this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
94 points (95.2% liked)

Science Memes

12401 readers
2098 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Sal@mander.xyz
fossilesque@mander.xyz
SciBot@mander.xyz
94
anti-evolutionism (mander.xyz)
submitted 23 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
top 6 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] yesman@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

If you're going to get rid of essentialism, you're going to have take on bigger fish than creationists. Because the problem of essentialism is not that it objectifies everything, it's that it refuses to understand the difference between language and ideas.

The worst essentialists are called structuralists or logocentrics. This kind of thinking is dominant in Western Philosophy and it infects the minds of people you probably respect, progressives like Noam Chomsky and reactionaries like Christopher Hitchens.

Essentialism is like capitalism. It's in the air we breath and the water we drink. It's so accepted and conventional that people will assume your a fool for describing or criticizing it.

[–] neutronbumblebee@mander.xyz 7 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (3 children)

And Plato would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling kids and their cladistics. Essentialism has been hugely damaging and is the foundation of most types of Creationism. https://newdiscourses.com/2021/02/essentialism-logical-fallacy-plaguing-us-since-plato/

[–] vonbaronhans@midwest.social 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

So, I gave this a cursory read.

The discussion of essentialism mostly makes sense, if a few weird red flags scattered throughout. But I was curious at what point it would be turned into, as promised in the intro, that essentialism is a fundamental flaw of "wokeism", and apparently specifically Critical Race Theory.

And uh. That connection was poorly made, in my humble opinion. It's a lot of philosophical history and bluster to then just sort of... miss the point and mischaracterize the quotes being put on the table.

My apologies, I would be more specific and pointed in my critique here, but I'm on mobile and I usually need a better setup (e.g. on PC) to lay out these thoughts with more precision.

[–] neutronbumblebee@mander.xyz 1 points 19 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

Ah that what happens when you Google an article which explanes some historical connection to Plato etc but it then uses that to make a completely unrelated point ie woke is bad. I should have read the whole thing before linking it. Looking at the other articles on the site it is indeed mostly right wing propaganda.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 14 hours ago

Your link isn't working properly.

It's a cool read though - I'm still reading it, but so far it did a great job showing that concepts are fuzzy and inside our heads, not those well-defined abstractions in some external realm.