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> At this point, probably the best we can do is to so relentlessly ridicule the position that it becomes an embarrassing opinion to hold I'm so sad that this i
by stolio 12y ago
> At this point, probably the best we can do is to so relentlessly ridicule the position that it becomes an embarrassing opinion to hold
I'm so sad that this is a solution for so many things these days. Science isn't the social justice movement, we have evidence. If people want to bully others for being racist or homophobic, whatever, but that's not how science works. All we have to do to "win" the argument is deescalate it emotionally and make it about calmly and rationally looking at the evidence. That's how science wins, not by marginalizing anybody who disagrees with us.
And when people ask how we know that science works, point at all the technology of the modern world. The phone in their pocket, the airplanes they fly in, the toilets that make their poop disappear, the International Space Station floating around the earth, the electricity in their wall sockets. We don't place blind faith in science, we believe in it because it works.
- kstrauser 12y agoYou're right - for the long game. Stick with it for a century or two, and hopefully a majority will believe in geologic-time evolution. That hasn't actually happened yet in America because people keep coming along to loudly shout down science, but maybe some day. Public health does not have the luxury of waiting centuries for naysayers to die out. Whooping cough won't do us the favor of not striking while we build consensus. I strongly believe in the correctness of your approach. I just don't think that's an option here.
- stolio 12y agoI agree in the sense that we shouldn't let unvaccinated kids go to school and risk the health of other kids. But I also think it's important not to poison the long-term approach in the process. I know a lot of anti-science people and for many of them it stems from a few really bad experiences where somebody just beat them over the head with science. Then they latch on to any crackpot who claims they're about to revolutionize science and do away with "scientism."
- philwelch 12y agoThat tactic didn't work for evolution or climate change, why should it suddenly start working for vaccination? The problem with being a good empiricist is that you start to find that your reasons for believing certain things differ very widely from those of other people.