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“You can’t reason a person out of a situation they didn’t use reason for to begin with” is a lesson everyone learns eventually…
Yeah did that with my dad. As soon as he expressed that he doesn’t believe in conventional scientific methodology and academic consensus, I stopped discussing any of those topics with him.
No basis to discuss if he doesn’t even consider evidence for disproving his theories.
How could you not believe in the scientific method? Propose a hypothesis, test for hypothesis, confirm or review your hypothesis, repeat.
Saying you don’t believe in that basically is the same as stating you’re dumb as hell and don’t believe in proving ideas.
I’ve been in that situation countless times, I can tell you people want to believe the scientific method works but there’s always a reason they don’t. Here’s a few reasons I’ve encountered:
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Eroding trust in institutions: they don’t trust the organisations or the people doing the studies. IMO news cycles play a big role in this; a study with a catchy result “A glass of wine a day is actually good for you” - by itself already a misrepresentation of the results - gets all the headlines. The countless of studies that prove no amount is good for you doesn’t get any.
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They believe science is a book of solid answers, while it’s merely a methodology to find better answers. People have a hard time accepting this.
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Post-information age: every bit of human knowledge at our fingertips is a true monkey’s paw. A real overload of information has people exhausted, they rather listen to someone like them than have big words thrown at them by scientists.
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Misrepresentation of data: I cannot stress enough how easy it is to misrepresent data. Without proper context any piece of data can be framed to fit a narrative. Studying statistics was so counter intuitive, you’ll never be able to convince people going on instinct.
Honing in on where people get stuck can help you get through to them. I know this will sound corny, but if you talk to people from person to person, not being judgemental, and really try to listen, there’s always room for change.
Things like wine is healthy, chocolate is healthy, berries are healthy, meat is unhealthy, eggs are unhealthy* all come from the weakest studies, 5 yearly food frequency questionnaires - where they all people to fill out how many serves of each food category the study cares about (the berry one listed about 12 direct berries out of the thirty or so that are popular; one meat one included “hamburger” in their meat category despite a burger meal usually having most its energy from the coke and fries).
The biggest problems include that the study can be warped several ways, the food list can change how people respond, the categorisation of foods changes everything, people can’t remember how many serves of whatever they had 5 years ago, so they pick the “most virtuous”, and after all that the most they can say is there might be an association between <food> and <health effect>
They report hazard ratios (how much the “wrong” food choice increases your risk of <health effect>) and usually get ~10%, everything outside nutrition needs 200% to say there’s an effect, cigarette smoking has a hazard ratio for lung cancer of 300% for a pack a day smoker**
*But “eggs are healthy” came from a study, feeding people eggs and testing their cholesterol, so if much more reliable
**The hazard ratios are usually reported as a fraction of 1 — 0.10 for many diet studies, or 3 for the smoker
It feels like stat shouldn’t be a senior level elective in HS but should be a freshman/sophomore level requirement, with a heavy focus on how statistics are wildly abused in what amounts to propaganda.
Amen, I’m in the EU and only saw real statistics in college. Tbf propaganda in itself needs to be understood and thought better in general
I feel like a lot of topics could be covered in a 1 semester course that explained the scientific method, why it’s important, difference between a theory and idea, statistics, misrepresentation of data, narrative tuning in media and reporting, proven study and information retention methods. Just like a ‘this class is going to teach you to study, research, retain, and grow with the knowledge you learn throughout life better’ course. Right now these foundational things kind of exist in some capacity, if you’re lucky, but it’s easy to blow over it and just get a grade without realizing what’s actually going on while your teachers are attempting to teach. I don’t know, it’s probably dumb but I think a lot of people don’t have the tools to accept and grow with a knowledge base that is constantly evolving and maturing. So instead of maturing and growing they dig into their preconceived and learned emotional safe space deeper and deeper until they die.
It’s not dumb, it’s right on the money. What I have a hard time with is not letting conspiracy mind tell me it’s deliberate.
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Exactly. You don’t want proof, because proof means you might have been wrong. Being wrong is mentally uncomfortable, and especially in older people who are very mentally rigid, that’s hard.
There was an episode of South Park where the kids claimed that a word that we view as a bigoted slur against gay men actually referred to people who loudly ride motorcycles at night.
If reason doesn’t work for flat earthers, maybe we should use one of the well-known euphemisms that we no longer use for people whose mental abilities are far below average. You know, like, “special”.
You can say the word on the internet.
Some parts of the internet which are moderated may remove content that they believe is bigoted towards certain groups. Moderators may not always have the luxury of taking the time to understand exactly why a word that is normally inappropriate might be appropriate in a specific situation.
It’s also just a really hateful and gross word if you aren’t talking about a cigarette in Britain.
Or the Welsh delicacy.
Yea but it’s word that’s really soaked in hate. It’s not like removed imo, which isn’t exactly in good taste, but doesn’t come with the harm that the F slur does. I mean removed has a scientific usage, F slur is has no polite use besides asking for a cigarette in the UK, where they have their own slurs for homosexual men. It’s kinda like you just encouraged him to use the N word…
Not entirely true. I grew up fundamentalist, learned scientific reasoning, and got out of it.
Following your upbringing is as reasonable as it gets. Going against what you believe isn’t just happening because you followed someone else’s reasoning, it’s something you navigate by yourself over a period of time.
I once had an elder coworker who said all the dinosaurs died in Noah’s great flood. I’d try reasoning with him but ultimately it was way more fun to ask him if god could create a rock that he couldn’t lift.
I think with people so entrenched in a silly opinion its way more fun to identify their most absurd belief and mock them relentlessly for it. I think for flat earthers its “so where does the air and water go when it falls off?”
I used to work with a guy who was also a Methodist pastor. Most of our conversations were perfectly normal and fine, but every once in a while he would be like, “So where do you think the government is hiding the nephilim fossils?”
Or ask if round earth is a massive conspiracy, what’s the angle? How does getting people to believe in a flat earth rather than a round one serve an agenda to the point where even a simple test that could prove the flatness always “goes wrong”? And if they say that the experimenters get threatened or something, why do they generally remain as confused flat earthers afterwards? If they were going to be threatened, why half-ass it and let them continue pushing flat earth instead of making them change sides?
I tend to find people who are a bit crazy/conspiracy brained tend to easily accept other people’s motives as being insane as their own reasoning.
Similar to how one can’t logic themselves into a position they fought against logic to get into, I don’t think people can usually empathize their way out of a position they fought against empathy to get into.
Imo that’s why ridicule is maybe more effective even though it will entrench some of them. The conspiracy aspect is hardest to explain with raw quantity though. Its like “there are like 10-20 million people in america who interface with NASA and plane pilots and like 200 million americans who interact with airlines and can vouch for every flight path, you think all these people are all in cahoots?” Because getting like 10 people to all show up a job and work together on a day is tough business. Getting 10,000 million+ together to play an elaborate prank for 500 years would cost more than the GDP of planet earth.
The earth is procedurally generated around my surroundings and is simulated on the backend everywhere else.
For optimization reasons, only the slice you currently look at is actually computed completely, the rest is just approximated. That’s why closing your eyes when you’re about to crash into something actually helps: chances are in the lower approximation, you’ll just clip through the wall a bit.
Yeah but that’s because you’re the main character, the rest of us just have to deal with low LoD :(
She cannot win, he will not hear
The planet keeps on being a sphereHe listens not. She gets annoyed.
Earth’s a damn oblate spheroid.The meter doesn’t work :(
She cannot win, he will not hear; And yet it shall remain a sphere
She cannot win, he will not hear at all; The planet keeps on being spherical.
She cannot win and though annoyed,
The planet kept on being spheroidSie erklärt und tut es kund,
dass selbst wenn er sich weigert,
die Erde bleibt trotz allem rund.
He claims the Earth is as flat as a lasagna
I guess that’s what happens when there’s three balls on ya
She cannot win, he factually will not hear her great woids; The planet earth is actually an oblate spheroid
I assume this is in grade school between kids. If you’re looking for a girlfriend this will not work. If you’re a husband and would like some romance this will not work.
Misogynists use “woke” as a way to stop listening.
I actually thought the last word was “flat” but I guess I misread it the first time 😵💫 completely changes the tone.
One way, it’s like it doesn’t matter what ignoramuses believe—reality is what it is; the other way it’s like the powerful make the reality through force.
I think having the final word be “flat” makes it so much better. It opens up the poem to a much wider set of interpretations. There’s yours, but you can also derive this statement about male dominance in hetero relationships, for example.
Oh yeah totally, the poem is already so gendered.
The “he” and “she” lend themselves to commenting on cishet dynamics, patriarchy; related incumbent power structures in the way “he” in the poem dismisses “her” arguments and tone and just waits her out.
It reminds me so much of the toxic relationships I know of where the woman’s perspective is viewed as emotional, radical, and so not privileged with serious consideration.
What are the stars? They are bits of fire a few kilometres away.
We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out.
The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.
For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away.
But what of it?
Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy?
The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them.
Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that?
Have you forgotten doublethink?
Wendy Cope has a healthy way to cope with frustrating interactions, I see. Maybe I should start writing poems too, when I run into human shapes brick walls.
Sums up where we’ve arrived as a society
Powerful…
E pur si muove
She cannot win, he knows it all The planet keeps on being a ball
Y’all are all crazy, clearly the earth is a donut!!!
Tap for spoiler
In all seriousness, after some point gotta realize that you can’t use logic to convince them
Look at you, believing that the Earth exists.
Lmao, I am going to piss so many people off with this. Thank you for sharing it!
