The Denialist Playbook
scientificamerican.com
scientificamerican.com
There are two fundamental attributes of science that allow for this, which I don't believe are talked about enough:
1. Good, solid, scientific investigation is reproducible and thus is not impacted by priors. It doesn't matter who performs the research, the same conclusion will be reached. Reproducibility means there is never a question of bias or discrimination.
2. All scientific inquiry requires fasifiability. If a hypothesis cannot be proven wrong, it is not scientific.
Meeting these two requirements is difficult, but also the reason science is regarded so highly in the modern world. By attaching these elements of rigor to the process, the conclusions become trustworthy. Stringently following that process, however, takes time, effort, and a meticulous nature. The reproducibility crisis is very real, and every member of the scientific community should be immensely concerned about it, as it erodes public trust in science and research as a whole. And make no mistake, that erosion can be weaponized to great effect against robust research used in policy making. In part, scientists are afraid if they call out the bad research and denounce poor practices, they will rock the boat and risk funding or be ostracized. But keeping your head down is a short term strategy, and doing so only serves to further jeopardize trust while lending credence to denialism.
I am not an active member of the community, but I certainly know many researches, and they all know there is a problem, and they all just want to be left alone to focus on their work, hoping someone else will deal with it. Understandable, but sometimes more is required.
Disagreement and denial are very different things. Both problem statements and potential remedies should be carefully considered.
> Lockdowns in particular are not clearly effective.
> Traditional epidemiology says quarantine is not useful for fast spreading contagions.
> Honing of models of spread shows coronavirus is not capable of exponential growth as initially feared.
1. Tell people there is a problem with 'doubting the science' and say 'the science is settled,' as if any skepticism of established or not-so-established science is unacceptable.
2. Use shame words like 'denialist' and 'conspiracy theory' to gaslight anyone who questions the common narrative.
3. Assume a single solution is the best way forward based on scientific studies of the problem.
- In the name of Science (which is supposed to be based on pure evidence and logic)
I imagine this is part of a campaign to increase the public's psychological buy-in to a COVID vaccine, so perhaps the ends justify the means in fact....but still, it seems like this propaganda disguised as science technique is starting to get used a bit too frequently, to the long term detriment of science's reputation. The CP world is a hivemind, and there are some weaponized autists in there who have compiled information and articles for years, and certainly know the actual science behind vaccines & their historic risks far beyond what your typical self-proclaimed scientific-thinker thinks they know. So when propaganda hit pieces like this come out in that world, and someone drops a bomb of 50+ contradicting factual articles into the thread, opinions are formed and solidified.
It's a shame so many adults seem to have forgotten what their parents told them about lying.
Though that never stops you from proclaiming what you'd want the studies to say as undisputed fact. It only becomes "complicated" when the studies say the wrong thing.
The right way is to participate, "put up or shut up" as the saying goes. If all you want to do is shout from the sidelines with doubtful rhetoric, we don't need you.
Nothing can survive lies and dishonest tactics. If someone tells you from birth that Group X is inherently pure evil and that anyone who denies or doubts this is either woefully naïve or in the pay of Group X, you have no chance to survive without becoming Anti-Group X, regardless of what the real evidence about Group X is: You'll reject all evidence, destroy all relationships which might lead you to that evidence, and count yourself lucky that no Group X members can get close enough to you to infect you with their lies and various forms of evil.
> In fact, we should be very suspicious when all Scientist agree (you know, when the Science has been "settled").
OK, all scientists agree that the Earth isn't a flat disk being carried on the back of a tortiose.
> As for motives and integrity, the word of a Scientist has become too much of a powerful political force these days.
Who? Science is a process, not a group, so who in specific has too much political force? Does everyone doing science have political force? Be precise in your language, please!
> Who? Science is a process, not a group, so who in specific has too much political force? Does everyone doing science have political force? Be precise in your language, please!
Science has become politicized, you can see it in most every HN thread on certain science-related topics (like this one, for example). Typically, the quality of disagreements are similar to what you might find on /r/politics, because both sides are not speaking scientifically, which is a requirement for actual scientific discussions (there is lot more complexity going on under the covers at the psychological level, but good luck having an abstract discussion on that during an object-level argument when the abstract phenomenon is the unrealized basis of the very argument).
The media throws around "scientific" memes, and calls them science, and actual scientists stand on the sidelines and say nothing.
Actual scientists who disagree even in part with these scientific memes are censored, or worse.
In turn this sows distrust in the public, which lessens the beneficial effects of beneficial scientific knowledge in society. The recommended response to this seems to be doubling down on propaganda/groupthink/mockery and scientific authoritarianism. To me, this seems suboptimal, but who am I to complain - I'm just going to mostly sit on the sidelines and watch the whole thing melt down into chaos (how far down the path we are is unknown, but we sure as hell have increasing chaos), and occasionally post a forum comment here and there. From my vantage point, this seems like one of those weird cultural trends that comes along every so often which cannot be stopped with reason, you just have to let human nature play itself out.
More or less by definition it's impossible for a denialist to tell that they're not being skeptical, because they can move the goalposts on "sufficient evidence" indefinitely. This is a deep epistemological conundrum with no easy answer. But as a rule of thumb, skeptics generally include the "both ways" aspects in their definition of skepticism, while denialists focus solely on justifying their doubt.