To Understand How Science Denial Works, Look to History | Hacker News Reader

To Understand How Science Denial Works, Look to History

scientificamerican.com

24 pointsbleepblorp19 comments

I believe that the author of this paper paints a simplified view of the world, and the examples they draw on do not imply the conclusion they are proposing.

For example, in the case of big tobacco, the stance that "smoking is safe" may have more similarities to the "Covid-19 is an existential threat and we must do everything possible to minimize death". Why do I claim this? Well, both positions rely on dogma in the guise of science, both positions are the commonly accepted cannon of the time, and both positions are propped up by bureaucrats masquerading and scientists to further their own self interest.

I would advise readers to not see the world in such a black and white fashion. We should actively be discussing the scientific literature, disseminating facts and figures, and discussing how to prevent public health risk without infringing upon individual freedoms and causing economic (economic factors have a downstream health and human cost too, particularly those in lower socioeconomic strata) damage.

So in summary, science is not dogma. Science is a toolkit we use to investigate the natural world. Caricaturing those holding different worldviews as "science deniers" is not constructive to public discourse.

Be compassionate in your world-view, open-minded to new evidence, pragmatic about solutions, but do not yield your faculties for rational thought and skepticism to the "expert class".

Rothbard wrote an interesting piece on the dangers of "scientism", as he called it. It might provide some interesting perspective on this issue for those who are curious: https://cdn.mises.org/mantle%20of%20science.pdf

Hear me out through this thought experiment.

It’s hypothetical but hear me out. Imagine that there is a new virus that affects the peoples in 20s and 30s much more than those in 60+. And imagine that for some reason we would have to combat it we would have to tank the stock market, the 401ks and the pensions. Would the ruling generation sacrifice thise to save the younger generation?

What I am trying to say is that maybe the COVID vaccine skeptics are not science deniers. Maybe they just know exactly what they are doing.

>denying scientific results

That's exactly what scientists often do when they reproduce experiments.

"Science denial", as it comes across in this headline to the common person, conveys an appeal to authority that scientific results are not to be questioned. This inversion of the scientific method is used to give consensus to scientific results that support the status quo.

In reality, questioning scientific results has always been a necessary part of the scientific method.

Science denial is not a thing. Good science by definition should be deniable and then provable.

The sign of bad science is that any challenge to the science is immediately disregarded as 'science denial'

Worse yet is when the activists or political folks take up a scientific issue and then blow it out of proportion demanding for their political policies be implemented OR ELSE. You ask them to prove it, and then history goes by and their proofs are literally disproven. What do they do? They act like the activists they are and just push on. That's not how science works.

Isn't Science Denial the main driver for more Science?

Wasn't in the beginning of the Pandemic consensus that masks didn't work? https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou...

Yeah, these articles are often pretty poor. People seem to love treating 'Science' as this magical all-knowing entity which we must bow to and never question, when we should treat it as the exact opposite in order to learn and solidify our understanding of reality.

What for me wasn't clear about the article is: Who is playing the tobacco industry now?

The history of the church in the middle ages provides an interesting comparison. Instead of technocratic experts, there were priests who claimed a monopoly on truthiness. Members of the laity or even academics like Galileo were declared heretics when they diverged from official truths.

Yes, smoking is bad for your health and tobacco companies famously worked to cover it up. Interestingly, they employed scientific studies (with credentialed scientists no less) in their attempts to downplay the risks of smoking.

The US gov. also employed scientists to buttress cannabis prohibition. Funding was made available for researchers who toed the line and denied to those who did not. After millions of arrests, CBD is now touted as the latest panacea. The DEA still lists cannabis as a schedule 1 substance with "no therapeutic value".

Then there are the experts who sold us the war in Iraq. Skeptics were labeled conspiracy theorists.

Media outlets parroted official narrative of the war in Iraq, the war on drugs and other elite promotions.

As a hypothetical, consider that climate change and COVID both give license for increased central planning. Observe that the research is funded largely by the same institutions which will gain power when these objectives are reached. Putting aside the contentious debate, both sides should be able to accept that there is a conflict of interest here.

Yes, we should look to history. There is a long history of experts, technocrats or otherwise anointed individuals attempting to smear dissenters. Attempts to claim a monopoly on truth are regressive. We are all worse off for it.

Science is not a system of belief. It is a system of rational inquiry. Those who seek to shut down discussion by labeling dissenters as "science deniers" deserve to be scrutinized.

https://maps.org/news/media/2986-war-crimes-suppressing-scie...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470431/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix

https://norml.org/blog/2008/06/24/still-more-on-cannabis-can...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/one-doctor-vs-dea-insid...

> The history of the church in the middle ages provides an interesting comparison. Instead of technocratic experts, there were priests who claimed a monopoly on truthiness. Members of the laity or even academics like Galileo were declared heretics when they diverged from official truths.

Ah this trope again. I am just gonna post this for a more complete picture:

http://blogs.nature.com/soapboxscience/2011/05/18/science-ow...

> Admittedly, Galileo was put on trial for claiming it is a fact that the Earth goes around the sun, rather than just a hypothesis as the Catholic Church demanded. Still, historians have found that even his trial was as much a case of papal egotism as scientific conservatism. It hardly deserves to overshadow all the support that the Church has given to scientific investigation over the centuries.

> That support took several forms. One was simply financial. Until the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was the leading sponsor of scientific research. Starting in the Middle Ages, it paid for priests, monks and friars to study at the universities. The church even insisted that science and mathematics should be a compulsory part of the syllabus. And after some debate, it accepted that Greek and Arabic natural philosophy were essential tools for defending the faith. By the seventeenth century, the Jesuit order had become the leading scientific organisation in Europe, publishing thousands of papers and spreading new discoveries around the world. The cathedrals themselves were designed to double up as astronomical observatories to allow ever more accurate determination of the calendar. And of course, modern genetics was founded by a future abbot growing peas in the monastic garden.

Are we now denying the centuries of state-sponsored religious oppression that thrived in Europe? Assuming you are in the US, you might want to remember why the first settlers attempted to start a new life.

As someone whose national history is full of religious oppression, persecution, and acts of horror perpetrated in the name of god, you are welcome to walk this path for yourself, but I will not be following you.

I'm not sure if he is specifically denying these issues.

It is possible to read his comment as defending the church's involvement in research.

To clarify my own comment, I don't deny the church's involvement in the sciences. The assumption that I am promoting some kind of "trope" seems like a misreading of my own comment. Just part of commenting, these things can happen.

Copernicus (who Galileo cited) was a member of the clergy. However, he was reluctant to share his work on the heliocentric model for political reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus#:~:text=to...

I think that the point being made is not that religion has facilitated negative outcomes, but that the trope of "church impede scientific process. church absolute bad" is an example of a biased retrospective view adopted as a common myth in the modern, western worldview. It is important for societies to hold myths as part of their common culture for purposes of cohesion, but we must also acknowledge that reality is more complex and these myths are often ahistorical.

>Those who seek to shut down discussion by labeling dissenters as "science deniers" deserve to be scrutinized.

Exactly this. In line with my theory that Covid (or at least, the overall response to it) has accelerated all that was going wrong in the world, I have seen similar disturbing trends among scientific academics. That is - the science (couched in terms impenetrable to the layman) is right, actions are being taken in the best interest of all, and daring to question it marks you as anti-science (when questioning the status quo really is the essence of science). The comparison to state-sponsored religion is very apt.

Questioning science by offering a better hypothesis supported by evidence is good science.

Questioning science by offering a personal opinion supported by conjecture is anti-science.

It's really quite simple.

Smoking wasn't particularly dangerous before scientists invented cigarettes, and science is also what makes Facebook similarly addictive. Maybe the danger comes from not enough science denial.

Yeah, what has rational thought ever done for us? Except possibly inventing cigarettes and cancer?

I think we'll have to disagree about what "science" is and does.

Why not just skip to the greatest example of them all: The Manhattan Project? It is well known that science is a fact-finding algorithm that is not concerned with how it is used. People using science for destruction is a reflection of people, not science.

> People using science for destruction is a reflection of people, not science.

I mean when's the last time you heard a story about a group of transmodernists wreaking havoc on society?

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