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Comment by dccoolgai | Hacker News Reader

Interesting... Are there any current issues you can think of in academia where disagreeing with the prevailing opinion can make one a pariah... Even, perhaps, assigned an epithet like "denier"? I think whenever this happens in academia/science, it is incredibly dangerous. Proper science invites and celebrates denial - seeks to deconstruct it and understand it to be more certain of the truth. The mere presence of any other attitude is a strong smell that something is drastically wrong.

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It's not relevant today but a well-known virologist, Peter Duesberg, was an HIV-causes-AIDS denialist (before that he was very well known for real accomplishments in virology). However, he never showed any evidence to support his case and there was extensive evidence against it. If you want to be a denier, the reality is that you have to show a lot of compelling evidence both supporting your position, and against the mainstream position.

Modern denialism tends to be more centered around climate change- whether it is occurring, and what the impacts will be in the near and long term, and how to respond. Many physics people (who worked on high energy particle physics, etc) have looked at the claims from the various climate change promoters and found the source evidence to be less than convincing. If they articulate this, they are often described as denialists. Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Happer

Literally anything that contradicts your bosses position.

a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g

I've watched very experienced, top school trained MDs freeze up and begin to stutter, as they've just realized they said something their lab chief does not like.

Coincidentally, that chief writes treatment guidelines and consults the FDA, and is probably one of the most powerful physicians in the profession.

Medicine is a very hierarchical top-down command structure type of field.

Dr Atkins invited the wrath of the medical community because he pushed for a low carb, high fat diet at a time when the medical consensus was that fats are the root of all evil. They eventually took his license for some unrelated issue but the driving force was the fact he went against the medical establishment and ridiculed low-fat but high-carb diets

I thought his license was only pulled temporarily and was reinstated?

Did he end up permanently losing it?

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