Pseudo-skepticism as anti-patriotic

[jillery]

The following is a link to a 25-minute Big Think video of comments
from Michael Shermer, Kurt Andersen, Neil Tyson, Margaret Atwood, and
Bill Nye.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58vlJwhwDw>

[Neil Tyson]
Oh, you think it's some other way you want it to be. That's odd. If
you went to your doctor and you have some ailment and the doctor says,
"You can take this pill, which three percent of all research says will
cure you, or you can take this pill, which 97% of all research says
will cure you." Which one are you going to walk away from the doctor's
office with? The 97% pill, of course. Yet, you walk out of there and
say, "Oh, I believe the three percent who say we're not warming the
planet."


[Michael Shermer]
Because of the internet, especially, this whole idea of what we now
call fake news, alternative facts, has gotten bigger and bigger and it
just gets unfolded in real time, online, within minutes and hours. And
we have to jump on it fast. What the skeptical movement has
developed is a set of tools with particular claims that are on the
margins of science, like creationism, intelligent design theory, the
anti-vaccinations, the Holocaust revisionists. All these conspiracy
theories and so on, all these alternative medicines. And there are
hundreds and hundreds of these claims that are all connected to
different sciences. What the skeptical movement has developed is a
set of tools with particular claims that are on the margins of
science, like creationism, intelligent design theory, the
anti-vaccinations, the Holocaust revisionists. All these conspiracy
theories and so on, all these alternative medicines. And there are
hundreds and hundreds of these claims that are all connected to
different sciences but the scientists in those particular fields are
too busy working in their research to bother with what these claims
are, because the claims really aren't about those fields. They're
just hooked to them.


[Margaret Atwood]
People do not want to give up their cherished beliefs, especially
cherished beliefs that they find comforting. So, it's no good for
Richard Dawkins to say, "Let us stand on the bold, bare promontory
of truth and acknowledge the basically nothingness of ourselves."
People don't find that cozy. So they will go around the block not to
do that. And that's very understandable and human.


[BILL NYE]
The United States used to be the world leader in technology, but when
you have this group of leaders, elected officials, who are
anti-science, you're setting the US back and then ultimately setting
the world back.


[Kurt Andersen]
What has been enabled in the last 30 years, first through deregulated
talk radio, where you didn't have to be fair and balanced anymore,
then national cable television—FOX News comes to mind—and then, of
course, the internet as well, where these more and more not just
politically different points of view, but these alternate factual
realities could be portrayed and depicted. We've been in that state
now for 20 years or more. Again, we were softened up as a people to
believe what we want to believe, but we have this new infrastructure
that I think is new, that I think is a new condition. So, there's a
history of, "Oh, I believe this," or "I believe this." Or "Slavery is
good." "No, slavery is bad." Those are disagreements, but in 1860
southerners didn't say, "Oh, no, there are no slaves. No, no, no,
there's no slavery." That's the condition we have now, that is the
Kellyanne-Conway-Donald-Trump situation—and Republican Party situation
before Donald Trump ever came along—where we say, "No, no, there's no
climate change." Or, "Oh, this factual truth is not true." That's the
new thing.


[ME]
Many pseudo-skeptics proclaim themselves patriots, that they support
true American values, when in fact their behaviors and expressed
motives manifestly weaken the very nation and the ideals they pretend
to support:

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.