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nydwracu comments on The Cold War divided Science - Less Wrong Discussion
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More questions along a similar line:
Are there any other currently/recently-existing scientific communities?
Is there anything the Soviets got right that we don't know about yet? There was a SSC comment thread a while back about the Soviet belief in magnetic storms influencing behavior, which is something the Americans are apparently only now looking into.
Viliam_Bur says: "In Soviet Union many scientists knew that e.g. Lysenkoism was a fraud, they were just afraid to speak openly, because they would be fired or put in prison." What beliefs in America/the West are like Lysenkoism? What can be done about them?
How accepted was Lysenkoism among the general public? scientists outside the relevant field? the political elite?
There are many other examples of beliefs like the Soviet one in abiogenic oil: Germans and low blood pressure, Japanese and blood types, Koreans and fan death, 19th-century Americans and the belief that masturbation causes insanity, Anglophones (or at least Americans and Brits) and the belief that eating carrots improves eyesight. What beliefs in [parts of] America/the West fall into that category? What, if any, are their significant consequences? (Abiogenic oil means depletion isn't a problem; fan death means... people buy fewer fans, and don't leave them on at night.)
You do realize these beliefs have very different status. For example, I get the impression that modern Japan scientists don't believe in the connection between blood type and personality, and I haven't seen evidence that fan death was ever more than an urban legend that was never taken seriously by Korean scientists. Whereas abiogenic oil was a well-respected scientific theory.
The carrots and eyesight thing apparently started out as a WWII disinformation campaign to explain why a lot more German bombers were being shot down (really due to radar), in this respect it's more comparable to the Soviet red mercury hoax.
The Korean Wikipedia article starts by calling it a superstition, but then quotes Korean physicians on both sides.
Well one place to start is to look at people who believe that certain scientific opinions are inherently "unjust" and shouldn't be heard, that their cause is so noble that it justifies lying and falsifying science.
They think that certain topics they discuss in a nuanced way among themselves might be used for crude propogandistic purposes by others....like you're doing right now.
Is "nuanced" supposed to be a euphemism for "not corresponding to reality"? Because near as I can tell even when they talk among themselves they avoid mentioning said "unjust" scientific opinions and act lie they believe their own lies.
This is not surprising, as I described here once you start lying to attract people to your cause, your cause will be staffed by people who believe said lies. And if there really is some inner circle which free discusses the truth, how do you know they're goals are at all related to the goals that attracted you to the movement?
Here, for example: Arrest Climate-Change Deniers. In case you think that's an outlier, here's more: Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent?.
None of the examples you mention is exactly official doctrine.
Right. I didn't intend them to be. On the spectrum between official doctrine and benignly popular misconceptions, those are squarely on the latter end. (Except maybe the one about masturbation -- I wouldn't be surprised if there was social stigma against that.) Just as it's important to be aware of and correct for bias created by acceptance of official doctrine, it's important (though probably less so?) to be aware of and correct for bias created by acceptance of benignly popular misconceptions.
And yes, it is a spectrum: for a safe and presumably-uncontroversial-in-this-environment example of a point between Lysenkoism and fan death, consider atheists' testimony about what it's like to be an atheist in the Bible Belt.
For rationalist purposes, that fine. For reactionary purposes, my be not....
Any two-digit number would be far too high an estimate for the number of reactionaries who don't hate Protestantism.