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Arguing with the anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and climate change deniers is a heck of a job. If you've ever tried, you’ll know what I am talking about.

And even though you recognize the fallacy in their arguments, like saying that masks don’t help to stop the coronavirus, you sometimes need heavy artillery.

Luckily, some people who know what they’re talking about have done everyone a service and stepped in to school the science deniers big time. From biochemists to sport scientists, these are some of the most mic-drop moves in stopping the spread of misinformation.

#1

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Raine Soo
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I never knew that a simple apple had such a complex chemical composition. I learn something new everyday.

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Pamela24
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One of my favourite tweets of all time (the second one, obviously). I hope to be one day this articulate.

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These days, when there are so many science deniers, it may feel like arguing with them is absolutely pointless. But a 2019 study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior showed that it’s in fact worth arguing with them.

Philipp Schmid and Cornelia Betsch of the University of Erfurt in Germany conducted six experiments with 1,773 subjects. They assessed “how to mitigate the influence of a denier on the audience.”

The results showed that “not responding to science deniers has a negative effect on attitudes towards behaviors favored by science (for example, vaccination) and intentions to perform these behaviors.”

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chi-wei shen
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Alan Turing was praised for what he has done during war time and condemned for whom he loved. That's the great tragedy of his life.

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#5

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Paul K. Johnson
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Dear God-botherers. If god drowned everyone except one family on the planet because they were evil then he believed that unborn children could be evil (not to mention all the born children). You anti-abortion types must really hate god for that.

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Facing deniers can be treated as a concerned and important effort to fight misinformation. The authors of the study suggest that “not turning up to the discussion at all seems to result in the worst effect.”

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Meanwhile, showing up on an acquaintance's Facebook post, even if you think it's pointless, will surely do some good.

Interestingly, the authors claim that science deniers use the same rhetoric across domains. It means that “uncovering their rhetorical techniques is an effective and economic addition to the advocates’ toolbox.”

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WilvanderHeijden
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Never ending story of idiots spreading a disease because they do not believe in science.

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#9

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Daria B
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think we should celebrate holidays of all existing religions, that should be given equally to all followers and non followers. Yay! Every day is a holiday! ♡

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Fish Boden
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't believe that the idiot had 1.8k up-votes. Yowsers, so many dafties.

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WilvanderHeijden
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lol. How dare you debunk the nonsense I'm spewing on the internet with science? Don't you ever do that again!!!!

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WilvanderHeijden
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Even if you'd put the entire flat-earth movement in a spaceship and circle the earth in any way they want, they'd be telling you that it's a trick with mirrors and projectors. But at least they are harmless and don't hurt other people with their nonsense.

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Scagsy
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

President of the kick a*s roasting division of the IGF

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NavyDave
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I mean, astrophysics aren't directly related to climate change, but you can expect someone who has a PhD in it to know à lot more than someone so unintelligent that they spell virus vIRUS and say that people who believe the truth(that climate change exists) are criminals.

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Mama Panda
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

hahahaha I love it when people who have no flippin' idea who they are talking to make an a*s out of themselves. I always look up whoever I am in a discussion/argument/debate with before I make a comment that I might regret later. You never know if someone's background qualifies them to be right or not.

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WilvanderHeijden
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

History is there to teach the future lessons. But of course, you do need some kind of education to be able to understand those lessons.

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NavyDave
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Calculating the amount of valence electrons in a nucleus is easy, since there are none.

laurencaswell4 avatar
Lauren Caswell
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Shells, dear 15 yr old op! ah 15, we all knew everything back then

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Parmeisan
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Also, even if it's true that you're that much smarter than everyone else, doesn't that just mean that you can't judge whether or not "this is so hard" for other people? Everyone's brain works differently. I cruised through complicated math and physics to graduate with distinction in an engineering degree, but my husband asks me a relatively simple question about the orbit of two planets and I can't understand what he's asking unless he draws it. I'm a visual thinker and if you test me the wrong way I would fail spectacularly. So something that you find easy could be difficult for someone else and that says nothing about who's actually more capable of coming to an informed conclusion.

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Tracy
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"I'm totally self educated." Yup, that was quite evident.

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Nevits Yibble
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm 15 and I can Google "sciency sounding stuff" to fake like I'm knowledgeable

bp_10 avatar
WilvanderHeijden
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Finally I have found someone who is able to realign the fluxcapacitor with the southbridge on my PCB that's been bothering me since the last memory dump crashed my PCI-X lanes to the memory banks of my server.

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WilvanderHeijden
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's an outstanding example of how "self-education" can work out if Facebook is your primary source of information.

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Stille20
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This whole post is a disaster. It's not hard, but also I'm a genius

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Mark Johanen
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There's no such thing as "integrated calculus". I think you mean "integral calculus". And assuming that's just a typo, I can do integral calculus in my head, too. Simple integral calculus problems, that is. Like integral of y=x^2 is y=1/3 x^3+C. Whoop de doo.

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually, there are math books titled "Integrated Calculus". My son brought one home and I did a double take on it. This "I know everything" 15 year old thinks he is being sly by commenting that he is "totally self educated" when his misuse of the terminology is the dead giveaway to his lack of intelligence LOL

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Tabitha L
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I hope the original post was a joke. It seems almost too perfect.

terybriggs avatar
Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I am really scared for our future with wack-a-doos like this on the loose!

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Frank Kilmore
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When someone mentions their IQ...it means they dont have one...mine is 147...

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Marnie
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't like picking on kids. They're all idiots in their own way.

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Loretta
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lol he just took some random words which sounded good without any idea what they mean XD

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Iapetos
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Furthermore, integrateed calculus isn't hard per se. You need to specify what kind of equations :-) So you did an IQ test in the internet. Congratulations.

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Isabel Care
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It would be number of valence.... not amount if there were any. I can't help myself

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Theodore Rieth
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm not a physicist, but if a neutron can decay to a proton, electron, and anti-neutrino, couldn't one accurately say that the nucleus contains electrons? Just not free electrons.

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Billy The Kid
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

i have an IQ of 150 on how to eat an egg, bacon and sausage sandwich but i dont brag about it! oh s**t i just did. Not a smart thing to do.

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Mia Shinbrot
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Aside from the point that electrons exist outside of a nucleus, calculating the valence of an element doesn't really need to be done. When I took chemistry in high school in the late 1960s (by no means my best subject -- what I know is quite limited), there were already charts of the valence of each of the elements up to element 40 or so. Charts of the valences of larger elements exist now and probably existed even then. Calculating valences from atomic number can certainly be done, but the calculation itself is a matter of adding a few integers like 2 and 8 and 18 -- very easy. The hard part is knowing what integers to add, which is explained fairly clearly in the Wikipedia article on "electron shell". I'm sorry you have no one in your life who could help you with your own education.

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Michael Kossin
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually, the reply is not entirely correct. Some orbitals have wave functions that have significant intersection with nucleons, and this is why W and Z bosons (which are massive and therefore have short ranges) can mediate interactions between quarks and electrons in some transitions. If this were not the case, parity-violating atomic transitions would be impossible, but they have been observed (see Wood's cesium parity violation experiments at UC Boulder).

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S.M.D.
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Is he highly trained in quantum physics or totally self-educated? He can't be both.

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Sam T Godfrey
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Those are Zoltrons! Quick Feeby, blast 'em with your Thingthere!

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K. LNU
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And yet - common grammatical errors seem to have been self taught as well.

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alwaysMispelled
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If this person was so intelligent why haven't they skipped grades? Or take college courses?

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How in the hell do you know if they did or didn't skip grades? Am I missing something?

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alwaysMispelled
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Anyone with an IQ in the 150s knows damn well where an electron shell. Probably by the time they're 10... or 5, even, depending on their interests.

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Raine Soo
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3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

People seem to forget that astronauts are bonafide scientists with degrees in engineering, and other biological and mathematical sciences. DId they think that they were just a bunch of space cowboys?

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Raine Soo
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"A little knowledge (learning) is a dangerous thing." Alexander Pope

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Raine Soo
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The theory that vaccines cause autism has been completely debunked years ago. Did the anti-vaxxers not get the memo? It doesn't matter. They'll still believe rumour and hearsay over science.

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Tovah Roche
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Someone should probably tell them that Darwin believed in God and evolution simultaneously throughout most of his research years.

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WilvanderHeijden
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

More and more European countries make vaccinating mandatory. Unvaccinated children are banned from schools in those countries and parents can be forced to have their children vaccinated. And rightly so. Screw your "strong convictions" and "religious beliefs", our national health is endangered because of your b******t and we are getting tired of your stupidity.

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Csaba Hegedűs
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's so sad to see one thinks that if their kids are momentarily healthy without vaccination, that's proof that this state will keep up indefinitely. It most likely won't. It would be funny to see their faces when they realize their mistakes, but it won't, because it would be to the expense of the child who'd deserve better.

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Cori
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I instantly tune out anyone who refers to grown women as 'girls' anyway, especially when they're talking about an educated woman in a high level position. I'm fairly certain this same man wouldn't refer to a male meteorologist as a 'weather boy.'

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EA
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3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Tell that to the families of women who died from cervical cancer. Including a 15 year old girl in the UK a few years ago. Plus it’s been proven that men can be affected by HPV as well so some are campaigning for teenage boys to have the vaccine too. Oh and it might not cause cancer, but more often genital warts and other infections. Who would want to be protected from getting genital warts right?! Morons...

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Raine Soo
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The issue, my friend, is why do flat-earthers believe hokum without question?

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