The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist's Warning Peter Hotez Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (2023)

[BootinUp]

You prefer to say ‘anti-science aggression’ rather than ‘misinformation’. Why?
Misinformation makes it sound like it’s random junk that appears out of nowhere on the Internet. It’s not: it’s an organized, well-financed, politically motivated campaign that’s meant to tear down the fabric of science. And we have to frame it in that way.

Anti-science rhetoric is not new. What’s changed?
Now, it’s fully embraced by a major political party in the United States, and by authoritarian regimes in other countries such as Hungary and, previously, Brazil. It’s sanctioned by elected leaders in the US Congress. It’s reached a new level of organization and aggression — it’s starting to resemble the 1930s, when Joseph Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union portrayed scientists as enemies of the state.

The point of the book is to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No, this must stop.’

How did you see this play out during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Some 200,000 Americans died because of anti-science aggression. They were victims of this coordinated campaign. That’s why we need to care about it. It’s horrifying. I want to honour the legacy of those victims.


COVID scientists in the public eye need protection from threats

When I went into the more conservative, rural areas of east Texas, essentially everyone I talked to had lost a loved one because they refused a COVID-19 vaccine. In the intensive-care unit, you saw some people deny COVID-19 existed, yet in their dying words feel remorse and advise their friends: ‘Don’t do what I did, get your COVID-19 immunization.’ These are good people. [Anti-science campaigners] took advantage of that.

More https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02981-z

[ffr]

1. I see this on a daily basis. Anti-science aggression is real.

Scientific knowledge is looked down upon. Money, greed, and luxury are fostered above all else by the anti-science crowd. Science tends to get in the way of those things, especially if there's a green way of doing something, as opposed to a cheap dirty environmentally unfriendly way of doing something.

[BootinUp]

2. I am thinking about buying his book. This is one of the main issues

that drives my interest in politics. Also the use of religion to justify the anti-science effort.

[Orrex]

3. I dislike resorting to pop culture references in these matters, but...

The Matrix got it analogously right: these people are victims of the anti-science regime, but until they’re brought to reality they are also enemies.

[BootinUp]

5. makes me sick. nt

[appalachiablue]

4. K/R