Or more specifically, people who either fail to understand, or refuse to understand science (aka the THING that works) and the scientific method/methodological naturalism (aka HOW the thing works), thus leading them down a rabbit hole of incredulity and stubborn arrogance.
Example one: Flat Earthers
Claim: I can’t visualise the Earth being an oblate spheroid/reference elipsoid/geoid and don’t understand Euclidean geometry or trigonometry …… therefore it isn’t true.
Conclusion: Argument from incredulity.
As Karl Popper once said: “True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.”
Example two: Homeopathy practitioners/homeopathy recipients (willing)
Claim: Muh hippy hippy shake of the water (20 times including dilution) and muh hippy hippy drippy on the sugar qubez = muh wellness!
(There is more to it but basically if you miss one dose then you just overdosed).
Conclusion: Argument from “Candygram for Mongo?!”
As Walter Kotschnig once said: “Be open-minded, but don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out”.
Example three: Young Earth Creationists
Claim: I read a book written by primitive, goat-herding savages who had no understanding of how the universe works and I KNOW more than these so called “scientists” who use language like “we think”, “we believe”, “it’s likely” and “it might be the case” therefore big bang cosmology, physics, astrophysics, astronomy, evolutionary theory, modern biology, modern cladistic taxonomy, genetics, embryology, evo-devo, paleontology, anthropology, geology, the study of the stratigraphic column and radiometric dating are wrong because they contradict what my invisible friend said or may not have said (depending on your interpretation). Breathe.
Conclusion: God of the gaps fallacy/God is what dunnit cuz muh holy buuk!!!
As Christopher Hitchens (I believe) once said: “Positive claims require positive evidence, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”
Example four: Vegan Pseudoscience
Claim: BUT HUMANS HAVE SMALL CANINE TEETH SO WE CAN’T BE CARNIVORES!!!!!
Conclusion: Argument from brain fog due to lack of DHA/If you have a small-to-average sized dick then you can’t be good at wrecking vagina!!! (because apparently tongues, dexterous digits and dick extender sex toys aren’t a thing).
I honestly can’t think of any quotes or witticisms from intellectuals of any stripe for this one as Vegans are a particularly modern, 21st century menace which intellectuals of the future will have to tackle (if they are still permitted).
There is no way that these people truly believe this surely?
In Summary: Since time immemorial, there seems to have been this kind of MO that has existed in which there are two types of people in the business of charlatanry – those who sell the t-shirts and those who buy the t-shirts.
The same is true of Flat Earthers, Homeopaths, Young Earth Creatards and Vegan Pseudoscientists alike. Basically cunts.
Nominated by: Two In The Stink
