[tombert]

He's almost the perfect example of the colloquial stereotype of "Dunning Kruger Syndrome", which is why he's so dangerous.

I've made this example before, but it bears repeating.

I know absolutely nothing about chemistry, medicine, or healthcare policy. I am wholly unqualifed to be in charge of anything involving healthcare. Suppose that, despite all reason, I am appointed into a HHS secretary anyway. This would be bad, but because I know that I know nothing, my potential for damage is actually pretty limited. I would have to defer a lot of decisions to advisors, who would likely be doctors and chemists and data scientists. I probably wouldn't make a lot of "progress", and I would likely more or less just maintain the status quo, but I probably wouldn't make things much worse.

RFK Jr. is the worst, because he doesn't know any more about health or medicine than I do, but because he's read a bunch of idiotic blogs and Facebook pages he thinks he knows better than the entire medical establishment, and because he thinks he knows everything he feels qualified to start cutting funding for American medical research and blame everything on people not eating enough beef fat.

People have been (understandably) focusing on Trump's descent into authoritarianism, but it's possible that that gets somewhat fixed once he's out of office, but I think that the damage that RFK Jr. has done to our medical research establishment might be irreparable. He is uniquely dangerous.

[fooker]

> he thinks he knows better than the entire medical establishment

I think you have missed the part about why we are in this situation.

People are absolutely fed up with the medical establishment. There is no way to twist this.

[tombert]

The solution is to fix the medical establishment, not to appoint a person trained by Facebook moms and and natural food blogs.

[fooker]

Yes, I agree.

Now, everyone trying to fix the medical establishment is immediately called an anti vaxxer, science denier, etc.

At some point it was inevitable that we get someone who can shrug these labels off because they do not have a scientific reputation that can be killed with these labels.

My point is, again, we are in this situation because sane attempts to fix things has not worked. To an extent that people will literally try anything.

[mbesto]

> everyone trying to fix the medical establishment is immediately called an anti vaxxer, science denier, etc.

That's because the thought leaders who are fed up with the medical establishment are gaining traction by spreading anti-vax and science denial ideas and not calling out specific medical establishment (other than "big pharma is a boogie man!"). So, it's hard to take their position seriously (even though, I too and anti medical establishment)

[fooker]

That was not my point, of course antivaxxers and science deniers exist and should not be taken seriously.

I meant - the medical establishment is notorious for attacking every opposition, especially when it comes to policy, with those labels.

That guarantees scientists who stand to lose their careers won't bother trying to fix anything. That's how you get asshats like RFK Jr.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

> Now, everyone trying to fix the medical establishment is immediately called an anti vaxxer, science denier, etc.

Well they keep showing up with shitty unverified claims...are we supposed to treat their shitty claims as valid just because they're against the grain?

It's also good to keep an eye on the graft. It's funny how pretty much every big personality in the alt-med space has totally awesome products to sell you that Big Science won't let you know about.

[fooker]

Maybe you missed my point.

I claim that every credible opposition to the medical establishment has been branded as science denial for decades, so much that scientists and researchers won't even bother any more for the sake of their careers.

That's how you get the people you are talking about.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

Which credible oppositions that were branded as science denial do you have in mind, specifically?

My own memory of opposition to the medical establishment in past decades inevitably flows to homeopathy, colloidal silver, and other nonsense. There's always been a lot of kooks and grifters trying to make a buck off the gullible by playing on their paranoia.

[tombert]

If your “fixes” for the medical establishment include spreading unsubstantiated fear mongering about vaccines and science denial then you would be right to be classified as an anti vaxxer and a science denier.

[zaphar]

I think you might be missing the posters point. He agrees with you on nearly every point you are making. He is however expanding on that saying that the problem is something of a self-own by the combination of science, science reporting, and science driven policy. Trust was so thoroughly lowered that there was almost no avoiding an event like Trump/RFK. It can be true that 1. RFK is not qualified and is likely to make things worse. 2. This is partly the responsibility of the establishment for squandering the trust that the public put in them.

[fooker]

Right.

It's funny that my point about 'every attempt to fix the medical establishment is branded as science denial' was branded as science denial :)

Nice recursive proof.

[AstroBen]

He seems to be aware of his lack of knowledge: https://youtu.be/AGq_Q7tVLCU?si=Qcw_cQHoqbBc5dgW

Yet still here we are

[tombert]

I think he's actively lying with this to have some amount of plausible deniability.

If you look at pseudoscience "alternative health" treatments on YouTube, they always have some disclaimer saying "This is not medical advice, I am not a physician, please consult your doctor", and then immediately go on to tell you about how injecting yourself with ozone or drinking paint thinner will cure all your diseases. I think it's just a legal disclaimer, not like they are actually aware that what they're doing is bullshit.