#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…

[black-fist-order]

THIS WAS ON A FRIEND’S PAGE: An anguished question from a Trump supporter: ‘Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?’

THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought "Fine."

That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, "Okay."

That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, "No problem."

That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue."

That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, "He sure knows me."

That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, "That's cool!"

That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.

That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, "Well, who has time?"

That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense."

That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, "Yes!"

That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, "What a great guy!"

That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, "Thumbs up!"

That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, "That's the way I want my President to be."

That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!"

That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, "That's smart!"

That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, "That makes sense."

That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, "falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, "That's statesmanship!"

That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas - he explains that they’re just “animals” - and you say, “Well, OK then.”

That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.

What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also...hear me...charitable.

Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.

- Adam-Troy Castro

(To all who agree with its content, I ask that you PLEASE SHARE IT on your own post, and ENCOURAGE OTHERS to do the same.)

[republicansaretheproblem]

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[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?!

[tomorrowusa]

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

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Marge the Bounty Hunter.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[bustafe]

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

[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.

[omo321]

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