Antiscience slidecast

Anti-sciencePublic Ignorance, Rejection and Denial

What does it mean to be “anti-science”?

Broad range of definitions and meanings in the literature

Includes pseudoscience and junk science

To be actively against the values and process of science

Indifference

An umbrella term that means many things.

Anti-science historyNot new problem

Comes in waves

Persistent – rests just under the surface waiting for opportunity

Long term trends of progress and knowledge overrun short term trends against it

Resistance to changeFear of reaching beyond comfortable boundaries

Refusal to acknowledge an uncomfortable reality

Common in all aspects. Examples: new ways of doing things, safety implementation, new knowledge, technology

LudditesTie between anti-science and neo-Luddism

Stop change, stop progress?

Forward into the past

Fear of consequences

Troubled by modern science

Dehumanized, not informed by morality

Mastering nature

Out of control

Removing mystery and transcendent beauty

Esoteric, complicated

Expensive – what is the benefit?

Ignorance of benefits

Off limitsStem cells

Cloning

Bio-tech

“playing God”

Troubled by modern science

Capitalist

Narrow, dogmatic

Elitist

Western, masculine, white

Dichotomy of the public Positive about the “good”

from science

Use to solve world problems

Trustworthiness of scientists as experts

Science is dangerous and causes problems

Scientists are industry shills or greedy

Conspiracy of experts and government

Hypocrisy

Science literacyLack of…

Distorted view of science process, goals, scientists

Poor foundation prone to deconstructing

ReligionIncompatible with what science tells us about

the world

Religion more important than science to people’s worldview

PoliticismScience as a means to battle about contested

values

Moral reservations

Power and control

Use of rhetoric, straw man of science, and the blame game

Science and humanitiesTwo cultures (C.P. Snow)

Gap is wide

Science studies

Philosophical anti-scienceThe “academic left”

Delegitimizing science

Non-Democratic

New cynicism

PostmodernismEqual views. Science is a point-of-view.

A social construction, a product of the person and times.

Science is biased and exclusionary

Science Wars1990’s

Science vs humanities

Gross & Levitt’s Higher Superstition, conferences, journals

Sokal hoax.

DenialismDismissing established knowledge

Unmoved by data & evidence

Appeal to fairness

Controversy

Ignores rules of science

Republican War on Science

President Bush

Distortion & suppression

Industry interest to preserve the status quo

Hired guns to contort and manipulate scientific data

CreationismBible as authority/truth – rejection of knowledge

Anti-evolutionism

Using science strategically for political gains

Environmental extremismScience has destroyed earth

Data not an issue

Simpler life, eschew technology

Global climate changeClimate skeptics/deniers

Confusion/Crisis of public confidence

Attacking science and scientists

Promotion of controversyMisunderstanding scienceDifficult to interpret data

BacklashIs it about science?

Or about the ability of people to understand and be able to participate in society?

Feel science is no longer for the public good but for individual interests.

Against more than “science”

Anti-establishment

Anti-authority Conspiracy

Anti-intellectualism

Anti-elitism

Spreading anti-scienceRhetoric

Media, Internet

Universities

Distrust of science in one area spreads to another

Countering anti-scienceEducation

Outspoken scientists

Exposure of anti-science errors and misinformation

Positive public relations

Vigilance

ConclusionAnti-science is “against science values, community and

results”

Science illiteracy is a factor

Anti-science is only a part of the social rejection of information

The public is easily swayed by rhetoric and deliberate deception.

Call for more scientists to be active in countering these views

What happens when society doesn’t use science-based knowledge to inform their decision? People suffer.

(Sherman)

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