I have now formed an opinion and wonder what you think. It is never the hard science that requires math where the hoardes emerge. No one is posting conspiracies about electromagnetic theory or relativity. It’s always the simple, obvious science: do masks work?
I think it’s because science that simple let’s everyone on social media feel they can be a scientist too. No special training needed.
Am I wrong?
The answer you are looking for, young Papadum, depending on what metric used, is:
Around 24.8%.
I don't care about IQ test, but I don't see anything weird about the distribution: half the people are average; of the remaining half, half of it are inferior and half are superior.
Chris, you are looking at the wrong problem. It's not science vs. its denial, (I'm almost certain) rather stubbornness as well as surrender to living environment, wherewithal of each involved. That changes dynamics of this psychology totally. Think blue vs white collar workers, what each can or cannot afford. Compare a McDonalds, or a Pep Boys worker in The South with the CEO of some newfangled SIlicon Valley prop. It's not about IQ or lack thereof, it's about having no choice in society, especially at the job, where plantation boy management mentality prevails.
if only it was isolated to those with low intelligence. Unfortunately the research/stats show that college educated people are often the ones who fall for things like anti-vaccine and such. They are smart enough to find evidence to back any viewpoint they may encounter. In my opinion it’s a case of education has not caught up with social media and the internet’s plethora of misinformation. We need education to start teaching critical thinking as taught by expert skeptics and critical thinkers.
This is Carl Sagan, writing in 1995:
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
And, yes, here we are, exactly where he predicted we might be. A not only in the US, either.
I am sitting here re-reading The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark, after having my soul freshly dented with Covid science denial in the news this morning.
Funny how imperfect memory is. I’ve been saying science is a way of thinking as much as a body of knowledge, feeling so wise for saying it, forgetting where I heard that, kinda letting myself believe I thought it up.
It’s a great book.
