Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

A book came out in August 2024 called "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola," by Susan Greenhalgh. She's a professor (emeritus) at Harvard. The book is a history. It shows how the Coca-Cola Company turned to "science" when the company was beset by the obesity crisis of the 1990s and health advocates were calling for, among other things, soda taxes.

Coca-Cola "mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect profits by advocating exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to obesity." It was a successful campaign and did particularly well in the Far East. "In China, this distorted science has left its mark not just on national obesity policies but on the apparatus for managing chronic disease generally."

Point being, the science that Coca-Cola propagated is entirely legitimate. But that science itself does not tell the whole, obvious truth, which is that there is certainly a correlation in a society between obesity rates and overall sugar-soda consumption rates. "Coke’s research isn’t fake science, Greenhalgh argues; it was real science, conducted by real and eminent scientists, but distorted by its aim."

"Trust the science" can thus be a dangerous call to arms. Here's the book, if anybody's interested. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo221451...

This is kind of why I get annoyed at the "facts don't care about your feelings!!!" crowd.

Sure, the raw facts don't care about your feelings, but the way that these facts are interpreted and presented absolutely do care. Two people can look at the exact same data and draw widely different but comparably accurate conclusions out of it.

Using your Coke example, the raw fact that "exercise is good for reducing obesity" is broadly true and not really disputed by anyone as far as I'm aware, but the interpretation of "exercise alone can be a solution to obesity" or "how much exercise vs how much diet restriction is a solution to obesity" is subject to interpretation and biases.

Why is it that people can't wrap their head around the "Facts don't care about your feelings." slogan? I don't agree with everything that movement says, but that slogan means exactly what it's saying; the problem is what everyone like yourself adds to it. What you are adding has originated and lives in your mind, and you project it onto something that has nothing to do with your thought that you are projecting.

The slogan is directed at fragile liberals who would rather yell like a toddler at a town hall meeting than have an informed discussion centered around facts. You can try and broaden that statement all you want to pull in other topics, but that slogan says nothing about having a disregard for how facts are interpreted OR presented.

It goes without saying that facts can be subject to multiple interpretations. I think people need to be more honest about what you're really saying: you don't like conservatives and you distorted a basic phrase as you gaslit a group of people and accused that group of doing what you yourself just did.

I am saying that the statement “facts don’t care about your feelings” is a useless statement and it doesn’t make people who say it seem smart. People who say the slogan seemingly universally seem to think it makes them very smart. It doesn’t convey any information to anyone, all it is used for is for morons like Ben Shapiro to automatically dismiss people for being emotional.

You’re right, I don’t like conservatives very much, but I have seen left leaning people fetishizing stoicism and I think those people are dumb too.

ETA:

Also, slightly confused how I “gaslit” anyone. You can go through my post history and I am generally pretty happy to acknowledge I don’t like conservatives very much.

It didn’t take much prodding to make you show your entire hand. Might be time to look inwards.

Not the person you replied to, but what? The person you accused of being tricked into showing "their entire hand" was unashamed about their position and didn't try to hide it.

The difference in tone between their former and latter messages is obvious.

They went from a passive aggressive “I don’t understand this idiom” straight to an unhinged tirade of “conservatives are morons” without much provocation.

Of course you share that sentiment, like the overwhelming majority of people on this very left leaning message board, but I still find it funny when it comes out so explicitly.

> They went from a passive aggressive “I don’t understand this idiom” straight to an unhinged tirade of “conservatives are morons” without much provocation.

They never said that. Ironically, this is a perfect case of "facts don't care about your feelings" - even though you're upset, it doesn't change the fact that they never said that. It seems like your comments about needing self-reflection and complaining about "gaslighting" actually apply towards you instead.

Edit: regardless, this whole comment subthread is a useless waste of time and only serves as an airing of irrelevant grievances.

Of course concealing one’s true intent just enough to be able to later play dumb and deny motivations when called out is a decent strategy for online arguments, but it’s not foolproof.

Deciphering the commenter’s true meaning wasn’t super hard in this case. From claiming that a highly intelligent conservative pundit is a moron it’s easy to deduce that the person thinks less intelligent conservatives are also morons. They also explicitly said they “don’t like conservatives” which is a pretty silly statement to throw out there in general.

It’s also painfully obvious that the poster doesn’t understand the idiom “facts don’t care about your feelings” from them having now tripled down on trying to explain it or those who use it unsuccessfully.

The idiom’s intended message is as simple as it seems. It says that getting emotional about facts doesn’t change them. It’s not some deeply profound thing to say.