CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE “CANCEL CULTURE”
By Daniel Mann - Posted at Mann's Word:
It is hard to know what to believe. Even previously trusted news outlets have been co-opted by a political agenda. Propaganda and politics now trump principles of truth and balanced reporting.Consequently, some sincerely believe Donald Trump to be the worst of presidents, while others, the best. Some proclaim a fair election, others a stolen election. How do we understand such a disparity of belief? While our differing values help to answer this question, we cannot help but observing that our favored news outlets have also lined up at one extreme or the other. Consequently, they choose and even distort those “facts” to advance their own point of view.
This crisis of information, belief, and of trust has even infiltrated the domain of science. Consequently, some are revved up to pounce on any one of the new COVID-19 vaccines, while others cannot run fast enough in the opposite direction.
Came across this by accident, but felt like I had to comment. There is no cancel culture, otherwise you would not be able to post this and I would not be allowed to contradict you.
ReplyDeleteWhat many do not understand is that the scientific process requires a hypthesis that is based on theories that have previously undergone the same process and have been assumed to be correct. Conspiracy theories are not based theories that have undergone such a process, i.e. a scientific process. If I state that there is a pig that flies: nobody can disprove it and I certainly do not need to write a paper about it or ask for funding for such a study. Additionally, whoever wants to believe it, can.
Science cannot tell me that there is not a flying pig out there because with the scientific method, they can only do say so, if they observe all pig there are, which is impossible. It is unlikely that there is such a pig, but who can prove me otherwise?
Now, let's say I have never seen a pig and I get conflicting data. Suddenly, there is many people telling me that they believe that pigs can also fly...who do I believe?
I can believe those, that used data of many pigs and whose data tells me that it is very unlikely that pigs fly, but I can also belive those that claim otherwise and who reject the scientific reasoning.
I have no problem with that as long as people keep focusing on what truly affects their daily live. Because many times fear is used as a political tool to distract you from what is really important and makes you forget that after all, you are human.
These are good points. Thanks Simone. :)
ReplyDelete