Is it a bad idea to broadly tell people to just "trust the science"? I think so.
The reason stems from my thinking that all of the following are important and true (and too often overlooked) regarding science:
1) A lot of science is real AND valuable to society.
2) A lot of "science" is actually fake - see, for instance, a decent percentage of papers in psychology 15 years ago.
3) "Science" (as an approach to knowledge discovery) is one of humanity's greatest inventions - but in pra...
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nuanced thinking
What’s helpful and what’s unhelpful about postmodernism, critical theory, and their current intellectual offshoots?
More often than not, I find that postmodernist thought obscures rather than illuminates. But I also see useful elements in it. Here's my very un-postmodern attempt to "steel man" (i.e., find the value in) ideas related to postmodernism:
1. Narratives Serve Power - powerful groups do tend to have a substantial influence on narratives, beliefs, and what's "normal." Something "obvious" or "objective" or "a fact" may just (invisibly) be a part of the narrative you're immersed in and sub...
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