There is a joke told in the science community.

Q: How many naturopaths does it take to treat a disease?
A: 3. One to distract you by telling you that Mercury is in retrograde, one to mix up a potion, and then one to illegally put actual medicine in it.

Despite being told they are scientifically literate - the same way too many nutritionists, dietitians and one BBC journalist have taken to weirdly claiming that Ultra-Processed Foods are not just a new fad label for alternatives, they cause disease and are not even food - a lot of people in the US buy supplements, natural remedies, tonics, potions, salves, and other stuff that doesn't work any better than a sugar pill.

When those the age of my parents bought houses in California in the late 1950s, it cost about $110,000 in today's money. Now the average is 700 percent more. In the early 2000s, health care was not cheap but if you didn't like the health care plan at your job, you could buy your own for a few hundred dollars per month. Since 2012, health care premiums have gone up 300 percent but access is now equal - equally bad. The list goes on.

There is little reason to wonder why so many didn't trust government approval of the COVID-19 vaccine; the public hadn't trusted government science decision-making for decades prior to that, vaccine deniers had simply switched from Democrats to Republicans.

The reason distrust is so endemic is because of epidemiological hype and media outlets treating it like it is science, rather than noting that correlation is placed over in the EXPLORATORY pile and maybe interesting enough for science to prove. 

It is popular for some political activists to lament the modern Supreme Court(1) but the 1970s and '80s Supreme Court had 5 justices to the left of Sotomayor. That led to a lot of bad law.

For trust in science the worst thing from that dark period was their ruling in 1984's Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, now commonly called "Chevron deference." 

The decision was so lopsided toward government, and therefore the environmental groups that collude with career government employees, that it gave the White House the power to create laws without needing Congress. It meant that a government agency could create regulations that act like laws if it was in their "mandate."

The Biden administration wants to make sure its policy of banning conventional cars succeeds, which means getting Americans to buy electric ones.

Which is why the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act gives everyone $7500 toward an electric car. Mandates and subsidies are always the road to success, right? Not really, unless you are still using CFL bulbs that the government spent billions on. They instead add to costs because everyone has access to more money but a limited supply. This is such simple economics even Paul Krugman can understand it.

$8.5 billion doesn't get you a lot when it comes to replacing conventional energy with solar and wind. In the case of South Africa, one closed coal plant, and concerns that they may want to push delays in closing more farther down the timeline.

In 2014, under what politicians declared as pressure from the private sector and very much wanting the public to feel like government was showing 'leadership' in space issues, the 
European Space Agency told government employees to make an Ariane 6 rocket - but on a budget.

Which meant using mostly old stuff from Ariane 5. They gave it a generous 2020 launch target. 

It is 2023 and they are not even close. The price tag has already doubled. ESA, which is generally a lot more efficient than NASA in the US, got caught up in the political grift that adding new countries to the EU brings - everyone somehow wants more money back from the project than they put in, rather than just France and Germany getting the wealth.

After someone with mental health issues shoots up a business, the recurring theme from gun ban activists is to say it's a 'red' state problem. Meaning Republicans. And thus the NRA and everything democracy's oppose.

All fine, that's just politics, Republicans turn it around and note that if Democrats would stop shooting people, mass shootings would drop by 90 percent. The NRA notes their members haven't been involved in any of the mass of shooting ever. 

America is the world leader in science, yet we are also the world leader in organic food, supplements, the wellness industry, and prescription medication consumption.

One more recent bit of anti-science woo-based lumpiness is a new flavor of "endocrine disruption" homeopathy; adrenal fatigue. Do you have it? Like an astrology reading, everyone can recognize something that makes them think it's real, but it is just gibberish.

https://twitter.com/jonathanstea/status/1648062350761795584

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