Why is this question relevant? Anti-science views are anti-science regardless of the short term mortality rate you can attach to them or who is propagating them.

It's relevant because it would put some substance behind the "both sides do it" claim.

People commonly make this false equivalence, but as of 2021 it's fair to observe that it's just unequivocally false with respect to the question of respect for scientific consensus. If a lot of republicans disregard science (e.g. believe incorrect things about covid) and a few democrats do it (e.g. believing incorrect things about nuclear safety), people take these unequal examples and proceed claim it means both sides are the same, and believe that they are expressing a sophisticated position.

It's precisely this kind of illiteracy in the ability to assess the relative merits of differently weighted examples that makes the false equivalence possible. This which is why demands for substantiation are relevant and necessary.

> People commonly make this false equivalence, but as of 2021 it's fair to observe that it's just unequivocally false with respect to the question of respect for scientific consensus. If a lot of republicans disregard science (e.g. believe incorrect things about covid) and a few democrats do it (e.g. believing incorrect things about nuclear safety), people take these unequal examples and proceed claim it means both sides are the same, and believe that they are expressing a sophisticated position.

I guess you’re arguing with ‘people’ then.

You might want to look into some of the other anti-science ideas strongly propagated by democrats. You don’t seem to have a good inventory. It’s not limited to minor false beliefs about nuclear safety. Consider the belief that there is no such thing as biological sex, for example.

>I guess you’re arguing with ‘people’ then.

I'm specifically and directly responding to your question of why we should be in the business of judging the relative merits of different claims, and I elaborated by explaining problems with false balance.

Edit, since I can't reply: parent commenter asked "What perspectives do you see coming from the Democrat side that have the same mortality rate as vaccine refusal? "and you replied "why is this question relevant" and I explained why. So I was indeed directly responding to you, despite your continued protestations to the contrary. Insisting that I wasn't being responsive to you is bordering on ridiculous.

> Consider the belief that there is no such thing as biological sex, for example.

I'm pretty comfortable dismissing this out of hand.

Edit: and I'm not missing the point, I understand the role you believe it plays in the logical structure of equating democrats to republicans. I understand that you're invoking the subject of gender and saying it's an example of Democrats being estranged from scientific consensus in a way that's comparable to Republicans being estranged from scientific consensus on covid. And it's at this point in the conversation where I'm no longer attempting to engage with you, and I instead direct my comments to others reading this thread on understanding what false equivalences look like.

I was initially focused on failures to accurately compare differently weighted examples. But there's a different category of false equivalence, where people confidently invoke a completely non-existent scientific consensus. The invocation of gender falls into that category.

> responding to your question of why we should be in the business of judging the relative merits of different claims,

That’s not a question I asked.

> and I elaborated by explaining problems with false balance.

Which is why this elaboration isn’t relevant.

>> Consider the belief that there is no such thing as biological sex, for example.

> I'm pretty comfortable dismissing this out of hand.

You seem to be missing the point that it is a common anti-science belief promoted by democrats.

As far as I can see you are just advocating for partisanship. That’s a common position to take, and you are welcome to it.

Sure does seem like you don’t have any examples to back up the assertion that democrats are equally anti-intellectual.

If you make that assertion, you can’t be upset when people ask for examples or evidence. It’s extremely relevant to the (as of yet) unsupported argument you made.

Nobody is upset, nobody asked for evidence, and nobody claimed anyone was ‘equally’ anti-intellectual.

It really doesn’t seem clear what you think you are responding to.