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This article survives on HN because it strokes people'e scientific literacy egos and lets them feel outraged and/or look down on others. This is not of sufficient intellectual interest to warrant being on the front page.

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Maybe a lot of people are interested in the science of ego-stroking.

Science has been growing a strange ego-stroking pop culture faction of late, and it's fairly worrying. It's certainly not an attitude that's actually going to improve anything. All it does is serve to create deeper divides that are even harder to bridge. People just dig in their heels.

I'm sure it's emotionally satisfying for people in some way, but I've come to a place where such an attitude significantly lowers my opinion of the person wielding it.

I think the passage of a law mandating vaccination with no religious exemption is rather interesting, personally. Yeah, the vaccine side is not that interesting. Vaccines are great, we all know it. But the political side is very interesting.

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