Tony_Tarantula on 15/2/2015 at 17:42

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Nobody's mentioned the big elephant in the room.

Hacks we know are hacks, but supposedly "reputable" and "knowledgeable" sources have been being proven as full of shit left and right lately. The US government is now announcing a big "whoopsie" about Cholesterol. Our FDA threw out a food pyramid that was accepted as common wisdom for years. Many economists and bankers who supposedly were geniuses about the world economist were unmasked as thoroughly corrupt in 2007/2008. Global warming scientists have now been caught massaging the data upwards multiple times.

Brian Williams is in the headline now, but also underscores numerous instances of previously reputable media being caught red handed lying. (http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/2014/q3/ap-reporter-caught-working-cia/) The AP has been caught red handed collaborating with the CIA to disseminate their preferred narrative., and their true colors showed when they almost unilaterally attacked Snowden for actions that damaged the government. His leaks also provided some hard proof (if you look at the actual materials, not media reporting of them) that a lot of the people who supposedly know so much about security are really just self-servicing, power hungry assholes and that the surveillance is directed at political dissent rather than legitimate security threats.

On an ongoing basis as well, leading academic and government figures have been waxing poetic about numerous estimates that just don't match with reality...for example, claiming a 5% "unemployment" figure that is ludicrous in light of a record low workforce participation rate.



And every example I've mentioned is (literally) a drop in the bucket compared to the total of how many otherwise prestigious or reputable sources have been caught red handed lying or twisting facts to suit a political agenda. The vaccine issue is a shining example of how politicization destroys science. Both the actual effectiveness of the vaccines as well as their link to autism are largely fabricated. They don't cause autism and the actual immunity rate from vaccinations is a long way from the 99% plus we're led to believe.



No doubt some amount of dilettantery is the inevitable result, but the non-vocal majority simply don't know what to believe anymore.




Historical trend analysis gives you the answer. Short version: you're correct. Long version: Modeling civil unrest as far back as data is available (the greek civilization) reveals some interesting correlations. It almost entirely matches up with periods of economic difficulty experienced by those in lower and middle class economic sectors. During periods of the sharp economic decline the results is extremely predictable. People lash out at whoever holds prestige and power at the time of the decline, and this backlash has relatively little to do with whatever intellectual ideas are trendy at the time. Establishment gets pushed out and previously fringe groups get put in. This is extremely dangerous in practice as there is no guarantee that the new power factions will be even remotely sane.

Harvester on 15/2/2015 at 18:31

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Yeah I hear it in the Netherlands a lot too. Especially 'all religion is corrupt', and 'all politicians are scum'. On that last bit, the current government is not doing a great job, so people fly in droves into the arms of right-wing politician Geert Wilders, who 'understands the common man' as they say, but will drive Holland into the ground and isolate us from the rest of the world if he ever gains power. He wants to treat Muslims as second class citizens, wants to get out of the EU, NATO, the Euro currency, etc. If he becomes prime minister, it will be a disaster, it's very worrisome.

I also want to mention that, as a Christian, I see this behavior of mistrust within the Evangelical movement as well, both in the USA and in Holland. More and more Christians say hundreds of years of theology and careful study of the scripture and the original languages it is written in are useless. Before some atheist TTLGers here rejoice however, let me say that what they want to do instead is 'get rid of theology, just open the Bible and read what it says'. That means they will discard any knowledge gained over centuries about the true meaning of Bible passages, they will instead take everything literally and at face value and don't try to look any deeper. I read an interview with a fairly level-headed Dutch Christian teacher, who has also recently renounced creationism by the way, and he said he sees this behavior more and more, of people doing away with all the theological knowledge of centuries and 'just read what it says in the Bible', but he has never seen it producing anything meaningful. Those people will just make the same mistakes as past Christians have been making for centuries. When I try to correct those people, they will be judgmental to me, and say I've already been corrupted by the mentality of secular society. I think it's a flaw that they interpret every Bible verse only as what it seems to mean at first glance and don't look any deeper and broader, but they see it as a virtue.

Why I'm mentioning this, though, is because those people don't have any theological depth and will take everything literally, and when their literal, skin-deep interpretation of the Bible conflicts with science, they will renounce science. The Earth was created in 6000 years, science claims otherwise, as well as conflicting on other parts with our extremely literal, shallow interpretation of the Bible, so why should we trust science at all? Thus circling back to what Kolya's saying. I think especially in the USA this is a factor of significance, that's why I wanted to provide this information.

I spent some time on a Christian gaming forum with this kind of people. I've had someone claim that science is useless. The irony of the fact that only because of scientific achievements it's even possible that he in the USA is able to say to say to me in Holland over the internet that science is useless, was lost on him. (Couple that sort of thing with the presence of extremely judgmental Christians who considered me to be a lesser Christian because I play violent games instead of just Mario and Animal Crossing and such, together with a dash of Christian homophobia, and you've got the reasons why I left that forum).

Let's not turn this into a religion thread though. If someone wants to say that Christianity is all a bunch of bullshit no matter how you interpret the Bible, and that theology is a waste of time no matter how thorough you go about it, that's fine, I can take it, but use the current religion thread for that. I'm pretty busy but I'll see if I can find some time to debate religion in that thread, but let's leave this thread on topic.

froghawk on 15/2/2015 at 18:58

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But that's exactly why scientists need to do a better job of communicating with the public. It doesn't matter how right they are if they can't get their information out there and they're drowned out by charlatans looking to make a profit. The age of unquestioned authority is over - it's all about who is best about getting a message out at this point (which, sadly, usually corresponds to the advertising budget). I'm not saying it's going to be 100% effective, but I do think it will make a huge difference if scientists start caring more what happens to their findings once they release them and become a more active part of the process. Yes, those who have already made up their mind are mostly already lost, but there are many people out there besides them.

I may not agree with Tony often, but he's spot on in this thread. This video also nicely sums up a lot of the distrust: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZ2UeOTO3I)

Open access to information doesn't just create competing sources of 'truth' - it also provides easy access to discovering all of the mistakes of authority figures, many of which are very large scale. On the medical front, from thalidomide to vioxx, constant lawsuits over side effects or pushing drugs for incorrect applications, and commercials that mostly consist of a lengthy list of side effects, people don't trust drug companies or the FDA anymore. After the economic crash, why would you trust banks? etc.

To try to write off this whole issue as basically being 'because stupid people' is utterly absurd and intellectually lazy. It's much more complicated than that.

froghawk on 15/2/2015 at 20:19

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Did you even read my reply? I was already quite familiar with the study you posted. That's why I said


There's a whole new generation of kids out there right now who haven't made up their mind about this stuff. Properly educate them to begin with, teach them how herd immunity works and how to identify bullshit, and you probably won't see so many of them believing propaganda to begin with.

froghawk on 15/2/2015 at 20:41

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No, just that they get a better science education in their normal schooling.