LogFAQs > #962795232

Kyuubi4269 posted...

I have never seen Joe act in this way so I have a hard time believing it. Sure he's an idiot, I don't think he's malicious.

He knows his audience, and his audience wants to see scientists "lose" "debates." He's a better businessman than to deny them that.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

I wouldn't say this is true of Joe either. He's learned his stance in the first place, question is are you convincing enough to overrule what feels right to him.

It's not a question of being convincing enough. It's a question of whether or not he has the integrity to change his mind and learn from new information that corrects his mistaken beliefs. Even more than that, it's a question of whether or not he'll publicly admitting to having his mind changed, knowing that he will lose face among his audience if he does so because his audience sees that as weakness and hypocrisy (see: calling the CDC hypocritical for changing their stance on masks early on).

Kyuubi4269 posted...

It's even worse with masks because we see people say "I can't breathe with a mask on" and the response be "yes you can, the air still goes through", but the person still feels a sensation that they interpret as difficulty breathing. I've never heard anybody address that, i.e. "when your mask is soggy with your dank spit, the air will be humid and warmer, so it will feel different, but you still get air".

I've done pretty much exactly that (I tend to focus more on the subconscious panic response triggered by having something touching your mouth/nose than on the moisture issue, but the same basic idea) countless times in response to people insisting that masks suffocate them. I generally do so in conjunction with various citations demonstrating that O2 saturation is not reduced by wearing a mask. I had one guy get so pissed off that I wouldn't accept his belief that he had difficulty breathing as anything more than a psychological reaction that he put me on his ignore list.

People are very attached to being wrong about this.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

I see people stating the data, but it's not presented in a way morons can consume, it could be a cleverly worded manipulation as they don't have the means to understand it, so it makes more sense to them to ignore it.

If somebody's sufficiently bent on denying the science, they're going to insist that pretty much any presentation of the data that conflicts with their beliefs has been manipulated to distort the truth. Present the raw data instead, and it's either too complex or obscure for them to understand, or they accuse it of being fabricated (note that there is no such thing as data that has not been manipulated). Accessibility helps to teach people, but again, you can't teach those that are unwilling to learn.

I will say, as much as I'm arguing with you, I don't think you're entirely wrong. The attitude of "why should I bother explaining myself to people that disagree with me?" has the potential to be extremely bad for society's overall scientific competence and sow even greater distrust of science. While there are definitely instances where providing that explanation and debating the issue with people is going to be a waste of time, it is generally beneficial to err on the side of informing people, so people should try to do so. It is, however, utterly exhausting and deeply frustrating to have to keep doing so, because very often you do not make any discernible progress and instead spend the whole time being called an idiot and/or liar. To that end, as much as I can say that this scientist should maybe have taken the bait, I very much understand why he didn't. Dealing with science denial is a thoroughly miserable experience all around.