Pseudoscience and quackery

[Comrade #138672]

How should socialists view and deal with pseudoscience and quackery? What can we learn from the various charlatans, conspiracy theorists and (mostly religious) anti-science movements? What is their connection to each other, and what is their connection to the reactionary Right? Most importantly, what social forces support them?

Examples: germ theory denialism, vaccination myths, conspiracy theories, Intelligent Design, global warming denialism.

Also, I would like to know how socialists have historically dealt with these issues.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

How should socialists view and deal with pseudoscience and quackery? What can we learn from the various charlatans, conspiracy theorists and (mostly religious) anti-science movements? What is their connection to each other, and what is their connection to the reactionary Right? Most importantly, what social forces support them?

Examples: germ theory denialism, vaccination myths, conspiracy theories, Intelligent Design, global warming denialism.

Also, I would like to know how socialists have historically dealt with these issues.

I think what's crucial, in confronting these things effectively, is framing these things precisely in terms of, to run with your words, "social forces". Part of this means, for me, not falling back on capital-S "Science", with its roots firmly grounded in liberal ideology.
What we need to confront is not a healthy skepticism vis-a-vis "Science" and its deep material relationship to capital - but the particular and reactionary forms this takes when it simply reinscribes existing dichotomies - when it simply misses the point.
Conspiracy theories are an excellent example, because - unlike questions concerning much-cherished "Science" - the answer is obviously easier to grasp for many Marxists. One doesn't respond to "Teh Illuminati necessitate tinfoil hats to block teh mind control rays!!!!111!!!" by appealing to existing bourgeois democracy and liberal capitalism. Obviously, there is very real reason to come to the conclusion that the existing system of political representation is farce, and primarily serves to obscure the defining relationships of our society - conspiracy theorists simply fail to locate it by searching for the "secret" truth, rather than confronting the reality that is right before their eyes (ie the re/production of the system at the level of its banal everyday activity).
It seems to me that this is the key. Rather than appealing to another "THE ANSWER!!!", it is the job of Marxists to compel people to face with sober senses the real conditions of life, and relations with their kind. This task means not presenting another ideological chimera ("scientific" or otherwise) for people to cling to, but rather sweeping them away.

[Creative Destruction]

How should socialists view and deal with pseudoscience and quackery? What can we learn from the various charlatans, conspiracy theorists and (mostly religious) anti-science movements? What is their connection to each other, and what is their connection to the reactionary Right? Most importantly, what social forces support them?

Examples: germ theory denialism, vaccination myths, conspiracy theories, Intelligent Design, global warming denialism.

Also, I would like to know how socialists have historically dealt with these issues.

Well, take vaccination myths, for example. This is a pretty even split between conservatives and liberals who are anti-vaccination, but the camps are differing in their reasons. Many conservatives feel that vaccinations are safe, but they don't want the government to "force" you to take them. Meanwhile, the liberal anti-vaxxers have grave concerns about the science and some think it is a sort of big Pharma plot to harm kids while they make profits off of it.

Against what TGDU said, there is a place here in actually going to the scientific research and seeing what is said by people who are actually studying these phenomenons. "Science" does cut both ways; there are plenty of examples where the process has been co-opted by business and government, in service of bourgeois ideology. That issue itself does not necessarily discredit the research -- you still have to look at it on its own terms for validity -- but past fuck-ups seem to have instilled a, not all together unwarranted, skepticism of science and scientists.

Even so, it's clear that you can't just appeal to people's experience on these issues. Doing that would even hurt when trying to confront these issues, because these folks are already basing their beliefs off what their experience is, and telling them to "look behind the curtain" so to speak, when in their minds they've already pulled it down and are themselves exposing it for all to see, is only going to hurt.

Take global warming, for example: many of the deniers or "skeptics" or whatever really do not believe it exists, because it's a ploy on the part of X for more money and power. What's interesting here is that they're actually more willing to believe the corporate-bought scientists, who make hundreds of thousands of dollar from a corporation, than scientists who have to fight tooth and nail just to get more funding for their research, regardless of whatever outcomes the research produces. That's the primary social force that is pulling on this debate. If we appealed to people's experiences, then we get answers like "Oh, well, it's just a cycle." or "Well, it's snowing here. Where's all that global warming, harumph?!" It's folks who don't understand climate or climatology. They're mistaking short-term weather events for what is actually happening as a general trend.

If I can go on a tangent for a second: interestingly, there's an analogy there for one of Marx's most hotly contested theories: the tedential falling rate of profit. David Harvey released a paper a while ago that said something to the effect that the falling rate of profit is difficult to talk to people about because it doesn't show itself as a part of their daily lives, which he provided as reasoning for being skeptical about teaching it at all, aside from the ideological issues he has with it. Just as well, it is difficult to talk to people about climate change for the same reason. People can look at the data and what not, but they're only going to take from it what their own experiences allow them to. If you've experienced actual rising sea levels, or if you're a scientist studying ice cores in the arctic, then you're probably more apt to believe that global warming is happening. On the other hand, when your area is getting pummeled with unseasonably cold temperatures and off-the-charts amounts of snowfall, then you'll probably be more apt to deny it's going on, and might even posit that the opposite is happening. In both instances, we have the data to back up the contentions. But appealing to people's experiences -- right now, as they see it -- leads only to disastrous conclusions. I don't know if this is a consequence of human psychology or the effect of the dominant ideology that only allows us to see our own experiences as paramount importance, to the detriment of all available evidence.

"Science" itself can be turned into an ideology, but that's not necessarily reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Far from the idea that we need to be teaching ridiculous atheistic devotion to scientism, there is a balance that must be struck. And we need to get beyond the point where people see themselves and their place in the world as unique. Of course, that, itself, can be a function of ideology, as well, that needs to be "swept away," as it were. I will say, with perhaps admitted bias, that the latter is more a dangerous thing that needs to be addressed, rather than the former.

How should socialists deal with it? Who knows. Short of proposing revolution, there's probably not much else that can be done, as long as we're trapped in a system that places high value on individualist thought and opinion, even when it's contrary to all established evidence. Parents who think they know better than virologists and epidemiologists; conservative politicians who think they know better than climatologists; 9/11 troofers who think they know better than the noncontroversial laws of physics. The common thread there is that the emphasis on the individual to go against "the crowd," as if the individual thought is always within the realm of reason.

eta. It should be noted that the left and socialists aren't immune to this crap. You can see this everytime, as a local example, ckhaitsu posts one of his ridiculous, pseudo-scientific homeopathy posts. Or when Andrew Cockburn would, time and again, fall in with the right in denying that global warming was going on, etc.

[Rafiq]

The militant opposition to all forms of superstition, spiritualism, and all externalizations of the antagonisms of capitalism into the domain of the metaphysical is by nature integral to Communism as a force, an adamant re-affirmation of the legacy of the enlightenment, politicizing it with revolutionary vitality. Any and all problems we as Communists have with the altars of bourgeois rationalism can only be problems which pre-suppose its merits. Meaning, we do not oppose even the science which reproduces the conditions of capitalism if the dichotomy is grounded against degenerate forms of reason. Surely, the lesson of Lenin and Marx before him is rather simple: Science cannot threaten us, only the (false) integration of scientific work as a means of legitimizing an ideological constellation can obfuscate truth. Not only is there no need to reconcile Communism with science, Communism ideologically opens up space which renders the last domain of the sacred - the social - to scientific methodology. So much so to the point where Communism is the only ideology which cannot abide by any scientific paradigm consistently as far as inter-subjective perception goes (I.e. Other ideologies are subject to scientific qualification ONLY by Communists). It is the duty of Communists to recognize the necessity of repelling degenerate ideologues from the domain of the sciences, most especially quantum mechanics.

There is a difference between being distrustful of outright nonsense and politicizing the implications of scientific findings. Take for example new age science - it pretenses to be "scientific" but upon examination of their alleged science, it outright lies, twists facts and so on, purposefully depending on the ignorance of the audience. It is PRECISELY here where the Left should be - the demographic amounts to the ignorant, the miserable and the uneducated - to instill into them scientific discipline is to weaponize them, it is to democratize science insofar as it loses its character as an unfathomable entity and becomes a vehicle of struggle. It should be taken as axiomatic that the scientific community is not "consciously" attempting to suppress truth, that if an extraordinary claim is made that is empirically testable, it is going to peak their interests by default. At the same time, it's also important to thoroughly analyze the practices and studies of "legitimate" scientists - it is never enough to have a big name behind something, and we all know how the media, and how reactionary opportunists like to back up their nonsense with pretenses to big names (Einstein agreed with me!). The task of the Communists is to transform science from a hierarchy of legitimizing truth, a symbolic order of which we are all too unqualified to participate in - into a mass cult of revolutionary vitality.

[cyu]

If a starving man "steals" bread, it isn't because he's immoral, it's because he's trying to survive. If business people don't like to see homeless people sleeping in the park, making it illegal to sleep in the park isn't going to help. If the starving man had food, he wouldn't need to steal it. If the homeless man had a home, he wouldn't need to sleep in the park. Remove the underlying motivation, and behavior changes.

The same applies to corporate malfeasance. People in the oil industry don't want to lose their jobs, they don't want their careers to end. People in the military don't want to have to explain every year why they still need funding. If capitalism didn't force unemployed people into shame and poverty, then we'd be able to get rid of useless jobs once and for all. Until then, we'll have fake scientists telling us that smoking doesn't cause cancer, the NSA digging up dirt on Congress to ensure they get funding, and the useless, continuous environmental depletion of planned obsolescence.

[Red Commissar]

I don't know if we can deal with it on the right if we have undercurrents of it within the left as well. As an example, I think there is a disconnect in the way most scientists view GMOs compared to what you'd get if you asked those on the left about the matter in much the same way when people are polled over vaccination or evolution and where they form their beliefs on those topics from.

That being said, I think of all the issues going on right now the most damaging is climate change denial, as it has some clear ramifications in how states are conducting themselves and how corporations are continuing their activities to the detriment of others, especially in the long-run.

How do you deal with that though? Distrust of scientists is part of a populist trend- scientists are seen alternatively either as shills for the government and/or a corporation, or worse simply making shit up to justify funding, and I think once you get that in your head it's easier to disregard what a scientist or the field says on a matter when it is convenient for your world view to do so.

A good example of the later is that while there are many the corporations and political groups that deny climate change, they are also likely those who have no problem with geology and chemistry when it involves more efficient resource extraction.

I'm not really sure if there is a way to address this in a way that doesn't involve handwaving it as being resolved after the revolution.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't know if we can deal with it on the right if we have undercurrents of it within the left as well. As an example, I think there is a disconnect in the way most scientists view GMOs compared to what you'd get if you asked those on the left about the matter in much the same way when people are polled over vaccination or evolution and where they form their beliefs on those topics from.

GMOs, nuclear power, fluid mechanics... "the left", that ill-defined blob that apparently includes everything from Marxism to Renzi and Kirchner, is no stranger to crank positions when it comes to science. A significant source of this is a kind of rhetorical sleight of hand - science takes place in capitalist society (you don't say), therefore it is capitalist. And no one bats an eye at the fact that this is usually "pointed out" by highly-paid humanities professors (obviously Irigaray is prole as all arseholes).

Now, obviously there are ostensibly "scientific" positions that are expressions of bourgeois ideology. But these can be criticised, not just on political grounds, but on scientific ones as well. If phrenology, evo-psych and sluggishly progressing schizophrenia were scientifically sound theories, the cultural critic of science might have a point. But they're not. They're rubbish theories even if we ignore their political context. Science was able to serve the bourgeoisie precisely because it reflects, not their class interest, but (to a greater or lesser degree) the objective material world that our actions happen in.

This was when the productive forces could be developed further by the bourgeoisie. But now they are over-developed: any further development exacerbates the contradiction between the development of the productive forces and private ownership. The bourgeoisie does not need new scientific developments - in fact it has reason to fear them. It will get more out of investing in organic farming, GMO free Himalayan pink salt and similar scams, and hoping that some war knocks back the productive forces to a more manageable state. And scientific consciousness is dangerous for a bourgeoisie whose historical project is so bankrupt it has to cloak itself in religion, ethics and other forms of mysticism. So there has been an explosion of anti-scientific sentiment in the recent decades.

[cyu]

https://www.quotespick.com/images/quotes/english/karl-marx/the_ruling_ideas_of_each-615-185.jpg

Any ideas that contribute or can be used by the ruling class, will be promoted. If they work against the ruling class, they will be denigrated. Doesn't matter if the ideas are scientific, religious, or irrelevant.