9 Comments

I'd have written that (although without the *great* examples). But only a scientist could get away with it.

Another black mark. But that's not just on science. It's on everybody in the *in*-group who will *only* give a hearing to people *in* the in-group. That's pretty much everybody, right?

All that to say... Thank You very much. Perfect.

P.S. No offense but, in his MasterClass presentation, Neil deGrasse Tyson is blatantly guilty of the cognitive errors he ridicules Religious people for having. TY again.

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"We already have to deal with Neil DeGrasse Tyson giving us all a bad name."

Thank you. I've always thought that NdG was overrated and have been puzzled over how he came to the role of premier science popularizer.

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National public health authorities, both in Canada and the US, allowed themselves to be politicized and corrupted during the covid pandemic - don't wear masks, you must wear masks, ... This resulted in a serious lack of credibility, reasonably so.

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One of the most disappointing things about all of this, in my opinion, is that the sorts of arguments that these public-facing organizations are using now are the same sorts of arguments that scientists would have ridiculed in the past. The dumb “horse dewormer” argument is a prime example. Is there any chemical that has one, and only one, use? It reminds me of that “Food Babe” blogger who successfully petitioned to get Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from their breads, pointing out that it’s used in the production of yoga mats. You know what else is used in the production of yoga mats? Water. Should we stop drinking water? Chemicals have multiple uses. Soda syrup has been used to provide dragsters better traction on the raceway. Does that fact have some meaningful bearing on the use of soda as a consumer good? Such a dumb argument.

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I think most people know that all scientists aren't bigots, thankfully. We have the likes of Jay Bhattacharya and Sunetra Gupta as counterexamples in this bleak world.

Merry Crimbo as we Brits say!

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Wow is this a good article Wesley, I agree that they are quite holier than thou and insufferable. I hope all the guilty parties would have to read it. Thanks!

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Suggestion: where an article revolves around commenting on Tweets, screen-shot the Tweets and include them in the article, makes it easier to read, thanks!

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