this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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Matt Walsh is an unserious goon at best, an actual moron at worst.
But the reason that this sort of anti-science propaganda might actually work on well- intended people is because we don't advertise our major successes anymore. Or rather, we never really did advertise them enough, but as those successes became less visible compared to, say, a polio vaccine, just as it took scientists to inform us of the problem, they need to inform us of wins too.
When I was a kid in the 90s, we had a lot of alarm bells going off about the Ozone Layer, about acid rains, and climate change (termed "global warming" then). None of these were particularly visible problems to most people. Each of these became massively politicized, but the fix for the first 2 was a relatively narrow remedy: find and implement replacements for hydroflourocarbons through environmental regulations, and cut mainly two compounds, sulfer dioxide and nitrogen oxides, from fossil fuel power plant emissions through cap and trade regulation policies and smokestack scrubbers. And it worked quite well, to the point that the ozone layer is repairing, as are ecosystems previously ravaged by acid rains.
But scientists and the media never advertised that success nearly enough. Honestly we should have been politicizing that success, even, as much as we did the problems. Now it just seems to most like the problem quietly got forgotten like it never really mattered, rather than that it was a massive problem and we fucking fixed it through science, regulation and international cooperation. And that apparent disappearance of the problem without any noticeable change for the average Joe, and the resulting skepticism that it was ever a problem at all, has infected the one ongoing problem, the biggest and most complex of the problems, climate change.
The COVID vaccine was called a miracle and praised but was quickly squashed by the antivaxers. ๐คท
I still remember how relieved we were when my family was finally able to get that vaccine after over a year of worrying about COVID
The job is a scientist is not to educate and inform the general lay public - that's the job of the media. People like Bill Nye the Science Guy and Carl Sagan and Neil Degrass Tyson.
For-profit media, for some reason (maybe it's the profit part?), seems to prefer to focus on the click bait that sells advertisements.
Not placing blame or responsibility. Just explaining a problem that needs a solution. Maybe a major scientific publication should have an annual retrospective that gives major updates and ongoing work and issues that still need attention. Maybe a university program for scientific marketing. Idk. I don't have a real solution, just identifying a problem.
But why would you expect "scientists" to do so? Don't we want them mainly... doing science?
Someone should though yes. Given the ongoing rise of fascism all around the globe, I don't think it's a priority right now, but yes it would be good.
And since it's good, my strong guess is that someone already did it. The reason then that we did not hear about it is bc "we" (collectively) did not care to hear about it. We'd rather click on more exciting stuff like which celebrity got yet another ass implant, or something.
Even now, neither of us have run a Google or DuckDuckGo search to try to find it - it's more fun to talk than to listen ๐คช. As monkeys, we run on hormones rather than logic, and it's easier to feel superior to everyone else than to actually put in effort to better ourselves.
Again, I didn't say that it was necessarily the responsibility of scientists and it definitely shouldn't be their responsibility alone. Science communication should definitely be many people's full time job. But also, yes, I do think scientists should evangelize for themselves too. Do interviews, spread the word. It isn't an either-or situation. Subject matter experts often talk to the media about the work they do. Why shouldn't they? And first person knowledge and expertise is always a better source than some journalistic summary.
We HAVE heard about it. The point is that the general public, your friends and family, your neighbors, your working class community, has not. It's not even a little bit about feeling superior. It's that this could 100% be common knowledge.
Just because someone said it and it's on the internet for you to find if you go searching hard enough and dig past the bullshit propaganda like this post, that doesn't mean that the communication is done. If my mom hasn't heard about it, you didn't get the message out wide enough. It is not common enough knowledge until the average person is not susceptible to bullshit posts like Matt Walsh's because they aren't void of any knowledge on the subject.
Putting the onus on individuals in the public to seek out and find the answers is exactly how you get where we are now. Where a small subset of people know the answers and frustratingly have to fight back against incredibly effective misinformation campaigns like this. If we can put the problem in everyone's face making the "Ozone Layer" and "Climate Change" common layman's terms, then we can do the same with the wins against those problems.
Knowledge is indeed the cure to lack of information.
The new era though is not merely misinformation but active disinformation. You are trying to cure the problems of two decades ago.
In the modern era, people will be - in fact, already are - "alternatively" educated. Dr. Fauci has his facts, while the common man has their "alternative" facts, which they feel supercede the former. Studies show that when literally paid to do so, citizens who watch a mainstream source of news will have different opinions on matters such as whether COVID was fake or not, in comparison to people who only exposed themselves to e.g. Faux News in the USA (and different, other sources worldwide but the study I am thinking of was in the USA).
So I am saying that 20 years ago I agreed with you. But we are fast heading into an era where the challenges are different. Scientists themselves will likely cease to exist... eventually, and be replaced by "alternative scientists", and you better believe that those politically active actors will most definitely get the word out just as you said should be done, almost like that task were the real purpose of their existence, as opposed to finding facts.
Hopefully I am wrong.
Wouod be good support for the next big scientific push. "There was a serious ozone problem but the world workes together and the problem was solved! Science can work together with governments to do big things. We need to do those big things to curb global warming!"