Debating Antivaccine Cranks Debases Science and Harms the Public (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Woland@lemm.ee to c/science@beehaw.org

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"Far from showcasing science, false-balance debates allow evidence-free fringe ideas to leech vampirically off the respectability of well-established theories. Cigarette companies muddied the clear scientific consensus that smoking was harmful just this way. Faced with incontrovertible evidence of harm, they instead amplified fringe figures, encouraging debate to confound that messaging. One 1969 memo put it bluntly, stating that “doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public.” Cynical as this is, it is remarkably effective at crafting a public aura of doubt over science, the same practices adopted by fossil fuel companies today about climate change."

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[-] negativenull@negativenull.com 4 points 1 year ago

It's just like the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. Absolutely worthless as it gives "equal credence" to ridiculous claims.

Why is arguing with fools like playing chess with a pigeon? Because it doesn't matter how masterfully tutored you've been in the theory, how sound your thinking and strategy is, or how good you are at the game in general, the pigeon is always going to knock over the chess pieces, crap on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

[-] Scrumpf_Dabogy@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

If they want "both sides" of a debate to have fair representation, then for every second an anti-vax conspiracy theorist gets to speak, actual scientists should have an hour. To represent the actual man-hours each side has put into researching their ideas.

[-] king_dead@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Not a shocker at all. Debates arent really an intellectual exercise, they're more of a PT Barnum off.

[-] StewieTheThird@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Science already has an established method for debating and refuting scientific findings/claims. So this idea that we need to make a spectacle out of it is so disingenuous on its face. "oh but if they know what they are talking about it would be easy to defend in a debate", but it goes the other way. Then they keep moving the goal posts on what qualifies as a "real" scientific test, and I just can't have a good faith conversation with these people. I'll correct people in real life, but the internet is a cesspool and I don't have the patience.