My homeschooling, flat earth believing, anti vax mother never taught me science. She said I would never be a scientist so that was enough reason for her.

Yeah, we're not talking about people with expensive degrees. The earth is not flat, and mcgyver is not an elitist. These things should be obvious with a high school level of education.

I never had money or a science degree. I just watched Cosmos as a kid, devoured documentaries, and read articles on wikipedia all day.

The problem is not and has not been science. The problem is messaging.

Yes, but the actual factor driving this is the meteoric rise of the top 1% richest, it is wealth inequality that creates a coherence to misinformation by establishing systematic incentives. There have always been nebulous, destructive, cancer like forces of misinformation, it is as human as human can be but we aren't really fighting to transcend the pitfalls our own nature, we are fighting to get on the same page about the rich fucking us all over by artificially supercharging these tendencies within us for their own gain.

It is irrational to just see this as an abstract conversation about the human brain's susceptibility to misinformation as it ignores the costly material operation being undertaken to manipulate us with said misinformation.

I have to agree about the too good in their effectiveness. To get to a point where people are just like, “Nah, it ain’t a big deal” is built atop the millions of dead.

Once I was doubting the need for higher levels of mathematics. Now as an engineer I realize the utility of this knowledge.

What made my change my mind? Well it's definitely not my intelligence nor my age, it's the practical application of that theory which got me here. Reading in between the lines can only happen if you like what you're doing.

Students. Students make them that way. It's no coincidence that most older teachers feel like they've checked out.

I did substitute teaching for about two years. I got to see a lot of my old teachers, Some classes were wonderful, a true joy to teach. Others, not so much. I can understand why some people, as you say, mentally check out. It's a coping mechanism. They were not all the same people I remember. Maybe part of growing older. Maybe part of years of difficult students sucking out all the joy of teaching they had in them

This is an important comment. We do not teach science on high schools , we stream students to science if they are self directed, then everyone else takes bullshit courses for an easy grade, these days acheived with LLMs.

Singling out a random group of people to fuck over “for educational purposes” doesn't seem like a humane idea...

Sadly, there is no amount of in-their-face proof to overcome the "I do my own research" mentality.

And the original meme here misses the most important piece - they lack the basic concept of logic to understand how cause and effect relate to each other. So showing them A vs B won't get them to the results you expect - even though it should.

A bit of philosophy/media would help as well, it doesn't help to teach someone science, if they don't understand what science is.

To your point, I've met quite a few STEM educated people who fall for this type of misinformation due to lack of historical and political literacy.

Quite a few are also quite disrespectful to the humanities so they tend to be empathetically underdeveloped since they feel their whole life is about producing results and making progress at any cost necessary.

Appeal to emotions, rather than logic, and if you pull the right lever, that person will get a bias confirmation, feel smarter for knowing something everyone else doesn't and in some cases, feel less insecure for not knowing enough.

I've met people that have a degree or that are even teaching and have the worst baseless believes. It's only a matter of getting to your levers.

It doesn't help that there is way too much shitty, agenda-funded science today. And science we aren't supposed to question. And science driven entirely by profit. Like, isn't questioning science part of science? Of course the response is completely unreasonable too. All of my family are research scientists, and if a discovery doesn't meet capitalistic goals, is it even a discovery at this point?

Sure, but a fundamental understanding of the basics, across all disciplines (science , history, literature, and math) helps one spot bullshit from a mile away. Science especially helps apply math and critical thinking.

I would argue the latter is a good way to learn the former

How do you determine they are "nonsensical conspiracies"?

Could it be media induces in us a belief that we think ourselves "media competent", such that we begin to presume to know, without scrutiny?

... Certainly used to be my job, when I worked in advertising. Easier to induce in people, than to undo.

Few seem of a Socratic bent, such as "All I know is I know nothing. And sometimes I forget even that much.", preferring instead the feels of believing themselves smart and wise, not confronting the horror of how readily manipulated they are. ... Sorry for my part, doing that to everybody who saw the adverts and corporate branding I made when I was "just doing my job". Had I stayed in the industry, I dread to think what I'd be doing now with the power at the advertiser's/marketer's/propagandist's disposal, able to cold read smart phone users, 24/7.

I used to do it. And I'm not self deluded enough to think even my level of media awareness is in any way adequate a protection against it.

But having said that... Yes, better media awareness(/"competence"), than "a doctors degree". Having a doctorate makes sure you were obedient enough to get through the system, and makes you a special influencer target for such manipulations. Always seek another "2nd opinion".

I've worked with doctors who believe this shit. When this all kicked off, they immediately discarded their education to embrace the Fox dogma.

Area of study is definitely not the issue.