I’ve long had a list in my phone I call the “Dunning-Kruger List.” It’s a list of pop-sci arguments I see over and over and over and over again from people with poor science education: Creationists, homeopaths, and so on, all of which are based on a deep misunderstanding of science.
I’m not sure where these pop-sci ideas come from, but they’re all totally, completely 100% wrong, as in the opposite of true. Generally, hearing any of these in a conversation, especially in the Internet, instantly activates my “you’ve never seen the inside of a university science classroom, so you’re so far up Mount Dunning-Kruger it’s not worth the effort it would take to talk you down from its icy slopes.” So that that point my eyes glaze and I route everything further they say directly into my intellectual /dev/null.
This morning, I saw this on Quora:
Since this is officially the 17,000th time I’ve seen a Creationist make this argument, I decided it was time to Do Something.
So I made a thing.
OK, good, but the middle of the last two rows is the same.
Some other suggestions:
• Vaccines lead to Autism
• Nuclear power is less safe
• Transgender = gender dysphoria
• There are more people alive now than have ever lived
• Microwaves caused higher cancer rates
• The “dark” side of the moon
• Humans will die out without bee pollination
• Purposeful evolution: worse –> better, simple –> complex
• Left/Right brain thinking
You are correct! Fixed, thanks!
I haven’t seen the inside of a college science classroom since Biology 101 my freshman year (1993), and I can still debunk more than half these inanities without even trying.
I encountered my own WHAT??? moment recently.. I listened to someone who is against abortion (okay, that’s fine) but the reasons? Abortion destroys babies and causes them pain, so they can be ripped apart and the stem cells used to grow parts for rich people so they don’t get old. Not only do we get religious junk, but also a total lack of science knowledge. I am still parsing this.
Just so you know, I’ve recently be home Catholic, yes I admit I used to believe creation science.
That said the Catholic church rejects creation science, because it isn’t science.
I’m not well versed in biology (it was my least favorite science subjects, I studied geology), but I can see most of what creation science says is completely made up. This isn’t helped by the fact that those who believe in such things also have poor theological foundations, not to mention they often have poor characters.