Political Pseudoscience (2015-04-01)
Strong political views do not make good viewfinders when it comes to examining evidence. Many right wing views on science are obviously wildly distorted, with creationism and global climate change denial being obvious examples. But the left also can be shown to need new glasses—or at least to need to take their blinders off. Here are three examples of where science has given us powerful and useful tools, yet many ‘right thinking’ and ‘left leaning’ people have a knee-jerk aversion to objectively examining the evidence.
THAT DIABOLICAL NUCLEAR ENERGY
Don’t even suggest that it may not be a useful source of relatively clean energy. Sure, there are better sources, but there are worse ones—the current ones.
THAT DIABOLICAL GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD
Who would want to eat “Frankenfood”? A lot of people. It beats not having anything to eat at all, a problem in a lot of third world countries.
THAT DIABOLICAL VACCINATION
No qualifications here. The opposition to vaccination is frightening. It’s ‘unnatural’ to inject a foreign agent into our bodies. It’s bad enough that fluoridated municipal water and iodized salt sneak ‘chemicals’ into our bodies. Infectious disease, tooth decay, and goitre are definitely more ‘natural’. Right?
http://www.skepdic.com/antivaccination.html
The above is reprinted from my July 12, 2015 posting on my “Your Man Friday’s Ideas” blog.
