Unfortunately many "smart" people insist on telling "dumb" people how to think instead of having the introspection and humility to examine where we've gone wrong and spending a lot of time and effort on fixing it.
No, easier to gaslight the idiots
Not “This is bad because it undermines science, is lying, and unethical, regardless of what people think.”
Most people, stupid or otherwise, wouldn't take a critical thinking course, for example. Many would have no time for it, to say little of motivation. Fewer are proud of being stupid and will shun anything they consider "intellectual".
On the other hand intellectuals have poor discernment too, they overly trust the literature and the interpretation of working scientists. These two phenomena are two sides of the same coin, and the flat earthers/antivaxx etc crazies are directly downstream of the "trust the science" bad behaviour, especially since the education system has taught them what good science is and they are rightly perceiving that good science is not being done.
This is a bad start to a post on HN. Less confrontational would be better.
> Because even the craziest of crazies are actually doing the scientific method.
I can name several conspiracy theories off the bat which I've heard repeated by people who have not tested the theories. The vast majority of them, at best, found a video of someone on the internet with "dr" in the username. The percent of "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" folks who have actually personally tested whether steel can lose structural integrity at such temperatures, is absolutely minuscule.
> They are arguably better scientists than "trust the science" folks because at least they are getting out there and moving atoms to test shit.
Reading something on the internet is moving photons and electrons at best, but I can't speak to whether a given Parler thread which convinced someone of a given conspiracy was read inside or outside.