New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is one of those bros who thinks he’s a lot smarter than he is. Well, actually, that’s most people. Maybe all people. After all, it’s a necessary coping mechanism for most of us. If Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t think she was smarter than she is, she’d never get out of bed, and Crayola could finally remove the D.C. emergency poison control number from all its packaging.
Sadly, unaccountably confident people who don’t know what they don’t know have been a scourge on civilization for centuries. And they’re still with us—in spades. They don’t want to defer to experts because that’s for beta loser cucks, so instead they cobble together a worldview from what they see on message boards and social media.
Meet Rodgers, the dude who puts the Q in QB.
Rodgers is best known for spreading joy throughout Wisconsin for the past 15 years and freedom phlegm throughout Green Bay for roughly the past three. He (in)famously claimed to have been immunized from COVID-19 when he demonstrably wasn’t, and he appears to have endorsed virulent anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his long-shot presidential bid. (Full disclosure: RFK Jr. is suing Daily Kos for … reasons.) And now he’s harassing actual experts, claiming that they need to debate nonexperts on the very topics the experts are universally acclaimed experts in.
RELATED STORY: RFK Jr. is running on his name, because he's sure not running as a Democrat
Pro Football Talk (NBC Sports):
Rodgers, via SI.com, recently waded into the effort to cajole Dr. Peter Hotez to debate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over the COVID vaccines. Rodgers shared on Instagram a clip of Hotez admitting to unhealthy eating habits with this message: “@robertfkennedyjr would mop this bum.”
Hotez responded on Wednesday, retweeting the SI.com story and sending this message to Rodgers: “Disappointed he took a cheap shot vs me this wk. In 2021 during our awful delta wave we were losing 2,000 Americans/day, >80% among unvaccinated, when vaccines were 90% protective vs death/serious illness, I criticized him for his public antivaccine stance. . . . This is so unnecessary, I have no bad thoughts for Aaron, I needed to speak out in 2021 to try and save lives. 200,000 unvaccinated Americans needlessly perished during those delta BA.1 waves in last half of 2021 early 2022.”
Fox’s Laura Ingraham famously told NBA superstar LeBron James to “shut up and dribble.” Someone needs to tell Rodgers to stop dribbling on himself and shut up. Then again, if you’d eagerly contributed to a disinformation campaign that cost tens of thousands of American lives, you’d probably be loath to admit it, too.
Of course, the idea that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could beat anyone, much less an acknowledged expert, in a debate about vaccines is beyond risible. But his backers don’t actually care about Kennedy winning. They’d be happy if he merely looked like he’d won. And the scientists who fall into these debate traps are often put into a no-win situation, because these spectacles are specially designed to create more heat than light.
As Daily Kos’ Chitown Kev shared in Sunday’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup, Science magazine Editor-in-Chief H. Holden Thorp is well familiar with this shoving-nerds-into-lockers approach to science, and he sees Bro Rogan’s very public campaign to browbeat Hotez into debating Kennedy for what it is. (Rogan has offered Hotez beaucoup bucks to engage with Kennedy, and some Rogan fans have gone as far as harassing Hotez at his house.)
Hucksters like RFK Jr are skilled at flooding the zone with garbage. Kennedy recently told Rogan that Wi-Fi could open the blood-brain barrier and cause cancer. Absurd statements like this are a trap for scientists. A scientist wants to explain how conservation of energy works and why Kennedy’s assertion violates just about every principle there is in chemistry and physics. This approach sets up two huge problems. First, it gives RFK’s garbage equal footing with principles that have been established by centuries of science. The second is that to a lay listener, the scientist just comes off as fitting the stereotype of a nitpicking nerd and RFK looks like a powerful communicator. Hotez debating RFK about vaccines would produce the same result.
I’ve fallen into this trap a few times myself. I went to the Heterodox Academy to be on a panel that also included the conservative pundits Richard Lowry and Batya Ungar-Sargon, who rattled off all kinds of misinformation about COVID-19. Each thing they said would have taken 15 minutes to refute based on the evidence. So, I picked one and did the best I could. (BTW, they were both gracious participants and very cordial in the green room.) But my knowledge of the evidence and burning desire to cite it all was no match for their rhetorical skills.
When scientists refuse these “debates,” the other side gets the opportunity to say that they are turning them down for fear of being challenged. The opposition can claim to be “just asking questions,” even though they don’t care about the answers. But these reactions are preferable to giving them a platform.
Indeed.
Rodgers taking aim at Dr. Hotez’s expertise is about as absurd as Hotez claiming he could have led the Packers to a touchdown on their final drive of the season last year. And, you know, maybe he could have. By handing off to his running backs instead of throwing into double coverage and instantly dashing his team’s playoff hopes:
Hmm, apparently one of the lingering symptoms of COVID-19 is temporary blindness. Maybe Rodgers needs to see a doctor. A real one this time.
RELATED STORY: RFK Jr. spouts his 'theories' on Joe Rogan's show, and Rogan obliges His Barminess
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We are joined by Christina Reynolds of Emily’s List. Reynolds is the Senior Vice President of Communications and Content at the progressive organization that works on getting women elected to office. Reynolds talks about what she is seeing up and down the ballot this election cycle on the anniversary of the outrageous Supreme Court Decision to take away the reproductive protections of Roe v. Wade.