My question is about group think, politics, and culture, and whether or not people who use science as a bludgeon against traditional concepts are really acting in the name of objectivity or perverse popular opinion.
Seeing as how a (shrinking) majority of Americans seem to have your apparent/implied opinions, it seems that people are using science as a bludgeon against
your perverse popular opinion, no?
In the 1950's doctors were saying that smoking is good for your health.
Were they? Yes, there were TV commercials with supposed doctors in them smoking cigarettes. And they may have been real doctors. If they were, had you considered the possibility that it was not well known at the time that smoking IS bad for you? How many doctors now support smoking?
I'm sure there was a time when bloodletting was thought to be a cure for mental illness. The commonality of these two scenarios would be that they fit the popular beliefs of those eras. Smoking was acceptable and hip in the 50's. The science of the time did not oppose it. Likewise, medical treatments for mental illness were often reflective of the particular beliefs and stigmas people had about people with mental illness. Since they were seen as evil and reprobate, harsh methods were seen as the way to deal with them.
Yes - having seen your subsequent replies, I am a bit taken aback that you actually acknowledge as a given that which you will, in a few sentences, attack.
I see new "discoveries" in "science" today as advertised in popular media that follow a consistent political and cultural theme. Particularly, the leftist secular humanist theme. I cannot bring myself to believe that the practice of science is a solely humanistic endeavor.
Why can't you bring yourself to believe that? Your programming?
I find it very, very convenient that suddenly, "science" is discovering things like "gender is fluid, not static".
So, you basically think that "science" should have already had all this figured out? Is that reasonable?
Your position thus far should lead you to ask "Why didn't Henry Ford make Lamborghinis in the 1920s? He must have been part of this perverse leftist plot to take my FREEDOM and attack traditional living!"
Gay marriage, transgenderism, and perversion are rampant and are basically the state religion now (as enshrined by the Supreme Court of the country) and so I find it strange that science has been around so long, and only IN THIS decade have they "found out" that male and female categories of gender are not accurate.
Nobody has said that male and female "categories" are not "accurate", just that they are not the whole story. And gender issues have been known about a lot longer than just this decade.
Had you considered the possibility that it is just that YOU were unaware of these issues until Hannity or whoever ranted about it?
I wonder the same to a lesser extent about climate change, which happens to be used as a left wing bludgeon to fight conservatives over it seems to me.
Right - so conservatives favor pollution and damaging the climate due to their worship of wealth and power, and the 'left wing' wants clean water and air for their children, so they teamed up with China (according to the orangutan in chief) to create an elaborate hoax encompassing all major scientific organizations in which the data actually supports their findings. Goodness - I know which side I will pick!
I just wonder sometimes if "the science says" is sometimes just an appeal to authority when in actuality scientific data is being manipulated or not presented in its entirety to bludgeon an opponent, who is usually a conservative Christian or a person who stands for traditional living.
"Traditional living."
Care to define that? Traditional like it was in the 1950s? Where colored folks had to come in the back door and use a different water fountain? And get the hose and have dogs attack them when they got all uppity? Good old "traditional" days!
The general attitude towards religion, as the Enlightenment era came on, was one of hostility and solid skepticism.
For good reason.
In statistics there is a saying. "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." Is there a strong possibility that this is happening in modern science to push a politically weaponized Trojan horse designed to bludgeon those of a certain persuasion to death?
"When fascism comes to America, it will be carrying a cross and wrapped in the flag."
Sayings are cool. Especially the prescient ones.
I'm not impressed by "99% of scientists agree that X". 90% of scientists probably highly doubt that Jesus could have ever walked on water or rose from a tomb. Their doubt doesn't make God's word untrue.
And "99% of bible believers believe X" doesn't mean that X is true or that their source is reliable.
However, keep agenda driven rants to a minimum.
Right... OK...
