Science Deniers are Everywhere

You lost me there Osso. But, whatever you are drinking, I will have one too.

Well it started off to be an interesting thread anyway.

Oh, thanks, now I get it, some race about science and liberals.

One more: he acknowledged continental drift but claimed it all happened in the last 2000 years. So at the time of Christ, there was only one land mass on the Earth. I've never heard that one before. Have any of you? Racking my brain as to what part of the Bible supports(?) this idea....

Max, I don't know squat about GMOs. Don't have an opinion. But when it comes time for me to form one I'll rely on well respected scientists to provide the needed information. I don't need to go get a degree in genetics or biology. That's the beauty of living in a modern civilization, we can rely on specialists to give us the facts we need to make good decisions.

Izzy, thank you, you're right of course.

Yeah. It's like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Ordinary situation turns WIERD.

Right. There's a fundamental disconnect from reality. The conclusions are drawn before the evidence is examined, and if it doesn't fit the evidence is thrown out. Is it a fear of uncomfortable truth? Is it pride in being "right"? I don't know but it seems to be everywhere and it's what got Trump elected and it's not going away.

Really? You call American voters "science-deniers" and then lament that your side lost the election... do you see how silly that is?

Trump got elected because liberals are so sure that they are right that they ignored what other people were saying. It was the "deplorables" comment that pushed Trump over the top (if you don't believe this is true. just ask any Trump voter). You don't win elections by telling normal Americans that they are "science-deniers" or "racists" or "women haters".

The reality is that we live in a democracy. This has nothing to do with science. The side that convinces people to support them in enough states to win the electoral college wins the election. And Republicans have been winning lots of elections recently (if you didn't notice).

Perhaps it is you who has a fundamental disconnect with reality.

I'm kinda curious as to when it stops working. Is it Thursdays?

Math stops working when it contradicts your political ideology. This is as true for feminists and organic food advocates as it is for religious people. I have met very few people who are willing to use math to question their own political beliefs.

It's a shame; the only time that math is truly useful is when it contradicts your your pre-existing beliefs.

When it is manipulated to say something that isn't true. Statistics uses math that has often stopped working...

Apparently US elections use math that doesn't work. So many people say Clinton had more votes, yet Trump is President... Weird math...

I'm developing skills there. Figured that since science deniers are spreading, I should learn how to deal with them. My experience so far tells me that it's all about emotions.

A denier's mind is set for reasons other than factual, for reasons that have to see with their view of the world and singularly, their view of evil: holocaust deniers hate Jews, who they see as necessarily evil and hence they cannot also be victims. Similarly, 9/11 deniers share a deep mistrust of the US government seen as the source of all evil, and hence the US cannot possibly be a victim, especially not the Pentagon and Wall treet, right? Global warming deniers are aften motivated by a worldview were capitalism is fundamentally good and thus anyone seen as anti-capitalist is necessarily evil. Evolution deniers hate the idea that they are animals, not essentially different from monkeys, because in their view, men are noble and animals are brutes. None of these guys is not going to change his mind because he heard you reason logically. But you can succeed if you arm yourself with a mix of patience, humor, disgust and smarts.

First, don't try to convince them. The best you can hope for is that they shut up in your presence, rather than vice-versa, so that they do not make any more victims around you, i.e. that the audience (if any) comes out of the discussion convinced that you are right and they are wrong.

Second, patience is key: they are used to resist other people's ideas and even to get a kick out of seeing regular folks loose their nerve, so make sure you're in for the long haul, and try and make THEM loose their nerve.

Third, a good way to get them to loose their nerve is to use humor. For some reason they totally hate that, they think that their delusion is super-serious stuff that no one should be allowed to poke fun at them.

Fourthly, try and get them to articulate their own rival theory to the mainstream theory. Most of them can't, because it is typically much easier to criticize other people's ideas than to propose a better idea. E.g. no climate change denier can convincingly explain what's driving climate change. No intelligent design believer can explain the extent of similarities between species (eg why God never created a bird with four legs). Etc.

Finally, make them understand that you see them as no different from holocaust deniers. Everybody wants to be a "free thinker", but nobody likes to be a holocaust denier.

So Olivier,

Do these techniques work on you when you are the one who is denying science? Do you really believe someone comparing you to a holocaust denier will be effective to changing your mind?

In our current political divide it is common to forget that people forget the people on the other side are human beings. If you treat people you disagree with as human beings, you at least have the chance of being able to have a rational dialog with them.

The view that anyone who disagrees with you is no better than a "holocaust denier", just makes things worse.

Max, I guess I don't understand why you're coming after me. Have I denied any facts? have you heard me lamenting the Democrats losing the election? You've read me lamenting Trump winning, but that's not the same thing. Trump won because enough people in this country were willing to ignore facts and vote with their emotions and prejudices and their own comfortable and deluded view of the world. Not to say that couldn't have happened if the Democrats had won. I'm not equating "science denial" with a political party. It seems to be a bi-partisan problem.

I wish I knew. That's when I ended the conversation.
Years ago in another conversation with a hard-core Christian I had said something about math being reliable, and his answer was "Well, most of the time.." He was referring to fractal numbers. I don't know anything about the subject and apparently he knew just enough to misinterpret.

It's not the math that stops working, it's simply an incomplete understanding of it.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how democracy works. Every human votes with their emotions and prejudices. Most people believe that their view of the world is correct and any other view of the world is "deluded".

Science, at is best, is non-partisan (and I see where you agreed with that). Science can answer a certain type of question, and it can inform policy where people agree on a desired outcome.

Science has nothing to say about the core differences between the two sides of our fractured society. Science can't talk about values or world view or opinions about what is right or where the country should be going.

There is a real danger when one side uses "science" as a political ideology. In this case science becomes part of an ideological world view rather than a careful method to answer testable questions. Once science becomes associated with a political ideology it loses its credibility with the public. And that is a shame.

Politics is all about emotions, and values and opinions. When we vote, we often vote with our passions, our hopes, our fears and our ideas about what our society should be.

Democracy has very little to do with science. Trump won because people, after hearing from both sides, chose to vote for him. That is how democracy works.

In this modern age it is perhaps possible to run our society by some mathematical algorithm. This would be the way to remove human prejudice from the process of governing society; and, you may be right that a mathematical algorithm might never have chosen Trump. I still don't think this is a very good idea.

You cannot change the mind of a real denier, by definition. He's not gona see the light. Not publicly anyway. All you can do is make him shut up about the topic. So you might as well go bazooka on him.

Now of course there are variation in the intensity of the disease. Some people are just a bit stuborn, others don't care that much but asks themselves questions... But if the person comes back with his folly again and again, if he actively tries to spread it, then I think there are moral implications to such behavior.

When my father told me one day that maybe there could be some other explaination for global warming than CO2, I told him that Big Oil was spreading all sorts of lies and he shouldn't believe them or propagate them. Doing so is a disservice to society, it's to participate in disinformation. It is to be a useful idiot for some greedy capitalist. He never mentioned it again, to me anyway.

Ideas are important and there are moral implications to spreading disinformation. We are in this post-truth mess because idiocy has been respected far too much.

This is demonstrably incorrect. There are plenty of examples of people who used to deny climate change, but now accept it.

But this is the real question...

It is possible for anyone to change your mind? If you insist on attacking anyone who disagrees with you, then I suggest that maybe it isn't.

It's not the math that doesn't work, it's the Electoral College that doesn't work.

Weird electoral system.