Dec 3, 2020 10:08 PM
(This post was last modified: Dec 4, 2020 06:55 AM by C C.)
Are we “scientific fascists”?
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/12/0...-fascists/
EXCERPTS (Jerry Coyne): This article from Medium floated into my ambit, with a title was guaranteed to lure me like a mayfly lures a trout. The author, Roderick Graham, is an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and has his own eponymous website.
The main point of his article is to outline a set of ideas and behaviors that he calls “scientific fascism”, which appear to involve the use of data, reason, and logic in a way that attacks Graham’s favorite ideas about social justice. It’s the combination of “scientific” and “fascism” that intrigued me.
[...] After reading this article -- and I draw to a close, for discussing it involves too much “emotional labor” -- I realized that it has nothing to do with science at all. It is an attack on those who use reason and logic to go after the social-justice ideas that Dr. Graham embraces. The word “fascist” is in there simply as a pejorative: someone who argues against those who want to restrict immigration, and who uses the same kind of authoritarianism and data would not, I suspect, be called by Graham a “scientific fascist”... (MORE - details)
How to Convince Skeptics to Trust a COVID Vaccine
https://slate.com/technology/2020/12/con...axxer.html
EXCERPTS: To answer that question, I talked to Heidi Larson, an anthropologist and the founding director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, which monitors public concerns about vaccines...
[...] You’ve tracked the rollout of so many vaccines internationally. What has your experience taught you?
My experience has taught me we should have started preparing, engaging with publics probably in July.
So you think we’re late?
Yeah. I think not too late, because they’re barely out the door and they’ll come in trickles, the vaccines. But we shouldn’t wait until people are in line for vaccines. That’s not the point to start listening to questions. Now is the time. We don’t have answers for everything, but the important thing is to engage with people, to [let them] know that you care about their concerns, that you want to hear what their questions are, because that in itself is important.
And if we don’t start engaging now, they’re going to go somewhere else for their information. And they are. We’re in hyper-risky times right now—I’m sure you know the phrase “a little information is a dangerous thing.” Uncertainty is super fertile ground for rumors, pieces of information waiting to be verified. And people are filling the space. They have enough information to start questioning. And we can see, with every piece of news, the social media spikes with a lot of conversation, a lot of looking for information, and a lot of them are not finding what they’re looking for... (MORE - details)
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/12/0...-fascists/
EXCERPTS (Jerry Coyne): This article from Medium floated into my ambit, with a title was guaranteed to lure me like a mayfly lures a trout. The author, Roderick Graham, is an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and has his own eponymous website.
The main point of his article is to outline a set of ideas and behaviors that he calls “scientific fascism”, which appear to involve the use of data, reason, and logic in a way that attacks Graham’s favorite ideas about social justice. It’s the combination of “scientific” and “fascism” that intrigued me.
[...] After reading this article -- and I draw to a close, for discussing it involves too much “emotional labor” -- I realized that it has nothing to do with science at all. It is an attack on those who use reason and logic to go after the social-justice ideas that Dr. Graham embraces. The word “fascist” is in there simply as a pejorative: someone who argues against those who want to restrict immigration, and who uses the same kind of authoritarianism and data would not, I suspect, be called by Graham a “scientific fascist”... (MORE - details)
How to Convince Skeptics to Trust a COVID Vaccine
https://slate.com/technology/2020/12/con...axxer.html
EXCERPTS: To answer that question, I talked to Heidi Larson, an anthropologist and the founding director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, which monitors public concerns about vaccines...
[...] You’ve tracked the rollout of so many vaccines internationally. What has your experience taught you?
My experience has taught me we should have started preparing, engaging with publics probably in July.
So you think we’re late?
Yeah. I think not too late, because they’re barely out the door and they’ll come in trickles, the vaccines. But we shouldn’t wait until people are in line for vaccines. That’s not the point to start listening to questions. Now is the time. We don’t have answers for everything, but the important thing is to engage with people, to [let them] know that you care about their concerns, that you want to hear what their questions are, because that in itself is important.
And if we don’t start engaging now, they’re going to go somewhere else for their information. And they are. We’re in hyper-risky times right now—I’m sure you know the phrase “a little information is a dangerous thing.” Uncertainty is super fertile ground for rumors, pieces of information waiting to be verified. And people are filling the space. They have enough information to start questioning. And we can see, with every piece of news, the social media spikes with a lot of conversation, a lot of looking for information, and a lot of them are not finding what they’re looking for... (MORE - details)
