Absolutely agree. The “internet” was not a harmful worldview reinforcing machine back when we were told not to cite GeoCities in our book reports.
Asking people to betray their dopamine is a monumental task. It’s like like challenging any other addiction.
I know quite a few MAGA doctors so I can assure you that a medical degree is not protective.
To your point, I’ve met quite a few STEM educated people who fall for this type of misinformation due to lack of historical and political literacy.
Quite a few are also quite disrespectful to the humanities so they tend to be empathetically underdeveloped since they feel their whole life is about producing results and making progress at any cost necessary.
I’ve seen a lot of the counter balance to this which is STEM folk not having respect for the humanities, rendering them empathetically underdeveloped.
deleted by creator
Science is powerful but, as you’ve stated, balance is most critical. It was one of the most impactful biologists of the modern era that wrote “the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races” based on his theory of natural selection.
As you can imagine, statements like these were used to justify the Atlantic slave trade, the genocide of indigineous people ie. “manifest destiny” and other colonial era horrors.
One should not treat science or the words of scientists as absolute truth. Unfortunately it is not free from human greed or corruption.