- cross-posted to:
- science@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- science@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10673163
Evidence shows that shoving data in peoples’ faces doesn’t work to change minds.
As a scientist heavily engaged in science communication, I’ve seen it all.
People have come to my public talks to argue with me that the Big Bang never happened. People have sent me handwritten letters explaining how dark matter means that ghosts are real. People have asked me for my scientific opinion about homeopathy—and scoffed when they didn’t like my answer. People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didn’t understand the science.
People have left comments on my YouTube videos saying… well, let’s not even go there.
I encounter pseudoscience everywhere I go. And I have to admit, it can be frustrating. But in all my years of working with the public, I’ve found a potential strategy. And that strategy doesn’t involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.
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A lot of pseudoscience has a material basis in privatized healthcare - real scientific medicine is fuckin expensive, so people get sucked in to woo-woo scam bullshit to try and avoid medical debt
A lot of it is also tied up with religion. Flat Earthers, for example, started by trying to reconcile biblical explanations of the Earth and the universe and it spiraled from there.
Religion, itself, has a material basis. Real scientific medicine is expensive, going to church is free.
More than that, it fills the gaps science hasn’t explained yet. Many people really don’t like hearing “I don’t know”. Pseudoscience gives them certainly.
Science can’t cure your cold? We can!
That’s definitely another material component of the problem - there’s not always a pill you can take for a problem, so naturally people are going to cope with that by latching on to whatever explanations and options they can.
This might be an explanation in the US, but here in Romania (not normally useful to talk about the EU as a monolith) there are tons of people that love pseudoscientific woo-woo despite the fact that we have some of the cheapest medical coverage in the world (definitely cheapest in the EU).
Small tangent: in some sense, we get what we pay for. Our medical system is nowhere close to France, for example, in outcome. It’s probably one of the worst in Europe. It is cheap though, and for basic things (broken limbs, colds, basic medical surgeries) is just fine. It only becomes unfit for purpose during mass casualty events and exotic diseases.
The US exports its culture to the rest of the world.
Also, as you point out your medical system sometimes has poor outcomes. That, too, acts as a material basis for pseudoscience.
Clearly the thumbnail is implying that the correct way to deal with people is to use static electricity to shock them
This is the best summary I could come up with:
People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didn’t understand the science.
And that strategy doesn’t involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.
To get things started, let’s figure out what we mean by “pseudoscience.” Unfortunately, there’s no universally agreed-upon definition for us to turn to, and the lines between science and pseudoscience can get a little blurry.
That skin usually involves some combination of advanced jargon that’s generally indecipherable, the wielding of sophisticated mathematical tools for describing nature, and, of course, the fancy technical gear for making measurements and observations.
Science is characterized by a spirit of openness, by requiring that methods and techniques be shared and publicized so that others can critique and extend them, and connectedness, which is a sense that statements we make must connect with the broader collection of scientific knowledge.
And while any individual scientist will fall short at one or more of these qualities for at least some—or, sadly, the entirety—of their careers, the practice of science is to always strive for these noble goals.
The original article contains 654 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Me when I see a quirked up astrologist with the top knot
No its not. Making fun and ridicule is the only method. The people who believe that shit are plain stupid. The smart ones will get the hint and move on. Empathy for it is allowing them to become victims. Fuck pseudoscience. Shut them down every chance you get.
Or y’know, go with what works rather than what satisfies our frustration on the topic.
I can’t comment on which strategies work best, but if research came to demonstrate that empathy works better than ridicule, continuing to use ridicule would in itself be a pseudo-scientific approach.
Make people afraid to look stupid again!
Ridicule and ostracizism are foundational to the social contract.
