# Agnotology.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnotology/758589>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 28, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnotology/758589 "2016-06-28T02:42:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnotology/758589/21 "2016-06-29T06:55:36Z")

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> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#):
>
> You can keep your eye on me all you want. It just strikes me that this thread, like most SDMB politically tainted threads, regardless of forum, is totally liberally biased. Both sides are guilty of demagoguery, so let’s not act like one is gospel and the other is BS.

> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> As for the ‘both sides do it’ point, do you have any examples of bs from the Remain side?  
> I don’t think it is a “who can say?” kind of proposition. We can know for sure that the Leave side was engaging in it by looking at their disinformation campaign. They were creating confusion and suppressing the truth. If the Remain side was doing it too, let’s see the evidence. The notion of dueling agnotologies is intriguing.

I’m not acting like anything. If you’ve got examples of disinformation from the Remain side, let’s see them, I have expressed more than enough interest. If not, please drop the “both sides do it”, since maybe they don’t.

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnotology/758589/22 "2016-06-29T07:07:33Z")

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> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#):
>
> You can keep your eye on me all you want. It just strikes me that this thread, like most SDMB politically tainted threads, regardless of forum, is totally liberally biased. Both sides are guilty of demagoguery, so let’s not act like one is gospel and the other is BS.

High Broderism, also known as the Fallacy of the Mean, isn’t maturity. It’s a lack of critical thinking skills masquerading as maturity. That, or simple laziness coupled with a desire to appear like an adult.

There are no “global warming alarmists”, or at least not anywhere near the mainstream. The mainstream consists of scientists and people who think science is a valid way of approaching the topic of climate change, who are predicting things which have a reasonable chance of happening, and people who use the phrase “global warming alarmists”, who have no facts or logic on their side but who can muddy the waters with lies and cries for “balance” and “maturity” because it’s apparently better to be factually incorrect if you can look like you’re giving both sides equal weight than it is to be factually correct if that makes you look partisan. It certainly helps you keep readership numbers up, at any rate, and that’s the important thing.

Fortunately, I don’t have to care about readership numbers or subscription rates, so I don’t have to pretend that blatantly partisan hack-jobs and lunatic conspiracy theories are on par with the vast weight of peer-reviewed scientific studies and the actual, physical evidence.

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**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnotology/758589/23 "2016-06-29T07:50:34Z")

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> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#):
>
> Voting isn’t a system designed to make the best decisions. It is a system designed to avoid decisions so horrible that the vast majority of ordinary people can tell it’s a horrible decision.

…which is why, of course, we aren’t asked to vote on (and never even hear about) the _ **really important horrible decisions.** _

About agnetology in general, I am always happy to have another, more precise, word for something. And I think we will be seeing more and more obscenely egregious examples of it in the future. Seems to me that the people running things used to at least try and keep up a **premise** that they were altruistic and on the side of humanity and the general good – but now it looks like they just don’t give a rat’s ass about that anymore. They’re not even trying to hide their evil, greedy moves these days. If you’re gonna lie to me, at least don’t insult me with a two-bit, lame-ass lie. That’s just lazy.

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