cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10673163
Evidence shows that shoving data in peoplesā faces doesnāt work to change minds.
As a scientist heavily engaged in science communication, Iāve seen it all.
People have come to my public talks to argue with me that the Big Bang never happened. People have sent me handwritten letters explaining how dark matter means that ghosts are real. People have asked me for my scientific opinion about homeopathyāand scoffed when they didnāt like my answer. People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didnāt understand the science.
People have left comments on my YouTube videos sayingā¦ well, letās not even go there.
I encounter pseudoscience everywhere I go. And I have to admit, it can be frustrating. But in all my years of working with the public, Iāve found a potential strategy. And that strategy doesnāt involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.
I just call these people idiots, and let it be well known why they are morons. Usually they donāt like talking to me after a while, and Iām fine with that. Anti intellectualism is pathetic, and these movements are downright dangerous for everyone. I doubt Iām the only person who has lost patience.
My problem with these people is just how vocal they always are. When i talk to people, they donāt know if iām religious or not, if i believe in a flat earth, if i think parrots are trained gouverment drones or if vaccines contain 5g chips or anything at all really. But if you talk with some of these dense fuckers, they always seem to start with: everyone is dumb but me because they get microchipped by the government. Or they have stickers on their cars about how dumb they are.
A lot of pseudoscience has a material basis in privatized healthcare - real scientific medicine is fuckin expensive, so people get sucked in to woo-woo scam bullshit to try and avoid medical debt
More than that, it fills the gaps science hasnāt explained yet. Many people really donāt like hearing āI donāt knowā. Pseudoscience gives them certainly.
Science canāt cure your cold? We can!
Thatās definitely another material component of the problem - thereās not always a pill you can take for a problem, so naturally people are going to cope with that by latching on to whatever explanations and options they can.
A lot of it is also tied up with religion. Flat Earthers, for example, started by trying to reconcile biblical explanations of the Earth and the universe and it spiraled from there.
Religion, itself, has a material basis. Real scientific medicine is expensive, going to church is free.
This might be an explanation in the US, but here in Romania (not normally useful to talk about the EU as a monolith) there are tons of people that love pseudoscientific woo-woo despite the fact that we have some of the cheapest medical coverage in the world (definitely cheapest in the EU).
Small tangent: in some sense, we get what we pay for. Our medical system is nowhere close to France, for example, in outcome. Itās probably one of the worst in Europe. It is cheap though, and for basic things (broken limbs, colds, basic medical surgeries) is just fine. It only becomes unfit for purpose during mass casualty events and exotic diseases.
Not to shift the blame onto the Yanks again, but I have noticed a lot of the lunacy in Europe is the same as in the US, just on a 2-3 year delay.
Itās certainly like that in Canada. Our next government is likely to be nothing but a deliberate and cynical imitation of US Republicanism, since the floundering Conservatives have discovered this taps them into a rich seam of wannabe American idiot votes. Their campaigning just involves echoing whatever the far right conspiracy theory of the day is on the other side of the border.
The US exports its culture to the rest of the world.
Also, as you point out your medical system sometimes has poor outcomes. That, too, acts as a material basis for pseudoscience.
Itās a good point, you just canāt expect empathy in return. That tends to wear you down, so I donāt really know what the answer is. Maybe picking your battles is important too.
Well yes. You donāt have to be a keyboard warrior, you can choose to see something you donāt agree with and just move on.
Itās like people think downvotes will somehow change the mind of the person who is posting. It probably wonāt. :)
In the real world, people make their own decisions, no matter how much you click the downvote button. :)
I donāt down vote to change the posters mind. I down vote as a courtesy to others, so they can see what is relevant and what is not. As a bonus; people who have no idea can look at it and say āthis is probably wrong since everyone down voted itā.
Donāt conflate āwrongā with āunpopular opinionā. I was honestly hoping this downvote for disagreement thing would stay behind on reddit.
The standard, IMO, should be ācontributes to the conversationā vs ācontributes to the noiseā.
The standard, IMO, should be ācontributes to the conversationā vs ācontributes to the noiseā.
Respectfuly - I think that should have stayed on reddit. There is no reason we need to follow the cultural norms of a place we left. Downvoting obvious bullshit is always ok to me whether that bullshittery adds to the conversation or not.
Bullshit doesnāt add to the conversation, by definition, so Iām not sure what you mean here unless youāre saying to do away with upvotes and downvotes completely. Thatās fine, by the way; I donāt really have an opinion myself, just because Iām not sure what would be a good replacement mechanism.
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I donāt downvote things I disagree with, but I do downvote things that are objectively false or downright stupid.
Clearly the thumbnail is implying that the correct way to deal with people is to use static electricity to shock them
This is the best summary I could come up with:
People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didnāt understand the science.
And that strategy doesnāt involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.
To get things started, letās figure out what we mean by āpseudoscience.ā Unfortunately, thereās no universally agreed-upon definition for us to turn to, and the lines between science and pseudoscience can get a little blurry.
That skin usually involves some combination of advanced jargon thatās generally indecipherable, the wielding of sophisticated mathematical tools for describing nature, and, of course, the fancy technical gear for making measurements and observations.
Science is characterized by a spirit of openness, by requiring that methods and techniques be shared and publicized so that others can critique and extend them, and connectedness, which is a sense that statements we make must connect with the broader collection of scientific knowledge.
And while any individual scientist will fall short at one or more of these qualities for at least someāor, sadly, the entiretyāof their careers, the practice of science is to always strive for these noble goals.
The original article contains 654 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 68%. Iām a bot and Iām open source!
No its not. Making fun and ridicule is the only method. The people who believe that shit are plain stupid. The smart ones will get the hint and move on. Empathy for it is allowing them to become victims. Fuck pseudoscience. Shut them down every chance you get.
Or yāknow, go with what works rather than what satisfies our frustration on the topic.
I canāt comment on which strategies work best, but if research came to demonstrate that empathy works better than ridicule, continuing to use ridicule would in itself be a pseudo-scientific approach.
Make people afraid to look stupid again!
Ridicule and ostracizism are foundational to the social contract.
