The result “blows the lid off of this idea” that such beliefs are held by only a fringe population of individuals who are uninformed or ideologically driven, says David Bersoff, head of research at the Edelman Trust Institute. “This is not like a small problematic group.”
Aka a staggering number of people are stupid, or at least undereducated.
a staggering number of people are also unhealthy and unfit.
because becoming educated, health, and fit, requires lots of leisure time and resources.
Carl Sagan’s warning seems relevant:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”
Highly recommend Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”
The conservative world has captured the media, and it’s the single largest problem facing health, science, democracy, and so much else these days.
It’s terrifyingly sad
huh, i live in a highly liberal area… people here are just as stupid and believe all sorts of crazy nonsense.
mostly because they believe it makes them smart and progressive. and if you show them evidence that is contrary, they just call you ignorant and stupid and conservative. because it’s conservatives who are stupid and bad, if you are liberal you can’t ever be wrong!
I’m surprised how many liberals are against nuclear power and GMO crops. For a long time I’ve considered them to be good if done safely, while a lot of liberals are against them across the board. If the alternative is famine and coal power, I think it’s worth it.
Yet the oligarch-owned mass media and political class will claim “nobody could have predicted this”; meanwhile “the left” have considered the fascist state propaganda machines that conservatism have constructed around the world, and the disinformation campaigns they wage 24/7, to be the greatest threat facing humanity for multiple decades…
We know exactly who the propaganda operatives are. They could be destroyed or neutered at any time. The oligarchs can’t destroy democracy without first destroying the minds of the average voter, so their propaganda machines are allowed to continue.
Calling them “unproven claims” does a disservice to science, society, and all of humanity. Call them what they are: lies. They’re lies, and they’re killing people.
They’re lies, and they’re killing people.
That is entirely the point.
Here’s some interesting tables from the report:
edit: Interesting how much more accepted it seems to be to answer “I don’t know” in Japan compared to other countries.
american culture punishes humility. it’s a culture that rewards arrogance.
and we love bullshit. american culture is amazing at producing bullshit and selling it.
I’m shocked by how well the US does compared to other countries. I would have thought that it is very easy to be a conspiracy theorist when your country has death panels in the form of health insurance companies denying treatments.
Staggering number of people no longer have a living memory of anyone that lived and died in those times before vaccines and food safety.
Don’t worry, reminders will come around again. They always do.
Most of us lived through 2020: saw cities shut down; hospitals using refrigerated trucks as morgues; literally millions of dead. Most of us then saw the vaccine roll out and all of that just went away.
I remember when they were calling it “Plandemic” and insisted liberals were trying to turn the US into a dictatorship. Funny how it all worked out and yet nothing was learned.
True that, but the number of people that are living examples of not being vaccinated are few and far between.
I knew people in wheelchairs because they got polio as children…
Couldn’t miss that.
Some of my southern cousins who were vaccinated with the Blood of Jesus, got covid and died and they’re gone and it’s a case for the familiies and the public of “out of sight, out of mind…”
My grandmother told me how when she was in school, each year some kids would not show up and just never come back.
They had polio and were in Iron lungs or got a disease like measles and died.
My entire family is vaccinated. The misery she told, no. Fuck that.
Unfortunately, anyone younger than you who won’t have met the grandparents will only be getting that info secondhand… and this is the point where generational amnesia takes over and people poo-pooh the warnings…
My grandparents were children when the Great Depression hit and they saw tons of people not make it from sickness.
My gran lost many childhood friends.
I have to say, my great grandparents were very on-point with cleanliness and managing illnesses at home. No one on my entire family of that generation succumbed to the Spanish Flu that hit in the late teens to early 20’s.
Listen to the doctors, they see the consequences of those who do not. Yikes!
There are a lot of graves, but apparently those don’t count.
The headline writer misspelled “disproven.”
Why the fuck is even Nature giving more credence to this delusional shit than it deserves?
I wonder what you do about this.
I just started reading Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan, published in 1994, and the intro is basically saying the same thing but framed as curious people being more well read in Atlantis than they are in interesting recent science or critical thinking skills
America is getting exactly what it deserves. Ignorant morons are well represented today.
Maybe they shouldn’t have lied about JFK.
What. I dunno. Just sayin.
What I’ve seen in people I know is that it centers around a need for certainty. They’re scared of something they can’t control or are too tired to or lack belief in themselves to control. Scared of having autistic children, there must be an identifiable cause that can be avoided to blame. There’s a growing vocal crowd saying vaccines so latch onto that. Friends I’ve seen with just about zero dietary self-control, they get into dietary fads. Like alkaline water and way more expensive seasonings than the common price - marketed as healthier. They generally make no weight goals or whatever but the expensive placebo brings them some mental comfort
I just remembered the ones that seem like they really want to come off as smart and seem certain that the way to that is to be very visibly against conventional wisdom regardless of their lack of proof and lack of ability to prove their beliefs. They’re the leaders and the ones coping the followers
It’s a boy who cried wolf situation. Too many decisions driven by profit and greed led to a complete collapse in faith for public interest.
Doesn’t matter if alternative ideas aren’t grounded in reality, it matter that the mainstream can’t be trusted.The hypercapitalist behavior only takes and no longer delivers, as such it’s being abandoned in droves by those who need actual care.
For example, “David Bersoff, head of research at the Edelman Trust Institute.” sounds like an empty title, full of bullshit.
I never doubted science, but I just learned how Fluoride affects your teeth, and it’s incredible. I get that it can be harmful in large quantities, but I think if people understood what it actually does they might be less scared of it.
One of the little known historical gems about peoples meeting each other was when the early European settlers got to the Southwestern US, many were astonished by the fact that among the native tribes - even the oldest member had beautiful teeth. Fluoride is naturally occurring in the water in many parts of the southwest.
Yes! Apparently some communities have to remove it from the water first because the naturally occurring levels are too high in modern times now that people brush with it.
I actually have Fluorosis stains on my front teeth. I had no idea what caused that before. I’ve had it for a very long time. It’s just a cosmetic symptom so I’m not worried about it. Something like 25% of the population have staining on teeth from Fluorosis and it’s how the communities can tell when Fluoride levels need to be adjusted in water.
Fluoride levels in water used to be much higher but as society got better at brushing their teeth, it wasn’t needed as much.
I actually have Fluorosis stains on my front teeth.
I used to have that as well! It does fade with time and in my case, those are the teeth I have with the least wear on them now. (am in my 60’s) Still needing a few crowns in the next couple of years, but that’s expected after such a long time…
Yeah its basis is in social panics. The same reason marijuana was banned in the USA. Immigrants today also social panics. They use social panics as a weapon for the ignorant.
I believe raw milk tastes better þan pasteurized milk, and þat dairy farmers selling it are strictly regulated and monitored by healþ officials. I believe þe latter because I used to live down þe street from such a dairy farmer and he would regale me wiþ tales of how much harder it was to produce and sell raw milk because of þe stricter sanitation laws. Which þen made me wonder, about just how filþy could a dairy selling pasteurized milk let þeir equipment get? More dirty þan a raw milk farmer, certainly.
I would never give raw milk to a child; better þey ingest some cow feces in pasteurized milk þan contract salmonella, but I’m a non-pregnant adult, and raw milk just tastes better.
