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Let me tell you how I became a proud science denier, and how it saved my life.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/12/epistemological-void/#do-your-own-research
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@pluralistic an older example of the same thing: to be gay in the 1970s, in many countries you had to think you knew better than the health authorities, who believed this was an illness you should try to cure.
and then, a couple of years later, the same health authorities ask you to believe that there's a dangerous illness going around that somehow mysteriously requires gay people to limit their sex lives.
knowing which scientific claims to trust is _very hard_.
@bjoernstaerk @pluralistic wow yes, good example. Pregnancy/parenting is a minefield with this one, too: so many conflicting absolutes (and between different English language sources, too: eg soft eggs in the UK are ok but not the US, but you still end up fearing judgement from Dave who read a tweet). Women are often accused of being hokey about medicine (often the first to seek out "alternative" options) but it's not a massive surprise when you think of things like thalidomide.
@bjoernstaerk @pluralistic
This isn't an isolated mistake. These statements both have non-scientific components taken for granted. The first statement has taken for granted a filosofical idea about illness. The second about the value of life (the nazis would have said: "nice, an illness "cleaning" the race")
If someone says science is telling you how to live, you know there is some room for discussion.