As a scientist and a Veterinary pathologist, one thing I have struggled with in the post-fact horrorscape that is America in 2018 is how to teach skepticism. Many of these movements bill themselves as rational skeptics, and they burrow in through doubt and misunderstandings.
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On the one hand, my response to people who are anti-vaxxers, global warming denialists, etc is usually to go examine the evidence for yourself. But to someone without a discerning scientific background, that drive can just turn into consuming viral conspiracy content.
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The ultimate answer comes back to improving science education in K-12 so we don’t have people buying crackpot theories based on misperceptions and half baked home experiments, though that leads us back to essentially trust in experts & a system that gets labeled as indoctrination
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It’s not a fair fight: People with a scientific rational skeptic worldview have to grapple with all the facts and messiness of life, but a conspiracy theorist lives in a hermetically sealed bubble where every fact confirms their tautology
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Agree that education should include critical thinking skills. But this cult is not about facts. It’s about establishing an identity. It allows them to dismiss onconvenient truths from people with better education and higher social status.
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The USA is an ideal climate as distrust of authority of institutions like the government is already considered a merit in itself. Modern science is international and based on consensus. National heroes is what these people want.
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The truth is, they are utter morons and why you spent column-inches on this is frankly beyond me.
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Entertainment? I don’t know, but at times while I read this, I had to set it aside because I was just laughing so hard I was in tears. My parents are scientists (mom worked for NASA), my grandfather was a professor, my husband’s father was a nuclear physicist… I just cannot stoppic.twitter.com/GG7HWt6VCy
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More proof education reform is needed.
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I agree. We need to start educating our children about the most obvious truth right under our noses. The reason we don't experience spinning wobbling, zooming, hurtling water ball is Bc the earth is flat. Do some research and get ready to have your mind blown.
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So where is the edge of the world in that case?
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Who ever said there was an edge? Your teacher in 5th grade? People have this idea of a flat earth as doing all the same things as the ball earth only flattened. If that was the case I too would think flat earth is dumb. The whole cosmology as we have been taught is wrong.
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If it is flat, how could it not have an edge?
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Never said it didn't have an edge. It's just interesting that you assume it must from what you've been taught. Think about a lake the "edge" tbthd water is simply the shore line. On earth the shoreline in 360deg is Antarctica. What's beyond that beats me. We can't go there.
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We can't go to Antarctica? That's funny, I personally know several people who have been there & have pics to prove it. They actually have some cruises that go there.
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Also, if a shape is 2-dimensenional, it has to have an edge otherwise it would extend infinitely. The Earth is not infinite.
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I can’t believe I wasted one of my four free monthly articles reading this crap
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