Are We Winning the War Against Each Other?

I agree about the problem with Natural News and of course pseudo-science is a big problem. There's got to be a way to discuss, refute things like this without attacking individual people, right?  I have seen so much hatred going back and forth between people lately about this stuff, it definitely seems anti-productive. Do we really want to create (or perpetuate) an environment of shaming people for being wrong? Attacking people rather than ideas, drawing battle lines,  seems the least likely way to move society forward (assuming that is the most important goal).




Here is a recent post on, of all places, the Terence Mckenna group page on Face book, on Feb 14, 2015. The tread proceeded to spiral into 100+comments of hatred coming from both "sides" of the issue, as it always seems to.

Here is my comment:

"It is pretty funny. I have never seen this issue talked about rationally, with out hate. The emotional immaturity of many people who claim to stand up for science is pretty depressing. Science is something that I am actually very passionate about. The only thing you are accomplishing by calling people idiots is to turn them even further from science. You might think that you are sticking up for science, but you are only making it look invalid by being so petty. If something is true, it does not need you, the novice foot-soldier, to protect it. 

This is the behavior of extremist religions, who, standing on shaky ground, violently, defensively protecting their mythology. This is because their beliefs are incredibly weak and vulnerable, thus needing constant protection from anyone who might question. Science is not like that. It is not weak and it is not a mythology, therefore, it does not need you to protect it with infantile behavior.

You do more harm to science than good by acting like a child. Have scientists asked for your help in defending their work? I doubt they would have anything to do with a person who advocates fascist dictators rounding up the scientifically skeptical or illiterate into camps. Science itself was actually a rebellion from the dogma and witch hunt, Seth. 

When I see behavior like this I begin to think that someone has been planted into the group in order to distract and sow conflict, possibly to further separate people from any trust in the scientific community. The recent Snowden Leaks show that agents have been doing exactly this kind of thing on social media sites since at least 2008. It is a very effective tactic to support the status quo; encourage people in a community to fight against themselves, bring the level of anger and hatred up as high as possible. People will forever fight amongst themselves rather than exchange meaningful information and engage in critical thought on topics which matter. This is also similar to the purpose of "hate week", to borrow from Orwell' playbook." -NAC