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Makes me think of this upcoming competition to find fossils that are not surrounded by the rocks that science expects.
I suspect a lot of people who believe (some subset of) the crazy nonsense are actually science inclined. But we (often/used to) teach science as about great people heroically defying the consensus and triggering a paradigm shift that changes the world. And that looks a lot more like vaccine denialism than pipetting samples for 50 hours. Some of the community spaces are clearly interested in thinking about the world, and there’s a self-isolating effect of asking someone
“Why is there a tree that’s fossilized across 5 different epochs of bedrock?”
and being told you’re a crank. Then layer on the grifters.
So yes; do remember to talk people through the facts before labeling them a conspiracy theorists, and focus on the shared amazement at how weird/complicated/nuanced the data is. Ask lots of questions!
When I was a senior in high school, I needed one more science credit for graduation, so I took Human Anatomy. It was taught by a young hippie (it was the 70s), who also taught the exact same course at the local community college.
It was a great class, with lots of cool labs, experiments, and dissections. We had to memorize every bone, and every muscle. It was one of the hardest classes I’ve ever taken, but also the most fun.
That class was filled with future doctors and nurses, so none of them were whining about how they’d never use this stuff. But I wasn’t on a medical track (I was a music history major), and I could have probably said that (I didn’t), but I have used the knowledge I gained in that class literally every single day of my life, decades later. Easily one of the best classes I took in my entire life.
I will argue this is not the problem. It’s that vaccines were too good in their effectiveness. A victim of their own success.
The problem is not and has not been science. The problem is messaging.
This is the same reason why anti-vax is so popular, you think that’s about science? It’s idiots like RFK Jr and Trump have the ear of people. It’s all messaging folks.
A person is smart. People are dumb.
I have to agree about the too good in their effectiveness. To get to a point where people are just like, “Nah, it ain’t a big deal” is built atop the millions of dead.
The problem is not and has not been science. The problem is messaging.
Yes, but the actual factor driving this is the meteoric rise of the top 1% richest, it is wealth inequality that creates a coherence to misinformation by establishing systematic incentives. There have always been nebulous, destructive, cancer like forces of misinformation, it is as human as human can be but we aren’t really fighting to transcend the pitfalls our own nature, we are fighting to get on the same page about the rich fucking us all over by artificially supercharging these tendencies within us for their own gain.
It is irrational to just see this as an abstract conversation about the human brain’s susceptibility to misinformation as it ignores the costly material operation being undertaken to manipulate us with said misinformation.
A person is smart. People are dumb.
Well between the anti-vaxxers and any-vaxxers, the any-vaxxers won, by measure of how many took the jabs, believing “follow the science” without detecting an oxymoron.
Beware the power of advertising and ignorance of epistemology.
the bigger problem is that some teachers are so mentally checked out that they make those subjects actively unappealing. I wonder what makes them that way…
This is an important comment. We do not teach science on high schools , we stream students to science if they are self directed, then everyone else takes bullshit courses for an easy grade, these days acheived with LLMs.
yeah, and this approach is so bullshit it is ridiculous - it depends on a child being self-conscious and motivated enough to get into stuff that A LOT of time and effort to understand even with significant adult assistance and proper focus. Of course there will be a significant segment that won’t handle it well
Students. Students make them that way. It’s no coincidence that most older teachers feel like they’ve checked out.
I did substitute teaching for about two years. I got to see a lot of my old teachers, Some classes were wonderful, a true joy to teach. Others, not so much. I can understand why some people, as you say, mentally check out. It’s a coping mechanism. They were not all the same people I remember. Maybe part of growing older. Maybe part of years of difficult students sucking out all the joy of teaching they had in them
my mom is a teacher and she has similar observation. It also has a lot to do with how parents treat their children. i don’t know if that’s a problem in US, in Ukraine my generation (born late 80s early 90s) is very insecure about their social performance and stats and it’s a complete bullshit. The current middle and school kids are affected by that. There is a lot of stuff in children’s heads that just needs time to settle and forcing to push through at someone’s else pace is counterproductive. it is a regular pattern when a student starts with solid grades but the chase for the highest grade over the years completely wrecks them and their overall grades start to slip hard because their parents conditioned them to perform and they try to brute force their way to high grades like it’s a competition when it is anything but. The burnout they go through is brutal. And by the time they finish school - it’s just a performer of sorts - a person who is able to do enough for a grade or rewards but there’s just no substance no passion behind it. Meanwhile, students who starts off mediocre or low grades at middle school level up significantly by the time they get to high school simply because they commit to figure it out and once they tap into what clicks for them (math, sciences, languages, arts) they just start pieces together their personality jigsaws and it is way less dramatic then with high performers who would do anything for a grade.
Your garden and kitchen = biochemistry and biology. Home improvement, crafting and anything to do with the trades = physics. Household cleaners, gas, automotive chemicals and plastics = chemistry + healthcare = more organic chemistry and biology. Just dealing with everyday life is science.
Look I think one of the fundamental problems here is we have a cultural divide between people with thousand dollar degrees and everyday people. When someone says “I’m not going to be a scientist” they’re probably thinking “I can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to pay for a degree” whilst actual scientists are wondering “why don’t people pursue this subject more?” Money. Pure and simple. Real science = cooking, building something, worrying about that scum in your sink, trying to figure out the best cleaner that won’t set off an allergic reaction, and yes looking into the side effects of vaccines and assorted drugs. You want people to think scientifically then call them scientists. Don’t create an economic barrier for those who want to pursue knowledge. And don’t treat science like it only happens in labs. It’s an every day process. Science = the study of nature and everybody can do that every day. You don’t need an expensive degree to do that. So being a “scientist” shouldn’t be limited to those in white coats, getting grants and have a dozen plaques on their wall that cost a couple thousand dollars to buy.
My homeschooling, flat earth believing, anti vax mother never taught me science. She said I would never be a scientist so that was enough reason for her.
Yeah, we’re not talking about people with expensive degrees. The earth is not flat, and mcgyver is not an elitist. These things should be obvious with a high school level of education.
I never had money or a science degree. I just watched Cosmos as a kid, devoured documentaries, and read articles on wikipedia all day.
If smart people are so smart, why aint they in charge? Checkmate nerds!
“Smart people” are generally not rich people. They are coerced into labor like anyone else. Sometimes their labor is even useful.
They generally don’t have the time or reason to participate in a counter-productive popularity contest.
Because with educatio comes a sense of ethics and responsibility. Anyone with ethics will never get accepted into any political party.
Because to be successful in politics it’s much more important to be charismatic and well spoken than to be actually smart. It’s a
dsad state of affairs.Hi dad, I’m democracies vital weakness and strength, the voter
Agreed, we need to get the dad brainrot out of office. When, if ever, was the last time we didn’t have a dad for president?
No idea, I’m not in the US. We don’t have a president here
Because there’s no valid nor sound singular-pecking-order, and typically those “smart people” respected as “so smart” are “smart” in other aptitudes than the social aptitude and ruthlessness to so social climb and manipulate to be “in charge”.
I very often say: we can all be polymaths in the making, not slaves in training. If/when we do so proceed that way, we’d catch more of these follies, and seek better protections and implementations and systems, than just leaving it to the most ruthless social climber, the most effective liar, getting in charge.
I’m so glad that people finally start to grasp, how bad excessive specialisation really is.
society is healing
Once I was doubting the need for higher levels of mathematics. Now as an engineer I realize the utility of this knowledge.
What made my change my mind? Well it’s definitely not my intelligence nor my age, it’s the practical application of that theory which got me here. Reading in between the lines can only happen if you like what you’re doing.
I have a similar relationship with math. Only that I learnt to admire it through 3D and shaders.
Check out Shadertoy.com
People there create works of art from something, that’s usually perceived as “cold”. I’m still in awe of how people, using “cold” analythical methods achieve something so full of soul. I think it deserves to be appreciated far more than it is now. This is literal magic.
People need to learn how to build a “firewall” for their brain.
And epistemology to help build the firewall’s list?
“It is the mark of an educated mind, to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it” --Whoever said that.
We need to split the US up into two parts so we can do A/B testing.
As others have said, the problem of vaccines isn’t that they don’t work. The problem of vaccines is that they work too well. They have completely eliminated the diseases that motivated their development, so people can’t imagine a world where these vaccines don’t exist anymore.
We need to split the US up into two parts. One gets vaccines, the other one does not. Wait 30 years. Then the people will see the effects and then the people will understand why we should have vaccines. If the people don’t see the alternative scenario, they can’t see the difference that vaccines make. We need to make these differences more visual.
Singling out a random group of people to fuck over “for educational purposes” doesn’t seem like a humane idea…
Random?
self-chosen
Sadly, there is no amount of in-their-face proof to overcome the “I do my own research” mentality.
And the original meme here misses the most important piece - they lack the basic concept of logic to understand how cause and effect relate to each other. So showing them A vs B won’t get them to the results you expect - even though it should.
I mean your premise seems to be that various diseases will reemerge and that will scare people into getting vaccines. But what if they end up healthier and so adapt in different ways? Better sanitation, immune boosters, improved forms of treatment, etc. What if the medical culture takes a totally different route because you allowed people not to get vaccinated?
I don’t know how that would work. Everyone that I know who is anti-vax thinks all the rest of your list is elitist crap as well.
And if you’re wrong? What if those who are vaccine free do better? I mean you’ve got a good idea there with the A/B testing but what if your premise is wrong or the anti-vaccine crowd is right and they do end up healthier despite the presence of diseases?
You’ll never be a writer but you still learned how to write (if somewhat poorly).
I feel like theres a difference between basic english and
Yeah basic english is extremely complicated with a vast vocabulary and syntax, while the quadratic formula is a very basic computation that can be summed up in a simple formula.
The dogma of scientism and the obsession with STEM is just as responsible for this situation as anti intellectualism is.
Dogma of science is an oximoron, if it is dogmatic it isn’t science.
SCIENTISM
I assume that i will disagree, but i think it mainly is because “the dogma of science” is a phrase that i immediately recognize as a right wing talking point.
But since you kind of only put that out there and i don’t expect right wing idiots on Lemmy i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you to kindly elaborate a bit.
What is the dogma of science? Who holds it? What sciences? All of them? Just STEM? And speaking of, who is obsessed with STEM? How and where does that obsession express itself?
SCIENTISM
Damn, even threatened with being call right-wing. Science folks always balk when it is ever brought up. I suppose I can understand having to “defend” scientific findings from the dogmas of creationists, but this doesn’t mean science and scientists are not vulnerable to dogma or to the very epistemological supremacism that has been the intellectual basis for genocide and empire building.
I have very much NOT called you right wing. I pointed out, correctly, that calling science a “dogma” is a right wing talking point. I have asked you to elaborate your point, so one is able to determine if you use it in the same context (as a blanket statement to make your own position stronger) or not.
It is deeply ironic that you are ranting about how scientists don’t want to be questioned and “bulk” when told so, yet you have not elaborated a single one of your points yet (you are more than welcome to still do so) and have reacted to me asking you to do so in what i very much read as an aggressive tone.
Academia is completely captured by capitalism. That’s why “scientists” can’t/won’t/don’t go after their masters. How can people oppose genocide when they’re working to build the weapons of genocide? And a society that accepts genocide will accept anything.
I mean most don’t go to their PhDs because it is effectively training for being an academic. Except there are very few jobs for academics so you’ll be an adjunct professor getting paid poverty wages.
This ‘Today’ is outdated by 5+ years.
Should add a sentence to top panel that says “they should teach useful things in school like how to do your taxes!”
spoiler alert: that’s just reading and basic math applied to something besides a test for a grade.
Wouldn’t a better thing to teach be innovating upon technology and social structure, such that we no longer even need taxes? Nor any other rents designed to keep us down and impoverished. Imagine where we’d be now if not for the suppression of all the emancipatory technologies. All those patents being sat on, or secreted[1]. All those inventors usurped or disappeared. We have so much more headroom.
If education were not so corrupted and riddled with nonsense and slave conditioning, perhaps there’d be fewer rejecting it; fewer throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We can all be polymaths in the making, not slaves in training.
[1: According to patent office whistle blower Tom Valone, (iirc) there were already over 3000 free energy device patents secreted by the year 2000. Seriously. We have so much headroom without the corruption. Even the rich parasites would be better off, with the release and proliferation of the emancipatory technologies. …Buuuuuut, that’s not in most people’s world view to which they’re attached, and so, they tend to go on attack upon encountering mention of such, as if this new information is a threat to their life.]
Total sidetrack and total missing the point.
I didn’t say “taxes are good” or “current education is good”.
The problem I posed is that knowledge transfer is an essential skill and people who are bad at it are–I would suppose–both oblivious to it and easier to take advantage of.
Edit: TBH your comment is so whacky and on your own terms I didn’t even read to the end section. It’s not even left field, it’s 2 counties over.
Edit 2: Now I read it in full and, bro, that’s a bunch of potentially well meaning conspiratorial retardation. Just no.
You are unfortunately, literally pictured in the OP meme with a veneer of “I’m 14 and this is deep”.
Total sidetrack and total missing the point.
I didn’t say “taxes are good” or “current education is good”.
The problem I posed is that knowledge transfer is an essential skill and people who are bad at it are–I would suppose–both oblivious to it and easier to take advantage of.
Edit: TBH your comment is so whacky and on your own terms I didn’t even read to the end section. It’s not even left field, it’s 2 counties over.
Edit 2: Now I read it in full and, bro, that’s a bunch of potentially well meaning conspiratorial retardation. Just no.
You are unfortunately, literally pictured in the OP meme with a veneer of “I’m 14 and this is deep”.
Fun to see such a retort, on same day as I posted a re-creation of the extended version of Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement.
Starts with a non-sequitor, follows with an apparent strawman argument refuting an accusation not made, then a “not even wrong”, then arguing tone coupled with a celebration of ignorance and unwitting mischaracterisation, ending on two ad-hominems. XD See? Epistemology’s fun.
Bro, come down out of your own asshole.
Your real, no kidding argument is that this meme template best explains that people believe windmills cause cancer / vaccines cause autism / XYZ crazy thing is that the current state of education is * checks notes * “slave conditioning” and patents are being conspiratorially hidden for “emancipating technologies”? Really?
This to you is a rational following of the discussion and context, not itself a wild non sequitur (note the spelling)?
I don’t care what branch of philosophy you’re studying or what argument logic piques your interest because it just isnt relevant here. You’ve shoehorned an unrequested and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory into a post about people believing improbable and/or deranged things. And no, making your own footnote isnt a substantiation.
You can’t “I am very smart” this into making sense, even by miscounting logical fallacies or trying to couch it as an epistemological discussion which this is not.
Just… yikes.
Edit: To save my own brain cells, I’m just going to laugh and block you. Considering you are having similar discussions with others in this thread, don’t take it from me, let me recommend “Fantasyland” by Kurt Andersen. I would specifically the middle and later chapters. Even if you don’t read it in a particularly introspective way, it’s a pretty interesting read / listen.
Cheers
Wow.
I feel like media literacy is more useful for preventing this crap than a scientific education would be, though both help to some degree.
Sure, but a fundamental understanding of the basics, across all disciplines (science , history, literature, and math) helps one spot bullshit from a mile away. Science especially helps apply math and critical thinking.
IMHO, understanding the Scientific Method and, maybe more importantly, why it is as it is (so, understanding things like Confirmation Bias - including that we ourselves have it without noticing it, which skews our perception, recollection and conclusions - as well as Logical Falacies) is what makes the most difference in how we mentally handle data, information and even offered knowledge from the outside.
PS: Also more broadly in STEM, the structured and analytical way of thinking in those areas also helps in things like spotting logical inconsistencies, circular logic and other such tricks to make the illogical superficially seem logical.
Even subtle but common Propaganda techniques used in the modern age are a lot more obvious once one is aware of one’s one natural biases and how these techniques act on and via those biases, purposefully avoiding logic.
Personally I feel that that’s the part of my training in Science (which I never finished, since I changed the degree I was taking from Physics to EE half way) is what makes me a bit more robust (though not immune: none of us are, IMHO) to Propaganda.
Also more broadly in STEM, the structured and analytical way of thinking
I find a historical approach is useful to highlight this.
Science is powerful but, as you’ve stated, balance is most critical. It was one of the most impactful biologists of the modern era that wrote “the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races” based on his theory of natural selection.
As you can imagine, statements like these were used to justify the Atlantic slave trade, the genocide of indigineous people ie. “manifest destiny” and other colonial era horrors.
One should not treat science or the words of scientists as absolute truth. Unfortunately it is not free from human greed or corruption.
I would argue the latter is a good way to learn the former
Yep, maths and science are only partially about learning maths and science. The even more important purpose is learning critical reasoning skills, which is a requirement for media literacy.
Exactly, it’s not about memorising formulas and facts, but about developing problem solving skills
When I was studying, I had a problem with a question in class and I asked the teacher and he, instead of giving me an answer or a tip, told me “Naturally I can explain it to you, also a second and third time, but soon you will forget it, first try better to find the solution by yourself, if you succeed you will have understood it and you will never forget it for the rest of your life”. It was a very good advice until now, almost 60 years after it. The need of help from others is always good, but only as last resource.
I repair stuff at work and this is my everyday almost. Check how stuff works, then try to fix it. Very good advice but most people are too lazy to even try to understand or explore today. When people seem interested at what i am doing i try to explain to them how I think and what I do or how stuff works. I love it.
I’d say critical thinking is divorced from any one subject. You can learn it in a humanities context just as easily as a scientific one.
This is something i noticed early on with the generational divide and misinformation on the internet. Older generations never had the internet in school, and this were never taught how to identify a truthful source. Those of us that grew up with the internet were drilled into our heads, “not everything on the internet is true.” From both our teachers and the generation who believes everything on the internet.
It was a big sticking point with my in-laws during covid. Theyd send me a link, and 5 minutes later id respond with, “that person never went to any college has no credentials to be commenting on the scientific and biological effects of vaccines. Here’s a published dr saying youre wrong.” Only to be met with, “you’re an idiot. Go get autism if you want.”
It’s not a new thing. The same issues were the case for television, radio, and newspapers. They had to teach media literacy before the internet too. You go back into the archives and you’ll see some wild misinformation that’s very reminiscent of what we see on the internet. We did have a brief few decades where we had a more consistent and adhered to set of standards, but these were by no means universal. The perception of reliable information is also skewed the combination of being less aware of misinformation when younger and by a unique period where mass reputable media were all saying the same thing… But that also meant they were leaving the same things out.
But the internet did change things. Standards have been blown up, misinformation is much faster and the volume of it is much higher. Our brains couldn’t keep up with 24hr news channels, let alone the cesspools of social media we have now.
I’ll provide a non-western perspective on this:
My mother was born in mainland China, according to her, doctors were corrupt and would prescribe unnecessary medications or perform unnecessary medical procedures because the doctors were incentivised and get more money by doing so.
That’s why now in the US, he maintains the same beliefs, reluctant to let me get antidepressant medication, because she see the as “crutches”, unnecessary “happy pills” for “weak” people, “too many side effects”, “harmful for health”, “these doctors probably don’t know anything”, “it’s all in your head”.
It goes far as: “try this necklace that repels evil”, wtf lol.
Also: Fucking Wechat and the fucking “herbal medicine”/TCM or whatever🤦♂️
The profit motive haunts me as well. regardless of what service or product im buying. Living on planet earth was not a good call.
I think the flip side of this is Facebook or wherever the link was pushed to your in-laws (which is what I’d guess happened) feels… empowering. Those apps are literally optimized, with billions of dollars (and extensive science, especially psychology), to validate folk’s views in the pursuit of keeping them clicking. Their world’s telling them they’re right; of course your retort will feel offensive and wrong.
They’re in a trap.
And I still see lot of scientists posit ‘why is this happening?’ unironically on Twitter or something, which really frustrates me.
Every Facebook profile posted to /r/HermanCainAwards (the subreddit for mocking deluded people who died of COVID while spreading misinformation) was the same. Whatever the formula was it worked great at sucking in a specific sort of person
What’s incredible is Facebook is not liable for that at all.
What if… I dunno, a giant school peddled that same info? Or some religious figure got a ton of people killed? There’s really not a good metaphor for Facebook, which is why folks don’t really know of the sheer influence they command, yet are still treated like a garage startup operating a fair forum that needs legal protection.
Absolutely agree. The “internet” was not a harmful worldview reinforcing machine back when we were told not to cite GeoCities in our book reports.
Asking people to betray their dopamine is a monumental task. It’s like like challenging any other addiction.
Best way to change that is to shut down algorithms that have that bias, and mandate media literacy.
That doesn’t work because people like the algorithms, unfortunately. They win the attention war, and Trump is perfectly emblematic of this.
It’s also not even about ‘political bias’. Toxicity is the natural end state.
Some countries do take action. Mine does, by banning that.
Specifically epistemology and concrete notions of degrees of truth and how truth is approximated by science.
Let’s not let this be a humanities vs stem argument.
You need some of both for a well rounded adult–from academic sources or otherwise.
It is clear, you need some bases to be able to reasonice and understand the cause of an problem. You can find the cause of an problem why an engine don’t work with some basic knowledge about physics, but even an intelligent aborigen who has no knowledge about mecanics and physic never can, also not a person which only had memorized data without understandig it, can’t But the current education system priorice the latter, because of this there are a lot of integral idiots with graduation, which outside of their routine don’t understand anything.
