Science denial through the ages.

[eridani]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/340239/title/Science_denial_in_the_21st_century

The arc of science has faced roadblocks for centuries, but the pattern of denying the weight of evidence has taken on new virulence recently. Highly motivated people openly cast doubt on well-established evidence — the theory of evolution, the human effects on climate change, the value of vaccines and other findings that have achieved an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community.

Researchers and science writers tasked with reporting on these issues gathered April 23–24 at the University of Wisconsin at a meeting titled “Science Writing in the Age of Denial.” Some noted that seemingly spontaneous denial of science in the populace is quite often a carefully choreographed attack.

Sean B. Carroll, an evolutionary biologist at UW–Madison, has traced similarities between an anti-polio vaccine movement by chiropractors in the 1950s and later attempts by others to deny evolution.

“There was a common playbook,” Carroll said. The deniers started by doubting the science, despite the evidence. They questioned the motives of researchers and cited gadfly “authorities” to give the impression of a disagreement among scientists. The doubters exaggerated potential harm, Carroll said, and appealed to personal freedom — such as the right to not get vaccinated.

Finally, he said, science denial embraced a viewpoint that “to accept the science would repudiate some key philosophy” of an individual or group. In the case of the polio vaccine, this would require the acceptance of the fact that a virus causes the disease, which chiropractic rejected. Same with evolution, Carroll said, which was framed as undermining biblical teachings.

[BlueJazz]

1. It's such a shame that many of us have to drag the rest of society...

....kicking and screaming into the future....even when it makes the future more liveable and happier for everybody.

[longship]

2. Some are benign, some have a body count

I suppose if you believe the moon landings were faked, the only danger is that the denier may be a bit kooky. Certainly, there aren't many of them. But a lot of science denial is dangerous and has a body count.

AltMed is one of them. I'll include antivaccination in this group. They are all anti scientific medicine. People die because they listen to these wackos.

The 9/11 so-called truthers may be benign on some level, but their spewage shows a willingness to believe manifestly false premisses, which is likely not without negative effects.

The worst of the bunch are the postmodernists, who with their word salad arguments are irreproachable with rational rhetoric because their rhetoric itself has tangled Wonderlandian aspects. Like all pseudoscientific practicianers they are very practiced in the art of the Gish Gallup.

Thanks for the post.

[Johonny]

3. being a little too accepting to science has its down side too

some pseudoscience has so cloaked itself into the language of modern science that it ropes many people in. There are many people that "love" technology and science a bit too much. They become easy targets for the same pseudoscience scams that have been totally repackaged to target them. They sound like science, they appear to be science, they use the same language as science, but they are really the same repackaged bull*. I think in the modern age not all or most pseudoscience stems from denial of science. Many actually these days rely on you "believing" not denying in the idea of science but rely on a poor understanding of the process of science.

[TruthBeTold65]

4. i think this is a very sad and scary thing...

In this day and age of information.

Have had a conversation with a friend at work. This is a smart guy and believes in science but because science can change its "mind" with new evidence then that somehow it makes everything a "theory"...in the laymen sense not the scientific sense.

The other side of it is the basic "no one likes a know-it-all" because it makes them feel stupid. I have seen this in so many interviews that Dawkins has had with religious people where they look at the evidence as arrogant and no one here has all the answers because you cant "show" me how the big bang or how the primordial soup generated human beings. And...since we don't have all the answers how can we believe anything scientists say.

Or maybe it is...i don't want to be alone in the universe and we have this handy little book that describes how everything was made and if i just follow these little rules then this old long beardy man will make me feel warm and fuzzy when i go to his crib when i die.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. I just watched a very depressing report on PBS NewsHour tonight ...

science teachers in high school are having to deal with combative parents and students who don't want to hear about global warming. They're having to line up a defense of what they're teaching and turning to outside support groups just to teach the truth about what's happening. Ridiculous that teachers have to jump through hoops like this just to do their jobs.