#science deniers

[tomorrowusa]

The US doesn't need a quack and conspiracy nut like RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services at a time like this.

All these articles from reality-based sources were published in the past 48 hours.

America’s first bird flu death reported in Louisiana

Norovirus on the Rise

What you need to know about HMPV as China sees rise in cases

RSV hasn't gone away.

How RSV Spreads

The COVID-19 emergency is over but that doesn't mean COVID-19 has disappeared.

COVID Map Update Reveals US Cases at Christmas

Get whatever vaccinations and boosters you can before January 20th. In the meantime, contact your US senator and express your opposition to putting a science denier like RFK Jr. in charge of America's health.

[odinsblog]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Jon Haidt: As I said, if you sacralize your political ideology's heroes, you cannot think straight, and this is where we are in the sciences.

It's obvious that if you're a social conservative, Evangelical, young Earther creationist, you probably shouldn't be going into a PhD program in biology or geology, okay. It's just going to be really hard for you to deal with reality if you deny evolution and the age of the Earth, okay. You shouldn't go into American history if you say America is the greatest country on Earth and it simply cannot have committed war crimes. We just don't do that. I mean that's-- that should be a disqualification.

But what about on the left? Suppose you had students coming in who deny that IQ matters. Not anymore, but for decades it's just very uncomfortable, because there are race differences in IQ, the general view is IQ is a bad test, it doesn't measure, it doesn't matter, we can't allow that IQ matters. Because IQ is heritable, we can't allow that heritability matters. Environment has to be everything. The left has always believed that environment can overcome everything else so, can you do social science if you deny heritability, you think everything is environment when it isn't?

The left is full of sex difference deniers. Hormones are fine for other animals, hormones affect behavior in other animals, but how sexist of you to suggest that male and female differences could in any way be due to the fact that they exposed to different hormones prenatally? That just is ruled out of bounds. Now it's not that the left denies evolution. That's fine for other animals. But evolutionary psychology? Well, that's almost sexist and racist. No, evolution didn't shape human beings.

And last, the biggest area in my field is the study of stereotypes and prejudice. And we're trying-- it's an important social problem but we try to solve it while not allowing anybody to even mention the largest cause of stereotypes and prejudice. There is a small research literature showing that the reason why people hold stereotypes is because they're accurate. Most stereotypes do correspond to some measurable, observable fact about the environment. Now, there are often misinterpretations, the stereotype often lingers long after the reality changes, so I'm not saying the stereotypes are perfectly accurate. But I'm saying a big part of the story is that people are really good at detecting differences between groups. We're intuitive Baysians. We pick up frequencies. You can't stop the brain from doing this. So, suppose you had a whole group of people coming into social psychology who were the equivalent of young Earth creationists, who say, "I'm going to study stereotyping and prejudice, but I'm going to just rule in advance that there are no differences between groups. And now I'm going to study what's left." That's where we are.

So, my point is that all groups value the truth, okay. Every ideological group believes it values the truth. All groups hold something sacred. And if you hold something sacred then, as I've said, no trade-offs, no nuance. That means that your sacred values are going to conflict with the truth. And when that happens, all groups are the same. They throw truth under the bus and they go with their sacred values. And that's where we are.

So, I hope I've shown you that political homogeneity, now that we no longer have conservatives in some academic Fields, it's a problem. It's bad for our science, we need to clean up our act. We talk a lot about the value of diversity; intellectual diversity is the most important kind of diversity there could be.

--

Full lecture: 2013 Boyarsky Lecture by Jonathan Haidt, PhD

==

What he's describing is faith. Beliefs based on faith. If you think everything is "a social construct" - such as that it's fine for monkeys to choose sex-typical toys and engage in sex-typical activities, but "I aIn'T nO mOnKeY!!1!" - even if you're an atheist, you're dealing in faith.

[friday-is-unfunny]

I love having to explain the concept of up and down to a grown ass adult 🙄

[crazycatsiren]

You know what?

My ancestors would have wanted pasteurization, vaccines, antibiotics, disinfectants, birth control, psychiatric medications, pain management, anesthesia. My ancestors would have wanted to be able to keep their loved ones around longer, and not lose them too early/too soon to childbirths, injuries, bacterial infections, mental illnesses, and diseases that are curable and/or preventable in our modern day life.

Modern medicine saves lives.

[rodgermalcolmmitchell]

You've heard the reasons for voting left or right. Here's one of the most important ones that is getting little attention

If you are debating how to vote, here is a clue. I’ll comment on it but frequently pause to let you draw your own conclusions. As you read it, think about evolutionary effects — who lives, who dies, and at what ages. How fringe anti-science views infiltrated mainstream politics Amy Maxmen, KFF Health News Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit a 10-year low in 2023. That, according to the…

[republikkkanorcs]

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[tomorrowusa]

Thanks to RFK Jr. and other MAGA science deniers, librarians are going to have a rough year.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Now they want to put a cancer warning on alcohol like they did with tobacco

Can’t smoke, can’t eat anything that tastes good, can’t drink, what are they going to take away next?? Caffeine? Sex? Love?!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Marge the Bounty Hunter.

[crazycatsiren]

"It's not neurodivergence/disability/chronic illness it's your hidden power/witch potential/root from outer space!"

I'm going to go ahead and swing this cast iron skillet into your face now.

[bustafe]

i love his voice her e i need to kiss him so bad sobs sobs sobs

[omo321]

...the pale is NOT a metaphor for climate change?...

[wyrmfedgrave]

Trump will send America back to the stone age

Can we call tRump's reign the Moronic Age?

Or, is that name already taken?!

End.