A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
I will argue this is not the problem. It's that vaccines were too good in their effectiveness. A victim of their own success.
The problem is not and has not been science. The problem is messaging.
This is the same reason why anti-vax is so popular, you think that's about science? It's idiots like RFK Jr and Trump have the ear of people. It's all messaging folks.
A person is smart. People are dumb.
I have to agree about the too good in their effectiveness. To get to a point where people are just like, “Nah, it ain’t a big deal” is built atop the millions of dead.
the bigger problem is that some teachers are so mentally checked out that they make those subjects actively unappealing. I wonder what makes them that way...
If smart people are so smart, why aint they in charge? Checkmate nerds!
Because to be successful in politics it's much more important to be charismatic and well spoken than to be actually smart. It's a dad state of affairs.
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That is why I am appalled at Neil deGrasse Tyson's belief that philosophy is obsolete and exalt science as the ultimate foundation of truth and society.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.
the problem is most emphatically not people skipping stuff in school, the problem is that the world is filled with people who have literally researched how to mislead and manipulate people. The only classes i think would actively help protect you against this is history and political science.
We can't expect everyone to be educated in every field so they can recognize misinformation, what we need is for everyone to recognize fascism and general authoritarian methods.
To your point, I've met quite a few STEM educated people who fall for this type of misinformation due to lack of historical and political literacy.
Quite a few are also quite disrespectful to the humanities so they tend to be empathetically underdeveloped since they feel their whole life is about producing results and making progress at any cost necessary.
I’m really happy to see this discussion here. Intellectual self defense comes from a well rounded liberal arts education. The type of people who whine about having to take general education and non science courses are already displaying an alarming lack of critical thinking skills; they are exactly the ones who need it most.
Appeal to emotions, rather than logic, and if you pull the right lever, that person will get a bias confirmation, feel smarter for knowing something everyone else doesn't and in some cases, feel less insecure for not knowing enough.
I've met people that have a degree or that are even teaching and have the worst baseless believes. It's only a matter of getting to your levers.
Media literacy and how to validate sources. Unfortunately, the second part was primarily taught in college when I was still in school.
Critical thinking is very difficult to teach. Its so much easier for people to just accept whatever confirms their current preconceived notion. It also requires that the person is both open to learning new things and that they are open to the idea that they may be wrong, misinformed, or not know everything.
So many people are simply over confident about their own knowledge.
I studied history (and by that I mean I liked to watch documentaries) and as a kid I saw educational cartoons and Anime (yes anime) that showed how there was a huge backlash against telephone and telegraphy when they first came out. With farmers blaming telegraph wire for destroying crops or crop diseases and they would sometimes even sabotage the wires and poles.
When I heard of the 5G bullshit that was literally what came to mind... it is incredible how eternal this form of ignorance is.
I feel like media literacy is more useful for preventing this crap than a scientific education would be, though both help to some degree.
Sure, but a fundamental understanding of the basics, across all disciplines (science , history, literature, and math) helps one spot bullshit from a mile away. Science especially helps apply math and critical thinking.
IMHO, understanding the Scientific Method and, maybe more importantly, why it is as it is (so, understanding things like Confirmation Bias - including that we ourselves have it without noticing it, which skews our perception, recollection and conclusions - as well as Logical Falacies) is what makes the most difference in how we mentally handle data, information and even offered knowledge from the outside.
PS: Also more broadly in STEM, the structured and analytical way of thinking in those areas also helps in things like spotting logical inconsistencies, circular logic and other such tricks to make the illogical superficially seem logical.
Even subtle but common Propaganda techniques used in the modern age are a lot more obvious once one is aware of one's one natural biases and how these techniques act on and via those biases, purposefully avoiding logic.
Personally I feel that that's the part of my training in Science (which I never finished, since I changed the degree I was taking from Physics to EE half way) is what makes me a bit more robust (though not immune: none of us are, IMHO) to Propaganda.
This is something i noticed early on with the generational divide and misinformation on the internet. Older generations never had the internet in school, and this were never taught how to identify a truthful source. Those of us that grew up with the internet were drilled into our heads, "not everything on the internet is true." From both our teachers and the generation who believes everything on the internet.
It was a big sticking point with my in-laws during covid. Theyd send me a link, and 5 minutes later id respond with, "that person never went to any college has no credentials to be commenting on the scientific and biological effects of vaccines. Here's a published dr saying youre wrong." Only to be met with, "you're an idiot. Go get autism if you want."
I have no scientific education. I am still not retarded enough to believe any of the nonsensical conspiracies found online.
Could it be that the key here is media competence and not a doctors degree?
I've worked with doctors who believe this shit. When this all kicked off, they immediately discarded their education to embrace the Fox dogma.
Area of study is definitely not the issue.
I've worked IT in healthcare and let me tell you, I've met some incredibly stupid doctors and learned just cause you're a doctor doesn't make you smart. And then I realized, there is someone at the bottom of every graduating class out there.
What do you call someone who almost failed out of medical school? Doctor.
I know quite a few MAGA doctors so I can assure you that a medical degree is not protective.
The key is, that for a lot of people reasoning and thinking is a hard work, because never learned it. I remember an interview with a MAGA voter about climate change and his response: "It's a big lie, human beings can't be the cause, because they are not capable of changing God's creation".
People need to learn how to build a "firewall" for their brain.
I've seen a lot of the counter balance to this which is STEM folk not having respect for the humanities, rendering them empathetically underdeveloped.
I'm not even sure what you are trying to say here, science and empathy are 2 very different things. This is a very oversimplified version, but science should only be about answering if assumptions we have are true or false, based on enough evidence.
They're complaining about how it is fashionable to say up with STEM down with Arts, to present them as opposed
i think that conspiracy theories are more about feeling special about knowing some secret knowledge, lots of people fall for this and even create conspiracy theories without realizing, no matter how smart they are
Here's a psychological discussion that expands on that idea: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22000719
Well the new world order is what the people in power want, but they only need smartphones and tv to do it. No chips in the brain needed, people are idiots.