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If you catch your friends using Science as a religion, tell them they’re not a skeptic, they’re a cunt.
Am scientist (well, was, before career change), can confirm. Fuck dogmatic scientists, they’re worse than regular dogmatists because they’ve been given many opportunities to know better.
Critical theory, my beloved
Source (of drawing)?
Took like maybe 5 minutes of searching, but the artist is Bro Aniki
This is a clean example of an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
Statement B attempts to use Statement A to make an unrelated point that isn’t necessarily untrue, but it is still unrelated.
This could be done with any combination of…
“Under capitalism, <random thing> is…”
“Under <random ism>, science is…”They would all result in a statement that supports Speaker B, but is no longer relevant to what Speaker A stated, as the topic has changed. In this case, from science to capitalism.
I.e. It’s an anti-capitalism meme attempting to use science to appeal to a broader audience through relevance fallacy. Both statements may be true, but do not belong in the same picture.
Unless, of course, “that’s the joke” and I’m just that dumb.
I think you’re reading statement B too literally. I’m pretty sure the idea behind it is related to critical theory and is an objection to the idea that rationality is trustworthy and that class conflict should be regarded as a higher truth. In that way statement B is relevant to statement A; it’s an implicit rejection of it.
Assuming this meme is some form of Marxist propaganda, it would be a self-defeating meme, since Marxism is rooted in dialectical materialism which is itself a scientific process. At least according to Marx.
Unfortunately that’s not how communism works in practice
Wow thanks! I’ve seen other instances of this fallacy but never knew its name (nor recognized that it is a common fallacy form).
You’re dead on. Science is a process. I can science the shit out of baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano, and I don’t need government funding to do it. What you science is effected by capitalism, but capitalism is just a scare word. No matter what you want to do, if it requires a significant amount of power or work to create your materials, a cost is accrued somewhere, and someone has to pay it, whether it costs dollars or beaver pelts.
Capitalism isn’t just about “things need funding” the point of the meme is that capitalists determine what gets funding. A socialist state might put economic force behind other scientific endeavors, ones driven by capital are intended to create profit. The profit motive drives innovation instead of the pure ideological pursuit of truth or any other driver.
Thank you. Something about me was rubbing me the wrong way, but I couldn’t articulate it.
ok, but according to science everyone is worthless
True but people also use this as an excuse to dismiss any research they disagree with which is idiotic.
Most research is legit. It just might not be interpreted correctly, or it might not be the whole picture. But it shouldn’t be ignored because you don’t like it.
People are especially prone to this with Econ research in my experience.
For sure, but it’s important to keep in mind in fields with large financial interests.
Medicine especially. Most studies claiming Cealiac disease (gluten allergy) was not real before it was conclusively proven to be legitimate were funded by bread companies. You won’t believe the number of studies funded by insurance companies trying to show that certain diseases aren’t really disabling, (even though they really are).
And sugar probably kills as many people as smoking, but… yup.
Then again, we all are okay with killing children too, so long as it is with a gun and unwillingly rather than safely in a doctor’s office and medically necessary or at least expedient.
That seems like a crazy low estimate for deaths caused by sugar…
Sugar or HFCS? I’m actually asking because I don’t know, not to be snotty.
Both, but the studies were literally prevented from happening or those that were done anyway then the results shared with Americans - the USA threatened to boycott the WHO iirc if it did not remove language to the effect that sugar could be dangerous, in excess.
HFCS lowers your metabolism, so makes every additional calorie count for a greater effect.
Stores sell what they want to sell, in part based on what people will purchase (e.g. fast food companies like McDonald’s tried offering healthier options such as salads - people wouldn’t buy them), and things with higher shelf life. They aim for profits, not service for its own sake.
Isn’t there a replication crisis. I am not sure you can really claim “most” research is legit.
I wouldn’t call it a broad crisis, and it isn’t universal. More theoretical sciences or social sciences are more prone to it because the experiments are more expensive and you can’t really control the environment the way you can with e.g. mice or specific chemicals. But most biology, chemistry, etc that isn’t bleeding edge or incredibly niche will be validated dozens to hundreds of times as people build on the work and true retractions are rare
The entire thing is an edgy strawman. Honest practitioners obviously take seriously the need to understand and articulate the limits of empiricism, and are hostile towards those who abuse the public trust placed in scientific authority. It would honestlt be great if we could do the same with our critiques of capitalism.
Science is the process of getting things a little less wrong.
Science is a method of empiricism and inductive logic.
Nihilism is fun! Science as a framework for truth seeking, and big S Science are functionally different things. Nobody is making the argument that Science is free from political or economic bias, or even that empiricism is the sole arbiter of truth. Literally just finish reading Kant, I’ll wait.
On the other hand, you can look at the world and very plainly see that science… does things. It discovers truth with a far better track record than every other imperfect epistemology. But sure, capitalism bad. Twitter man cringe. And the internet is just like, an opinion, or something.
Thank you so much for bringing tankie shit to this community!
This is tankie? It seems just communist.
After everything that happened in the 20th century to learn from, is there any difference?
The tankies don’t seem particularly picky about whether their contrarian cause celebres are actually socialist or just a dickhead dictator and his rich mates.
does tankie just mean “critiques capitalism” now?
OK and? Also source?
If you’d like to read into this I recommend these books.
1. “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn
2. “Science as Social Knowledge” by Helen Longino
3. “The Politics of Science” by David Politzer
4. “The Science Industry” by Philip Mirowski
5. “The Commodification of Science: A Critical Perspective” by various authors
An example of why this matters would be that research claiming ME was psychological was heavily funded, by both governments and insurance companies because it meant that they didn’t have to spend money on people disabled with ME. No effort was made to look at possible biological causes. Only a couple decades later, we now know it is a neuroimmune disease. But since insurers and government don’t benefit from that fact, it took decades to show and disprove the mountain of research claiming it is psychological. This meant thousands of people died from the disease or were in severe poverty.
I meant for the femboy getting pounded in the bottom photo
You forgot Foucault’s Power/Knowledge.
Fuck Foucault
Do you hate Foucault because your a Marxist or a Petersonian?
No i hate him because post-modernism is trash. Peterson doesn’t understand post-modernism, but he is right that it’s trash
There’s antitrust litigation against the publishers. Here’s one article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2024/09/16/scientists-file-antitrust-lawsuit-against-six-journal-publishers/
science is science. it can be (sometimes necessarily) prioritized via societal influence, culture and monetary means.
socialist countries have different types scientific spend but I don’t see femboys taking things in the ass for them I guess.
Look, the only thing in the world which hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism is OP’s brain, which happens to be in a jar, on a shelf, owned by an evil demon, who lives in a hole at the bottom of the sea. Just be thankful that the capitalists have not figured out how to harness this phenomenological power yet.
I dunno about science, but truth is proof. That just infers that science is various forms of proof, and I’m ok with that as it lets our notion of proof evolve as we do _
Yes and? Is the premise that capital only chooses bad things to research?
Capital has certain interests. If your research doesn’t produce the results that capital is looking for, you’re unlikely to get more funding. As such, it leaves a bias on what we have research for, which can already skew our perception of reality, and sometimes researchers will even fake their results or select certain data to reach a conclusion that’s in the interest of the capital.
There are mechanisms in place to try to prevent that, namely peer reviews and reproduction of previous studies, so we’ll hopefully get to the truth eventually, but the bias still has a big impact.
Plus publish or perish is real thing
Yes this all presupposes that this bias is a bad thing. Not saying that it isn’t mind you
