[psychiatrist24]

Stopped reading at "a key feature of the political right" - the political left has adopted many anti-scientific ideas, too (if you want an example, take gender ideology and critical race theory, or belief that socialism works).

People rightfully reject publications that write nonsense like that. If such a publication calls itself "science something something", or worse, has a longstanding reputation for representing science, it is no wonder if people become wary of science in general. It seems healthy, actually. Maybe it is not science that is in trouble, but fake propaganda science.

[wrycoder]

I’m surprised that Sci Am published this. The hyper partisan language immediately caused me to doubt the veracity of the claims the author makes.

And that’s an understatement.

Sci Am used to be a quality magazine. No more.

[eplanit]

So we can add scientific American to the pile of things that used to do journalism.

[yasp]

SciAm isn't what it used to be. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-wh...

[nerdponx]

There is plenty of antiscience on the left (chemtrails, 5g, anti-vax).

But critical race theory is a deliberately extreme academic model of the world, and it actually turns out to be a useful model. To complain that it is not a falsifiable model misses the point of what literary "theory" is for.

Your post smells like a bad faith dogwhistle, rather than an attempt to discuss something.

[psychiatrist24]

It wasn't my intention to discuss any of those beliefs, just to list examples of anti-science beliefs among leftists.

If you believe critical race theory is science, OK - it's not the subject of this thread, I suppose.

The only relevant aspect is that we will see articles of how anti-science conservatives supposedly are, because they reject critical race theory. It's actually useful for that - identifying bullshit articles and organisations.

[nerdponx]

Fair enough. Just don't conflate "belief in things I don't believe" with "anti-science".

[Kharvok]

I would add to this list a belief in "blank slate-ism" specifically around individual cognitive ability expressed mostly in ineffective education methods.

[h2odragon]

science is still great. "scientific consensus" has taken over in many places where people used to mean "scientific method"; and thats not great but still fits into "believe the science" for the people putting logos on signs.

Science doesn't care what we believe.

[taylodl]

The so-called hard sciences are still great. It's kind of hard to deny that an apple, when released, falls to the ground. Now let's go to the so-called soft sciences which rely upon statistical modeling. Whoa! We necessarily must rely more on "scientific consensus." We should be increasing the public's education in statistics since it's become so important for public discourse of important issues. But of course we haven't.

[refurb]

Indeed. Only if you ignore anti-vaxxers, healing crystals, “food without chemicals”, essential oils, etc can you say with a straight face anti-science is a problem driven by the right.

It’s hard to take an article seriously when it only points the finger in one direction.

[daemoens]

The only thing I can really say would be the "food without chemicals" part. The rest of that is pretty apolitical except the anti-vaxx movement.

[refurb]

What I listed is not exclusively found on the left side of the spectrum but I’ve never met a right winger who is into healing crystals or essential oil quite like the crunchy hippies of the west coast.

Again, there are plenty of examples of anti-science thinking across the political spectrum.

[GavinMcG]

I think you're talking about certain subjects being more prevalent in left- or right-wing communities.

That's different from making opposition to science a political priority. Yeah, there's kooks on the left who go for healing crystals–but that's not incorporated into left politics. On the other hand, elected Republicans have actively fought in the political arena against climate issues being taken seriously.

This shows up in other areas, too, such as the Dickey Amendment that discouraged CDC research re: guns as a public health matter.

[Udik]

> elected Republicans have actively fought in the political arena against climate issues being taken seriously.

Climate science ended mixing up entirely with left wing ideology: de-growth movements, anti-nuclearists, anti-capitalist, etc. First they appropriate whatever they need from scientific discourse to support their agenda, then they denounce everyone who is against their agenda as "anti-science".

[tzs]

What makes Republicans deserve denunciation as anti-science on climate change is not their rejection of left wing solutions. It is their rejection of right wing solutions, too.

There are conservatives working to address climate change. Here was a plan [1] from a bunch of people who were prominent members of the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush administrations, for example. It's economically and scientifically sound. Good luck getting Republicans currently in Congress to even consider that.

[1] https://www.clcouncil.org/media/2017/03/The-Conservative-Cas...

[luckylion]

> Yeah, there's kooks on the left who go for healing crystals–but that's not incorporated into left politics.

Mhh, critical race theory, the whole gender studies joke etc seems to be pretty deeply settled in left politics. It's just something that progressives "like" and therefore don't question the absurdity and consider it "science".

[GavinMcG]

Do they consider it science? I haven't seen racial justice movements incorporating that. And if they do, that's evidence of an orientation toward science that the right actively opposes—i.e. an effort to dress up views with a scientific gloss.

You're talking about misusing science, or relying on junk science. Those are problems, of course, but they're not the opposition to the scientific project as a whole that this article focuses on.

[luckylion]

> You're talking about misusing science, or relying on junk science.

I don't think critical race theory and similar stuff is science. They're not misusing it, they're pretending somebody's ramblings are scientific, funding it at universities and then presenting it as "the science is in".

> they're not the opposition to the scientific project as a whole that this article focuses on

If you only pick those parts that you like and invent the rest, that's very much in opposition to the idea of the scientific method.

[GavinMcG]

No, I disagree. Misuse and opposition are fundamentally different things.

[elliekelly]

The article doesn’t claim that only those who lean right deny science. It claims only the right has embraced science-denial as a major political platform. There are plenty of science-denying democrats. There aren’t many (to my knowledge) science-denying policies, platforms, or official talking points of the democratic party. The same cannot be said of the GOP.

[psychiatrist24]

I read it again and no, it doesn't. It claims that certain things the author happens to believe in are rejected by the GOP.

I think anybody who claims to represent "the science" or "scientists" already should be mistrusted. It's an anti-science stance. In my opinion, proper science should constantly look for ways to disprove its theories, not the other way round. So saying one should "believe science" is anti-science.

The case for Covid-vaccines simply doesn't seem to be as clear cut as for example the author claims.

Here in Germany they just halted vaccinations with Astra Zeneca, and there is a lot of debate about it. I guess the author of the SciAM article would say the German government is anti-science, too. In reality, there are aspects in favour of vaccination and aspects against it.

I think the anti-science notions people worry about are more about distrust of official proclamations.