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by swebs 2782 days ago
Yeah, I've noticed the same. There's also a lot of anti-biology from my left-wing friends.

The problem is also compounded by the fact that Wikipedia discourages primary sources in favor of shoddy reporting. It makes sense to reject self published scientific articles in favor of journal-published articles. But more often than not, modern media outlets just seem like a vector for adding political bias and inaccuracies by reporting on things they don't really understand.

2 comments

This is clearly observed by right of center political figures who are labelled as neonazis and white suppremacists.

Objectivity is dead.

"Conservatives are anti-science": no downvote. "Liberals are anti-biology": downvote.

HN is funny...

Can you give some examples of liberals being anti-biology? That seems so far from even the common stereotypes of liberals that I'm genuinely not sure what you're talking about.
I'll add one more: the existence of a hereditary basis of intelligence.

https://www.nature.com/news/intelligence-research-should-not...

There are some legitimate concerns there. However, given that the current Republican White House is outright censoring government science agencies on a large scale[1][2] when their results are politically inconvenient, it's pretty laughable to claim that leftists are the real science-haters.

This article was published before the 2016 election, so at the time it might have been merely naive, but I see that the author has a video from just a few months ago where he "explains that the real war on science is the one from the left." He is absolutely not arguing in good faith.

[1] http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/resources/silencing-science-tr... [2] http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/fws-...

This must be that whataboutism I've been hearing about. My greater point was that political extremists all across the spectrum have the bad habit of rejecting science when it conflicts with their dogma. The problem is amplified the more they are emotionally invested in an issue. A lot of people think its just "the other guys" that are guilty of it, partly due to selection bias, and partially due to just over-scrutinizing the other side in general.
Well known fact: no downvote. Transphobic dog-whistle: downvote.