[pumaontheprowl]

You counter all skepticism the same way: by a designing an experiment to test the skeptic's hypothesis and presenting the results of the experiment to the skeptic. Name-calling, censorship, and persecution are not going to bring the skeptic to your side, but they will almost certainly discourage future skeptics from presenting their findings.

If we allow politicians to turn science into a dogma instead of an investigative process, progress will come to a grinding halt.

[josefresco]

> You counter all skepticism the same way: by a designing an experiment to test the skeptic's hypothesis and presenting the results of the experiment to the skeptic.

I've tried this (by sharing data) with friends and family members - it doesn't work/matter. They simply dismiss the data as "fake news" and shift to a new argument. This is why I classify it as "disingenuous skepticism".

Their actions (anecdotally) are driven by culture and politics, not data.

[liber8]

This is not what pumaontheprowl said.

You are right, simply presenting people with data doesn't work. If it did, you would never see a fat nurse, or a doctor who smokes, or... the list is endless.

pumaontheprowl's suggestion is to design a (thought) experiment that involves the skeptic. There are various ways to do this, but history is literally built on this exact phenomena. Getting people to change their mind on an issue requires that you have a real conversation with them. You can't just shove data in their face and see "See, look dummy you're wrong I'm right!" There are all sorts of people that do this for a living: helping people leave cults/white supremacy groups/etc.

[spookthesunset]

> Their actions (anecdotally) are driven by culture and politics, not data.

I'd argue 40% of societies response to this pandemic is culture and politics. 30% is media fear mongering. 20% is intellectual error and 10% is actually disease mitigation.

Requiring fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks is culture & politics.

Shutting down outdoor restaurants is culture and politics

Casting moral shame on people who get covid is culture and politics

Saying it is totally okay to go to a BLM rally while not being able to attend a football game is culture and politics.

Closing the birthday card isle in the grocery store is culture and politics.

The list goes on and on...

In fact the very core of lockdowns is premised in culture and politics and not science. Science doesn't create policy. Human values do. For example places that place more emphasis on living life instead of protecting life were probably the first to drop restrictions.... a perfectly valid stance.

Science doesn't tell us what to do. It is merely a process for testing hypothesis in an attempt to get to the "truth" of something. That's all it does. Science didn't tell us to lockdown, it doesn't tell us to require vaccinated individuals to wear a mask, it doesn't tell us to shut down our borders, or any of that. All those decisions were driven by culture and politics.

[betwixthewires]

If your goal is to convince them, and not come to a more clear understanding of the truth, this will be frustrating. Once you let go of convincing anyone of anything you are free to find the truth for yourself.

[gotoeleven]

I mean, very often "shared data" is fake news because we know that studies on politically charged topics are under intense pressure (via funding or public lynch mobs) to come out a particular way. In the past two years studies on crime rates by race, illegal immigration/amnesty, and many covid related topics have all been shaped by this.

And remember, the way most people are finding out about this "shared data" is via the media that just got done spending 4 years accusing trump of being a russian agent. So, they're biased or they're liars. Hence the skepticism.

[rabuse]

The data conflicts within different nations across the globe. Some barely had lockdowns, with minimal impact to their healthcare system, and others are at a high vaccination rate with record cases. There's nothing concrete in this.

[over_the_raibow]

Besides analytical skill, people also posses intuition which is a valid tool to interpret the world. A wife that is cheated on by her husband, intuitively knows that she s cheated on even though she has no proof. She might see the unusual behavior of her husband, the fact that he s secretive doesn't give her attention as he used to or comes home very late. She might even confront him about this only to be met with a lot of logical explanations and alibies(I had to work till late, I went on a teambuilding trip, etc). His reasons might be completely rational and logical but she knows something is wrong. He might even attempt to make it seems she s the hysterical and crazy one while he s the rational and calm guy. See where I m going? Your friends and family don t contest "the data",they couldn t do this even if they wanted. But they have serious reasons to believe something s off. Their intuition is telling that. They might not have the data, only a feeling. But that feeling is strong. They don t deny your good intentions,it s just that you made yourself the defender of a certain conclusion.They have an issue with the mainstream source of that data, with the government and the the industry behind, which academics ar legitimizing through skewed papers, paid research, etc. I suggest to take their skepticism more serious, since even I, from the other side of the world, can see they probably they are right. There is definitely something off and skepticism is reasonable these days.

[theaeolist]

If only. There's a nice flat-earth documentary on Netflix. Some scientifically-minded flat-earthers designed and carried out not one but two experiments to "prove" the earth is flat. Both of them came conclusively on the side that the earth is not flat, but is quasi-spherical with a radius and rotation rate consistent with the scientific consensus. Remember, these experiments were on their own terms. They repeated them several times and they declared them "inconclusive". This is not someone you can convince by any means.

[thrwawy12345]

Who are they hurting by believing that the Earth is flat?

[WillDaSilva]

The harm people cause by holding believing false beliefs is rather complicated at times, yet extremely important and impactful nonetheless.

For flat earthers in particular this video sheds some light on why their way of thinking is harmful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44

To be extremely reductive, allowing false beliefs into one's web of beliefs corrupts it. This typically gives rise to a multitude of other false beliefs. Flat earthers almost never only believe one obviously false conspiracy theory. They become epistemically susceptible, and worse still, they tend to spread these awful ways of thinking with great zeal.

In the more general case, I recommend you learn about the ethics of belief. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on the topic is a good starting point: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-belief/

Maybe someone can come along and answer your question in a more succinct yet equally (or ideally more) convincing way. This request that you commit several hours to educating yourself is the best I can do at this time.

[deepnotderp]

Well said. I propose therefore that we ban Boltzmann for his crime of false belief in statistical mechanics. /s

[thereisnospork]

How do you inform a voter on the implications of say, tax policy, and expect them to make a rational decision if they can't even comprehend that the earth is proven to not be flat? Ignorance and its tolerance hurts everyone in a democracy.

[thrwawy12345]

What a curious argument against democracy.

[betwixthewires]

It's not that curious, it's pretty clearly self describing actually.

And what's wrong with arguments against democracy? We are in a thread explicitly discussing questioning anything and everything and talking about the virtues of being averse to dogma. What if democracy is not as good as it gets? What if there's an alternative that is not authoritarianism?

[johnisgood]

You may find http://anthonyflood.com/rothbarddemocracy.htm interesting.

[chana_masala]

There's no such thing as scientific consensus, strictly speaking