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Leftists View Independent Thought as Intellectual Laziness
I saw a very nice 72-year-old gentleman yesterday who had questions about COVID vaccines, like everybody and their cousin. He’s a brilliant guy. A semi-retired business consultant who makes a lot more money on part-time consulting than I do in my full-time job. He said something like, “Anybody who hasn’t gotten a COVID vaccine is an idiot” or something like that.
I responded that I agreed that vaccines were probably a good idea, but that the studies on them would be completed in about three years, and I really had very little data to go on. If they are causing harm, we may not know right away. Just because we don’t know exactly what the risks are yet, does not mean that there are no risks. But I tended to agree with him, that the risks of the vaccines were likely to be outweighed by their benefits. Most likely. I’ve gotten my vaccines. They’re probably good. We’ll see. But I also told him that I understood the concerns of those who were reluctant to try them out for one reason or another. I disagreed with them, but I respected their opinion.
He just looked at me. After a pregnant pause, he said, “I didn’t know you were a Republican.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I finally said, “So, Republicans are hesitant to make decisions without data?”
He said, “No, Republicans don’t believe in science.” Whoa. This, from a guy who joined my practice because his neighbor (who is a doctor) told him that I was the smartest doctor he’d ever met. So now I don’t believe in science. Ok. I’m pissed, but I really try to play nice. Take the high road, right?
I reminded him, “There is no science. The studies will be completed in three years. Then there’s the peer review process. Then post-marketing data. Get some data from somebody who doesn’t work for Pfizer or the CDC. More debate, more studies, more arguing, more data mining. I think you’re probably right. I think the vaccines are probably good. But call me in six or seven years, and I may have a better idea. In my line of work, I guess a lot. But I try to be open about when I’m guessing. I’m not just some guy you met at the bar, telling you what he thinks. I’m wearing a white coat, and you’re paying good money for my perspective, so you should expect a higher standard of data analysis from me. And I’m telling you that there is no data. I’m guessing that the data is likely to be good, overall. Eventually. But I really don’t know. And neither do you. Not yet. And if that level of humility can accurately predict somebody’s politics, then we have problems a lot worse than COVID.”
He changed the subject and had no further questions about COVID vaccines, apparently because he no longer viewed me as a reputable source. Because I don’t believe in science. Or because I’d like to have some data before I answer a question. Which, to him, are the same thing.
As a Christian, I am sympathetic to his perspective. I don’t need proof that Jesus is my savior. I know. But religion is a matter of faith. Science, in my opinion, is not.
This famous graphic is a pretty good summary of the study of philosophy. It may be more complicated than that. Or, perhaps, it’s not. St. Augustine does this for a living. Perhaps he can point out some subtleties that the meme overlooks.
But this is a real blind spot for those who “believe in science.” Because that graphic applies even better to science than it does to philosophy. I’ve been speaking to doctors’ groups all over the country on heart disease for nearly 20 years, and my presentations now are completely different than they were 20 years ago. Even 5 years ago. Not because I was stupid in the past. And not because my faith in “science” wavered from time to time.
No, it’s just because most science is wrong, and we do our best to figure out what is right. Over time. We should remain perpetually cognizant of the fact that much of what we ‘know’ now is wrong. We try to keep learning, even if it challenges our assumptions and biases. That’s just how science works.
I find it fascinating that leftists view any evidence of independent thought as proof that someone is conservative, and thus, evil. Imagine being a member of a movement that vilifies independent thought, and that vilifies efforts to search for truth. They don’t just vilify the truth – they vilify the search for truth. Such truth-seekers are non-scientific heretics who are not to be trusted, and who should not be welcome in polite society.
I’ve already had a few patients who joined my practice because they thought I was particularly good at science, and then left my practice when they found out that I was searching for scientific proof before recommending treatment for them. At least, in the realm of COVID. This seems very odd.
Unless you “believe in science.”
I wrote about this a few years ago, in a post “Those who ‘Believe in Science’ don’t understand science.” I was amazed by Harrison Ford’s performance at a climate change conference. But it’s really not that amazing if you understand the leftist view of science as a religion, and religion as superstition. Unless it’s science. Or something. I think. It’s still amazing to me. Because I don’t understand.
And remember, Christians are irrational superstitious emotional fools, while those who ‘believe in science’ are rational thinkers. Or something. I don’t understand.
And remember, Joe Biden won over 50 million votes in the last election. Perhaps 80 million votes. Whatever. That’s amazing. I don’t understand.
Conservatives tend to be skeptical of those who are experts at basketball or science opining on matters of philosophy or politics. It’s not their field, so what do they know, right?
But I’m arguing that a true conservative should be skeptical of those who are experts in science opining in matters of science. We really don’t know. We’re just doing the best we can, with the information available to us at the time. And that information changes, as we learn more. So humility is not a nice feature, but an absolute requirement.
And when I hear a ‘scientist’ who lacks humility, then I automatically know that I should turn up my ‘skeptical-meter’ from its usual nine or ten to something around twenty thousand or so. If that ‘scientist’ will not filter his perspective through a healthy dose of humility, then I should filter his perspective through a healthy dose of skepticism.
And that does not mean I’m a conservative. That just means I’m not a fool.
And remember, this very intelligent, very successful business consultant doesn’t just want me to treat other people with no consideration of scientific research or facts. No, he wants me to treat him that way, too. He views independent thought as intellectual laziness. Or something. I don’t understand.
You don’t have to control the political institutions to control the people. You just need to control the educational establishment and the media. Which the left does. So here we are.
I don’t understand. I really don’t.
But I’m skeptical…
Published in General
It seems like the popular notion of “the science” is little more than slavish devotion to the edicts of the Blue Church orthodoxy. Ask someone what they mean by “the science” and they’ll likely ape the sermon of that afternoon’s authority figure, the sanctified being touching their emptiness through the tiny screen in their hands. Such behavior strikes me as simultaneously obnoxious and boring. Obnoxious in their lazy, transparent self-assuredness; boring in how utterly facile and predictable they are. Parishioners in the Blue Church only become more predictable when you realize that–despite their claims to intellectual superiority–they aren’t really thinking as much as they are running a script. They are, in effect, preening sheep bleating in unison, each of them doing their part to advance tomorrow’s lie at the expense of today’s truth. And I, for one, am quite proud of being a heretic in the eyes of this diseased cult.
My brother-in-law is a PhD that works with statistics all the time. I got into an argument with him about the effectiveness of masks. It was obvious by August 20 20 that they didn’t lower the R0. This is a statistical word for the coefficient of spread. We went on and on and then he finally started ridiculing the term R0. He didn’t even know what it was, and he didn’t even ask me, before he started ridiculing it. The masks just have to work because the central authority thought of it and we need to just cooperate. He had no come back to what I was saying except some kind of distracting ridicule, so that’s what he did.
He turned into a lunatic one time when I asked him to define assault weapon. lol
This phenomena happens all over the credentialed world. One of the ways that CRT worked its way into the public sphere is by self-credentialing itself. When early proponents of CRT attempted to get published in respected academic journals, they were (correctly) rejected as practitioners of a junk pseudo-philosophy. So, they banded together and created their own journals. In those journals, they self-published and then went on a campaign of self-citation, creating an artificial, self-sustaining cycle of citation and publication. They cemented this newfound legitimacy through intimidation and reputation destruction. Through this method, they were able to bully their way into virtually every academic area at the university.
In the 18th century, everything was an assault weapon.
Just to be clear, I would have said coefficient of spread if I could do it over, but I was just learning about this stuff at the time. But the point is, if you go out of your way to increase mutual understanding, it’s not going to do you any good. They aren’t going to reciprocate. They aren’t going to give you a win unless they are forced to. I am dead serious.
You have struck at one of the principle problems in the whole Covid debate. Fooling yourself is easy because the process is quite natural. When encountering new variables, we instinctively want to assign and codify those new variables into the frameworks that already exist in our mind. We seldom, if ever, critically assess the variables in front of us by allowing them to challenge what we perceive to be true. Instead, we are constantly on the look out for things that confirm our beliefs, and that is the root of conformation bias.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo
All of us are vulnerable to this, but the left’s devotion to the communal idea (and ideal!) seems to make them more vulnerable to conformation bias and groupthink. Add the religious element to it (and at this point, statism is clearly a religion) and you have an unshakable fortress of blind, thoughtless ignorance.
This’s the external equivalent of confirmation bias.
I like to skip those particular gatekeepers and go straight to the people. I’ll write stuff on Ricochet and explain philosophy, rarely snappily, on YouTube and Rumble.
(Yes, this was mostly just some shameless self-promotion.)
I can top that. I don’t even know what a coefficient is.
You’re my hero, Augie!
The other thing is, the reason he’s getting upset is because he doesn’t know the definition of assault weapon, but it just has to have a real definition, otherwise they wouldn’t use it, right? So he’s going to try to scramble my brain to not be embarrassed and to move the ball forward. The fact is, it doesn’t have a genuinely functional definition like we expect words to have and that is just part of the process that they try to manage consciously or unconsciously.
“Hey kid. Ever heard the phrase “unfunded liabilities”?”
The government budget + interest on the debt + social Security outlay + Medicare outlay is now higher than government revenues for the first time. Obviously there isn’t nearly enough reserved for Medicare and Social Security. I got that from Luke Growman.
Ask him why pharmaceuticals are now starting to market “Merckvectin” as a wonderful new treatment.
Chowderheads. It’s the kind of thing that makes me think of doctors as diagnostic robots, not sentient beings.
For instance: I have had encounters with many leftists who know perfectly well that the fascist concept of corporatism does not mean “big business”, but they will pretend that it does whenever they think they can get away with it. When you call them on it they will admit the correction if forced to, but will return to the original lie in a heartbeat. Bad faith is a defining characteristic of leftism.
Exactly. You are really stupid if you don’t approach it this way.
The left is defined by more and more central planning, more and more non-public goods, and nutty or non-existent social stuff. They may even create social problems. A lot of people say Obama did that with racial issues.
So all of what they are saying has to improve these real or imagined problems otherwise they don’t have any reason to exist. They are going to force this “reality” through, one way or another. I’m not even sure they are conscious of what is happening all of the time. It just is.
***Then all of this just makes it worse***, so they get to try harder. It’s a feedback loop.
Arguing facts with a leftist is useful when there are others present who may be influenced. But the leftist? Almost always beyond hope.
If leftists really cared about real people, they would abandon the policies that have caused so much harm. But they mostly just care about “the people” and an ideology that entitles them to seek ever more power.
Maybe it would have been good to read that he WANTED TO punch him in the face, but refrained? I could go for that.
But it’s even moreso about Government Is How Government Steals From EVERYONE.
I don’t agree with that. It nets out for people that know how to play the game, the perpetual ruling class from inheritance or ruling class connections, and for some winners in the inter-generational theft from unfunded liabilities. This all should have been fixed right after the Soviet Union fell.
But those “top” people are connected with government, so it works. Otherwise, if it’s just “stealing from each other,” if I steal $10 from you and you steal $10 from me, neither of us has come out ahead. But if government takes $10 from each of us, gives me $5 that it took from you and gives you $5 that it took from me, each of us feels like we “won” but the government keeps $10 for itself/themselves. THEY are the ones who actually come out ahead.
Right, and there is a “vig”.
It’s complicated, but I’m more looking at it from the inflationist aspect and the ruling class families.
“Government is how we steal from other” seems like it would tend to pit people against each other. “You’re using the government to steal from me!” “No, YOU’RE using the government to steal from ME!” What really needs to happen is for ALL of us to be pitted against the GOVERNMENT. My way does that.
I am looking forward to your excellent leadership in overcoming this problem. I’m sure this will all be resolved, shortly.
Thalidomide was science. DES was science. Morcellation was science. Tuskegee syphilis trial was science…
When I was in school, they taught me most of DNA was worthless and the introns protected the protein coding exons. Even then, it seemed the height of biologic redundancy to expend that much energy on replicating and reproducing worthless material. Now there’s a whole field of research into microRNA, functional genetic compounds based on this worthless code.
When I was in school, a sociologist taught me that most sexually transmitted diseases were of minimal clinical significance and the most detrimental thing was the stigma. His main point was that 80% of individuals had HPV and most didn’t know save a few with warts. Now, there’s a vaccine for HPV strains because they were found to cause cervical and head & neck cancer in young adults.
One of my favorite medical history stories is of Ignaz Simmelweis. Today, he is lauded as the father of antiseptic procedures. He observed that maternal deaths from “childbed fever” could be reduced by washing hands and cleaning surgical instruments. He instituted protocols and drastically reduced mortality in his clinics and those of his trainees who copied him. He died in the loony bin after being commited by his colleagues who had ostracized him throughout his career. It was mad to think doctors were the dirty ones. I’ve thought of him a lot over these last 2 years…
The science is settled until it’s reset, and the science unsettled we seem to forget… I should TM that.
The only last word in science is “moron.”