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> struck my as the establishment trying to downplay the importance of this book > the elites are freaking out It's a good thing we have things like science an
by mseebach 13y ago
> struck my as the establishment trying to downplay the importance of this book
> the elites are freaking out
It's a good thing we have things like science and open discourse then. Then we can stop "freaking out" over peoples ulterior motives and consider their arguments and the evidence they present supporting their arguments. We can even be open about our motives and ideology driving this, because it's the evidence that counts.
If you discount evidence leveraged against the conclusions of the book because you mistrust the motivation behind giving the evidence, the corollary is that you accept the conclusion of the book, not on the back of the evidence but because you agree with the (supposed) motivation behind reaching those conclusions.
- wonderzombie 13y agoIf you discount evidence ... That's reductive. Not everyone has the bandwidth to sort through every iota of evidence. And the fact is that there's no shortage of people who have little in arguing in good faith. So people resort to heuristics such as reputation, credibility, what other "reputable" people say, etc.