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Comment by pfannkuchen | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know how the phrase "denying science" crept into people’s vocabulary?

I find it incredibly creepy since it sort of treats science as a religion, and usually people who say it seem to know basically nothing about actual science.

If I think back before about 10 years ago I don’t think I had ever heard it before. In the past, non-technically minded people didn’t really cite “science” as a concrete reason to do anything, and the people who did generally at least kind of knew what they were talking about.

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Many of the things in the GP comment are idiotic or wrong at very basic levels, so it's possible the "denying science" comments have a root in truth.

It's one thing if you've studied a given field, are aware of the limitations in current research, and have a well-informed opinion. It's something completely different if you don't seem to understand the blood is transmitted through the UC and the concern around it being wrapped around the neck has nothing to do with the respiratory system, or that asking if a pregnant patient is safe at home is completely routine and happens in 100% of cases.

If the doctors say "the cord wrap will stop breathing" and I say "that doesn't make sense" am I denying science or is it just.a normal disagreement?

Usually people clinging to folk medicine were ignorant people due to circumstances.

Now, people who live in a modern society actively pursue ignorance as they perceive it to be some sort of virtue. Many people want to aspire to home water birth, exclusively breastfeed and only used organic cotton diapers, because…

Others seek cures from goop.com or gurus of various stripes because it makes them feel empowered. Look at Steve Jobs - a fricking billionaire with access to anything possible, who delayed meaningful treatment to chug papaya juice or whatever for his cancer.

It dogmatic thinking just as wrong as the doctor who pushes for a c-section so he doesn’t get called on Christmas morning or miss his football game.

Empowerment and ego can often fool us. And marketers have monetized or.

> exclusively breastfeed

What's wrong with doing this before the baby is ready for solid food (around 4 months IIRC)?

> only used organic cotton diapers

What's wrong with using those types of diapers if they're better for the environment compared to a standard disposable diaper?

> I find it incredibly creepy since it sort of treats science as a religion […]

This has been a thing for a while:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

This is different from what I observe though. One can believe that the scientific method is the best way we know of to understand reality, without assigning dogma status to any particular artifact that comes out of this process. Doing so is, ironically, actually anti science (in the scientific method sense), which is probably what makes it so creepy.

The difference is that people denying science are not doing it because they have supporting data that conflicts mainstream scientific beliefs, they are denying science because it allows them to claim superiority or display allegiance to a tribe.

For example, drekipus provides no data and no specifications about their claims, and even if their experience was true, it is 1 datapoint. Contrast that with the conclusions someone who has a systems level view of outcomes from numerous births.

Go ahead and contradict the norms, but provide supporting reasoning and evidence. Note that even the medical “establishment” constantly updates their guidelines as new information is evaluated.

"science denier" sounds like it's language the flat earth folk et al use, coined (I'd imagine) to speak to them in their language, or by themselves as a positive trait?

my eccentric high school English teacher once pointed out that the original connotation of "x denier" is of the holocaust

Good point!

From my viewpoint (in europe though) I only started hearing/seeing it during coronavirus.

In the US we got a head start on it with climate.

In Poland, I first started hearing it around vaccines and climate discussions couple years before COVID - but that may have been because I was hanging out in various social media groups discussing those topics (and/or just mocking the "science deniers"). The term however seems to have exploded in use since the pandemic. I think it's because it suddenly became relevant to mass audience and journalists started using it.

was that in Polish? if so, what is the Polish version?

There isn't a set one. "Antynaukowy" (lit. "anti-science") is the most common I've seen, perhaps because it's close to a well-established term "antyszczepionkowiec" ("anti-vaxxer") - but most often, it's just any of the expression that contains the core term of "anti science" or "denying science", such as "antynaukowe poglądy" ("anti-scientific beliefs"), "zaprzeczasz nauce" ("you're denying science"), etc.

Lol that last word has a z, a prz, a cz, and a sz.

They should really switch to Cyrillic!

I see this argument raised quite often and it's a bit like saying English should have it's own alphabet because latin alphabet wasn't made for whatever amalgamate of languages modern English is. There are cultural factors at play as well, Poland was historically a Catholic country and that came with latin included. Basically: digraphs are prevalent in many languages and Z is as good a letter as any.

Wrt. English, it still technically has stuff like Æ, so it too may just as well switch to Cyrillic.

I’m confused by both of these replies. Wasn’t Cyrillic created expressly for Slavic languages? And isn’t Polish a Slavic language?

Other than not having to use diacritics, what benefits does it present for modern Polish users to switch to an alphabet designed for Old Church Slavonic?

also how would it look politically

In the US,this went mainstream for the pandemic. It was an existing undercurrent in different communities.

Reactionary people weaponized vaccines with Gardasil - good Christian boys and girls are chaste until marriage, so vaccination is unnecessary. Sinners get gods punishment.

Crazy left-wing people cling to the autism rumors about vaccination.

All of this is magnified by politics and propaganda. Certain religious sects punch above their weight because of political factors - you can usually correlate this with measles outbreaks. Foreign influence operations encourage and stoke this stuff to encourage general unrest as well.

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