this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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the problem is that critical thinking should be a reflex and not a mental effort
It doesn't help that there is way too much shitty, agenda-funded science today. And science we aren't supposed to question. And science driven entirely by profit. Like, isn't questioning science part of science? Of course the response is completely unreasonable too. All of my family are research scientists, and if a discovery doesn't meet capitalistic goals, is it even a discovery at this point?
That's why you teach philosophy and critical thinking. Science will follow if that's the kid's interest. But learning to be being self-aware of your own position amongst others, including the position of Science, is key.
That is why I am appalled at Neil deGrasse Tyson's belief that philosophy is obsolete and exalt science as the ultimate foundation of truth and society. Where and how does he think science first came about? It was called natural philosophy before. And the scientific method has its roots from Socratic questioning. But I know that NDT is too egocentric to change his mind if called out on it.
Oof don't get me started. He read that line from Hawking and stuck to it. I had a blast watching nuCosmos when it came out and he's done plenty good science communication, but Carl Sagan he is not.
Call it pseudo-science
Yea agreed. When shitty science is given as a reference then it becomes much harder to critically judge something but at least it is not a huge amount of work to see that there is conflicting scientific data on a topic. It is a huge effort to try to gauge which one is more credible. And it does not even have to be agenda driven. It can just be bad science, science driven by strong priors. Then you really have to be an expert on the topic to be able to spot the weaknesses in that study. Luckily however most outrageously stupid statements made by politicians/billionaires and a huge body of online disinformation content don't even refer to existing science (if it doesn't give any references to scientific statements, assume it does not exist or ask for links) and are easy to pick apart by realizing the blatant contradictions in their statements.
Exactly