After quoting Donald Trump at a political rally with Robert Kennedy Jr.,
That is why today I am repeating my pledge to establish a panel of top experts, working with Bobby, to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases, including auto-immune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and more.
Coming at this from a conspiracy theorist/pseudoscience crank worldview, the one word that should set off immediate alarm bells is “autism.” . . . If you had to list the remaining terms in order of tinfoil hat appeal, they would be infertility, autoimmune disorders, and at a distant fourth, obesity. A reporter covering the speech might also feel compelled to add that the causes which RFK Junior has proposed in the past include not just vaccines but also chemtrails, Wi-Fi, and 5G.
Sounds about right: the candidate who endorses the ludicrous Pizzagate conspiracy theory, tried to overturn an election, and is allied with child-murder-denialist Alex Jones is teaming up with a public figure whose big political issue is opposing vaccines.
Palko continues:
Here’s how the NYT covered that quote in the third paragraph from the end of the article on Kennedy endorsing Trump:
Earlier in the day in Phoenix, at his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign, Mr. Kennedy said Mr. Trump had offered him a role in a second Trump administration, dealing with health care and food and drug policy. In Glendale, Mr. Trump said that, if elected to a second term, a panel of experts “working with Bobby” would investigate obesity rates and other chronic health issues in the United States.
I agree with Palko that this is absolutely ridiculous in the context of the actual quote from Trump. The Times is “sane-washing” Trump and Kennedy, working really hard to take dangerous and extreme positions and treat them as reasonable and normal.
I guess this doesn’t matter to political junkies for whom Kennedy Jr. is associated with anti-vaxx conspiracy theories. To many normies, though, I’m guessing that he’s perceived more as a generic Kennedy heir—maybe they don’t know that he makes Dr. Oz and Andrew Huberman look like purveyors of solid medical advice.
This seems like another example of how junk science and conspiracy theories have moved from the periphery of our culture to the mainstream, and I agree with Palko that it was bad journalism for the Times to report on that speech and sane-wash it.
Newspapers make mistakes all the time; the reasons for posting this one are: (1) this was the first time I’d heard of “sane-washing,” and (2) it’s scary to see pseudoscience escape the narrow world of Lancet/PNAS/Ted/NPR/Gladwell/Freakonomics and potentially become government policy.
I do think it’s possible that the mainstreaming of pseudoscience into elite discourse through the Lancet/PNAS/Ted/NPR/Gladwell/Freakonomics nexus has made it easier for pseudoscience like election denial and vaccine denial to get elite traction (even if it’s different subset of elites).
On the other hand, Merchants of Doubt, etc: Cigarette companies and fossil fuel companies have been working for many decades to blur the lines between science and propaganda, so maybe this would all be happening even without all the junk science that entered the mainstream in the replication-crisis era. I don’t know.
“this was the first time I’d heard of ‘sane-washing'”
If you’re anything like me, you won’t be able to un-see it now. It is not pleasant.
Will:
Yeah, I wrote that post a couple years ago; it just happened to turn up on the blog today. I’ve indeed been reminded of sane-washing many times since.
Maybe sane-washing is a form of brainwashing. Or maybe calling something sane-washing could be an instance of brainwashing.
Anyway, if you are anything like me perhaps you have thought about the possible benefits, if not necessity, of proper education in logic and reasoning concerning many things, for instance making any possible sane- or brainwashing less likely to happen and be(-come) less successful.
I hope it’s okay to, once more, mention that I am still baffled by the situation that I did not receive any explicit teaching in logic or argumentation or reasoning (or whatever term is more appropriate to use here) during any of my education (which includes university).
I think this should all be taught much more and much more explicitly, even at early ages and at different levels, but definitely at university. I hope to read much more about the possible benefits of this all, and about the possibly remarkable situation that this may not be taught very well presently. I know of two papers that mention this all a bit more:
Mulnix, J. W. (2010). Thinking critically about critical thinking. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-16
Sayers, D. L. (1947). The lost tools of learning. Paper read at a Vacation Course in Education, Oxford 1947
I found this on the Web regarding sane-washing:
————————
Appeared initially in political contexts around 2020 to describe softening progressive slogans like “defund the police”.Gained widespread use during the 2024 U.S. presidential election to criticize mainstream news coverage.
————————
Just as night follows day, there is sure to be a term, “sane-rinsing.” However, I could not find anything, so I will claim it for my own, although I am not quite sure what I mean by it and what distinguishes it from “sane-washing.” I invite anyone into this game of definition.
I wait for the term, “insane washing” to make its debut.
That’s called “nutpicking” – the practice of finding some fringe view (e.g. a very low-follower social media account) and presenting it as representative of some very large group.
Don’t forget “sane-repeating as desired.”
Paul Aloer, don’t wait. “I wait for the term, “insane washing” to make its debut.”
Insane waahing;
– advertising to ai agents (!) in your own publication (!) due to google enshitificarion and having to pay AdSense (owned by google) to not go insane at being usurped and eaten.
Time Inc is insane washing it’s self!
(Andrew, statmodelers, I’d appreciate to see a post on effects of advertising to agents.)
Like end stage drugs. Maybe a year of extra life…
“BOT EAT BOT WORLD
“Time Magazine Now Running Ads Meant Specifically to Influence AI Agents
The internet is for AI bots now.
…
“It’s a bizarre new tack for the online media industry, which has been reeling from a massive drop in traffic. That falloff has largely been attributed to Google stopping users from visiting websites by serving them with often inaccurate AI summaries.
“To stay afloat in an industry mired by continuous layoffs, Time is trying to reinvent itself by appealing to advertisers that want sway in the AI era. A striking metric: the publication said it’s seeing more bots crawl its pages than humans on most days. It says several brands, including online banking service Ally Bank and not-for-profit Project Management Institute, have already signed up.
“Maybe it’s more important to influence the agent than even the human, because with a human you influence one person,” Mobian cofounder and CEO Jonah Goodhart told Digiday. “When you influence ChatGPT, you’re influencing potentially all of ChatGPT. If ChatGPT changes what it says about [a brand], it’s massive and it’s more than any one campaign could ever do.”
“The big idea here is LLMs and AI want trusted information about brands,” he added. “We’re serving that up to them in a very straightforward, easy way.”
“To Time, it’s part of a broader effort to sell a Generative Engine Optimization — the AI era evolution of the Google-centered Search Engine Optimization industry — product to brands.”
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/time-magazine-running-ads-influence-ai-agents
Thanks for posting the link to the article, Seren Sipity. I’m fascinated by the Red Queen dilemmas that pop up almost instantaneously in AI these days, and this is a good one. We already have hidden comments to influence chatbots that only the chatbot can see, forcing the chatbot to develop some new approach, creating an opportunity for the next shortcut, etc. Now we have ads aimed at chatbots, which kind of defeats the purpose, requiring a fix, leading to the next opportunity for a workaround, and on it goes.
This is from the linked article:
“Time chief operating officer Mark Howard told Digiday that ‘this is brand new, and we believe that we are paving the first path forward here.’”
It is brand new alright, but a better motion metaphor than “we are paving the first path forward” might be “we are spinning the next swirl around the toilet bowl.”
I guess – at present – it is easier to fool the AI than to fool the average human (but maybe not the average MAGA devotee). It is likely also cheaper. But then the AI can be instructed to avoid such deceptions, also more cheaply than training humans. And so it goes. I have no idea who will end up winning, but it seems clear that the role for humans online is rapidly diminishing. Time to take up golf! Only a human would be foolish enough to do that.
In fairness, it’s all part of the spin cycle.
Um… Trump says crazy things all the time, but that particular quote doesn’t seem crazy to me at all. Well, it does inasmuch as it suggests that Bobby Kennedy is going to help in some way, but there’s nothing inherently crazy about establishing a panel of experts to investigate the in chronic health problems. I’m not saying it’s a great idea — many of the listed diseases have obvious or at least known explanations for their increasing rates of disease or of diagnosis, so I don’t know what one more panel of experts is going to find that is any different from previous panels of experts.
Sanewashing is a thing, and crazy Trump quotes are a dime a dozen — actually, much cheaper than that — so it seems funny to pick something non-crazy to complain about!
Quote from above: “Um… Trump says crazy things all the time, but that particular quote doesn’t seem crazy to me at all.”
I was thinking about what the possible “ridiculous” or even sub-optimal part was in all of this. I assume it might have to do with how to newspaper covered the quote given the blog posts, but I do not see anything obviously ridiculous or sub-optimal about it.
The quote states “(…) to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases, including auto-immune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and more.” which is covered by the newspaper as follows: “(…) a panel of experts “working with Bobby” would investigate obesity rates and other chronic health issues in the United States.”
If that’s the crucial comparison between the quote and how it’s covered in calling something “ridiculous” I don’t see it. Does it have to do with the words “decades long increase” because that is questionable or debatable, and those words are not used in the newspaper?. Leaving that increasing-part aside, it’s a pretty accurate and concise representation and interpretation of the quote in my view. Now, if people think the initial quote might mean or imply something different than what it actually includes that’s another thing, but it might be important to keep that separated from comparing the quote to what the newspaper said and judging that.
Anyway, logic and reasoning and stuff like that seems super important. Also when it comes to writing comments or writing a blog post. It might point to the crux of things, or it may help in making clear where exactly the issue lies in a discussion or in an interpretation of things.
(Side note: If someone knows of any papers written by let’s-make-everything-in-psychological-science-better-for-reals-now-folks that mention the possible importance of being educated in logic and reasoning I would love to hear about it. There must be some of them who have written about the possible importance of this all in any of their many papers about how to improve matters, next to mentioning “the incentives” for the Nth time of course. I’d be interested to read some titles here in the comment section, should these kinds of papers and recommendations exist in the world of improving psychological science of course)
Definitely, any suggestion that RFK, jr. brings anything of value is crazy, but something else in that quote is, to put it charitably, ill-informed, and that is supposing that a single panel of ‘experts’ would consider all these issues. The fact that all the mentioned phenomena have increased worrisomely in the last few decades (if that is indeed so) does not establish that one or a few underlying causes exist(s).
It may be reasonable to convene panels, and/or symposia, for one or more areas of concern, and/or to increase research funding. I hope that the ‘deep state’ (i.e. people who know their field) can direct efforts in a more effective direction.
Phil–
Palko’s claim is *not* that forming a panel of experts is crazy. What’s crazy is what they would be investigating conspiracist favorites (like autism) and be led by Bobby Kennedy. The sane-washing is by the Times, which chooses to mention “obesity”, while leaving out mention of the tinfoil hat redolent topics. By not including them, they have hidden the outlandishness of the proposal.
Did they leave out anything? They used the “and other chronic health issues in the United States”. That they only explicitly mentioned “obesity” and not any of the other things (“auto-immune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and more.”) in the original quote is not that unfair to the original statement in my view.
What I also wonder is whether “tinfoil hat redolent topics” is appropriate here. I mean if you would use that language for things like ESP or remote viewing or whatever it would make sense to me, but as far as I know auto-immune disorders, autism, obesity, infertitilty are things that are pretty normal to think about or do research on. Now, if you think these topics or health issues might be, or are, being investigated by people you may not agree with that’s another thing, but perhaps it’s useful and important to keep this separated from the topics and that they are being investigated and judging that.
Again, logic and reasoning seems super important. I hope to learn some more about this all via the comment section here, perhaps it makes clear where problems might occur or what could be phrased more optimally, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
You might disagree with Palko, but he is explicit that “If you had to list the remaining terms [autism being number one] in order of tinfoil hat appeal, they would be infertility, autoimmune disorders, and at a distant fourth, obesity.” (I think his ordering is, if not correct, at least defensible.) It is leaving out the three items with the most “tinfoil hat appeal” that makes the Times article an instance of “sane-washing”, making a proposal seem less crazy– it is a not a neutral choice of mentioning just one of four items.
I think it is very common that things get sort of summarized by a newspaper, or blog, and that they name just one item as an example, especially when immediately followed by words like “and other chronic health issues in the United States”. So, I think there’s nothing strange about naming just one example here.
Now, the single example used, obesity in this case, might be noteworthy if it would be completely different from the other examples or if it would be totally not in line with the other examples. I think that’s not really the case. I am not aware of any top 5 list of tinfoil hat appeal health issues, and I don’t necessarily care much for the opinion or view from the author of the blog here. That the author might implicitly or explicitly use this self-proposed order to perhaps (attempt to) make a point is noteworthy perhaps.
Aside from that, I am sure there are many conspiracy theories about many things, and I am pretty sure there are some about obesity or the causes of it. Perhaps some of them are now not even being seen as a conspiracy theory anymore. I am not up to date on my conspiracy theories, or nutrition and food research, but isn’t there some information out there on cornsirop that somehow has made its way into lots of foods which may not be good concerning weight?
AAA,
Just because something attracts conspiracy theorists and fringe types does not mean it’s not real. Quite the opposite. The “Tic Tac” UAP incident, the Tunguska event, and the JFK assassination all happened, but having a new acquaintance bring them up is a red flag that the conversation will soon turn to aliens and the CIA. Likewise, if they brought up autism, there’s a good chance you’d soon be hearing about the MMR vaccine.
If the NYT had said “Trump said that, if elected to a second term, a panel of experts ‘working with Bobby’ would investigate autism and other chronic health issues in the United States” sane people would have been much more likely to be alarmed given “Bobby’s” history as an anti-vaxxer. What’s more, there was every reason to suspect (since confirmed) that the new department of Health and Human Services would focus on autism as a way of pushing anti-vaxx rhetoric.
The NYT piece downplayed the lunacy that was likely to hit Health and Human Services. That sane-washing (in this case months before the election) contributed in at least a small part to our current time of measles epidemics and explosive diarrhea.
Quote from above: “Just because something attracts conspiracy theorists and fringe types does not mean it’s not real.”
Uhm, yes that’s kind of (in line with) one of the things I have tried to make clear. I was wondering whether someone else’s (!) use of the words tinfoil hat redolent topics is appropriate here, as I reason things like autism, obesity, infertitilty are things that are pretty normal to think about or do research on. That other people might have other topics to want to study that’s all fine and good, but to somehow name this tinfoil hat redolent topics or use words like tinfoil hat appeal concerning these topics is sub-optimal in my view, and might show the writer’s opinions on certain things more than it is an appropriate or even valid description of things.
And, I reason it’s perfectly normal that a collection of health issues is being investigated by the government and an associated government official (or whatever words are appropriate to describe the situation here). That’s totally different from having a new acquaintance bring up things like the JFK assassination in my view. Part of the job of the governement is to investigate things (or whatever words are better to use here), so when they propose to investigate health issues like autism and obesity and infertility that’s pretty normal and appropriate in my view. However, when you talk to a new acquaintance it could be consididered to be not normal and not appropriate when this new aquaintance brings up the topic of, or suggests to talk about, things like the JFK assassination. It’s perhaps more appropriate to talk about more neutral things like the weather and favorite sports teams when talking to a new acquaintance.
Again, I have tried to make clear why it might be important to try and separate things in a discussion or when writing a blog post. It might be useful to try and separate facts from interpretation of these facts, or objective description of events from a subjective interpretation of events, or what is being investigated from how it is being investigated, etc. etc. etc. It’s pretty hard to do when writing or talking about things, and even harder to explain sometimes where things might get entangled, but I’ve tried. I think I have tried enough for now in this discussion about this case here. Thanks all for the replies!
So it’s the Kennedy thing that makes it crazy?
I still don’t get it.
Diagnosed of autism have indeed skyrocketed. I think it’s even the case that autism really has increased a lot. There’s been some research about older parents being more likely to have autistic kids, and the district parental ages has shifted upwards, so that’s part of it. Maybe that’s all of it, I dunno. It doesn’t seem crazy to look into it, or any of the other things mentioned.
I’m not trying to be argumentative, I just genuinely don’t see what is insane about the quote. You want insane Trump quotes, I’ve got plenty. But this isn’t one.
I really wonder if it is even possible to know whether autism has genuinely increased, given that the diagnosis environment is so radically different from several decades ago.
I don’t have any particular reason to doubt that it has… And as you say, there are probably good reasons (like higher parental age) that it’s plausible for it to have increased. But is that even possible to demonstrate?
It’s the Bobby thing that makes it crazy.
You’re going to organize a panel to explore these issues. Are you going to organize it under Bobby? Presumably, you’ve been following what’s happening under Bobby’s leadership. Hard to think of a better descriptor than crazy.
> “Maybe that’s all of it…
Def not all of it. Changes in diagnostic criteria and increased awareness are clearly part of it – to a large degree evidenced by the much larger increase in diagnoses in the milder forms than the more severe forms.
> “And as you say, there are probably good reasons (like higher parental age) that it’s plausible for it to have increased. But is that even possible to demonstrate?
We know for a fact that the diagnostic criteria have broadened. How could that not be a contributing factor to the increased diagnoses? We know that awareness has increased. It seems highly improbable that wouldn’t be a contributing factor.
And there’s a lot of evidence that shows an increase in diagnoses in the milder forms has significantly outpaced the increase in diagnoses in the more severe forms – evidence that’s consistent with increased diagnoses due to broadened criteria and increased awareness.
confused –
Rain Man (1988) is widely credited with a big jump in public awareness of autism. Around the same time, Temple Grandin and Donna Williams wrote bestselling autism memoirs. That period saw diagnosis rates climb sharply – one UK study found first-recorded diagnoses of autism/PDD went from 0.40 per 10,000 person-years in 1991 to 2.98 per 10,000 by 2001.
That’s not the “proof” you might be looking for but the timing is suggestive, and lines up with diagnostic changes and more laypeople learning to recognize the symptoms of autism and seek a diagnosis.
Joshua:
Yes, this is all anecdotal but I remember seeing a “60 Minutes” segment on autism—this must have been in the late 1970s. It was about these little kids who didn’t communicate and would bang their heads against the wall. Nothing about “the spectrum” or anything like that. And it was completely mysterious. I’d never heard of it before seeing that show.
Just in general I think that people are much more aware of mental illness than they used to be. It’s hard to generalize from my own experience, because obviously I become aware of more things as I get older. But, just for example, about 25 years ago I was supervising a student who developed schizophrenia. I knew what schizophrenia was, of course, but I actually had no idea that the symptoms commonly appeared in people’s early twenties. So the whole thing was a lot more mysterious to me than it would be now.
Joshua – “That’s not the “proof” you might be looking for but the timing is suggestive, and lines up with diagnostic changes and more laypeople learning to recognize the symptoms of autism and seek a diagnosis.”
Oh, yes, I have zero doubt increased awareness has led to way more diagnosis.
What I was doubting was whether, given that dramatic change, there’s any way to know whether the underlying true rate of autism has actually changed over the last several decades.
IMO, establish the effect is real before looking for causes.
(Although given parental age effects etc. a real increase is certainly highly plausible.)
Confused –
Again, I think the differential in rates of diagnosis increase by severity is a good kind of check to help adjust for the increased awareness. It makes sense to me that increases in diagnosis of severe autism approximates a “true” increase as it seems the more severe forms would have always been hard to miss and the increase is less likely a function of increased awareness.
CDC researchers created a “profound autism” category (nonverbal, minimally verbal, or IQ under 50) specifically to get away from fuzzier severity labels – and nonverbal/minimally-verbal status especially is directly observed, not something that plausibly gets missed and later “noticed” the way milder social difficulties. Might.
Using that definition on data through 2016 (the most recent year I could find with this specific breakdown), profound autism did rise, but much less steeply than non-profound autism – about 46 per 10,000 kids vs. 143 per 10,000 by 2016, roughly a 3-to-1 gap in growth rate. That’s consistent with the logic above.
Caveat: even that comparison isn’t fully clean. Some of the rise in profound autism could reflect kids getting relabeled from other categories (like intellectual disability) to autism specifically, for service-access reasons, rather than a true increase in impairment. So it’s evidence, not proof, but it does suggest the true rate has moved at least somewhat. Also worth noting the data’s now nearly a decade old, so it doesn’t capture whatever’s happened most recently.
Joshua – That makes sense, and yeah, I agree reclassification from other diagnoses would be the remaining confounder; the extreme e.g. nonverbal cases would not have been missed but could have been called something else.
Exactly. Sane-washing mainly consists of picking the sanest quote, omitting or downplaying the craziest details and context, and heavily paraphrasing often to the point that an absolute word salad is reported as a coherent and even reasonable sounding position statement.
While not taking a stance on the subject matter, I still recorded the title and the blog post into my disordered personal archives. Why? Well, you see, I have a draft manuscript somewhere in my drawer with a title: “The Many Faces of ‘Washings'”. This piece was a new addition, but there are so many, so many more. Please feel to contact me if you want to contribute. It could be fun.
I searched for other -washings, and found a list on wikipedia. It seems to me to generally involve some form of misrepresentation or misleading or deception. From that view, I thought of the following possible title of your manuscript:
“Washing that does dirty”
Do dirty can be defined as “to mistreat or deceive one”, which I thought could be appropriate in light of the topic of the manuscript. The connection between washing and dirty makes for the possible interesting or fun title.
Quote from above: “It could be fun.”
If you say so!
Here’s a proposal for a new -washing:
Associative-washing is the practice of (consciously or unconsciously) using words or statements or examples or comparisons in speaking or writing in such a manner that it (explicitly or implicitly) sub-optimally, non-appropriately, or misleadingly associates one thing with another thing.
Associative-washing is often hard to spot, because it often involves several entangled and related phrases or statements that are each individually stated sub-optimally, non-appropriately, or misleadingly, but because they are presented together make it moore likely that the associative-washing effect might occur. The cumulative and interactive effects of many such questionable or sub-optimally phrased statements are a crucial aspect of associative-washing.
For instance, a blog post can be written about a political figure that plans to examine autism. The blog post can include several words or statements or examples or comparisons peppered throughout the piece that might leave some readers associative-washed. The blog post could somehow associate investigating autism with conspiracies about autism, and in doing this possibly associate the political figure that plans to examine autism with conspiracy theories or even with being a conspiracy theorist themselves. This kind of associative-washing is however not used when talking about a scientist investigating autism or investigating possible environmental influences of autism. In the case of the scientist investigating autism, this is talked or written about without making any associations with certain things like conspiracies.
Another example of associative-washing could be when a blog post focuses on the covering of just one quote mentioned in the third paragraph from the end of an article in a particular newspaper, and comments about the poor way this newspaper interpreted this quote. The judgment of the writer of the blog post about the way the quote has been covered by the newspaper is presented as being more objective and valid than what might be optimal or appropriate. More specifically, the writer of the blog post might interpret using the word obesity and not autism by the newspaper as being a sign of some sort of sub-optimal (or even worse) covering. The writer of the blog post could communicate this by mentioning that autism is highest on a self-proposed order list of so—called terms of tinfoil hat appeal, and that obesity is lowest on that self-proposed list. In doing so, the writer associates the use by the newspaper of the word obesity and not autism with conspiracies and possibly even with an associated deliberate choice by the newspaper to use a certain word. It could be that the author of the newspaper article is obese themselves, and might have therefore chosen to use the word obesity as one example, or there could be many other reasons why that word has been used instead of any of the other options, but this is not clearly mentioned or acknowledged when associative-washing.
As previously stated, the cumulative and interactive effects of many such questionable or sub-optimally phrased statements are a crucial aspect of associative-washing. To enhance the effect certain associations can in turn be associated with certain other associations, which in turn makes it more and more likely that the entire blog post becomes an entangled piece of suboptimally prhased statements involving several subjective judgments and interpretations and evaluations. One could first somehow associate the use of the word obesity (and not autism or any of the other options) by the newspaper with conspiracies, and then later also mention that the newspaper is terrified of the appearance of liberal bias. Again, the phrase concerning the liberal bias may itself might be considered to be questionable or debatable or even outright incorrect, but it is being presented as more objective or more true than what might be appropriate. And now there might be an association in the readers’ minds of the newspaper’s possible political reasons for doing something & the newspaper using the word obesity and not autism (or any of the other options) & conspiracies.
“If you say so!”
https://jruohonen.hcommons.org/2026/09/05/washing/
Perhaps the other conclusion would be about the propagation and popularization of terminology; it indeed seems to be everywhere nowadays. It has also propagated to languages other than English.
Andrew- You’re obviously just a shill for Big Miasma.
Maybe it’s just me, but it always seemed like “Secretary of Health questions germ theory” should be a bigger story.
Freakonimics may be junk science, but Kennedy’s lunacy is on a whole other level. I don’t think the two are connected.
Hate to get all theoretical about this, but “Dialectic of Enlightenment” got this at least partly right. That is, the rise of science and systematic rationalism was connected to the emergence of new systems of control. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with science, done right. I think Horkheimer and Adorno got slippery about this. Rather, the point is that romantic-inspired movements of rebellion often express massive distrust with science, especially where science intersects with government. There was a lot of this on the left when I was younger (long ago), now it’s almost completely on the right, e.g. the attack on Fauci. Bobby K Jr. is part of that world. I think Trump could care less one way or the other, but it’s convenient so what the heck.
Sane-washing is a great term, and I agree that Trump should not be given the benefit of the assumption that what he says reflects thought or judgment as those terms are ordinarily used.
>> That is, the rise of science and systematic rationalism was connected to the emergence of new systems of control. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with science, done right. I think Horkheimer and Adorno got slippery about this. Rather, the point is that romantic-inspired movements of rebellion often express massive distrust with science, especially where science intersects with government.
Yes, exactly. I think the way US history is generally taught in school (kind of skipping from Reconstruction to World War I, except for Teddy Roosevelt) underplays how much this is a long running conflict in US culture. The “Progressive Era” (so called, though what they stood for is radically different from what’s called “progressive” now) was much more of a “rationalizing” movement, applying Industrial Revolution type ideas to society and government.
I would say that COVID broke wide open something that had been simmering for a long time, and was already being amplified before that by social media and celebrity culture, etc.
(I have also seen an argument that the Vietnam War fundamentally broke US trust in its institutions. if that’s true, this may have been building for 50 years.)
confused:
Much of the rise autism rates is due to more aggressive diagnosis:
https://www.latimes.com/local/autism/la-me-autism-day-one-html-htmlstory.html paywall
quoted at the blog
https://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2017/07/david-wallace-wells-autism-and-bad.html
From the LA Times
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist at UC Davis, suspects that environmental triggers such as exposure to chemicals during pregnancy play a role. In a 2009 study, she started with a tantalizing lead — several autism clusters, mostly in Southern California, that her team had identified from disability and birth records.
But the hot spots could not be linked to chemical plants, waste dumps or any other obvious environmental hazards. Instead, the cases were concentrated in places where parents were highly educated and had easy access to treatment.
Peter Bearman, a sociologist at Columbia University, has demonstrated how such social forces are driving autism rates.
Analyzing state data, he identified a 386-square-mile area centered in West Hollywood that consistently produced three times as many autism cases as would be expected from birth rates.
Affluence helped set the area apart. But delving deeper, Bearman detected a more surprising pattern that existed across the state: Rich or poor, children living near somebody with autism were more likely to have the diagnosis themselves.
Living within 250 meters boosted the chances by 42%, compared to living between 500 and 1,000 meters away.
The reason, his analysis suggested, was simple: People talk.
They talk about how to recognize autism, which doctors to see, how to navigate the bureaucracies to secure services. They talk more if they live next door or visit the same parks, or if their children go to the same preschool.
The influence of neighbors alone accounts for 16% of the growth of autism cases in the state developmental system between 2000 and 2005, Bearman estimated.
In other words, autism is not contagious, but the diagnosis is.
confused:
Much of the rise autism rates is due to more aggressive diagnosis:
https://www.latimes.com/local/autism/la-me-autism-day-one-html-htmlstory.html paywall
quoted at the blog
https://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2017/07/david-wallace-wells-autism-and-bad.html
From the LA Times
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist at UC Davis, suspects that environmental triggers such as exposure to chemicals during pregnancy play a role. In a 2009 study, she started with a tantalizing lead — several autism clusters, mostly in Southern California, that her team had identified from disability and birth records.
But the hot spots could not be linked to chemical plants, waste dumps or any other obvious environmental hazards. Instead, the cases were concentrated in places where parents were highly educated and had easy access to treatment.
Peter Bearman, a sociologist at Columbia University, has demonstrated how such social forces are driving autism rates.
Analyzing state data, he identified a 386-square-mile area centered in West Hollywood that consistently produced three times as many autism cases as would be expected from birth rates.
Affluence helped set the area apart. But delving deeper, Bearman detected a more surprising pattern that existed across the state: Rich or poor, children living near somebody with autism were more likely to have the diagnosis themselves.
Living within 250 meters boosted the chances by 42%, compared to living between 500 and 1,000 meters away.
The reason, his analysis suggested, was simple: People talk.
They talk about how to recognize autism, which doctors to see, how to navigate the bureaucracies to secure services. They talk more if they live next door or visit the same parks, or if their children go to the same preschool.
The influence of neighbors alone accounts for 16% of the growth of autism cases in the state developmental system between 2000 and 2005, Bearman estimated.
In other words, autism is not contagious, but the diagnosis is.
I have been told that if I was 10-15 years younger, I would probably have been diagnosed with autism. I almost was (well, with Asperger’s syndrome at the time), about 25 years ago, and the reasons the psychiatrist ultimately decided against it wouldn’t be valid today.
Quote from somewhere above (quoted here for better overview): “Rain Man (1988) is widely credited with a big jump in public awareness of autism. Around the same time, Temple Grandin and Donna Williams wrote bestselling autism memoirs.”
I saw a movie about Temple Grandin from 2010 titled “Temple Grandin” which I enjoyed. I am not sure how much of it is an accurate representation of actual events and such, but I found the parts about the cows interesting. According to wikipedia she wrote scientific papers about beef cattle behavior during handling, which seems in line with the parts of the movie that I found interesting and moving (or whatever word is better to use here).
> “…that I found interesting and moving (or whatever word is better to use here).
How about mooving?
“How about mooving?”
+1
There is a wonderful series on Netflix called “Love on the spectrum” which follows (mostly young) autistic adults as they explore the world of dating.
I love that series, both the original Australian seasons, and the US seasons!
I recently saw some youtube video that mentioned some people don’t like everything about it though, one thing being that the cast does not receive any money if I remembered correctly. I find the series endearing overall, with a pretty interesting and beautiful way of editing and using music (although that’s one of the things some criticism is about).
There is this one scene, for instance, where a young lady and a young man are flying a kite on the beach. At one point the man starts singing a song and then the woman slowly joins in and you can then slowly hear the accompanying music come up in the brackground and become louder and more prominent. The entire thing is beautifful or endearing (or whatever term is apropriate here) to watch, I think especially because of the editing and useage of the music in that scene.
I also find some of the family members come across as very thoughtful and attentive towards their family member with autism. In the latest US season, for instance, there is a young man with an imaginary girlfriend, and his twin sister comes across as pretty amazing in how she interacts with her brother. The cooking spaghetti scene is perhaps noteworthy in this regard, as is the buying a suit scene.
The NYT has a variety of techniques for manipulating public opinion about Trump–the paraphrases (as highlighted above), the refusal to report even paraphrases of his most outrageous remarks, the failure to show pictures of him sleeping at meetings; omissions that include not covering the insane AI pictures he posts regularly on Truth Social (Trump in a general’s uniform standing shoulder to shoulder with Patton and MacArthur, Trump rescuing George Washington from an abyss, Trump single-handedly rescuing an oil tanker from turbaned bad guys, etc.).
This isn’t even-handedness. I’m not sure what it is, but cowardice and worries about offending a handful of readers do come to mind.
Sa:
I think the problem is that the New York Times is one of the few major independent news outlets in existence, and as a result they sometimes have an almost crippling sense of responsibility.
And I don’t see any easy way out of this one, other than some institutions re-establishing major independent news outlets. As it is, the choices the Times make can be consequential, and they need to make tough decisions every day. I’m not saying I always or even usually agree with their decisions, just that the decisions need to be made.
S.A. –
I’m not sure exactly how to define what is or isn’t even-handedness. Everyone thinks the Times’ coverage is biased to favor the other side. I don’t see a clear way to make an objective assessment.
It’s certainly clear that they don’t explicitly cover much of his crazy stuff. But if they did, it would be nothing but wall-to-wall crazy Trump stuff every day.
And if they did cover him like that, it would likely work to his advantage. I think they already focus on him way too much (for my political preferences) while neglecting a lot of important issues, relatively speaking. He thrives politically from being the constant center of attention.
And on the third hand, I think the Times has already stretched their long-standing practices of trying to frame things as neutrally as possible – because the wall of shit that Trump puts out kind of forced their hand to blend editorializing more with straight news.
That said, given the sheer amount of material there is to be critical of, they’re still pretty deferential – they’ve moved their standards, just not as much as the material would justify. And as such, it has undermined their credibility with a lot of people who don’t have an abiding hatred of Trump, while also managing to undermine their credibility with those who do hate Trump. And that fits nicely with Trump’s broader strategy of attacking their credibility regardless of what they do.
Considering that some of the very first “applications” of statistical methods were attempts to justify eugenics, “scientific” racism, and class divisions, and the reaction to that in form of lysenkoism and communist’s “scientific world view”, and other such things, I am not sure the line between science and propaganda has ever been very sharp.