People endlessly reference the Dunning-Kruger effect as a meme, without ever having read the paper, let alone having checked its methods. You don't seem to have a problem with that.

On the other hand, after seeing an article that uses essentially statistical arguments to debate a scientific study you conclude that there is some "anti-intellectual, anti-scientific streak" in our society and that it should be of grave concern.

This doesn't make any sense except as an extreme case of virtue-signaling.