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Differences of Opinion by Wendy Cope
(mander.xyz)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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"You can't reason a person out of a situation they didn't use reason for to begin with" is a lesson everyone learns eventually...
Yeah did that with my dad. As soon as he expressed that he doesn't believe in conventional scientific methodology and academic consensus, I stopped discussing any of those topics with him.
No basis to discuss if he doesn't even consider evidence for disproving his theories.
How could you not believe in the scientific method? Propose a hypothesis, test for hypothesis, confirm or review your hypothesis, repeat.
Saying you don't believe in that basically is the same as stating you're dumb as hell and don't believe in proving ideas.
I've been in that situation countless times, I can tell you people want to believe the scientific method works but there's always a reason they don't. Here's a few reasons I've encountered:
Eroding trust in institutions: they don't trust the organisations or the people doing the studies. IMO news cycles play a big role in this; a study with a catchy result "A glass of wine a day is actually good for you" - by itself already a misrepresentation of the results - gets all the headlines. The countless of studies that prove no amount is good for you doesn't get any.
They believe science is a book of solid answers, while it's merely a methodology to find better answers. People have a hard time accepting this.
Post-information age: every bit of human knowledge at our fingertips is a true monkey's paw. A real overload of information has people exhausted, they rather listen to someone like them than have big words thrown at them by scientists.
Misrepresentation of data: I cannot stress enough how easy it is to misrepresent data. Without proper context any piece of data can be framed to fit a narrative. Studying statistics was so counter intuitive, you'll never be able to convince people going on instinct.
Honing in on where people get stuck can help you get through to them. I know this will sound corny, but if you talk to people from person to person, not being judgemental, and really try to listen, there's always room for change.
Things like wine is healthy, chocolate is healthy, berries are healthy, meat is unhealthy, eggs are unhealthy* all come from the weakest studies, 5 yearly food frequency questionnaires - where they all people to fill out how many serves of each food category the study cares about (the berry one listed about 12 direct berries out of the thirty or so that are popular; one meat one included "hamburger" in their meat category despite a burger meal usually having most its energy from the coke and fries).
The biggest problems include that the study can be warped several ways, the food list can change how people respond, the categorisation of foods changes everything, people can't remember how many serves of whatever they had 5 years ago, so they pick the "most virtuous", and after all that the most they can say is there might be an association between and
They report hazard ratios (how much the "wrong" food choice increases your risk of ) and usually get ~10%, everything outside nutrition needs 200% to say there's an effect, cigarette smoking has a hazard ratio for lung cancer of 300% for a pack a day smoker**
*But "eggs are healthy" came from a study, feeding people eggs and testing their cholesterol, so if much more reliable
**The hazard ratios are usually reported as a fraction of 1 — 0.10 for many diet studies, or 3 for the smoker
Exactly. You don't want proof, because proof means you might have been wrong. Being wrong is mentally uncomfortable, and especially in older people who are very mentally rigid, that's hard.
There was an episode of South Park where the kids claimed that a word that we view as a bigoted slur against gay men actually referred to people who loudly ride motorcycles at night.
If reason doesn't work for flat earthers, maybe we should use one of the well-known euphemisms that we no longer use for people whose mental abilities are far below average. You know, like, "special".
You can say the word on the internet.
Some parts of the internet which are moderated may remove content that they believe is bigoted towards certain groups. Moderators may not always have the luxury of taking the time to understand exactly why a word that is normally inappropriate might be appropriate in a specific situation.
Not entirely true. I grew up fundamentalist, learned scientific reasoning, and got out of it.
Following your upbringing is as reasonable as it gets. Going against what you believe isn't just happening because you followed someone else's reasoning, it's something you navigate by yourself over a period of time.