Why Are Scientists Overwhelmingly on The Left?

Author: Reece101

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#31
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@Double_R
I have criticized the left many times on this site including in prior conversations with you, and in my last reply to you I clarified that no one is arguing the left is perfect. You are having a whole conversation in your head.

This conversation is about whether both sides are equal. I’m explaining why they are not. Saying one side is worse than the other does not = the other side is perfect.
Your OP in this thread was, and I quote: "Exactly, because the left cares about reality, which is what science sets out to understand." I pointed out, well here is a facet where the left is hilariously wrong about an objective reality, many over estimating police shootings by a factor of 40-400x what actually happens. You counter with three things where large numbers of Republicans have objectively incorrect viewpoints (climate change, vaccines, and the 2020 election being rigged.) I said yep, those are totally irrational and btw, 2/3rds of Dems thought the 2016 election was rigged by the Russians, and Democrats are more likely to oppose the settled science regarding masking children and outdoor mask mandates. I also pointed out some deep flaws in the thinking of the party of science, such as the belief that anyone who has an opposite opinion needs to be censored, or that a burly, hairy, deep voiced, tall human being with a penis and testicles can be a woman.

Even on issues where the left or the right is "correct" irrationality still abounds. For example, I believe in climate change but it is likely that many leftists are wrong on the science of what is going to happen, and the severity. For example, 39% of Americans believe that climate change will lead to human extinction, and while I couldn't find the partisan breakdown, no doubt democrats are heavily represented in that 39% https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/340884-poll-39-percent-think-its-likely-climate-change-will-cause-human . I believe that the right is correct in their inclination to distrust organizations such as the CDC or the Biden administration, but I think their advice on the vaccine is correct. 

The only think I see coming out of this conversation is evidence that they ARE the same, that irrationality, partisan blindness, and wishful thinking predominates among human beings of all stripes. You can say the right is "worse"--obviously you feel that way, or else you would be on the right. That's fine. What isn't fine is the super smug high horse, "oh, we're the party of SCIENCE!" Uh-huh. 

The 2016 example would compare except for one huge problem… not one prominent voice on the left is claiming Russia messed with the vote tallies. This is is nothing more than misunderstandings of ignorant people who don’t follow politics closely and only read headlines. If any prominent Democrat or any prominent mainstream news host made this claim they would be immediately called out by the rest of their colleagues. That’s not remotely the case in the right.
I mean, prominent Democrats spent years proclaiming that Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia when they knew in reality that this did not happen: https://www.wsj.com/articles/all-the-adam-schiff-transcripts-11589326164 

No party is immune to dishonesty

Regarding masking in schools, you need to take your issue up with the CDC and the FDA. Again, this is not a comparable example. Even if they are wrong about this, we’re talking about whether both sides are equal in their disregard for inconvenient realities. You cannot seriously claim someone who is listening to the CDC is on par with someone who gets their vaccine information from Facebook.
It's the same because both of those things are wrong. I don't really care where the source of the misinformation comes from, the result is the same. The CDC, for what it's worth, would tell you never to eat a medium rare steak. Their job is to be incredibly over cautious.

As far as the outdoor masking mandate, do you have any current examples of this other than one governor in one state?
Sure, an outright majority of Democrats reject the CDC guidance that wearing a mask outdoor is not necessary: https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/553414-poll-plurality-voters-say-everyone-should-continue-to-wear

The life experience I was referring to was that of black people who grow up in black neighborhoods. The reason I brought that up was to emphasize that unlike you or I, their positions on these highly charged issues isn’t a product of googling statistics on their phone or computer. Black people don’t put exclamation points on videos of police violence because it suits their political ideology, they do it because it is what they have been telling us is happening in their neighborhoods for decades. That doesn’t mean they are right and everyone else wrong, it’s just a very different thing than claiming the entire scientific industry is in on a hoax because you read it somewhere on Brietbart. 
Sorry but unless you have strong evidence that the statistics are wrong, they are infinitely more valuable than "lived experience." Data > anecdote, always, always, always, ALWAYS. Nobody who denies this can claim to be the "party of science"

Do you have that much trouble understanding the left that you cannot find any other way to explain its prevalence other than through emotional attachment?

My political beliefs aren’t based on gratitude or trauma. I have no emotional vestment in the Democratic Party or the left nor do I regard it at all within my sense of identity. I align more with the left because the left is more aligned with reality. Show me I’m wrong and I will change my position. Is that simple.
Come on, now. We all have some irrationality in us. Don't pretend you aren't tribalistic, we all are. If it helps, we can talk about this privately. I really am asking the question in good faith. Trying to conclusively determine the origin of political affiliation is a subject I've been trying to crack for over a year now
#32
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@Greyparrot
The counter argument will always be that ~300 deaths out of 20 million kids is too much of a risk to allow 20 million kids to run around unmasked.

If 20 million masks can save 10 kids a year, then it's worth it!
Covid safetyism. However I don’t think the average person is aware of the statistics on just how little the virus effects children. Honestly we got extremely lucky with this one, a super flu probably would’ve ripped through children 
#33
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Covid safetyism. However I don’t think the average person is aware of the statistics on just how little the virus effects children. Honestly we got extremely lucky with this one, a super flu probably would’ve ripped through children 

CNN is out there daily talking about the kids at risk with "expert" commentary.
#34
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@thett3
The only think I see coming out of this conversation is evidence that they ARE the same, that irrationality, partisan blindness, and wishful thinking predominates among human beings of all stripes
This is a classic fallacy of composition. Just because you can identify flaws in both sides that are of the same category doesn’t make both sides the same, and if that’s how you insist on defining “the same” then it’s a useless term. That’s like arguing that the candy bar thief and the bank robber are the same because they both steal.

Again, none of your examples are comparable. None of them are driving left wing politics, and none of them would be defended any prominent left wing politician or left wing media figure. That is not even close to being the case regarding the examples I gave.

I also pointed out some deep flaws in the thinking of the party of science, such as the belief that anyone who has an opposite opinion needs to be censored, or that a burly, hairy, deep voiced, tall human being with a penis and testicles can be a woman.
Censorship has absolutely nothing to do with science, and both issues here are just flat out caricatures.

The left isn’t trying to censor “opposing viewpoints”, it’s trying to censor speech that leads to violence. Unfortunately, that type of speech is becoming prominent on the right. But again, nothing to do with science.

The left isn’t arguing that men become women because they say so, the left is arguing that one who chooses to identify as a woman should have their sense of identity respected.

Neither of these are difficult to understand.

I mean, prominent Democrats spent years proclaiming that Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia when they knew in reality that this did not happen
Donald Trump’s campaign chairman shared internal polling data with a Russian agent working directly for Putin.

Donald Trump Jr and every senior member of the campaign emphatically took a meeting with a Russian lawyer representing herself as an attorney working on behalf of “Russia and it’s support for Mr. Trump”.

The Trump campaign baked into its political strategy the capitalization of leaks provided to Wikileaks by Russia as a result of its hacking of the DNC in an effort to get Trump elected.

Forget the rest of the evidence, those three facts alone meet any reasonable definition of collusion. Republicans love to pretend there was no collision by relying on a cartoonish interpretation whereby the only sufficient evidence would be a recording of Trump sitting down with Putin taking direct orders. 

It's the same because both of those things are wrong. I don't really care where the source of the misinformation comes from, the result is the same. The CDC, for what it's worth, would tell you never to eat a medium rare steak. Their job is to be incredibly over cautious.
So in your view, following the CDC’s guidelines in the middle of a pandemic is the same as getting your health advice Tucker Carlson. Ok bro.

Come on, now. We all have some irrationality in us. Don't pretend you aren't tribalistic, we all are. If it helps, we can talk about this privately. I really am asking the question in good faith. Trying to conclusively determine the origin of political affiliation is a subject I've been trying to crack for over a year now
Never said I was perfect either, but I can tell you what matters to me and what my core principals are about. I despise tribalism and strive to rid myself of it anywhere I find it. I do that by focusing on logic first and building everything on top of that.

Objectivity and neutrality are not the same thing, so the question of where I end up is irrelevant to how I got here.
#35
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@949havoc
this is from the source you provided
A new study finds no serious evidence of a liberal (or conservative) bias with respect to replicability, quality or impact of research
your study is only about whether political biases change results.
it doesn't actually help your case.

#36
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@Double_R
This is a classic fallacy of composition. Just because you can identify flaws in both sides that are of the same category doesn’t make both sides the same, and if that’s how you insist on defining “the same” then it’s a useless term. That’s like arguing that the candy bar thief and the bank robber are the same because they both steal.

Again, none of your examples are comparable. None of them are driving left wing politics, and none of them would be defended any prominent left wing politician or left wing media figure. That is not even close to being the case regarding the examples I gave.
You're just asserting they aren't comparable lol. Why not? We've both given cases where there is an objective reality and one party seems to be on the wrong side of it. The "difference" just comes from how an individual values certain things. Narratives on police violence/racial justice and COVID-19 are very important to the left right now?? You're just kinda flailing here. 

Censorship has absolutely nothing to do with science, and both issues here are just flat out caricatures. The left isn’t trying to censor “opposing viewpoints”, it’s trying to censor speech that leads to violence. Unfortunately, that type of speech is becoming prominent on the right. But again, nothing to do with science.
The poll said nothing about violence, it talked about "misinformation" which....can mean anything. I mean, social media companies were banning people for talking about the possibility that COVID leaked from a lab, when we now know that this is a distinct possibility /: I don't like government censorship myself, and it worries me that 2/3rds of the party that is highly likely to win long term wants to suppress speech it doesn't like

It's absolutely wild to me that you can attribute political violence as coming exclusively or overwhelmingly from the right after a half decade of antifa violence against Trump supporters and the deadliest wave of riots in half a century last summer. No group is perfect--people are people.

Also, censorship has EVERYTHING to do with science. The scientific method REQUIRES challenge and dissent, no group that thinks people need to stfu and listen to what they are told can claim the mantle of science lol

Forget the rest of the evidence, those three facts alone meet any reasonable definition of collusion. Republicans love to pretend there was no collision by relying on a cartoonish interpretation whereby the only sufficient evidence would be a recording of Trump sitting down with Putin taking direct orders. 
Dude even Mueller said there was no collusion lol. But more importantly, you didn't read the article, which detailed several false statements from a prominent dem politician on the subject. Politicians are scum no matter what party

So in your view, following the CDC’s guidelines in the middle of a pandemic is the same as getting your health advice Tucker Carlson. Ok bro.
I have no idea what Tucker Carlson has said about outdoor mask mandates or forcing toddlers and small children to wear masks for eight hours a day, but if he is against those policies and the CDC is for them then yeah his advice would be better because those policies are objectively wrong. I gave you two really short articles that absolutely blow any arguments for them out of the water and you haven't said a single thing against them. Recall that majorities of democrats, the party of science, support both of those things

Never said I was perfect either, but I can tell you what matters to me and what my core principals are about. I despise tribalism and strive to rid myself of it anywhere I find it. I do that by focusing on logic first and building everything on top of that.
What are your core principles? What is your vision for America?
#37
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@Reece101
I have a personal anecdote about this as well. One of my best friends who is a very moderate conservative is currently getting his PhD in physics, but at this point he is highly likely to drop out and return to industry. Why? Because he just wants to study the hard sciences, but there is incredibly intense social pressure to declare fealty to liberalism. He’s said it is incredibly clear that people like him aren’t wanted there. Just one anecdote but there’s lots of evidence of how conservative academics are discriminated against, never given jobs, or socially ostracized. Why are academics so left leaning? Well, when you drive out anyone else…
#38
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@thett3
I have no idea what Tucker Carlson has said about outdoor mask mandates or forcing toddlers and small children to wear masks for eight hours a day, but if he is against those policies and the CDC is for them then yeah his advice would be better because those policies are objectively wrong. I gave you two really short articles that absolutely blow any arguments for them out of the water and you haven't said a single thing against them. Recall that majorities of democrats, the party of science, support both of those things

I think the reason its so political now is because keeping kids masked keeps the public from asking why their kids needed to stay home for a year.
#39
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@Greyparrot
I really hope that all of this leads to much needed reform in the school system. I’ve been against the American schooling system ever since I was a kid who realized I wasn’t really learning much other than how to regurgitate things on an exam. One of the most depressing statistics I’ve seen is that, to my surprise, teen suicide went DOWN in 2020. And no, it isn’t because people like lockdowns. School is just that traumatic for some people. Teen suicide rates also crash during the summer months and during Christmas break, in the dead of winter 
#40
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@Reece101
I’ve always wondered that. 
Because those who sponsor these scientists' research are overwhelmingly on the left.

#41
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@drlebronski
your study is only about whether political biases change results.
Not my study, and that study's result absolutely support my cSe, which is that there appears to be exactly as the study concluded:

A new study finds no serious evidence of a liberal (or conservative) bias with respect to replicability, quality or impact of research
That is precisely my point. It is you who appears swayed by an inconsequence oromagi mentioned that science is influenced by political right/left.
#42
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@thett3
You're just asserting they aren't comparable lol. Why not? We've both given cases where there is an objective reality and one party seems to be on the wrong side of it. The "difference" just comes from how an individual values certain things. 
I’ve already explained this, but I’ll try it another way… all of your criticisms of the left are based on a right wingers point of view. You keep asserting issues that are no where to be found on any prominent left wing news outlet and no where to be found in any significant left wing effort regarding policy. These are issues that the right wing talks about day in and day out only because they need something, anything, to slander the other side in order to stay formidable politically.

The best example you’ve came up with in this entire conversation are police shootings. Yet the disparity you’re pointing to is about statistics, which both sides get wrong because almost no one pays attention to statistics on eitger side, so your comparison is already problematic. But more importantly you’re cherry picking one small piece of a much larger issue where there is much disagreement on the left. New York City, one of the most liberal places in the country just elected a pro police former police officer as their next mayor.

So yes, values are an important thing here. What you need to do is look at what the left actually values. The way that you have cartoonishly misrepresented many of the left’s positions suggests to me that you’re not trying very hard to do that.

The poll said nothing about violence, it talked about "misinformation" which....can mean anything.
Ok, let me clarify my statement. The left generally supports censoring speech that is a threat to public safety. It doesn’t have to be someone throwing fists.

It's absolutely wild to me that you can attribute political violence as coming exclusively or overwhelmingly from the right after a half decade of antifa violence against Trump supporters and the deadliest wave of riots in half a century last summer. No group is perfect--people are people.
You are either not being serious or not being honest. No one on the left gives a cramp crap about Antifa and the left overwhelming disproves of the violence we saw at the summer rallies last year, but like everyone else on the right you just tie it to “the left” and then claim the left is for violence. Should I start talking about what the proud boys have done and proclaim them as valid representation of “the right”?

Also, censorship has EVERYTHING to do with science. The scientific method REQUIRES challenge and dissent, no group that thinks people need to stfu and listen to what they are told can claim the mantle of science lol
Complete nonsense. We’re not talking about topics worthy of respectable debate. This isn’t about tax policy, or whether regulations have gone too far. We’re talking about people using platforms to convince people they should attack the US Capitol, or spread lies about vaccines that are objectively saving lives by the thousands in the middle of a pandemic. It never ceases to amaze me that people like yourself can’t tell the difference.

If you want to dispute the science, then perform actual controlled experiments, and put your work out there for peers to review. That’s science. Not idiots on Facebook spreading articles about vaccines being microchipped by Bill Gates.

Dude even Mueller said there was no collusion lol
My god dude, you really need to pay attention to the things you are basing your opinions on.

Mueller never said there was no collusion. You know why? Because collusion is not a legal term. It had nothing to do with his investigation.  Mueller was investigating conspiracy, an entirely different charge. And regarding that, let’s look at what he actually said;

“a statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”

And when it came to the subject of collusion;

“investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

This is what the left is actually talking about. 

And yes, I’m sure you can dig up plenty of false statements made by left wing politicians on this subject just like any other. So what? Can you show me one that is actually fueling or was fueling left wing politics at any recent point?

but if he is against those policies and the CDC is for them then yeah his advice would be better because those policies are objectively wrong. I gave you two really short articles that absolutely blow any arguments for them out of the water and you haven't said a single thing against them.
Because I’m not interested in being dragged down the rabbit hole of a debate that neither of us knows anything about. You keep saying that the science on masking shows it doesn’t work. That’s really funny because doctors and scientists seem to overwhelmingly disagree with you. The CDC and the FDA disagree with you.

My first question to you is why do you believe the authors of your articles know better than them?

My second question and more importantly to this thread is; How on earth is following the guidelines set by the institutions that were literally created to advise us on these issues comparable to any of the three main examples I gave you?

What are your core principles? What is your vision for America?
Reason, fairness and equality,  the minimization of harm. I would say that’s about it, every other basic idea I could think of really comes from that.

I was about to write a whole speech on my views about government and where the right and left diverge but I’m out of time and that’s really a whole other subject. If you want to start another thread or I might even start one soon when I have the time we can discuss the rest there.
#43
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@Double_R
I’ve already explained this, but I’ll try it another way… all of your criticisms of the left are based on a right wingers point of view. You keep asserting issues that are no where to be found on any prominent left wing news outlet and no where to be found in any significant left wing effort regarding policy. These are issues that the right wing talks about day in and day out only because they need something, anything, to slander the other side in order to stay formidable politically.
All of your opinions are from a left wing point of view. I don’t see many republican politicians saying people shouldn’t get vaccinated and other than Trump I don’t see anyone talking about the election being stolen. Too many Republican politicians do deny climate change so I’ll grant you that one sadly, but it does seem to be fading a bit and it’s hardly a fundamental aspect of conservative advocacy, and the catastrophic narrative seen too often on the left is not exactly rational either. Both sides are chalk full of irrationality and it’s really funny how you won’t admit that. Last time the Democrats lost an election the majority also thought it was stolen…the country is just super polarized now, that’s just probably going to be the reality from now on 

Also regarding climate change Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to oppose nuclear power which is the only realistic way to get away from fissile fuels. Nobody knows anything! 

“Overall, the survey found that more U.S. adults oppose increasing the number of nuclear facilities in the United States than support doing so, 45 percent to 32 percent. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to favor expanding the use of nuclear energy in the country, at 46 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Twenty-eight percent of independents backed its expansion”


The best example you’ve came up with in this entire conversation are police shootings. Yet the disparity you’re pointing to is about statistics, which both sides get wrong because almost no one pays attention to statistics on eitger side, so your comparison is already problematic.
A super majority, 80%, of conservatives got the correct answer /: 

Ok, let me clarify my statement. The left generally supports censoring speech that is a threat to public safety. It doesn’t have to be someone throwing fists.
We already have exceptions for free speech when it comes to inciting or threatening violence, slander/libel, or threats to public safety, yelling “fire” in a crowded theater being the classic example. And we have had these for an extremely long time, so the leftist move towards censorship is coming from something new. Do you really think the government should be banning debates over lockdowns, the efficacy of certain kinds of masks, or the origin of the virus? That’s science lol

No one on the left gives a cramp crap about Antifa and the left overwhelming disproves of the violence we saw at the summer rallies last year, but like everyone else on the right you just tie it to “the left” and then claim the left is for violence.

Support for political violence is about the same among both sides (https://www.statista.com/chart/23124/political-violence/) and the left has more institutional power so antifa/leftist agitators gets away with a lot more than the equivalent on the right. That’s a topic for another day though. My point is that no side is innocent, contrary to what you claim 

Because I’m not interested in being dragged down the rabbit hole of a debate that neither of us knows anything about. You keep saying that the science on masking shows it doesn’t work. That’s really funny because doctors and scientists seem to overwhelmingly disagree with you. The CDC and the FDA disagree with you
If you aren’t willing to be exposed to new information you are on the wrong website. The evidence is robust enough to be conclusive when it comes to outdoor mask mandates or masking toddlers. I couldn’t care less who agrees or disagrees, if you can present evidence that isn’t “so and so says so” I’ll be willing to consider it and possibly change my mind 

My first question to you is why do you believe the authors of your articles know better than them?
Because I’ve read the information from both sides and one side clearly has the evidence that is far more compelling. Is your position as someone who claims the mantle of striving for truth really that I need to shut the fuck up and listen to what I’m told, if an authority figure says something it’s automatically right? Please. 


#44
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@Double_R
Here is another example where Republicans have views objectively closer to reality than Democrats: 

26% of Republicans got the correct answer regarding covid hospitalization risk which is 1-5%, compared with 10% of Democrats. 41% of Democrats thought the risk was greater than 50% compared to 28% of republicans. as you can see, neither side did that well. There is plenty of irrationality to go around even among the party of science 



Also, do you think I should face legal consequences for disagreeing with the CDC on masking toddlers?
#45
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@thett3
Also, do you think I should face legal consequences for disagreeing with the CDC on masking toddlers?
Interestingly enough, most of the rest of the world isn't politicizing the child mask issue. This seems to be a uniquely American/Democrat problem.


If you read deeper into that article, it also says what anyone who has been researching this that Ventilation is hundreds of times more effective than masks as evidenced by the low outdoor transmission rates as well as the insanely low rates on planes with top down ventilation. Instead of masking kids, EU schools are installing top down ventilation to keep the virus from lingering 3-6 feet in the air.

Too bad our country is so blinded by partisanship.
#46
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@Greyparrot
Yeah that was also in the article I sent him. The authoritarian view of knowledge is so alien to me. I understand defaulting to recommendations at first, but when there is extremely compelling evidence in the other direction you aren’t supposed to consider it?

#47
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@thett3
I mean, their entire argument is that the WHO and CDC say there is SOME benefit to masking kids. It's up to the countries to decide if it's worth it, not the CDC.
#48
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@thett3
Look at this article by the CDC.

Notice how extremely misleading it is by suggesting without actually saying it that ventilation is ON PAR with child masks. Clearly the evidence suggests ventilation is monumentally a greater factor, but is casually omitted in the CDC article. This is a trustworthy source???
#49
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@Greyparrot
For decades the expert consensus was against the theory of plate tectonics. Expert consensus can be wrong especially in an ongoing or politically charged situation. 


#50
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Intelligence and compassion are not synonymous.
#51
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@thett3
Well yeah, which is why if it's authoritative consensus, it aint science. Every actual scientist knows this.


"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had."

"Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period."

#52
thett3
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@Greyparrot
Miss him so much. The man was an intellectual and physical giant. You’ll enjoy this clip from him: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_g1fMs51gZk
#53
Greyparrot
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@thett3
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it were revealed that the teachers union funded or coerced the CDC through Democrat proxies.


No sane parent should trust a union FOR TEACHERS to make health decisions for their child.
#54
Dr.Franklin
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scientists can be bought like politicans
#55
Athias
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@Greyparrot
Well stated--all of it.
#56
Double_R
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Both sides are chalk full of irrationality and it’s really funny how you won’t admit that.
What are you talking about? I don’t engage in this point because that’s not the topic of our conversation. This is something I notice you do nearly every time we get into a long back and forth - you slowly drift away from the topic and respond to my points as if I made them in a vacuum. I didn’t. Context matters.

We’re talking about why the left is not equal to the right with regards to valuing reality, so pointing out examples of the left being irrational on its own does nothing to make your case. You need to show how it compares in order to be saying anything meaningful at all.

You say the issues I brought up are not driving Republican politics. Really? Despite being one of the most conservative members of the house, Liz Cheney lost her leadership position because she wouldn’t go along with Trump’s big lie, republicans all over the country have been formally censured for it, Ron Johnson was just recently booed at a Trump rally for telling the crowd it’s time to focus on 2022 and 2024, and for months coverage of this has dominated right wing news and talk radio. And then there’s the peak of it’s danger and reach on Jan 6th. To say this isn’t or at least hasn’t been central to right wing politics is absurd.

As is your attempt to equivocate the left and right on the issue of accepting the results of an election. After 2016 many on the left declared Trump illegitimate in the sense that he won by willingly and emphatically accepting the help of the Russian government. That however was a question of moral legitimacy, not factual legitimacy. “Not my president”, and “Not the president” are completely different things. What you never saw on the left was an attempt to claim that Trump didn’t really receive the needed votes, and that the only reason he won was because of some nationwide multi-state conspiracy between state elections boards, individual counties, and federal courts - all of which required the cooperation of life long republicans. These are not the same.

Regarding science, you are missing the forest for the trees. You can think you know better than the CDC on masking all you want, the fact is that the pattern is clear… every time a matter of science becomes a part of intense political debate it’s always the right that goes against the established consensus. Whether we’re talking about masking, vaccines, climate change, etc. The right is proudly anti-elite, so I have no idea how you would expect any other result.

And if we’re digging for more examples, how about birtherism? You literally had prominent Republican politicians who would not say that the president was born in the United States because they feared the backlash of their own base. Again, no equivalent to this on the left.

But I would actually argue that the single biggest point which proves my case is the very fact that the right actually got Donald Trump elected president. Yes, Donald Trump. A man who, among so many faults I don’t have the time or space to dig into, was an absolute pathological liar to a degree we have never seen in American politics. The man lies so much we’ve all learned to stop asking what he’s talking about because by this point we all understand he doesn’t even know, he just makes shit up on the spot cause it sounds good.

So I’ll ask once again… if you really think both sides are the same, show me the equivalent on the left of a Donald Trump. Show me the equivalent on the left of “the election was stolen”. Show me the equivalent on the left of “the president wasn’t born in the United States”. I’m not asking for things the left says that make you feel upset or facts you cherry picked that most liberals never even heard of or don’t give a crap about, I am asking for examples of issues driving left wing politics that flat out ignore reality and/or create a new one out of political convenience. I’m asking for examples of clear established facts that left wing politicians have to dance around or pretend not to understand the question because they know that if they tell the truth their base will revolt.


#57
Double_R
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@Greyparrot
Well yeah, which is why if it's authoritative consensus, it aint science. Every actual scientist knows this.
Hypothetical scenario; You are having serious chest pains. You go to 10 doctors to get looked at. 9 of them tell you that you need surgery. 1 of them tells you it’s not serious and prescribes you medication.

Question: What do you think is most reasonable to believe?
#58
Athias
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@Double_R
Hypothetical scenario; You are having serious chest pains. You go to 10 doctors to get looked at. 9 of them tell you that you need surgery. 1 of them tells you it’s not serious and prescribes you medication.

Question: What do you think is most reasonable to believe?
Whoever is right. Nine out of 10 doctors telling you, "you need surgery," informs veracity no more than nine out 10 friends telling you, "you'd be unharmed if you stabbed yourself in the eye." Argumentum ad populum is fallacious.

Topic's author
#59
Reece101
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@Athias
How is 9 doctors telling you that you need surgery indistinguishable from 9 friends telling you that you won’t be harmed if you stab yourself in the eye?

Are you saying its better to self-diagnose when it comes to serious health problems? Let’s run your logic to its conclusion. 
#60
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The whole point of agency is to make it clear that risk assessment isn't just an optional adaptive mechanism of evolution. It's necessary. When you put your own personal risk assessment in the hands of authority consensus, you won't be likely to pass your genes on. That's nature.