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The key to fighting pseudoscience isn’t mockery—it’s empathy (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Evidence shows that shoving data in peoples’ faces doesn’t work to change minds.

As a scientist heavily engaged in science communication, I’ve seen it all.

People have come to my public talks to argue with me that the Big Bang never happened. People have sent me handwritten letters explaining how dark matter means that ghosts are real. People have asked me for my scientific opinion about homeopathy—and scoffed when they didn’t like my answer. People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didn’t understand the science.

People have left comments on my YouTube videos saying… well, let’s not even go there.

I encounter pseudoscience everywhere I go. And I have to admit, it can be frustrating. But in all my years of working with the public, I’ve found a potential strategy. And that strategy doesn’t involve confronting pseudoscience head-on but rather empathizing with why people have pseudoscientific beliefs and finding ways to get them to understand and appreciate the scientific method.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

As much as I agree with the author's points, it isn't anything new. Articles have been published before about taking on a different perspective when confronting pseudoscience, such as this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579391/

However, I still feel like both articlea don't fully broach the deeply rooted distrust many folks have towards academia or the scientific community as a whole. And honestly, if you look at the history of unethical studies and experiments done over the years, I don't find it that shocking that many communities are like that. To start the rabbit hole on the plethora of fucked up activities scientists of the past got up to, head on over to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation

My point is: Simply using empathy isn't going to fix things. It's part of the solution, but I think coupling that with better community outreach via public K-12 schools and easier to understand transparency for the average person would go a really long way over time. Just my two cents, anyway.