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[Atlagev]

A bit of a tangent: Does anyone have a significant other/spouse who has some of these beliefs, especially the diet/anti-GMO/"alternative" medicine kind?

I ask because my girlfriend, who I agree with 90% of the time on everything, has a naturopath as her GP (but will go to an actual doctor if it's serious stuff, and she's not anti-vax or anything like that; she just says she prefers a naturopath because they treat the "cause" rather than just the "symptom". I have had arguments with her about this many, many times, and it's just something I've learned to live with, but god damn do I want to scream at her sometimes for some of the stuff she goes on about. She is also apparently allergic to almost every food in existence, it seems like.

Anyway, anyone else deal with anything like this? How do you keep from going crazy?

 

[Neoweee]

If they existed, couldn't you just buy Fluoride infused water bottles?
I just don't see why the water supply has to have extra attributes aside from hydration.

Water Bottles are a giant, horrific, gas-and-resource consuming waste. Cost/Benefit is an orders of magnitude difference between any other solution and just putting some in the central distribution tanks.

 

[Fugu]

Even in this discussion, I've had people say Monsanto is awful. I will ask why.

The responses are nearly always some version of the story that Monsanto sued a farmer because a few seeds blew in to his lawn, which is almost entirely a fabrication. I will tell them so. Some will also bring up terminator seeds, which Monsanto never actually pursued and were never brought to market.

At that point, most will say, "I'm simply not comfortable with a huge company like that owning patents on things people eat."

Which is the sort of gut feeling that most of these anti-scientific beliefs boil down to. If you could pin down a specific anti-climate-change denier and show them all the facts, systematically shooting down all their false arguments, you'd find they eventually resort to "I guess I'm just not comfortable with the government intervening in private affairs on a scope of this magnitude."

Both that argument and the argument about patenting seeds are conversations we can have, but people take these gut feelings and build elaborate conspiracies on top of them.

How is that at all a gut feeling? The notion of breaking up large private interests is basically the socialist mantra.

 

[teruterubozu]

Astrology, Harmonic Convergence, healing crystals, chakra centers, Earth Vortices/Energy Fields, etc.

 

[injurai]

Is it already time for another Atlantis thread?

 

[Opiate]

How is that at all a gut feeling? The notion of breaking up large private interests is basically the socialist mantra.

It's a reflexive, instinctive dislike of large corporations prima facie, regardless of evidence of efficacy or safety. That's what I would refer to as a "gut feeling."

 

[Gotchaye]

This is going to be pretty unpopular, but assuming the post a few above mine will drown out my unpopular post.

The idea that human life does not begin at conception.

Let me state here that I support a woman's right to choose and I support expanding abortion rights and making it easier for patients to receive abortions, receive birth control, and everything else. However, it is patently ridiculous that people who are largely also on my side of the fence on this issue try to shift the "life debate" to some amorphous, arbitrary point in the development of a human. The only reliable, scientifically provable point in human development that a union of two cells becomes a human is the point of fertilization. It is also ridiculous when somebody tries to push it further back to an earlier time, "Why isn't a single sperm or a single egg a human then?" Because they're not. In the history of human kind, no human has ever developed out of a single unfertilized egg or a single sperm. Not once, ever. 0%. And yet the opposite is true: every human that has ever existed, 100% of them, formed out of the fertilization of an egg and a sperm. Throughout the years, abortion advocates seem to take two approaches: Deny the scientific fact that a fertilized egg is a human life or claim that the scientific fact that a fertilized egg is a human life does not matter in terms of whether abortion should be permitted. I fall in this latter camp, I think that we're being scientifically dishonest if we claim that human life begins at some other point other than fertilization, and the only way that we'll move forward in a constructive way is to just simply accept the uncomfortable truth that the act of abortion is a case where a civilized society permits the destruction of human life, ultimately, for the greater good. It's a painful thing to accept this, but it's dishonest to make any other excuses.

This is extremely confused, on a few points.

There's not much disagreement on the basic scientific facts. Every pro-choicer is going to agree that a fertilized egg has 23 pairs of chromosomes, that a sperm cell doesn't, and so on.

You're also obviously wrong on the science yourself. To my knowledge every human, 100% of them, developed out of a single unfertilized egg or sperm (in fact both, although cloning holds out the possibility of just using an egg). I mean, that's how you get the fertilized eggs - you start with unfertilized eggs and sperm and put them together. Sure, obviously if you put an unfertilized egg in a petri dish it's never going to turn into a baby, but the same could be said for the fertilized egg - the vast majority of the stuff that makes up the baby isn't in either the fertilized or unfertilized egg and the baby's development requires lots more input from the pregnant woman.

All you're noticing is that "life" is being used to mean "person". What's at issue isn't whether the fetus is biologically human but rather whether it has certain moral rights. There's reluctance to use a bit of biologist's jargon to describe the fetus, but that's just because for non-biologists it's actually a rather confusing categorization since it's not getting at anything important for non-biologists.

I suspect the root of your confusion is that you've internalized an inaccurate "DNA is the blueprint for life" view of biology, where it kind of makes sense to think that having a complete genetic code is of real philosophical significance. But of course that's not actually how DNA works.

 

[entremet]

Astrology, Harmonic Convergence, healing crystals, chakra centers, Earth Vortices/Energy Fields, etc.

I don't get the obsession with Astrology at all. I thought it was a fad from the 80s, that would die off. I guess not.

 

[old]

I don't follow the fluoride debate. Why do we still do it? Where does the fluoride come from? Pros, cons? Are there other first world nations who don't fluoridate their water? What are their cavity results? How do they compare to ours?

 

[Vicetrailia]

In the age of information everything is researched, and so many things contradict each other.

Diet science!

 

[injurai]

UK tax payer money goes to funding homeopathic remedies... they just can't get enough support against it.

 

[Timeaisis]

This is going to be pretty unpopular, but assuming the post a few above mine will drown out my unpopular post.

The idea that human life does not begin at conception.

Let me state here that I support a woman's right to choose and I support expanding abortion rights and making it easier for patients to receive abortions, receive birth control, and everything else. However, it is patently ridiculous that people who are largely also on my side of the fence on this issue try to shift the "life debate" to some amorphous, arbitrary point in the development of a human. The only reliable, scientifically provable point in human development that a union of two cells becomes a human is the point of fertilization. It is also ridiculous when somebody tries to push it further back to an earlier time, "Why isn't a single sperm or a single egg a human then?" Because they're not. In the history of human kind, no human has ever developed out of a single unfertilized egg or a single sperm. Not once, ever. 0%. And yet the opposite is true: every human that has ever existed, 100% of them, formed out of the fertilization of an egg and a sperm. Throughout the years, abortion advocates seem to take two approaches: Deny the scientific fact that a fertilized egg is a human life or claim that the scientific fact that a fertilized egg is a human life does not matter in terms of whether abortion should be permitted. I fall in this latter camp, I think that we're being scientifically dishonest if we claim that human life begins at some other point other than fertilization, and the only way that we'll move forward in a constructive way is to just simply accept the uncomfortable truth that the act of abortion is a case where a civilized society permits the destruction of human life, ultimately, for the greater good. It's a painful thing to accept this, but it's dishonest to make any other excuses.

Excellent point. As someone who leans towards pro-life, it absolutely bothers me that the amount of people on both sides who try to skip over the obvious scientific and philosophical questions of "when does life begin?" and instead just arbitrarily make up some point at which a fetus becomes "human". Both sides do it and it's infuriating. To really move the debate forward, as you said, we must accept that, for all intents and purposes, abortion is ending a life. Then we can actually have the debate whether or not abortion is ethically wrong or right without arguing about the semantics of "but is it really a person?"

I think you'd find that almost all of us responding to this thread self identify as liberals. I identify as such, at least. The goal is definitely not to create a "both sides are equally bad" false equivalence.

But I would say this: precisely because I am a liberal, I am often much more concerned with anti-scientific beliefs that propagate amongst liberal people than amongst conservative people. The liberals who hold these anti-scientific beliefs represent me, in a vague but real way.

I definitely do not self-identify as liberal, but I'd come into any thread about an ideology and their anti-scientific beliefs. I think it's important to identify group's irrational beliefs and fears so we can understand why they feel that way. I guess the bottom line for me is that every single political ideology believes in some unfounded beliefs and it's worth shedding light on them. I'll be the first to admit right-wingers have a huge problem with science, too, but I'm glad you've brought this topic up because the left has their fair share of anti-scientific weirdos as well. Just in different areas.

 

[Neoweee]

I don't get the obsession with Astrology at all. I thought it was a fad from the 80s, that would die off. I guess not.

Astrology has been around for thousands of years. It's basically a co-religion.

 

[tokkun]

One issue that hasn't been mentioned yet is the demonization of standardized testing.

Standardized tests are usually of a much higher quality than tests developed by individual teachers (as assessed through scientific measures of test validity and reliability), and provide the ability to aggregate data across multiple classes and school in order to come to much more meaningful comparisons. These are things that should be embraced by scientifically-minded people. However, the problems caused by policies that utilize standardized tests - like NCLB - have been conflated with the merits of the tests themselves. Rather than focusing on the real problems of the policies, like the moral hazard caused by tying teacher compensation to raw test results, people instead think the whole concept of measuring performance with standardized tests is bad.

 

[Leunam]

I'm from Portland and I voted against Fluoridation because I like water to be as close to water as possible.
If you want clean teeth brush them.

Are you content with high levels of fluoride in naturally occurring wells? Higher than federal guidelines I mean.

Fluoride management is a matter of balance, not always just adding to the water.

 

[LostCaress]

It's a 100% scientific fact that organic food leads to a way longer lifespan.

 

[Kite]

Tell me this isn't actually a thing. Please.

You should meet my parents, every time I try to use the microwave they run out of the room like cats from a bath.. freaking Taiwanese television shows seem to be pushing a lot of these new age health bs.. Apparently EVERYTHING gives you cancer nowdays so they don't even know what to eat anymore, everything is GMO so they're afraid to eat almost every meat, veggie and rice.. *sigh*

 

[Leunam]

It's a 100% scientific fact that organic food leads to a way longer lifespan.

Certainly not when it comes to shelf life.

 

[Opiate]

One issue that hasn't been mentioned yet is the demonization of standardized testing.

Standardized tests are usually of a much higher quality than tests developed by individual teachers (as assessed through scientific measures of test validity and reliability), and provide the ability to aggregate data across multiple classes and school in order to come to much more meaningful comparisons. These are things that should be embraced by scientifically-minded people. However, the problems caused by policies that utilize standardized tests - like NCLB - have been conflated with the merits of the tests themselves. Rather than focusing on the real problems of the policies, like the moral hazard caused by tying teacher compensation to raw test results, people instead think the whole concept of measuring performance with standardized tests is bad.

Great example. I'll add a similar example: there are many cases where doctors will use their experience or their gut in addition to their training in order to reach conclusions and administer treatment. This sort of "personalized" care is very popular both with doctors and with patients. I'm not sure if it's disproportionately liberal, but certainly I've seen liberals endorse this.

When studied, however, it was found that doctors who simply follow exact, suggested protocols (i.e. they do everything "by the book") have superior average outcomes when compared to doctors who modify these protocols with their own personal touches based on their experience or based on the patient or whatever.

I'll look for the study I read which evidenced that.

 

[CapNBritain]

My fiancee works for a clinic attached to a major university that specializes in East-West medicine. I'm not really what goes on there, but I know they do acupuncture and something called "cupping" (not as weird as it sounds). I've looked these things up and apparently there is no hard science behind them. So...this has always weirded me out. Apparently the clinic holds conferences, takes on medical students as interns, and even holds lectures for the university. Is this all anti-science? She once told me that it's about addressing the cause of the problems, not the symptoms, but if those causes are determined and treated through unscientific means, then isn't all of it just a bunch of baloney?

 

[Fenderputty]

I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but wasn't there a book called The China Study, which proved that vegetarian diets have a correlation with longer and healthier spans?

There's been a ton of opposition to the China Study. A ton.

 

[Dice]

so basically they are falling for a sticker on a fruit and thinking they are getting something more healthy than non organic? I always ignored it because it seemed to be a buzzword type deal.

A sticker? More like hundreds of blogs filled with bullshit nutrition lies about toxins and adverse health effects pulled out of someone's ass.

 

[reckless]

A bit of a tangent: Does anyone have a significant other/spouse who has some of these beliefs, especially the diet/anti-GMO/"alternative" medicine kind?

I ask because my girlfriend, who I agree with 90% of the time on everything, has a naturopath as her GP (but will go to an actual doctor if it's serious stuff, and she's not anti-vax or anything like that; she just says she prefers a naturopath because they treat the "cause" rather than just the "symptom". I have had arguments with her about this many, many times, and it's just something I've learned to live with, but god damn do I want to scream at her sometimes for some of the stuff she goes on about. She is also apparently allergic to almost every food in existence, it seems like.

Anyway, anyone else deal with anything like this? How do you keep from going crazy?

My fiancee works for a clinic attached to a major university that specializes in East-West medicine. I'm not really what goes on there, but I know they do acupuncture and something called "cupping" (not as weird as it sounds). I've looked these things up and apparently there is no hard science behind them. So...this has always weirded me out. Apparently the clinic holds conferences, takes on medical students as interns, and even holds lectures for the university. Is this all anti-science? She once told me that it's about addressing the cause of the problems, not the symptoms, but if those causes are determined and treated through unscientific means, then isn't all of it just a bunch of baloney?

Yeah its mostly baloney.

Thats a really strange talking point though...

 

[CapNBritain]

Yeah its mostly baloney.

Thats a really strange talking point though...

Whelp, I know what our next discussion will be about!

 

[Leunam]

Yeah its mostly baloney.

Thats a really strange talking point though...

Indeed, and very common.

Really there's one great answer to it: antibiotics.

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

Virtually all of the anti-vaccine people I've heard about have been right-wing anti-government types, so I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from.

 

[Fuchsdh]

I agree with the person who said nuclear power. The others, perhaps with the exception of alternative medicine, are fairly fringe. Irrational fear of nuclear power is really strongly prevalent on the left, though, and has caused poor policy decisions in the past - e.g., as is happening in Germany right now. It also conflicts with a key goal often associated with the left - reducing carbon emissions - so in that sense it is doubly harmful people won't consider it.

I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that the drawbacks of nuclear power make it a poor choice for alternative energy sources. "I don't want to create nuclear waste" is a better excuse than "those big windmills block my view (except not really)". You're probably correct in that the risk of things like meltdowns is very low, but people react very strongly to the idea.

I don't really care if you think you can transfer healing energy from your fingers or not; it's only when those beliefs put others at risk (vaccines, etc.) that I really get annoyed. Otherwise believe in your ghosts and goblins all you want.

 

[Atlagev]

Whelp, I know what out next discussion will be about!

I hope you are a more patient man than I...

 

[Atlagev]

Indeed, and very common.

Really there's one great answer to it: antibiotics.

How so?

 

[reckless]

I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that the drawbacks of nuclear power make it a poor choice for alternative energy sources. "I don't want to create nuclear waste" is a better excuse than "those big windmills block my view (except not really)". You're probably correct in that the risk of things like meltdowns is very low, but people react very strongly to the idea.

I don't really care if you think you can transfer healing energy from your fingers or not; it's only when those beliefs put others at risk (vaccines, etc.) that I really get annoyed. Otherwise believe in your ghosts and goblins all you want.

The problem is that nuclear power is the only realistic alternative to natural gas/coal and oil.
There are too many technological problems right now for solar,wind and/or hydro to take over.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

This is going to be pretty unpopular, but assuming the post a few above mine will drown out my unpopular post.

The idea that human life does not begin at conception.

Let me state here that I support a woman's right to choose and I support expanding abortion rights and making it easier for patients to receive abortions, receive birth control, and everything else. However, it is patently ridiculous that people who are largely also on my side of the fence on this issue try to shift the "life debate" to some amorphous, arbitrary point in the development of a human. The only reliable, scientifically provable point in human development that a union of two cells becomes a human is the point of fertilization. It is also ridiculous when somebody tries to push it further back to an earlier time, "Why isn't a single sperm or a single egg a human then?" Because they're not. In the history of human kind, no human has ever developed out of a single unfertilized egg or a single sperm. Not once, ever. 0%. And yet the opposite is true: every human that has ever existed, 100% of them, formed out of the fertilization of an egg and a sperm. Throughout the years, abortion advocates seem to take two approaches: Deny the scientific fact that a fertilized egg is a human life or claim that the scientific fact that a fertilized egg is a human life does not matter in terms of whether abortion should be permitted. I fall in this latter camp, I think that we're being scientifically dishonest if we claim that human life begins at some other point other than fertilization, and the only way that we'll move forward in a constructive way is to just simply accept the uncomfortable truth that the act of abortion is a case where a civilized society permits the destruction of human life, ultimately, for the greater good. It's a painful thing to accept this, but it's dishonest to make any other excuses.



Just said that myself.

that really isn't unreasonable at all, some people view life at conception and feel anyone that will be , is currently , or for a while longer living but in decline, should be protected under the laws that we grant people. The stage in biology means little to those that hold humanity to be sacred , I understand and agree with this. The only thing that will be of discussion is life vs life, one or both will die unless theres an intercession.

Some people only think early abortions are ok, others up until a certain stage of pregnancy is ok, others go a bit further, long as the woman is carrying the baby / late term, and then theres the damn child sacrifice people that think post birth abortions should be ok and standard. Then there are the servants of fucking Molech that think 80-90 percent of people on earth should die because its too crowded....

I think its obvious we should protect all lives at all stages of those lives unless its a consideration of life vs a life, a couple./ mother/ spouse has to make a choice if say one or both the mother and child will die if the pregnancy goes to term.

 

[Leunam]

How so?

Putting aside the danger in overuse, they treat the cause don't they?

 

[Opiate]

Yeah its mostly baloney.

Thats a really strange talking point though...

As someone who has discussed these sorts of issues at length, I can tell you it's a common refrain. It's a way of sidestepping the obvious problem faced by these alternative therapies: these treatments clearly do not treat the "symptoms." If your "symptom" is "I have XX virus" or "I have YY bacterial infection" or "I have a wound in my ZZ," it can be readily shown that acupuncture does not remove problem that from the body.

But if you postulate a "root cause" for this disease state (that is, another step deeper than the virus or bacteria), then you can claim that these alternative therapies are helping that. For instance, let's say I advocate cupping. Cupping may not cure your flu, but the only reason you got flu in the first place is that your energies are off. Now that I have put your energies back in line with my cupping technique, you are less likely to get a flu in the future and the flu you do have will end sooner.

As you can see, this neatly sidesteps the need to show any evidence that your treatment does anything tangible.

 

[Cyan]

This is going to be pretty unpopular, but assuming the post a few above mine will drown out my unpopular post.

The idea that human life does not begin at conception.

Gotchaye already covered it, but this is a philosophical difference, not a question of ignoring science. Given that the philosophical difference is largely driven by religion--life begins at conception because that's when God sticks a soul in there--it's sort of odd to argue it relates to anti-science views.

 

[Sobriquet]

I'm from Portland and I voted against Fluoridation because I like water to be as close to water as possible.
If you want clean teeth brush them.

Fluoride naturally occurs in water. "Fluoridation" as a process can be either adding or removing fluoride to the water supply. A vote against fluoridation is a vote against public health.

 

[Dice]

My fiancee works for a clinic attached to a major university that specializes in East-West medicine. I'm not really what goes on there, but I know they do acupuncture and something called "cupping" (not as weird as it sounds). I've looked these things up and apparently there is no hard science behind them. So...this has always weirded me out. Apparently the clinic holds conferences, takes on medical students as interns, and even holds lectures for the university. Is this all anti-science? She once told me that it's about addressing the cause of the problems, not the symptoms, but if those causes are determined and treated through unscientific means, then isn't all of it just a bunch of baloney?

Antiscience can very well get mixed up with higher-education, unfortunately.

 

[Mumei]

One issue that hasn't been mentioned yet is the demonization of standardized testing.

Standardized tests are usually of a much higher quality than tests developed by individual teachers (as assessed through scientific measures of test validity and reliability), and provide the ability to aggregate data across multiple classes and school in order to come to much more meaningful comparisons. These are things that should be embraced by scientifically-minded people. However, the problems caused by policies that utilize standardized tests - like NCLB - have been conflated with the merits of the tests themselves. Rather than focusing on the real problems of the policies, like the moral hazard caused by tying teacher compensation to raw test results, people instead think the whole concept of measuring performance with standardized tests is bad.

Great example. I'll add a similar example: there are many cases where doctors will use their experience or their gut in addition to their training in order to reach conclusions and administer treatment. This sort of "personalized" care is very popular both with doctors and with patients. I'm not sure if it's disproportionately liberal, but certainly I've seen liberals endorse this.

When studied, however, it was found that doctors who simply follow exact, suggested protocols (i.e. they do everything "by the book") have superior average outcomes when compared to doctors who modify these protocols with their own personal touches based on their experience or based on the patient or whatever.

I'll look for the study I read which evidenced that.

I have conflicted beliefs about this. I appreciate the argument that you're making, but my experience of doing grading for standardized testing for two states on the writing section was that it was highly arbitrary. For instance, there was a question where you were asked to explain a scientific process. We only had to look for three words or phrases - explode, collapse, pull together. If we saw those three words in that order listed next to 1., 2. and 3, that was three points. If they had the first two, and not the third, that was two points. If they had the first, but the second and third were switched, it was one point even if the content of what they wrote indicated that they understood (and there's no indication in the directions that you are supposed to use these single-word answers; most students wrote out at least a sentence. What this meant in practice is that a) I could grade them extremely quickly (~700 / hour), b) a lot of answers that you might be inclined to give two points or three points got 0 points or 1 point based on a grading decision you couldn't have divined from the question itself. It also helped keep things, you know, standardized, but I'm not sure it actually ended up being a good measure of understanding.

We also had questions where the graders simply couldn't agree on how they should be graded - there were several questions where no one - out of hundreds of people - managed to qualify to grade on because there was so much inconsistency between the standards on how to grade them that you'd be told one thing while reading the instructions, only for the qualifying exam to use a different standard for one of the questions (you weren't told which one), which often made passing them a matter of luck.

I can see how having objective measures would be valuable, but I just can't see how what I was doing in that job had any relation to providing that objective data.

 

[Fuchsdh]

The problem is that nuclear power is the only realistic alternative to natural gas/coal and oil.
There are too many technological problems right now for solar,wind and/or hydro to take over.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. If you don't invest in and develop renewable energy, the tech isn't going to get better.

 

[Opiate]

I agree with Cyan. We all agree that "something is alive" when conception happens. Of course, "something is alive" before conception, too: a sperm and an egg are both living things. Further, "something is alive" when we kill a pig in order to eat it. "Something is alive" when I step on a roach or, even worse, call an exterminator.

The implicit question being asked isn't whether something is technically alive, but when that alive thing begins to have instantiated rights. This is why the question "when does a fetus become a human" matters: technically being alive is not sufficient to grant something human rights, because if it did, we'd all be justifiably accused of committing genocide with every breath, as we wipe out millions of living bacteria each time we inhale and exhale.

 

[DoktorEvil]

The IQ difference between white and black people. It doesn't fit peoples worldview so they reject it.

http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf

The question that still remains is whether the cause of group differences in
average IQ is purely social, economic, and cultural or whether genetic factors are
also involved. Following publication ofThe Bell Curve,the American Psycho-logical Association (APA) established an 11-person Task Force (Neisser et al.,1996) to evaluate the book’s conclusions. Based on their review of twin and other
kinship studies, the Task Force for the most part agreed with Jensen’s (1969)
Harvard Educational Review article and The Bell Curve, that within the White
population the heritability of IQ is “around .75” (p. 85). As to the cause of the
mean Black–White group difference, however, the Task Force concluded: “There
is certainly no support for a genetic interpretation” (p. 97)

Isnt this an extension of the nature vs nuture debate?

Additionally, what about the disproportionate population figures relative to "white" and "black" people?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Truthers are left?

Alex Jones always gave me the impression they're from the right.

Yeah, I'd say this is more of a right-winger thing. Left-leaning woo is usually medical or nutritional, it seems like.

 

[reckless]

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. If you don't invest in and develop renewable energy, the tech isn't going to get better.

Same applies to nuclear, maybe if we spent more time developing nuclear energy instead of being scared of it we would have came up with new technologies that solved the waste problem or maybe even fusion.

We also could have been using nuclear power for decades now, which would really help the environment.

The main problem with alternate energy is the storage issue which is being invested in because it is helpful for all energy sources.

 

[Kurdel]

Yeah, I'd say this is more of a right-winger thing. Left-leaning woo is usually medical or nutritional, it seems like.

Zeitgeist is definitely left leaning truthing, with their anti bankers and comminist utopia epilogue.

 

[DoktorEvil]

Zeitgeist is definitely left leaning truthing, with their anti bankers and comminist utopia epilogue.

I had a friend who a hypocritical hippie that also runs a business show me that movie.

I felt like my brain was going to pour out of my head.

 

[patapuf]

Aside from religious people, i've found people on the left are way more willing to buy into anti-scientific stuff. Especially anything involved goods produced by big corporations.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. If you don't invest in and develop renewable energy, the tech isn't going to get better.

it's also a pipe dream to believe that renewable energy doesn't impact the environment. People often seem to assume that putting 100 windturbines on a field won't affect the environment much when they have already been big issues with bird populations and high maintenance costs. Nevermind issues with storing and reliable production.


There is no one size fits all solution for energy production and producing large amounts of energy will impact the environment a lot, renewable or not. You have to use wind/sun/hydro in places where they are efficient. That's not everywhere.

 

[Kabouter]

it's also a pipe dream to believe that renewable energy don't impact the environment. People often seem to assume that putting 100 windturbines on a field won't affect the enviroment much when they have already been big issues with bird populations and high maintnance costs. Nevermind issues with storing and reliable production.


There is no one size fits all solution for energy production and producing large amounts of energy will impact the environment a lot, renewable or not. You have to use wind/sun/hydro in places where they are efficient. That's not everywhere.

One thing neither side of the debate seems to focus on enough to me is just, like, using less energy.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

The ones you listed are all crazy fringe beliefs with no real impact on other people (except maybe the odd case of an unvaccinated child causing a small outbreak).

The big one is anti-nuclear power. IIRC it's safer, cleaner and more cost-effective than pretty much any alternative, but as I understand it opposition to nuclear power, while somewhat popular on the right, is far more of a left-associated stance due to fear over nuclear waste or catastrophic meltdowns.

Anti-vaccination is extremely dangerous to society as a whole. We rely on herd immunity to protect those that the vaccine doesn't work for or who can't have one for legitimate medical reasons. With all of these assholes abusing their children by refusing to vaccinate it severely weakens herd immunity and puts us all at risk for outbreaks we haven't seen since the turn of the 20th century.

 

[Ethelwulf]

I don't have a source but I suppose many liberals (and because of anti-monopoly/capitalism beliefs) prefer to use homeopathy over tradicional allopathic treatments. I personally found this rather dumb as there is no scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of homeopathy. It continuously displays results equal to placebo or random.

 

[Atlagev]

Putting aside the danger in overuse, they treat the cause don't they?

Oh, of course, and this is actually something her and I both agree on: unnecessary use of antibiotics. Obviously, if we're really sick and need to take them, we'll do so, but both her and I try to avoid taking antibiotics unnecessarily.

 

[tokkun]

I have conflicted beliefs about this. I appreciate the argument that you're making, but my experience of doing grading for standardized testing for two states on the writing section was that it was highly arbitrary. For instance, there was a question where you were asked to explain a scientific process. We only had to look for three words or phrases - explode, collapse, pull together. If we saw those three words in that order listed next to 1., 2. and 3, that was three points. If they had the first two, and not the third, that was two points. If they had the first, but the second and third were switched, it was one point even if the content of what they wrote indicated that they understood (and there's no indication in the directions that you are supposed to use these single-word answers; most students wrote out at least a sentence. What this meant in practice is that a) I could grade them extremely quickly (~700 / hour), b) a lot of answers that you might be inclined to give two points or three points got 0 points or 1 point based on a grading decision you couldn't have divined from the question itself. It also helped keep things, you know, standardized, but I'm not sure it actually ended up being a good measure of understanding.

We also had questions where the graders simply couldn't agree on how they should be graded - there were several questions where no one - out of hundreds of people - managed to qualify to grade on because there was so much inconsistency between the standards on how to grade them that you'd be told one thing while reading the instructions, only for the qualifying exam to use a different standard for one of the questions (you weren't told which one), which often made passing them a matter of luck.

I can see how having objective measures would be valuable, but I just can't see how what I was doing in that job had any relation to providing that objective data.

What you are describing is a not a problem inherent to standardized testing. What you are really describing is a problem caused by insufficient resource allocation - a problem that is independent of whether it was a standardized test or an individualized one. Do you believe that if the same amount of per-student resources were devoted to grading writing on individualized exams that they would do any better?

There is a point to be made about efficiency of resource utilization that is inherent to test standardization: that is, standardized tests use resources much more efficiently than individualized exams, because all of the fixed costs are amortized over a much larger number of students.