In my last post I talked about how, during the 1500s, the church leaders persecuted the astronomers Galileo and Bruno for their observations that the earth was not the center of the universe. Galileo recanted and was confined to house arrest for the rest of his life; Bruno refused to recant and was burned at the stake. Pretty brutal for making observations about the way the universe is organized.
So let’s take a look around us today to see if we have learned anything. We haven’t burned anyone at the stake for a while for saying something the Church finds offensive, which is a good thing; I suppose we can take comfort in knowing that, here in the USA at least, those who promote unpopular positions don’t have to worry about that. But I still see an unwillingness to accept what science tells us. Part of this seems to be a misunderstanding of the scientific process, or confusion over definitions; other times I think it’s more deliberate; people who are clearly intelligent men and women refuse to accept what scientists have concluded. It strikes me that sometimes it appears there are religious reasons for this but other times it seems to be more politically motivated.
For example, global climate change jumps out. There is a near-universal consensus among environmental scientists that we are experiencing an unprecedented change in our climate (it’s getting warmer), and furthermore that this is being caused by our (that is to say, human) actions. Yet, a significant number of Americans (predominately in the Republican party) deny it. Either it isn’t happening (they say), or if it is, it’s part of a natural process and human activities have nothing to do with it. In support of that position these folks point to changes in our environment throughout geological history. And of course this is true; we’ve had ice ages as well as times when the arctic supported tropical plants. But the scientists know that as well and still say that human activity is what’s causing our current changes in climate. Last year was the warmest year on record; the previous record was the year before that. Experts are virtually universal in their agreement that unless we make significant changes in our consumption of fossil fuels and reduce our carbon footprint immediately, we will be confronted with things like rising sea level caused by melting of the polar ice caps, possibly irreversible changes in climate patterns and the loss of species (like polar bears) caused by those pattern changes.
But that’s a different rant; what I’m focusing on here is the denial of the science, not the effects of human activity on our climate.
The political reason to deny the science that underpins climate change is based on economics: whatever we do will cost jobs. I think this is a false argument being promoted by the fossil fuel lobbies. I suspect that the horse-buggy lobby (had there been one) would have given the same argument against the auto industry back at the beginning of the 20th century, and as it turned out automobile manufacturing became the juggernaut of jobs creation in the US. It continues to be a huge source of jobs today, even since the Japanese figured out how to build cars that would effectively compete. Our economy is pretty fluid; there will be a great many completely new jobs that emerge as we shift to a different source of power. Take a look at the jobs out there now in the communications/internet arena that didn’t even exist as recently as a generation ago.
The other reason given for denying climate change has it’s roots in religion, and that can be further divided into two positions: God gave us the earth and it’s therefore our God-given right to do anything we want with its resources is one; the other (that was loosely the JW position) was that God would protect the earth and prevent it from being damaged. (The scripture most quoted in this context was Revelation 11:18, which says that God will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”) So we didn’t need to be concerned; God would handle it for us. For what it’s worth, that didn’t translate to a total lack of concern (for us at least); we were careful not to litter, we had concerns about the loss of rain forests, etc. but we believed that in the end God would make it all good. I suppose that under that was the tacit belief that Satan was behind the scenes contributing somewhere as well.
Contributing to these two reasons is a disturbing trend evident in our culture over the past couple of decades: a distrust of intellect. Or more specifically, a belief that “elitism” permeates society, leading in some people to an almost perverse pride in not thinking too deeply about things. What might be contributing to that and what it leads to is the subject of a future post, but for this topic, it’s expressed most commonly by a general distrust of science.
And I can kind of see where that came from; during the Vietnam War and anti-war movement (my generation’s defining moment), Monsanto and Dow Chemical played a big role in sowing the seeds of distrust by producing Agent Orange and napalm; or more specifically, what we were told about them and how they were used. In the case of Agent Orange, we were led to believe that any long-term effects were minimal (pretty well disproven today); and few who remember the war think of napalm favorably. For the young of that era, Big Chemical went from being the Friend of Humanity to being disliked and distrusted in a single 10-year span. One could say that it was the government that should be blamed rather than the chemical companies, but the net result was the same: a distrust of “the scientist.”
Recall that it was around the same time that we put a team on the moon; it seems that science should have been the hero based on that accomplishment. But there was a general “distrust authority” feeling in America’s young people at that time, so I think that helps explain what we see today.
Fast forward to today. I doubt if most people who mistrust science today think of Agent Orange and Dow Chemical as the reasons why; I think it’s morphed into a different collective attitude. But here we are. It’s particularly ironic to me that the same people who talk about how we can’t trust science do so on their websites, texts and emails, all of which are founded on the very scientific principles discovered and developed by the “elites” they say can’t be trusted.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
Science denial today
In my last post I talked about how, during the 1500s, the church leaders persecuted the astronomers Galileo and Bruno for their observations that the earth was not the center of the universe. Galileo recanted and was confined to house arrest for the rest of his life; Bruno refused to recant and was burned at the stake. Pretty brutal for making observations about the way the universe is organized.
So let’s take a look around us today to see if we have learned anything. We haven’t burned anyone at the stake for a while for saying something the Church finds offensive, which is a good thing; I suppose we can take comfort in knowing that, here in the USA at least, those who promote unpopular positions don’t have to worry about that. But I still see an unwillingness to accept what science tells us. Part of this seems to be a misunderstanding of the scientific process, or confusion over definitions; other times I think it’s more deliberate; people who are clearly intelligent men and women refuse to accept what scientists have concluded. It strikes me that sometimes it appears there are religious reasons for this but other times it seems to be more politically motivated.
For example, global climate change jumps out. There is a near-universal consensus among environmental scientists that we are experiencing an unprecedented change in our climate (it’s getting warmer), and furthermore that this is being caused by our (that is to say, human) actions. Yet, a significant number of Americans (predominately in the Republican party) deny it. Either it isn’t happening (they say), or if it is, it’s part of a natural process and human activities have nothing to do with it. In support of that position these folks point to changes in our environment throughout geological history. And of course this is true; we’ve had ice ages as well as times when the arctic supported tropical plants. But the scientists know that as well and still say that human activity is what’s causing our current changes in climate. Last year was the warmest year on record; the previous record was the year before that. Experts are virtually universal in their agreement that unless we make significant changes in our consumption of fossil fuels and reduce our carbon footprint immediately, we will be confronted with things like rising sea level caused by melting of the polar ice caps, possibly irreversible changes in climate patterns and the loss of species (like polar bears) caused by those pattern changes.
But that’s a different rant; what I’m focusing on here is the denial of the science, not the effects of human activity on our climate.
The political reason to deny the science that underpins climate change is based on economics: whatever we do will cost jobs. I think this is a false argument being promoted by the fossil fuel lobbies. I suspect that the horse-buggy lobby (had there been one) would have given the same argument against the auto industry back at the beginning of the 20th century, and as it turned out automobile manufacturing became the juggernaut of jobs creation in the US. It continues to be a huge source of jobs today, even since the Japanese figured out how to build cars that would effectively compete. Our economy is pretty fluid; there will be a great many completely new jobs that emerge as we shift to a different source of power. Take a look at the jobs out there now in the communications/internet arena that didn’t even exist as recently as a generation ago.
The other reason given for denying climate change has it’s roots in religion, and that can be further divided into two positions: God gave us the earth and it’s therefore our God-given right to do anything we want with its resources is one; the other (that was loosely the JW position) was that God would protect the earth and prevent it from being damaged. (The scripture most quoted in this context was Revelation 11:18, which says that God will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”) So we didn’t need to be concerned; God would handle it for us. For what it’s worth, that didn’t translate to a total lack of concern (for us at least); we were careful not to litter, we had concerns about the loss of rain forests, etc. but we believed that in the end God would make it all good. I suppose that under that was the tacit belief that Satan was behind the scenes contributing somewhere as well.
Contributing to these two reasons is a disturbing trend evident in our culture over the past couple of decades: a distrust of intellect. Or more specifically, a belief that “elitism” permeates society, leading in some people to an almost perverse pride in not thinking too deeply about things. What might be contributing to that and what it leads to is the subject of a future post, but for this topic, it’s expressed most commonly by a general distrust of science.
And I can kind of see where that came from; during the Vietnam War and anti-war movement (my generation’s defining moment), Monsanto and Dow Chemical played a big role in sowing the seeds of distrust by producing Agent Orange and napalm; or more specifically, what we were told about them and how they were used. In the case of Agent Orange, we were led to believe that any long-term effects were minimal (pretty well disproven today); and few who remember the war think of napalm favorably. For the young of that era, Big Chemical went from being the Friend of Humanity to being disliked and distrusted in a single 10-year span. One could say that it was the government that should be blamed rather than the chemical companies, but the net result was the same: a distrust of “the scientist.”
Recall that it was around the same time that we put a team on the moon; it seems that science should have been the hero based on that accomplishment. But there was a general “distrust authority” feeling in America’s young people at that time, so I think that helps explain what we see today.
Fast forward to today. I doubt if most people who mistrust science today think of Agent Orange and Dow Chemical as the reasons why; I think it’s morphed into a different collective attitude. But here we are. It’s particularly ironic to me that the same people who talk about how we can’t trust science do so on their websites, texts and emails, all of which are founded on the very scientific principles discovered and developed by the “elites” they say can’t be trusted.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.