[the tree]

I am posting this in Psychology for lack of a sociology forum.
This thread is inspired by a rant by Martin (one of the resident physics experts)

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the thought just occurred to me that this wave of Fundamentalism/AntiScience that is sweeping across the land is like the Black Plague of the middle ages which would jump from country to country and affect a large fraction of the population.
Visitors like "shinbits" who come and start AntiEvo threads are like carriers of some disease and we have to figure out how to cope.
there arent enough trained licensed doctors to handle the sickness and it is an emergency so some of us have to act as volunteer doctors

[...]

Ophi you seem to be trying to EMPATHIZE (buzzword) with some poor soul who sees all three or howevermany scientific theories as a COMPOSITE ENEMY on which he blames the breakup of social fabric, the anxiety he feels, the confusion, the hatred and mistrust he feels for his neighbors the Libruls, the disturbing behavior of adolescents, the flood of Chinese imports, the loss of jobs, racial tension in his city and so on.

Or whatever, I don't understand the guy, but you know him and he has gotten into a vicious ANTISCIENCE frame of mind and his fundamentalism is CATCHING. It could be Arab fundamentalism or Jewish or Hard-Shell Baptist or whatever. And it spreads as one group impacts the other and people's murderous tribal instincts are aroused. And eventually it can even effect scientists and they can even bcome DOGMATIC NATURALISTS.

So why is it that people view science (the theories/infomation produced by scientific method) as the enemy?
It's seems to go beyond niavety because it comes with a tendancy to ignore any correction.
Is it the need to lump all problems together into one cause (like blaming any lack of goverment money on asylum seekers) or is it something else?

[insane_alien]

ignorance/drugs/stupidity/head trauma/poisoning/fast food/bored/insanity/religious nut/drugs/intelligence of a 4 year old/braindead - take your pick

[Martin]

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I am posting this in Psychology for lack of a sociology forum.
This thread is inspired by a rant by Martin (one of the resident physics experts)So why is it that people view science (the theories/infomation produced by scientific method) as the enemy?
It's seems to go beyond niavety because it comes with a tendancy to ignore any correction.
Is it the need to lump all problems together into one cause (like blaming any lack of goverment money on asylum seekers) or is it something else?

Hi, tree.
Thanks for the editing, tree, you are a prince of the plant kingdom.


In response, I am not a sociologist and don't pay all that close attention, so what I was writing has to be admitted was just amateur speculation.

I do see fundamentalism as a kind of communicable pathogen that can spread from group to group as everybody gets a little more hardline and aggressive and a little more and a little more. But I am not really sure enough about what is going on.

Anyway, I am glad you are asking similar questions and airing these speculations----only please just edit the quote because I want to say Hardshell Baptist----a term conveying respect.

As one might respectfully say to someone: "Sir! Are you perchance a Hardshell Baptist?"

rather than something else which is could be taken as disrespectful or unkind.

==============================
EDIT: just saw Bascule interesting discussion of memes

small (good and bad) behavior patterns which spread from person to person by imitation or induction----like little habit viruses, or speech viruses, or generous actious which you want to copy when you see someone do it

there is a meme-theory of human behavior, I heard of it but didnt read about it.

EDIT: just saw Ophi confesses to crypto-elitism. Ophi shows that you can be elitist and still be a nice person. We need more out-of-closet elitists.

I am responding here to the next 3 posts so as not to make unnecessary posts. Go tree. Go Ophi. Go Bascule. Go memes. Screw people who believe untestable stuff. Ideas are not to believe they are to use and test and falsify and replace by better. Am muzzling the rant-urge.

[bascule]

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Visitors like "shinbits" who come and start AntiEvo threads are like carriers of some disease and we have to figure out how to cope.
there arent enough trained licensed doctors to handle the sickness and it is an emergency so some of us have to act as volunteer doctors

I agree, and think humanity really needs to shore up memetic pathology as a science. We already have memetic pathologists working hard to classify fallacious viral memes, people like Snopes, Penn & Teller, and MythBusters.

I've come to realize that as an information worker (and "Internet participant") I spend a lot of my time receiving, sorting/classifying, and propegating memes, and the better I get at this the more I realize how easy it is for most people to be duped by a pathelogical meme. If you ask me, that's the only reason religion still exists... suckers.

[bascule]

the tree said:

So why is it that people view science (the theories/infomation produced by scientific method) as the enemy?

Christianity (and all religions, for that matter) as a meme contains several teachings which act as natural defense mechanisms to prevent the meme's own distruction. The bottom line is that Christianity sets up an "us vs. them" type scenario in which you have the good guys (Christians) and the bad guys (everyone else, i.e. the "secular world"). The "bad guys" teach things which undermine the teachings of Christianity, and the meme of Christianity rationalizes this as being the machinations of evil which much be destroyed at all costs.

Christianity is a meme which has evolved and matured over the course of 2,000 years, and thus has achieved a high number of mechanisms to ensure that the meme continues to be propagated and works to oppose those who would see it erradicated.

Science, on the other hand, has been quite a powerful meme too, because it's based around the idea that our core beliefs can be falsified and must always be viewed as potentially falsifiable, and if they are falsified we must abandon them and move on to better explanations. I think it's the idea that "The beliefs of science can never be knowingly wrong, because if they are knowlingly wrong the are amended" which has been so viral, because people know that science is presenting them demonstratable truth rather than asking you to take things on faith. Plus, there's all the nifty gadgets science has given us, the cures to diseases/ailments/other physical problems, and just the all around increase to our standard of living. Given this, science is a meme worth spreading, it's the obvious candidate to win out in the end against other incompatible memes.

I really hope this recent backlash of fundamentalists working to oppose science really tunes people into the fact that this clash between incompatible memes, one based around reality and one based around pathological bullshit is going to grow increasingly more painful, especially in America where Christians outnumber the secular community more than 4:1.

The secular skeptics really need to stop worry about hurting others' feelings and trying to humor their beliefs and realize that these people are infected with a pathological thought virus which must be stopped. And the only way to do that is to take on some of the characteristics which have made Christianity and other religions so successful, namely increased organization, evangelism, and refutation of the beliefs of others which are incompatible with a skeptical/scientific world view. That's not that you have to turn science into a religion, but more that you have to turn the effort towards erradicating pathological memes into a science. The world needs memetic pathology.

It's hard, because I'm sure we all have friends/family infected with this meme, and it's a really tricky issue, but until we work to actively combat it in the same way we'd actively combat the black plague, it's just going to continue to spread and continue to cause societal unrest. Skeptics really need to be unafraid to stand up and say "The core tenets of religion are fundamentally false." It's been really nice to see Penn & Teller doing just that on their series, and I hope they can start a trend (i.e. propagate a viral meme)

[Ophiolite]

As a closet elitist my explanation is simple (and no doubt simplistic): most people are thick.

[swansont]

Ophiolite said:

As a closet elitist my explanation is simple (and no doubt simplistic): most people are thick.

As I like to put it, the average American is an idiot. So half are even dumber than that.

(If you recognize there is an inherent assumption of mean vs median, then you don't have to worry about which half you're in.)

[swansont]

bascule said:

If you ask me, that's the only reason religion still exists... suckers.

Religion has played the role of providing answers to some of the hard questions, and for some people, a wrong answer is better than not having one. I don't know if that necessarily makes them suckers. But the lack of critical thought is just frightening. Science can't fulfill the spiritual side of things, since that's not what it does. But religion shouldn't be about explaining the physical world, and that's the problem. There exists some fraction of the population that the Bible does explain our physical existence, and let ideology drive whatever small amount of science they do. And that is really, really dangerous.

[bascule]

swansont said:

Religion has played the role of providing answers to some of the hard questions, and for some people, a wrong answer is better than not having one. I don't know if that necessarily makes them suckers.

That's been the typical response I've heard... that even if religion is fundamentally bullshit, it generally encourages its believers to lead a moral life and provides answers to the great metaphysical questions which science cannot.

But there are enormous deleterious effects to allowing pathological memes to propagate, namely when those seeking political power leverage their religious clout in order to do so. This is what's happening in theocracies like Iran and it's what's presently happening in the United States.

Things like the Salem Witch Trials, the Inquisition, the selling of indulgances, the suicide *cough*MURDER*cough* of Socrates, these are examples of a pathological meme going to extremes to protect themselves, and how something which enters one's mind as a Trojan Horse offering a path towards morality and goodness can so easily degrade into something horrible. Memes have enormous power to shape the thinking of individuals and how they view society as a whole. They create a power structure which allows the leaders of a group to leverage sweeping societal change, especially when you end up with all sorts of sub-memes propagating within a larger overall group which is infected with a given meme.

We can't move forward as a society past violence and oppression until everyone esposues the ideas of moral relativism (and relativism in general). As long as there are pathological memes out there preaching an Absolutist moral code or Absolutism of any sort, it will sow the seeds for extremism. "Islam" may mean peace, but what that's not what it foments.

We saw this culminate in 9/11. That's the end result of allowing these memes to spread. An event like 9/11 would NEVER happen in a secular world. 9/11 was a direct attack on Christianity by Islam. Yes, the 9/11 followers were not embracing the true ideals of Islam, but in reality, how many members of a religion are truly idealistic followers (e.g. Ned Flanders) vs those who preach bigotry and hatred in the name of religion (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, the KKK, etc.) The latter is a direct consequence of allowing these memes to spread.

[The Spith]

Because many people don't understand science? Or at least don't understand it as much as they would like.

And people fear what they don't understand.

There is also the hatred generated towards real scientists by pseudo-scientists, which the media tend to pick up on far too much. Especially tabloids and the right wing. Just read the bad science column of the gaurdian's 'life' supplement.

Oh wait life just ended last week :-(

[1veedo]

insane_alien and a couple others:

You just insulted my sister! lol, she's one of the "religious" people that think science "will eventually go to far." I think it's more ignorance then anything else. A lot of people my age are religious but grow out of it, not turn secular, but just loosen up.

I think the general conclusion is correct. This is why we need education.

[Mokele]

I think there's also an example of "common-man" populism in such things. People don't like the idea that they're too dumb to grasp the workings of the world around them, and don't like that this information must be dictated by experts, and so they rebel, jetisoning these complex theories for simple, if wrong, explanations.

Notice how most creationist objections are "common sense vs evolution", with the undertone that the creationist, a 'common man', can take on these experts and show himself to be better.

Mokele

[starbug1]

How common is a creationist in a room of evolutionists? How well is his faith supposed to help him there; he is bound to run away. What's common is ignorance -- this is usually true. I'm under that impression when it comes to the common creationist he is at his limit of thought. He is ignorant and becomes confused when angry. He is angry because he is purposefully blind. He is blind because he automatically assumes he knows everything.

This is starting to sound like every teenager I have ever known. And, boy, don't they know everything.

[bascule]

Mokele said:

I think there's also an example of "common-man" populism in such things. People don't like the idea that they're too dumb to grasp the workings of the world around them, and don't like that this information must be dictated by experts, and so they rebel, jetisoning these complex theories for simple, if wrong, explanations.

Sounds like thefinaltheory.com

[ydoaPs]

bascule]Sounds like [url said:

thefinaltheory.com[/url]

how dare you bring that back up!

/me gets out a plastic fork

[ecoli]

insane_alien said:

ignorance/drugs/stupidity/head trauma/poisoning/fast food/bored/insanity/religious nut/drugs/intelligence of a 4 year old/braindead - take your pick

you listed drugs twice! Those people must be on a lot of drugs!

[Maioux]

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So why is it that people view science (the theories/infomation produced by scientific method) as the enemy?
It's seems to go beyond niavety because it comes with a tendancy to ignore any correction.
Is it the need to lump all problems together into one cause (like blaming any lack of goverment money on asylum seekers) or is it something else?

Because science prooves what is actual and true, and people can't handle the truth. They are to scared of it, hence all the religions that exist.

[Glider]

I think it's more because people have a need to believe in or feel they belong to something greater than themselves (all looking for a banner under which to march). They develop a set of beliefs, but having done so without any evidence, or even (in some cases) sound logic, feel those beliefs threatened when irritating things like evidence contradicts them.

Having no evidence or logical argument with which to defend themselves (here is the rub, most people find it difficult to keep separate their beliefs from 'themselves'; a threat to a belief is most often felt as a personal attack), they will resort to whatever means are left to them. Putting their fingers in their ears and going "Lallalalala!" usually. Sometimes their defence will be to attack back. Without evidece or logic, they will use whatever else is to hand. There is a small part in most people that, having found a banner under which to march, also feels an attraction to the idea of dying for it.

PS Science doesn't really prove what is actual or true, nor does it attempt to. Science is a method and it's function is simply to explain what is actual (observable). For example, there's no point in trying to prove gravity, but there is in trying to explain it.

[swansont]

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I think it's more because people have a need to believe in or feel they belong to something greater than themselves (all looking for a banner under which to march). They develop a set of beliefs, but having done so without any evidence, or even (in some cases) sound logic, feel those beliefs threatened when irritating things like evidence contradicts them.

Having no evidence or logical argument with which to defend themselves (here is the rub, most people find it difficult to keep separate their beliefs from 'themselves'; a threat to a belief is most often felt as a personal attack), they will resort to whatever means are left to them. Putting their fingers in their ears and going "Lallalalala!" usually. Sometimes their defence will be to attack back. Without evidece or logic, they will use whatever else is to hand. There is a small part in most people that, having found a banner under which to march, also feels an attraction to the idea of dying for it.

I think you can go a step further - it's not just developing a set of beliefs, it's buying into that set of beliefs with such force and passion that they can't possibly bear anything that would challenge them. And the breadth of beliefs encompasses not just the spiritual, but the physical as well, and that's where the fun begins, because the physical can be observed and tested, and is the realm of fact.

Since it's belief - uncritical acceptance - I think it makes it much more likely that they will accept anything the supports the belief equally uncritically. And anybody who contradicts that is a witch or the devil.

[YT2095]

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So why is it that people view science (the theories/infomation produced by scientific method) as the enemy?

my guess is that it`s something more Primal, it`s the Fear of the "Unknown" again.
and lets face it, Some Scientific explainations and the formula and stuff goes right over most peoples heads (quite a bit of it does with me too).

and there`s always 2 ways to answer something, you can put most things simply and the majority will understand, or you can blow them away with reams of formula and language that can leave you cold and wishing you`de never asked.

that`s what I recon it is, after talking to many Non-Science type friends, you only have to mention certain words and you can almost SEE the brain switch off and the eyes glaze over. sometimes you have to point this out to them and ask them to "Just listen", and then after you`ve explained it, you get a smile and "Oh Yeah!, it`s not that complicated at all".
often you`ll get asked other things too, and before you know it, there`s no "Big Mystery" anymore :)

these are My findings anyway.