‘Conspiracy theories’ on Covid-19 come from BRAIN DAMAGE? Questionable science is being used to pathologize real dissent
by Helen Buyniski
RT.com
Excerpts:
People who believe in so-called conspiracy theories about Covid-19 are actually suffering from “neuropsychological impairments,” says a neurologist, in what sounds more than a little bit like Soviet-era weaponized psychiatry.
‘Conspiracy theorists’ who refuse to wear masks and embrace lockdowns are the victims of their own scientific illiteracy, which has fundamentally damaged their brains to such an extent that they cannot understand the science of Covid-19, claims neurologist Bruce Miller from the University of California, San Francisco, in a paper published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Miller leverages his formidable credentials – he’s both director of the Memory and Aging Center and co-director of the Global Brain Health Institute at UCSF – to legitimize a baseless and frankly dangerous theory that could potentially be used to lock those same “conspiracy theorists” away in psychiatric facilities indefinitely.
His questionable paper takes the pathologization of dissent even a step further than recent bogus “anti-maskers are sociopaths” studies, to a very dark, totalitarian place – ironically, the exact same endpoint feared by the conspiracy theorists he so glibly patronizes.
Miller equates “anti-mask behavior,” “anti-vaccine beliefs,” and “conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19” with “denial of science,” blaming the whole package on low levels of science literacy rooted in poor-quality education.
While the quality of US science education is certainly dismal, Miller’s reductionist viewpoint leaves no room for the many intelligent, educated people who hold these views. His area of expertise may be in delusional disorders, but writing off informed dissent as delusion born of ignorance is, well, ignorant and delusional.
Read the full article at RT.com.
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