It's the second time I apologize for my English, nevertheless I feel the urge to complete This article I wrote yesterday.
I understand it sounds like a "Holy War for Science" so the point is: why people should go for this battle? Why is important? At the end, we think democracy is very robust, we think "flat earth" is just a fairy tale for idiots , and so on. It cannot harm, just because "it's just a minority of idiots", right? If we ignore it, it will disappear, right?
Well... not exactly. Let me stay in my comfort zone, and see elections as data transfer.
Take by example the last american elections. The new president won because a number of voters ~50 Millions. Forget how many Hillary has: what makes Trump a president , in term of causality , is the amount of votes HE has. So Trump has ~50 Millions of votes.
Given the fact the choice was (almost) binary (Trump vs Hillary) and who didn't voted wasn't relevant for the result, we have each vote is a single bit of information. So that, voting means to transfer ~50Mb of information from "the people" to "the government". If we go from bit to byte, we have ~6.25 MB of data. Not so much, right? (and very inefficient, by the way, in term of costs).
And worst: if we consider the amount of Americans , like ~300 Millions, ~50 Millions are, more or less, ~17% of people.
Under the point of view of "data", "Democracy" is more a "Voter-o-cracy" and the "robustness" in terms of information is not that strong: we are talking of 6.25 MB of data transferred in such a long (and expensive. And error prone.) process.
Lesson: who is spreading wrong information on the web doesn't needs to impact the vast majority: it only needs to impact ~20% to be very successful. Which means, even if you convince 80% of population to "ignore" them, they will succeed.
This is how WEAK democracy is.
Now let's discuss how bad STEM can impact democracy. I could mention economics (globalization vs protectionism) , by example, but I am not that much into this issues. So I will do an example I see spreading around.
Let's take the following fairytale:
Unlike in the West, in the Muslim society is very common to get married with cousins. This introduces some inbreeding genetics, which damages their genome , and makes them more violent. This explains terrorism.
You know , where we have heard something similar in Europe? Uhm... let me think....
So we know this is dangerous. And this is running on several "Alt-Right" channels, right now, in several languages.
Now, I will keep into my comfort zone, and let we check this.
First: "Unlike in The West". Fine. Where we've got data about inbreeding with cousins? Uhm.... public registries of new births are precise since the 1900s , more or less. To go back , we need to make use of the Catholic registries of baptized people. Which are not aggregated, mostly on paper, and not available at all for big data. Also the modern birth data are still not digital or, when they are, they aren't available. This is why to make your family tree is so hard , right?
Conclusion: we have no data about inbreeding between cousins in the West.
Let's check about the "Muslims". How do we know how frequent it is inbreeding with cousins in the Muslim society? Which data do we have? Uhm... even worst. Since they do not have a tradition of documentation of baptism, neither a single organized church like the Catholic one, and most of their registry about birth is not such precise (and not very old) , the situation is even worst.
Conclusion, II: we have even less data about inbreeding between cousins in the Muslim society.
Then we go to the "genetics": as far I understood, inbreeding is not creating any damage in the gene pool, while it is just keeping existing damages. And (is not my field so correct me if I'm wrong) this happens because inbreeding prevents corrections of broken alleles/genes.
Conclusion III: inbreeding cannot cause a specific mutation to happen, can only prevent it to being fixed.
To make inbreeding to hit always aggressiveness (adrenaline + testosterone? ) we need this damage to exist already, so inbreeding can preserve it. Is there any data about this specific error into Muslim's DNA ?
Uhm... unlikely that anyone sequenced 1.2Bn of people's DNA. I would wonder.
Conclusion, IV: we have no evidence that this specific mutation exists already, so it can't be preserved.
Now, let's put all together:
Unlike in the West, in the Muslim society is very common to get married with cousins, this introduces some inbreeding genetics, which damages their genome , and makes them more violent. This explains terrorism.
- we have no data about inbreeding between cousins in the west.
- we have even less data about inbreeding between cousins in the Muslim society.
- inbreeding cannot cause a specific mutation to happen, can only prevent it to be fixed. (to be validated by biologist).
- we have no evidence that this specific mutation exists already , so it can't be preserved..
now is pretty clear this is bullshit. Nevertheless, this is spreading in the "Alt-Right" community, and "makes sense". When I say "it makes sense" mean that it proposes some kind of "cause-effect" , which is also "science-sounding" , so the "logic" filter is OK with it. We "know" inbreeding is harming the gene pool , we've heard of wedding between cousins in the Muslim society... one filter passed. Sort of.
Then it doesn't passes MY personal filter about data. It's my job to ask myself about quality of data, so yes, this is 100% bullshit. I'm not alone. A skilled biologist could possibly find another 50 fallacies in this, the same for other kind of scientists.
Seems easy , right?
No. Of course, people which knows about "null hypothesis" will reject it. Others with studies will reject it. Young people is NOT voting. So we feel confident this opinion will never win the elections. Uhm... no.
Because it takes just 17% of population to win.
This is the point. Is not like you need to convince 50%+1 of people. You need to convince 50%+1 of VOTERS. Nevertheless, this bullshit science will run into POPULATION. On population's perspective, it only needs 17% of people believing this bullshit to mess your next elections.
This is why, fighting bad STEM is important. Ignoring is not enough: even if 80% of people will ignore it, they could win.
I could mention many things I see, which are not supported by data: "Euro is damaging the Eurozone". Really? May I see a source of DATA, pls? "Globalization is giving more problems than payout". Seriously? Do you have a raw idea HOW MANY DATA you need to say something like that? Do you have such a data?
Do you have a raw idea HOW MUCH PROCESSING POWER you need, just to end in such a conclusion?
Nevertheless, I see this kind of statements spreading : in many countries , not only 17% is thinking this. We have peaks of 40% of people, persuaded about statements which cannot even be the product of any "science". We don't have enough data available (data on economics are existing, sure, but they are from different sources, different formats, and not always available) to support such a statements.
This is why I think "to ignore" is not enough. Doesn't works. Is like "boycotting": I am "boycotting" Rolls Royce since I was born, never buy a single one, still this company runs well. Why? Because it runs on people which DOES buy it , and the people which is NOT buying is not relevant for their success.
The same for votes: 17% is enough to win. How many people did NOT voted Trump is not relevant: only the positive data matters.
This is why "to ignore" doesn't works. This is why to discuss doesn't works: even if you are the best speaker on the planet, able to convince 80% of listeners ( wow! What an attorney! ) , still you may lose.
Somehow, we need to shut down this. If don't , get prepared to have a government which thinks earth is flat, "because of science". And you may ignore them as much you want, this 20% of idiots are enough to do a mess.
First you laugh at Berlusconi. Then you start worry with Farage. And finally you see Trump. What's next?
"Vaccinations are proven dangerous". "Cancer comes from low self-esteem, according with studies". " Doctor says Jews are aliens". "Creationism is proven by science". "Some scientist says Global warming is a fairy tale". What else? Sky is their limit, I'm afraid.
And ALL of this could be your next government, until the STEM community doesn't understands to ignore is not enough. Propaganda must be filter out. And, if you think propaganda is hard to individuate, hereby I propose my personal definition:
Propaganda is using the freedom of speech against freedom of thought.
I'm not an expert of propaganda, neither a philosopher , so take it like it is: my personal opinion.
(still better than saying earth is flat, I guess. I hope. Whatever.)