cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10673163
Evidence shows that shoving data in peoples’ faces doesn’t work to change minds.
As a scientist heavily engaged in science communication, I’ve seen it all.
People have come to my public talks to argue with me that the Big Bang never happened. People have sent me handwritten letters explaining how dark matter means that ghosts are real. People have asked me for my scientific opinion about homeopathy—and scoffed when they didn’t like my answer. People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didn’t understand the science.
People have left comments on my YouTube videos saying… well, let’s not even go there.
I encounter pseudoscience everywhere I go. And I have to admit, it can be frustrating. But in all my years of working with the public, I’ve found a potential strategy. And that strategy doesn’t involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.
I just call these people idiots, and let it be well known why they are morons. Usually they don’t like talking to me after a while, and I’m fine with that. Anti intellectualism is pathetic, and these movements are downright dangerous for everyone. I doubt I’m the only person who has lost patience.
My problem with these people is just how vocal they always are. When i talk to people, they don’t know if i’m religious or not, if i believe in a flat earth, if i think parrots are trained gouverment drones or if vaccines contain 5g chips or anything at all really. But if you talk with some of these dense fuckers, they always seem to start with: everyone is dumb but me because they get microchipped by the government. Or they have stickers on their cars about how dumb they are.
A lot of pseudoscience has a material basis in privatized healthcare - real scientific medicine is fuckin expensive, so people get sucked in to woo-woo scam bullshit to try and avoid medical debt
More than that, it fills the gaps science hasn’t explained yet. Many people really don’t like hearing “I don’t know”. Pseudoscience gives them certainly.
Science can’t cure your cold? We can!
That’s definitely another material component of the problem - there’s not always a pill you can take for a problem, so naturally people are going to cope with that by latching on to whatever explanations and options they can.
A lot of it is also tied up with religion. Flat Earthers, for example, started by trying to reconcile biblical explanations of the Earth and the universe and it spiraled from there.
Religion, itself, has a material basis. Real scientific medicine is expensive, going to church is free.
This might be an explanation in the US, but here in Romania (not normally useful to talk about the EU as a monolith) there are tons of people that love pseudoscientific woo-woo despite the fact that we have some of the cheapest medical coverage in the world (definitely cheapest in the EU).
Small tangent: in some sense, we get what we pay for. Our medical system is nowhere close to France, for example, in outcome. It’s probably one of the worst in Europe. It is cheap though, and for basic things (broken limbs, colds, basic medical surgeries) is just fine. It only becomes unfit for purpose during mass casualty events and exotic diseases.
Not to shift the blame onto the Yanks again, but I have noticed a lot of the lunacy in Europe is the same as in the US, just on a 2-3 year delay.
It’s certainly like that in Canada. Our next government is likely to be nothing but a deliberate and cynical imitation of US Republicanism, since the floundering Conservatives have discovered this taps them into a rich seam of wannabe American idiot votes.
The US exports its culture to the rest of the world.
Also, as you point out your medical system sometimes has poor outcomes. That, too, acts as a material basis for pseudoscience.
It’s a good point, you just can’t expect empathy in return. That tends to wear you down, so I don’t really know what the answer is. Maybe picking your battles is important too.
Well yes. You don’t have to be a keyboard warrior, you can choose to see something you don’t agree with and just move on.
It’s like people think downvotes will somehow change the mind of the person who is posting. It probably won’t. :)
In the real world, people make their own decisions, no matter how much you click the downvote button. :)
I don’t down vote to change the posters mind. I down vote as a courtesy to others, so they can see what is relevant and what is not. As a bonus; people who have no idea can look at it and say “this is probably wrong since everyone down voted it”.
Don’t conflate “wrong” with “unpopular opinion”. I was honestly hoping this downvote for disagreement thing would stay behind on reddit.
The standard, IMO, should be “contributes to the conversation” vs “contributes to the noise”.
The standard, IMO, should be “contributes to the conversation” vs “contributes to the noise”.
Respectfuly - I think that should have stayed on reddit. There is no reason we need to follow the cultural norms of a place we left. Downvoting obvious bullshit is always ok to me whether that bullshittery adds to the conversation or not.
Bullshit doesn’t add to the conversation, by definition, so I’m not sure what you mean here unless you’re saying to do away with upvotes and downvotes completely. That’s fine, by the way; I don’t really have an opinion myself, just because I’m not sure what would be a good replacement mechanism.
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I don’t downvote things I disagree with, but I do downvote things that are objectively false or downright stupid.
Clearly the thumbnail is implying that the correct way to deal with people is to use static electricity to shock them
This is the best summary I could come up with:
People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didn’t understand the science.
And that strategy doesn’t involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.
To get things started, let’s figure out what we mean by “pseudoscience.” Unfortunately, there’s no universally agreed-upon definition for us to turn to, and the lines between science and pseudoscience can get a little blurry.
That skin usually involves some combination of advanced jargon that’s generally indecipherable, the wielding of sophisticated mathematical tools for describing nature, and, of course, the fancy technical gear for making measurements and observations.
Science is characterized by a spirit of openness, by requiring that methods and techniques be shared and publicized so that others can critique and extend them, and connectedness, which is a sense that statements we make must connect with the broader collection of scientific knowledge.
And while any individual scientist will fall short at one or more of these qualities for at least some—or, sadly, the entirety—of their careers, the practice of science is to always strive for these noble goals.
The original article contains 654 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
No its not. Making fun and ridicule is the only method. The people who believe that shit are plain stupid. The smart ones will get the hint and move on. Empathy for it is allowing them to become victims. Fuck pseudoscience. Shut them down every chance you get.
Or y’know, go with what works rather than what satisfies our frustration on the topic.
I can’t comment on which strategies work best, but if research came to demonstrate that empathy works better than ridicule, continuing to use ridicule would in itself be a pseudo-scientific approach.
Make people afraid to look stupid again!
Ridicule and ostracizism are foundational to the social contract.
