[intended]

Comments here are still talking about defending facts. This is a losing argument.

This is bread and circuses.

Let scientists do science - comics and comedians are the weapon to reach for.

America has lead the way for the past 4 decades in bringing the public into areas they don't have the prior knowledge to navigate.

Anyone old enough to remember the climate change debates will remember a time when scientists didn't debate climate deniers because it gave climate deniers too much credibility!

But what scientists didn't realize is that vested interests were setting them up.

Cranks and fakers were nurtured and given air time by a certain news channel till they eventually the "public interest" invaded the scientific.

At which point "science" lost. Science expected a debate, but walked into Spectacle.

Trump showed that with Twitter and crap you can cross the very low threshold required to beat the current crop of presidential candidates.

This is entertainment. If you don't treat it as such you lose space to the person who generates better TRPs.

[Tloewald]

Comedians were almost completely united against Trump and a lot of good that did. (I recall John Oliver pointing out, self-deprecatingly, how effective his repeated eviscerations of Trump had been).

Before I moved here, I remember thinking that Americans must be too stupid to understand "The Simpsons" because it takes apart and laughs at all the obvious flaws in American society, but discovered instead that Americans can cheerfully laugh at Homer, understand why they're laughing at Homer, and be Homer all at once.

Bear in mind that a Christian Conservative is already managing epic levels of cognitive dissonance "the love of money is the root of all evil.... mmmmm tax cuts" so a bunch more is barely going to have an impact.

[cle]

> but discovered instead that Americans can cheerfully laugh at Homer, understand why they're laughing at Homer, and be Homer all at once.

This is not unique to Americans.

You can generalize your assertions to humanity as a whole. America is not unique in believing wildly irrational, logically inconsistent ideas and compartmentalizing cognitive dissonance. This is the story of human politics since the beginning of history...

[freethemullet]

David Foster Wallace wrote about the tyranny of irony more than 20 years ago.

https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

[madgar]

You underestimate how deep this goes with the actual public.

My father has been in the GOP base his whole life. The refrain when I challenged his views on science was: "those scientists are all liberals. Why should I believe anything they have to say?"

He encouraged me to study sciences anyway because it offered a better life than his. Now, of course, he explicitly regrets providing me that education, because he sees me as "brainwashed."

[effie]

As it often goes, both extreme political views (liberal pro-science vs. conservative, ignore-science) have some good points to make, and some unjustified beliefs that harm mutual understanding. May I suggest that you do not try to challenge your father's views on scientists directly head-on. Give him an example of a scientist and a contribution that may be interesting on their own. It's much less likely that the refrain will be used to discard your effort. Perhaps tell him about a scientist who wasn't a liberal, perhaps had some similar views as your father has - but still believed in science. Tell him about Teller, who was as far from being a liberal as it goes, pushing for hardline foreign policy and bigger and better nuclear weapons. Still he was a brilliant scientist and he perceived the potential danger of climate change due to fossil fuels already in 50's. Tell him about Fleming, an army doctor who investigated sepsis, discovered pennicilin and helped bring the humanity a cure to many bacterial diseases.

[madgar]

It's not about discarding what every scientist says. It's discarding the scientists that say things incompatible with his political opinions.

If a scientist pursues a line of work that might end up contradicting the GOP party line, they're immediately disqualified as a scientist. To him, that proves the scientist is motivated purely by political or financial gain.

[conjectures]

+1 totally agree about comedians.

We know that bullshit is asymmetric: it takes long to clear up than to cast. The way to take it down is to rip on the caster until they stop (or look ridiculous in voters' eyes) - this requires facts yes, but more importantly presentation.

[protomyth]

That can backfire pretty hard as it did in the last election. Ripping on the caster rarely stops with the one person. Going after whole swaths of people eventually just drives them not to talk except in a voting booth.

I said it in another thread, if you keep demonizing people, they will eventually send demons.

[intended]

I'm always surprised by variants of your argument because it presupposes there is some sort of dialogue being held. I'm an outsider and it's very clear that the right doesn't see it as a dialogue, they see it as a no holds barred fight.

Your right wing has been caricaturing and demonizing your left wing for a long time.

I've learnt a lot watching the Republican Party follow its discipline. The day Obama won, they rallied and fought for a one term president. At their nadir, they turned themselves around. That's something.

Today they have won most of the seats of power and have stymied the president for 8 years. They even have the chance to decide the next SC judge, something Obama should have had the right to (as I understand American politics)

A few of the things that come to mind - the complete shutdown of your government, the creation and agitation of the tea party, birthers, gun boats (or something), the refusal to increase the federal debt ceiling, their positions on medical insurance.

Not to mention Manufactured issues on evolution and climate change.

My rebuttal is that this fear of demons is redundant, the right is long past believing that demons have (literally) been sent. Their tools and tactics are specifically designed to stall and steal power from old liberal strongholds - science and learning.

You no longer have the luxury of deciding the terrain on which to fight. Tactics are all that's left.

For the record I used to be a bridge builder. A few months ago I would have given similar advice. But building bridges in the networked era is unlikely because of the echo chamber effect.

Until that problem is solved, other tools are needed to deal with current issues. And these tools also serve a bridge building purpose - negotiating with a party who has no leverage is redundant.

[redler]

I don't recall where I saw it, but someone put it this way:

The Republicans and Democrats were playing a board game. Not liking how the game was progressing, the Republicans set the house on fire. The Democrats are still sitting at the board, surrounded by flames, weighing the tactical implications of moving various pieces in response.

[conjectures]

Except that it didn't, because it wasn't attempted. Michelle Obama said, when they go low, you go high. Clinton was pretty respectful in the debates. I'm not saying nobody mocked Trump, I'm saying opposing candidate and their close associates didn't. There's a big difference because things that get said in the debates etc. get seen by the opposing camp in a way tribal-affiliated shows and magazines don't.

There's also a difference between taking the piss effectively and just calling people names. E.g. calling Trump a misogynistic idiot isn't funny or persuasive. There was a lot of righteous name calling, but not much satire - from the right people.

[EdHominem]

> Going after whole swaths of people eventually just drives them not to talk except in a voting booth.

Pft. I wish I lived in a world where Trump supporters lived in silence before the election. I don't buy this, at all. They were the loudest, most self-entitled, and they always represented themselves as victims.

Anyone looking at the numbers knew the election would be within 5% either way, so it's not like those 45M republicans were hidden, it was only a question of if the last 5M would get up on polling day. If they would, the conclusion was foregone because country-voters cast larger votes than city voters so they win all ties.

> if you keep demonizing people

You see - perpetual victims. Even though they won they're still going on about being hurt. If saying someone voted for a liar because they didn't bother to look up the facts is demonizing, then I don't know what you ever could say that they wouldn't complain about.

[jackmott]

Lots of people with strong opinions on what not to do. Not seeing any opinions on what TO do.

[acobster]

I agree in that people who still appreciate truth and facts must combat lies on all fronts, and that includes on the cultural front of entertainment. If a joke can reveal that the emperor has no clothes, I suppose that's a net gain. But this is a double-edged sword because it has the danger of dimming perceptions of what's really at stake. Yes we should laugh at the naked fool in charge, but if all we do is laugh, that just makes him a powerful naked fool.

[intended]

You don't have a choice. double edged swords are already being wielded. At this point it's just a fight. Draw it to a stalemate and then decide what to do.

At least you don't lose more ground or have to rebuild more institutions.

Bringing dry facts to a Comedy Central roast isn't good strategy.

[acobster]

We do have a choice, and while Comedy Central may be the most popular arena at the moment, it will never be the only arena. Comedy is good for keeping things relevant, but I've never seen it actually convince anyone. For that, you have to have real conversations with people you disagree with, not just mock them.

[nsxwolf]

"This comedian thinks I'm a stupid cretin and mocks all of my deeply held values, but he makes a good point about facts and the science of climate change! That settles it; I'm going to vote against all my other interests from now on."

[RodericDay]

I think "data science" has really let science down. 99% win predictions for Clinton, media darling Nate Silver getting the primaries completely wrong and saving face a little bit in the election, etc.

As a scientist, I instinctively trusted other data scientists to be as rigorous as I was when I did research. It turned out they were using extremely wonky simplistic models for complex human behavior, and it left me cold and clueless.

If poll-based divination is a better descriptor than political data science, then scientists should decry their stealing of the term.

[Uehreka]

I think it's important not to overlearn the lessons of this election wrt data and predictions. Most national polls were off by only a point or so. The polls in WI, MI and PA were off by a few more. As Nate said on a recent podcast "If you give me a national opinion poll, I'm inclined to believe it. If the poll is specifically from Wisconsin, I may be more skeptical."

Of course, some people built bad models and predicted 90+% chance of winning for Hillary, and those people need to rethink their approach. But this election was not a refutation of polling and modeling as a whole.

[abandonliberty]

>Trump showed that with Twitter and crap you can cross the very low threshold required to beat the current crop of presidential candidates.

At a visceral level Americans are beginning to revolt against a system that continues to grow in its power to pick winners and losers through a systematic war on education, media, and democracy.

Obama promised change; Trump didn't have to.

The American oligarchs became complacent. A shrewd sexist, racist shark capitalized on the structures they have built to perpetuate their power.

[Florin_Andrei]

> America has lead the way for the past 4 decades in bringing the public into areas they don't have the prior knowledge to navigate.

Well, the fake news factories are also good at pushing people to take a hard stance on things they have no clue about.

[mfukar]

TL;DR: if you don't debate, you lose the argument.

[ConfuciusSay02]

Scientists are humans operating in large institutions.

It is undeniable that humans and human-run institutions are subject to all the same corrupting factors that every other person or institution is.

It's alarming that most of the comments here start off with the default of "the science must be true".

Science as a process is virtually infallible, but science as practiced by humans in human-run institutions is very very far from infallible.

[WayneBro]

> Science as a process is virtually infallible, but science as practiced by humans in human-run institutions is very very far from infallible.

Hyper group-think is one of the more unfortunate aspects of our modern technological dilemma. Places like HN breed it. I find it utterly despicable...it's as if most of the people here are willfully incapable of considering any point of view except their own.

If you disagree with the local group-think in the slightest, you just get censored and your words start fading away into nothingness. It's such crap.

I have designs for a new, better commenting and comment voting system could solve this problem. The up/down vote is so childish and overly simplistic. I look forward to a time when people get sick of it and finally change to something better.

[WayneBro]

Meh. Some people act like anybody who has ever called themselves a "Scientist" has never been wrong or that mainstream science has never been wrong. It has. Many, many times.

Unless you're taking the time to do the science yourself and verify the results - you could be getting lied to or otherwise misinformed. Do you ever actually do that or do you generally just trust people who call themselves a scientist and who are trusted by other so-called scientists?

This article is also a bullshit piece of propaganda that is going on attack because somebody in the White House wrote a 7 paragraph energy plan summary that didn't include their favorite word. The plan clearly states that "Lastly, our need for energy must go hand-in-hand with responsible stewardship of the environment." and last time I checked the "climate" is part of our environment.

Do you really think that Science as an institution is incorruptible?

[j2kun]

It's self correcting. That's the point. When it is wrong scientists admit it, and use those examples as case studies for future generations.

[WayneBro]

...in a perfect world.

I got some news for you: this world ain't perfect.

[j2kun]

In the actual world, though. This is why we don't perform lobotomies or think atoms are a plum pudding.

[WayneBro]

Incorrect. "Science" is the reason why we had things like lobotomies in the first place.

Your entire arguments rests on a "No true Scotsman"-like logical fallacy.

[j2kun]

I'll reiterate my point: science is not immune from mistakes (nobody is arguing that), but in general, it tends to correct those mistakes over time.