Photo via @steak_umm/Twitter
April 14, 2021, 7:51 am*
The Twitter account for the Steak-umm brand of frozen meat products is once again in the news for challenging people’s assumptions on the topic of science.
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This is not the first time whoever runs this account has gone after astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on the subject, and they’re not backing down from their challenge to one of his tweets as people question why the account is weighing in.
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This latest “beef” (see what we did there) was the result of a simple tweet by Tyson who proclaimed that “Science” is true “whether you believe it or not.”
This was widely taken to be a criticism of certain conservatives who refuse to believe in science-supported things like climate change and the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, but Steak-umm took issue with the perhaps overly simplified language.
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“the irony of neil’s tweet is that by framing science itself as ‘true’ he’s influencing people to be more skeptical of it in a time of unprecedented misinformation,” they wrote. “science is an ever refining process to find truth, not a dogma. no matter his intent, this message isn’t helpful.”
The individual behind Steak-umm has responded to multiple Tyson defenders with similar messages, explaining that science itself isn’t “truth” but a process of exploration and questioning meant to bring humanity closer to understanding the reality of the world around us.
This is the reason that those in the field of medical science won’t say, for example, that it’s 100 percent for sure that vaccines don’t cause autism—because real scientists don’t dabble in the language of “truth” and “fact” as there is always a chance that they’re wrong.
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Believing that anything a scientific organization or individual says must be 100 percent true can also get us into trouble when new developments force them to make quick decisions. Dr. Fauci and the CDC changing recommendations on mask wearing due to the emergence of new information during the pandemic resulted in many anti-maskers claiming that this must mean they were completely lying or have no idea what they’re talking about.
Steak-umm went as far as accusing Tyson of clout-chasing with his recent tweet.
“science itself isn’t ‘true’ it’s a constantly refining process used to uncover truths based in material reality and that process is still full of misteaks,” they said in one comment with a nicely-placed steak pun. “neil just posts ridiculous sound bites like this for clout and he has no respect for epistemology.”
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Tyson has become more of a controversial figure after being accused of sexual harassment by two women, sexual assault by a third, and drugging and rape by a fourth in 2018. Multiple networks working on shows involving Tyson put these projects on hold to investigate but later continued them, stating that the investigation had been completed but declining to release the results.
It was around this time that people first noticed Steam-umm taking issue with Tyson’s tweets.
*First Published: April 13, 2021, 12:56 pm
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