This is an interview with a confirmed Twitter employee affected by the November 4th 2022 layoffs, who has asked to be kept anonymous. They are still employed by Twitter until early winter 2023, and are a part of the 3,700 person layoff, half of Twitter’s workforce. They have been working in technology for a decade now and at Twitter for a few years. The Twitter Layoff comes after Elon Musk became Twitter's CEO. He had been buying shares since early 2022. Musk ordered the mass layoff because he thought Twitter had an unnecessarily large workforce.

“How can we trust this ‘NASA?’ “ From climate change to healthcare to the economy, science is the primary focus of today’s hot political debates. The denial of science blurs the lines between fact and fiction more and more. Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking put it best when he said, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”  So, in a world led by misinformation, will science no longer prevail? More importantly, did science ever prevail? 

“Hearsay, throughout human history, was the dominant form of information sharing,” says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. He theorizes a gene for superstition that might have been useful, like the old miner’s superstition that “if your candle goes out so will you”. This is based on fact, because candles won’t stay lit in bad air, so based on some factual superstitions the gene has stuck around. That means, by believing in science, we are fighting a genetic predisposition. This is the human hardwiring to see things that aren’t there, called pareidolia. 

Alongside that, there is the theory of cognitive dissonance, which is when facts conflict with someone’s worldview. People experiencing cognitive dissonance may have the tendency to dismiss the facts, authority, or source. This has led people to form a confirmation bias, or to find pseudo facts or fake facts that coordinate with their beliefs.

There is no clear cut way to fight the denial of science, but the four beliefs below, as stated by English philosopher John Stuart Mill, in his essay On Liberty, are a way to prevent cognitive dissonance within yourself.

1. You could be completely wrong in your opinion, and be saying something false - By listening to someone else who disagrees with you, you can adjust your opinion.

2. You could be partially wrong in your opinion - Again, your opinion can be adjusted by listening to the other side.

3. You could be completely right but can’t defend it - By learning the other side, you strengthen your own argument. Scientists will often try to disprove their theory because the more they unsuccessfully disprove it, the stronger it is.

4. Listeners have the right to listen - Just as speakers are ensured the right to speak, it is everyone’s right to listen, so even if you don’t want to listen, someone in the room might.

Convincing other people is an entirely different story. A group of scientists (John Cook, Stephen Lewandowsky, and Mark & Chris Hoofnagle) came up with a script which was put to the test in a 2019 study and proved to be the only effective method of convincing science deniers so far.