We Tried to Warn You
unsafescience.substack.com
unsafescience.substack.com
For all that it's complaining about polarization and radicalization I see very little olive branches or sympathy to people most affected. It seems a bit hypocritical.
How many "olive branches or sympathy" did the "people most affected" have for these "dissident academics"?
The obnoxious guy at work, who refused to heed numerous warnings about his behavior, should not expect a lot of sympathy from his colleges when his behavior catches up to him and he gets fired for it.
That is an inaccurate statement: half of the people who voted did so for Trump. Only about 64% of the people who were eligible to vote showed up to the polls.[1] That is not half the country.
> That is an inaccurate statement: half of the people who voted did so for Trump. Only about 64% of the people who were eligible to vote showed up to the polls.[1] That is not half the country.
That's a quibble. Half the people that mattered (voters) voted for Trump. And who knows how the rest would have voted. Maybe if they did, Trump would have won with bigger margins (IIRC, he did better with less engaged voters).
The U.S. population was about 340 million people in November 2024.[1] Most people shouldn't think the term "half the country" originates from that number, because then they will presume that 170 million people voted for Trump, greater than the total amount that voted in 2024. Not everyone in that count is permitted to vote, so it's not an accurate number to use as a reference. However, when claiming "half the country voted for Trump" it is calling upon this number in people's minds to give weight to an inaccurate statement.
If one then uses the more accurate term "Half the voting population voted for Trump," we cull that total census number down to about 244 million people eligible to vote.[2] The total voter count in 2024 was about 156 million.[3] The total number of voters who voted for Trump was about 77 million.[3] Even with this more precise statement we can see that half the possible number did not vote for Trump. If we're trying to be fair to the writer and use the definition "half the eligible voters voted for Trump" we can see that this claim is false.
All we can end with is the very obvious "A little over half the votes went to Trump" which lacks the significance of the hyperbolic statement used in the article, perhaps even to the level of insignificance to not be included in the article. So then why was it included?
1. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2... 2. https://election.lab.ufl.edu/2024-general-election-turnout/ 3. https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers
Does your objection invalidate the point that was made?
> So then why was it included?
Because real people are not Lt. Cmdr. Data, and do not always speak and write with the maximum possible precision.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."
It's not particularly interesting or informative that the author made a rhetorical mistake.
I disagree. The article scolds academics based on pitting themselves against half the country. I showed that statement was not true. Taking something in good faith does not mean criticism is unacceptable.
Also, pay an actual artist next time, instead of crapping out AI "art".
Honestly, Trump probably wouldn't be stomping on it if academia merely had been more accepting of conservatives and conservative viewpoints. In other words, include and represent the full range of Americans.
But it excluded them (and then to rub it in, people used that exclusion as proof that the excluded were intellectually inferior). It's predictable that would lead to a backlash when the tables were turned, and that's exactly what we got.
If you make someone your enemy, that tends to have the effect of making you their enemy.
It is the purpose of education to exclude ignorance and superstition.
And academia excludes them because it rightly understands that the goal of conservatism is to destroy them utterly. One cannot have a foundation of science while accepting people who want to normalize Christian Biblical literalism, racial realism and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. These two paradigms simply cannot coexist.
Is it really? And even granting that "the goal of conservatism is to destroy [academia] utterly," for the sake of argument. Are you confusing the situation at the end with the situation at the start?
The fact of the matter is academia hasn't been able to destroy conservatism, so it seems all it accomplished was making an enemy and picking a fight. They're in a bad situation now, which calls into question the wisdom of their previous strategy and positions.
> One cannot have a foundation of science while accepting people who want to normalize Christian Biblical literalism, racial realism and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. These two paradigms simply cannot coexist.
I think what you're doing is cherry-picking extreme examples in order to justify a prejudice. You can tar academia just the same, by cherry-picking academics who taken all kinds strange and indefensible positions.