injected, injection makes most people uncomfortable. Most of them get over it, but it can be panic inducing for a small number. Among street drug users, injection is usually considered extreme, as in, the thing only true addicts do. - When you get vaccinated, you are fine, and then you get a few unpleasant side effects. That's the opposite of the usual drugs you take when you are sick and make you feel better. - Sometimes, vaccination is made mandatory, many people don't like to be told what to do with their bodies, even if there are good reasons for it. - You never know when a vaccine have saved someone. Someone didn't get sick, but is it because of the vaccine, natural immunity, luck, or simply a lack of exposure, maybe he will get sick eventually, you can't really tell, and you don't really notice when something doesn't happen. However, when a vaccine hurt someone, or failed to prevent the disease it should protect against, that's very noticeable. - The most successful vaccines are now often considered useless, because the disease they protect against is so rare, why go through the discomfort of the vaccination when it is so unlikely for you to get sick either way? It is a tragedy of the commons, as the reason the diseases is so rare is because of widespread vaccination.
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genghisjahn 2y ago
>Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. And yet science says the opposite. The prevailing evidence suggests that humans are generally better suited to stable and safe environments, with danger and chaos typically leading to detrimental effects on mental health.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  The safest and richest societies are also the most highly medicated, so I would question to what prevailing evidence you refer. For an extreme example one might consider soldiers / warfighters. Very high rates of trauma and suicidality after returning from war, and this is only anecdotal not first hand but I would be interested to know what the mental health of deployed soldiers looks like in comparison (certainly there is a range of environments between 'deployed at a desk in japan' vs combat units living in 'danger, chaos and instability', so it might be a good context to study within)
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > The safest and richest societies are also the most highly medicated... That, alone, could point to two very obvious but very different conclusions. One is that people in those societies need medications more. Alternatively, people in these societies get needed medications more. I suspect the average American gets more therapy than the average Afghan, but I suspect the Afghans would still benefit from it.
    - pksebben 2y ago
      I think Maslow would have a point to make, here. Privileged societies are more medicated because the most pressing issues to them are (somewhat) soluble using medication. Because they are not imminently worried about housing and sustenance or violence. Would be odd to consider medicating for fibromyalgia or depression when you're starving and/or being bombed / shot at.
davidw 2y ago
> Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. That's part of what Tom Nichols has been saying: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/09/10/democracy-dies-boredom/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/09/10/democracy-di...
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  I wonder if that's the real reason he wanted the US to start a war in Iraq: to alleviate the boredom of modern life.
  - _feus 2y ago
    I have a little theory I like to tell at pubs that all of the intelligence comminities exist just because it attracts people who can't stand being bored. Advancing national security could be a thrilling entertainment.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > I have a little theory I like to tell at pubs that all of the intelligence comminities exist just because it attracts people who can't stand being bored. Advancing national security could be a thrilling entertainment. That's probably Special Circumstances in the Culture novels, but those novels are just a mashup of Iain Banks's imagination and biases, and I think they're poor approximation of anything resembling reality under any set of conditions. Personally, I think your theory would be a fun conversation topic, but I doubt it reflects real life.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  > Our politics has become all about hurting other people, instead of trying to create something positive. We used to go to the polls and say, here’s what I’m voting for. Now we go to the polls to vote against something and we hope it makes others really mad. This feels like a really uncharitable interpretation on what is going on. To me it feels more like you have two sides, the two sides have viewpoints that feel very alien to the other side, so extreme that they feel like attacks but actually it's just a clash of worldview.
liontwist 2y ago
The growing movement is the one that views vaccines as a categorical good and wants to unperson those who see each individual treatment as a an engineered tool with its own risks and benefits. If you know anything about marketing you know that for such messaging to be culturally pervasive is a result of years of effort and organizing.
- deleted 2y ago
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insane_dreamer 2y ago
> It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here. Not surprising. I look at vaccines the same way as I look at any new medication: has it been tested long enough to know what the long-term effects of it are, and do the benefits outweigh the risks. I don't have a problem with MMR, TB and other common vaccines, that have been around for decades. If I'm traveling to East Africa I'm going to get a yellow fever vaccine. I also don't have a problem with the COVID vaccine because it was clear that the risk of not getting vaccinated was significant. But I have never gotten a "flu shot" in my life because the benefit of it is rather low relative to the risk of influenza given my demographics and health. If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it. Don't really care.
- mmastrac 2y ago
  > If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it. Don't really care. I'm pretty sure setting a personal bar/risk tradeoff that lets you take a significant number of vaccines doesn't make you an anti-vaxxer.
  - niceice 2y ago
    That's the rational response, but in practice what we saw is that anyone who questioned the Covid vaccine was instantly labeled anti-vax. It didn't matter if they were fine with all other vaccines. It didn't matter if they just had Covid or had a complicating pre-existing condition. Anything less than full acceptance was shut down as anti-vax. They ruined the anti-vax label which was previously useful.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I think anti-vaxxer is painted with a much wider brush than that, and somehow become automatically equivalent to "anti-science"; there is overlap but there's also a lot of non-overlap. Somehow vaccines have become an "all or nothing" proposition which is just as stupid as saying that all medications are created equal. But in any case, I'm not going to live my life by what labels others put on me.
- snowwrestler 2y ago
tivert 2y ago
> It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here. The history of that movement is long. > Humans are built to thrive in danger, chaos and instability. I think a good chunk of humans go insane in a safe and stable environment and resent the things that allow them to live mundane, safe lives -- technology, medicine and rational thinking. No, I don't think that's true. Humans are built to learn from experience, and one thing that vaccines do is eliminate the experiences that justify their use. That also makes the experience/knowledge of smaller dangers more prominent. For instance, a kid getting his arm paralyzed from the (now discontinued) live oral polio vaccine, looks a lot different if people are commonly getting worse paralysis from wild polio than if no one is getting wild polio at all anymore. The other thing you should probably take into account when regarding a book from 1929, is the experiences people had back then with (often dangerous) quack cures promising miracles. For instance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration#Origins_of_federal_food_and_drug_regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_A...): > By the 1930s, muckraking journalists, consumer protection organizations, and federal regulators began mounting a campaign for stronger regulatory authority by publicizing a list of injurious products which had been ruled permissible under the 1906 law, including radioactive beverages, the mascara Lash lure, which caused blindness, and worthless "cures" for diabetes and tuberculosis. The resulting proposed law was unable to get through Congress for five years, but was rapidly enacted into law following the public outcry over the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which over 100 people died after using a drug formulated with a toxic, untested solvent.
- drcwpl 2y ago
  I had forgotten about the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, great reminder, thank you. Humans are adaptive learners, shaped by both individual experience and cultural memory. The rise of anti-vax sentiments might be better explained by psychological and sociological factors. Like mistrust of institutions, the amplification of fringe views via social media, or the cognitive biases that prioritize visible risks over abstract ones.
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    Those sociological factors aren't complex, and don't require an explanation of any real depth. The entire problem is this: Fifty four percent of Americans read below the 6th grade level, which means that the simple majority of Americans don't understand the world they live in and never will.
thrance 2y ago
I really don't like how often I have to read/hear "Humans are built to X" type arguments. I don't think the lack of a challenge is the root cause of science denialism. It's a cultural thing, coming from a lack of confidence in the elites. Elites are distraught when inequality become larger and things get tougher for the poorest.
- pksebben 2y ago
  Could you expound on this a little more? I think I've totally misunderstood you. Like, who would you consider an 'Elite'? AFAICT, someone who's 'an Elite' thrives off of inequality, by definition. Without said inequality they wouldn't be 'Elite'. Is it possible that your definition for Elite is similar to my definition for Specialist? Like 'Subject Matter Expert'?
  - thrance 2y ago
    Sorry, I wrote my previous comment after I just woke up, it's a bit messy now that I take a second look at it. I guess the way I used "elites" in my previous comment refers more to a certain perception of society some people hold, rather than to a definite group of people. If we take the policies implemented during the COVID pandemic as an example, those came from the government, oftentimes backed by academia. Since a lot of people think the government is doing a bad job overall, they don't trust the legitimacy of those policies and oppose the scientific reasoning that led to them being adopted. When the economy is doing well, people put more trust into their government, or the "elites". Therefore, my thesis is that distrust into the institutions/science comes from a general discontent of the population, and is not a natural state of humanity.
akira2501 2y ago
> humans go insane in a safe and stable environment Weird that people still get raped and murdered in your "safe and stable" environment. Sometimes the perpetrators don't even see justice and get away with their crimes. How do you account for that? > a certain amount of cherry-picking Without a doubt. I don't trust authority because I've been abused by it before. I'm sure you didn't mean to punch down but that's how many of us would rationally perceive it.

tombert 2y ago

[flagged]

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api 2y ago

Science has delivered a standard of living to most of the developed world that is greater than that of an Egyptian Pharaoh or a Roman Emperor in numerous ways: health, food, availability of information, ease of travel, physical comfort, etc. Yet visit social media and it's absolutely overflowing with gloom and doom and histrionic political rage and fear bait. Saw a thread recently on Reddit about how many young people in the USA are contemplating suicide because the present or the future looks so bleak to them. We'd have to fall pretty far for their standard of living to decline below that of Pharaoh Ramses II. It's convinced me that the human brain is just not wired for abundance. Our brain keeps searching and searching for the immediate existential threats that millions of years of evolution have programmed us to know absolutely must be there. If we don't see them it actually makes us panic more since it means the lion is hiding so well we can't spot it and it's about to jump out and get us.

tombert 2y ago
I think people are extremely sensitive to the first derivative of things happening to them, with a very short time window. Even if your life is objectively better (by any measurement you want) than it would have been 500 years ago, is it better than it was a week ago?
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  You also tend to compare yourself to others. For example, I am not happy when CEO gets a 20% raise while telling the rest of us that money is tight and no raises can be given. We all want some level of fairness.
edflsafoiewq 2y ago
People don't set their standard of a good life against a 3000 year old kingdom they've never seen or think about. Nor are they impressed when people resort to mining the ancient past or far-off countries for the deepest pits of misery they can find to make things sound good by comparison.
- snozolli 2y ago

animal_spirits 2y ago

[flagged]

yyuugg 2y ago
The author might be wrong. It can actually be racist in ways beyond "African people are genetically inferior." I didn't find the author to be particularly deeply invested, they seemed to want to score some points over "social justice warriors" and then backed off pretty quickly with an "it's complicated" footnote.
- 2099miles 2y ago
  When I read that part I also thought they were just trying to pwn the libs, but the rest of the article was so good, and what they said isn’t inaccurate, so now I think I was just projecting that. Not being super invested and having it just be a small part of the article actually seems right to me so idk. I’ve hit my fair share, but this article alone in no way makes me think this person is one.
  - animal_spirits 2y ago
    I’m not pushing one ideo or another - I just don’t get why it’s flagged. We aren’t making generalizations, just talking about the article
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revel 2y ago

> Now, imagine the uproar that might ensue from some corners today if a textbook made this sort of direct comparison between two groups, with one group happening to be white and the other black. Some social justice warriors would no doubt raise an outcry. The book would be branded as Eurocentric, racist, and white supremacist, since it doesn’t give equal space to describing the intellectual achievements of the Zulu or to recognizing the validity of indigenous ways of knowing. The picture of the African witch doctor might be described as a “culturally insensitive caricature”. The book would also be criticized for not describing ways in which Zulu society is more healthy than contemporary American society. This textbook is from 1929 and was probably being written at the exact same time as the Snopes monkey trial (1925). You're reading science hype because science was under attack; and not from "social justice warriors" but from conservative Americans. Notice that the single most transformative discovery in all of biology, evolution, isn't mentioned. That attack on evolution is still taking place. In Texas there was an attempt to strike all references to evolution and climate change from the curriculum, along with other attempts to introduce biblical references. When did that take place? That was this year; oh, and in 2023: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/texas-education-board-backs-elementary-school-curriculum-with-biblical-references-03851ee5 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/texas-education-board-... Getting mad at "social justice warriors" for an imagined reaction while ignoring the actual attacks on science is... well, it's what I've come to expect.

goatlover 2y ago
Both things can be true, and there are real world examples of attacking western science as eurocentrist and what not. The imagined reaction is based on those criticisms.
ngriffiths 2y ago
I still thought that passage was interesting. It is a totally reasonable prediction of how much of public health would read it. The post and your comment emphasize how the impact of science depends more on the public than the handful of scientists who create it. Roughly ~0% of people understand any given scientific topic. It will always be completely asymmetric. It will always involve stuff like belief in an ideology, struggles for political power, (relatively blind) trust in a movement or leader, etc. As a result, there is no world in which scientists don't regularly harm whoever follows them, the same as any leader in an uncertain/asymmetric environment (by getting stuff wrong accidentally, or actively abusing their power for personal gain). The part about social justice warriors is actually interesting because that view will come across as "we hate science!" to some people but the real idea is somewhere between "successful science requires exerting some political power over other people" (obviously true) and "western science was built on a foundation of coercion and oppression, making lots of technological progress and causing some unavoidable tragic effects." Whatever the "truth" is, it's really complicated ethically.

pyuser583 2y ago

Ok the fact that ChatGPT recited the historical significance of the tsetse fly finally has me scared. It’s good.

melagonster 2y ago

>Now, imagine the uproar that might ensue from some corners today if a textbook made this sort of direct comparison between two groups, with one group happening to be white and the other black. I read a better analogy; they compared the life table of humans with the life table of Chimpanzee or Bonobo. The change between before and after the introduction of modern medicine is obvious.