Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

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>But this anti-intellectualism may make science better. Rather than agreeing with science, we constantly question it.

Anti-intellectuals by definition don't possess the intellectual curiosity necessary to contribute to science, rather, they fear and mistrust such curiosity, and any result of it more complex or less intuitive than high school algebra.

The myth that science is just slavish dogmatism is pushed by the anti-intellectual crowd, and by people who want to discredit scientific theses like evolution, climate change, parts of physics and astrophysics, mainstream medicine or vaccines. Science already has a process of constantly questioning itself - that's literally what the scientific process is. That constant questioning by science of its assumptions and revising them in the face of new evidence has led iteratively to models of reality which have proven fairly robust against criticism, and appear to accurately describe and predict the universe.

The anti-intellectuals, meanwhile, just scoff derisively at the "globalist elites" in their "ivory towers" with their "mumbo jumbo."

Intellectuals have fueled the rise of plenty of terrible ideas and outcomes. People -- even deplorables and bitter clingers -- are right to question intellectuals and in some cases raise barriers that are difficult for them to overcome.

Sometimes the mumbo-jumbo is bullshit or dangerous.

I'll grant this, but an outsider perspective isn't the same thing as basic rejection of serious rigorous inquiry. Thomas Kuhn's work certainly argues that scientific consensus isn't as meritocratic as we would like, but there are plenty of folks doing relatively fringe work that is nonetheless rigorous and intellectually based.

Climate change denial in particular isn't a product of outsiders seriously questioning the scientific consensus on any grounds; it's a manifactured controversy, founded on outright lies by companies that stand to benefit if we don't do anything about it.

The reasons for anti-vaccine ideas are more complex, but they aren't the product of a serious engagement with the other side of the argument.

>People -- even deplorables and bitter clingers -- are right to question intellectuals and in some cases raise barriers that are difficult for them to overcome.

By mentioning "deplorables and bitter clingers" you're admitting that much of the motive for such questioning among anti-intellectuals is rooted in politics and tribalism - and the premise that "intellectuals" are of the opposite or enemy tribe (leftists, liberals, feminists, Jews, atheists, pick your poison) and that therefore their work is inherently fraudulent or meaningless.

>Sometimes the mumbo-jumbo is bullshit or dangerous.

But anti-intellectuals tend to consider everything they don't understand, or anything that's part of the "establishment", to be "mumbo jumbo." If they had a credible, rational basis for their criticisms, rooted in an understanding of the domain they criticize, they would no longer be "anti-intellectual."

In some ways anti-intellectuals create space for other intellectuals to get traction when opposing bad ideas promoted by establishment embraced intellectuals.

While, anti-vaxers, et al, are raised as examples of the harm anti-intellectuals can cause, many great harms have been caused or celebrated by intellectuals over the ages.

>In some ways anti-intellectuals create space for other intellectuals to get traction when opposing bad ideas promoted by establishment embraced intellectuals.

They really don't, though. At least, not a productive space. Intellectuals are quite capable of getting that traction on their own, and doing so on the basis of fact and evidence, rather than anger and a nihilistic mistrust of order and complexity.

You're putting a lot of effort into painting a heroic narrative of anti-intellectualism and of the harms of "the establishment" and intellectuals "over the ages," but that's a political stance, and one that assumes the anti-intellectuals are filling a necessary role in the ecosystem that intellectuals, themselves, cannot.

I put forth that there is no value to anti-intellectualism. Skepticism, yes. Questioning of authority? Yes. Opposing bad ideas? Yes. None of those are the particular domain of anti-intellectualism. Rather, those are all hallmarks of intellectualism.

The anti-intellectuals are the ones burning down the observatory so this never happens again. They're not helping.

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