c0nc0rdance Profile picture
Nov 14, 2021 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
An interesting aspect of science denialism is "crank magnetism": people often belong to multiple denialist groups.

- Young Earth Creationists are often Flat Earthers & Holocaust Denialists.
- Many Intelligent Design Creationists are AIDS Denialists.

Here's why that might be:
Denialism utilizes a process that is the opposite of the scientific method.

Denialists start with conclusions & find evidence/observations to back it up.

A religious person might start with obligation to Biblical Creationism: they must find evidence that supports a young Earth.
This apologetics process is exactly how natural philosophy worked prior to the scientific method, but it's prone to exceptional errors.

The conclusion or premise can be faulty & also unfalsifiable. "We never went to the Moon", for example, in spite of falsifying evidence.
Once someone starts down the path of apologetics, they've abandoned critical thinking & the weight of that grows over time.

As a reminder, it's not BEING wrong that feels bad, it's ADMITTING you were wrong that feels terrible. *Being wrong* feels pretty much like being right.
So we have an initial process failure that becomes deeply invested as a person's identity. They begin to think of themselves as "critical thinkers" & distrust the sources of scientific consensus.

Vaccine denialists often become germ theory denialists, for example.
This arrogance/persecution + apologetics is the mindset that a denialist approaches each new subject & along the way, they begin depending on alternative information sources like shady websites, run by other "critical thinkers" with overlapping but diverse denialisms.
So, the person who was merely skeptical that masks work find themselves reading about Holocaust denialism, evidence for a Flat Earth, etc. & they may find themselves connecting with a *community* of fringe-believers.

That becomes their identity: contrarian. denialist.
So, when I see an entire arm of the US political spectrum descending into mask and vaccine denialism, I brace myself for an intensification of dozens of science denialisms.

These bad ideas travel in packs because they align with a flawed human process of testing knowledge.
What's worse: they have political power, organizational structures, and span the spectrum into violent radicals.

If you know a Q conspiracist who has drunk the Kool-Aid, you can predict they'll have views on AIDS, moon landing, etc. within a few years.

We should worry.
Science and rationality have always been tenuous, have always required defense. Karl Popper makes the point that a tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance for long.

The same is true of a rational society. Either we rise to defend science & rational thought, or we lose it.
How?

I know it's a mistake to meet each irrational belief with evidence & reason: they're not effective on apologetics.

Instead, I think we focus on the mechanisms of signal amplification. Social media has enabled this far more than print media could.
You can take some action by learning more about effective science communication, but the battle will always be uphill.

I am grateful to the amazing science communicators doing good work; who have training, knowledge and a platform.

Fin.

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More from @c0nc0rdance

Jul 21, 2023
No-one has ever been able to replicate Gregor Mendel's observations of pea plants.

They're a little "too perfect", lacking even random statistical noise that would have been expected from small sample sizes.

Was it scientific fraud?
Famed population geneticist RA Fisher published this paper in 1936 taking Mendel to task for either concealing, cherry-picking, or omitting parts of his study of pea genetics.

There are three points of contention:
digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstre…
1. The segregation ratios (as in 'Mendelian ratios') are too perfect. Actual observations are modified by noise and distortion, only land on the 3:1, 1:2:1 ratios in extremely large samples sizes of ideal, perfect genetic models. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jun 25, 2023
Bear with me: this will be a longish thread.

I want to talk about the Map-Territory Relation in #science & why it matters to many topics in public perception of science.

It's what I think of when people insist that 'science says there are only two genders'.

Maybe you've seen this work by René Magritte, called "The Treachery of Images". The text translates: "this is not a pipe".

It's not. It's an IMAGE of a pipe. It only resembles an actual pipe in one very specific way, from a particular angle, in 2-D.
Like this PICTURE of a pipe, a scientific model or system of classification is by nature a SIMPLIFICATION.

British statistician George Box: "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind."
Read 19 tweets
May 10, 2023
But the most interesting story about Benjamin Franklin I've run across is the giant pit filled with human bones that was recently (1997) found in his basement.

Really.

A giant pit of human bones. The remains of at least 28 bodies. In his basement. Cut up with a saw.
Ben Franklin lived at 36 Craven Street in London (now the 'Benjamin Franklin House & Museum').

Workers doing renovations found the bones in a buried pit in the basement, remains including those of infants. Image
He had a special arrangement with a friend of a friend, William Hewson, now called the "Father of Hematology" for his discovery of blood composition and fibrin.

Hewson operated an "anatomy school" in Ben Franklin's garden (back yard) where students dissected cadavers. Image
Read 7 tweets
May 10, 2023
I'm down the rabbit hole on Ben Franklin.

He had an acknowledged illegitimate son, William, who was the last British governor of New Jersey & chief Loyalist, running pro-British military operations from his base in New York.

He died in exile. But HE had an illegitimate son... Image
William Temple Franklin was William's illegitimate son, born while William was in law school, London.

"Temple" accompanied his GRANDFATHER Benjamin & acted as his secretary, worked on Treaty of Paris where France recognized USA.

Brief return to US, then rest of life in France. Image
Temple had an illegitimate son, Théodore, but he died before the age of 5, and an illegitimate daughter, Ellen Franklin Hanbury, who was raised by HER grandfather William.

Ellen married but had no children, so this particular chain of Franklin Bastards reaches its end. Image
Read 4 tweets
May 3, 2023
Hogan's Heroes ran 1965-1971:
A campy spy comedy set in a POW camp in Nazi Germany, which feels like a very weird choice.

In poor taste, honestly.

Learning about the actors has given me a new perspective:

First, every major German character was played by a Jewish actor. John Banner, Bob Crane, Wer...
Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink) was born in Cologne, Germany in 1920, moved to LA in 1933 with famous composer father Otto.

He did the show on the stipulation that Klink was never the hero in any episode.
He served in the US Army, stationed at Pearl Harbor in WWII. Image
John Banner was born in Austria in 1910 to Jewish parents, fled during the German "unification" 1938.

He enlisted in the US Army in 1942 & rose to the rank of sergeant.

He lost family members to the Holocaust, although I can't find any specifics. Image
Read 11 tweets
May 1, 2023
My hypothesis:
Humans invented hats because we were envious of the marvelous headgear in the animal world.

Let's talk about antlers, horns, ossicones & pronghorns. Irish elk (Megaloceros giga...
#Antlers are shed & regrown every year, composed of bone that begins at a pedicle, base structure that remains after shedding. Antlers are extensions of the the skull.

Mechanism of growth similar to bone HEALING: cartilaginous tissue gives rise to bone coated in skin "velvet". Image
Antlers usually only form on males, with one exception: female reindeer grow shortened antlers, which may be functional for snow clearing, or challenge between females over scarce food resources. Image
Read 12 tweets

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