Science and lack thereof...

[noddin0ff]

I was making my daily run of the political cartoons and saw this one and decided to post a screed.



First my disclosures...
I've been a researcher for just over 20 years now. My wife as well. My area is generally microbiology and infectious disease. My research, the research of the dozens of people I collaborate with, the hundreds affiliated with my work place, and the salaries of myself and others is very nearly 100% supported by federal dollars.

The institution I work at is a major non-profit employing somewhere around 1000 people. It receives millions per year from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). In the area of infectious disease alone we address AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and many others.
*end disclosures*

It astounds and frightens me that a leading Presidential candidate, and increasingly larger segments of our society can be so bassackward and antagonistic toward science and particularly evolution. There is nothing in biology that makes sense without the fundamental truth of evolution. If it weren't for evolution we wouldn't have to worry about antibiotics and flu vaccines. It's a fundamental truth that impacts your daily health.

When we let an anti-science agenda creep into our politics and policy making we impede decades of future advances and innovation. We cripple the fundamentals of a science education that creates tomorrows work force, tomorrows patents, tomorrows drugs. If we become anti-science, we lose our competitive edge against other nations who are aggressively funding science.

How can anyone take the anti-science propaganda that the fundamentalist right is pushing seriously. Can someone explain this to me?

How did we let faith-based ignorance become electable qualities?

[ForeverAutumn]

noddinOff, I'm not going to get political I just want to thank you for the work that you do. I have tremendous respect for researchers and am the beneficiary of much good work that has been done over my lifetime. You may not be personally responsible for the improved quality of my life, but someone like you is. So...thanks.

(not what you were expecting, eh? )

[bobsticks]

How can anyone take the anti-science propaganda that the fundamentalist right is pushing seriously. Can someone explain this to me?

How did we let faith-based ignorance become electable qualities?

Short reply:

1) Really, really shortsighted and stupid people
2) Bad, unsuccesful, or radical social doctrine wrapped in the guise of "science"
3) The Mommy/Daddy conundrum of Presidential politics and Obama's failure to assuage the "norm".

[Feanor]

I....
When we let an anti-science agenda creep into our politics and policy making we impede decades of future advances and innovation. We cripple the fundamentals of a science education that creates tomorrows work force, tomorrows patents, tomorrows drugs. If we become anti-science, we lose our competitive edge against other nations who are aggressively funding science.

How can anyone take the anti-science propaganda that the fundamentalist right is pushing seriously. Can someone explain this to me?

How did we let faith-based ignorance become electable qualities?

When people are fearful or hurting they tend to go with their guts rather than their brains. And I hate to say it, (but will), that the US has a particularly strong strain of anti-intellectualism; a reflex to reject anything academic or that smacks of learning or that challenges the red-blooded American way.

There have always been politicians willing to appeal folk's ignorance, fear and bigotry, so when times get tough, you seem them crawling out of the woodwork. When I hear the rubbish spouted by Palin, Bachmann, and it seems, Perry, I can't help wondering whether they are really that ignorant, or whether they are just playing to the crowd. Appallingly, even (relatively) sane candidates like Romney and Huntsman have to play the "me too" game.

I get genuinely depressed when I see denial of evolution, global warming, or -- for that matter -- Keynesian economics. And when I think of what the problem is, I see little reason for optimism ...

[noddin0ff]

noddinOff, I'm not going to get political I just want to thank you for the work that you do. I have tremendous respect for researchers and am the beneficiary of much good work that has been done over my lifetime. You may not be personally responsible for the improved quality of my life, but someone like you is. So...thanks.

(not what you were expecting, eh? )

Definitely not. :-)

I always hope the someday I'll do something worth thanking for, but so far I'd have to say I've been a rather ordinary scientist. I appreciate the sentiment though. I do think that contributing to knowledge is a foundational element of society. On arguably equal footing with many others spanning art and culture, public service, business...

...and Obama's failure to assuage the "norm".

Sadly, I wholeheartedly agree. Why a gifted orator like Obama can't forcefully and charismatically articulate the centrist position is beyond me. If you can't pick a side, hold the center like you mean it, dammit. Centrists of the world need to unite and call out the asshattery on both ends of the political spectrum.

that the US has a particularly strong strain of anti-intellectualism; a reflex to reject anything academic or that smacks of learning or that challenges the red-blooded American way.

I do think we have a culture habit of anti-eliticism. Which, depending on the villain can be anti-intellectualism, or anti-aristocracy, or anti-government etc. We're a nation that rewards (well maybe just fetishizes it these days) individualism and accomplishment. The 'anti-' sentiments become evoked when there is a perception that they are defeating the individual.

But, I don't think that the rejection of science is rooted in 'anti-' sentiment. I truly think it is rooted in an uncritical application of faith. Great minds have thought deeply and critically about religious faith and God, and have still maintained their Faith. So, I don't see critical thinking and/or Science as an attack on Faith.

I do see a non-questioning approach to Faith as contributing to an erosion of critical thinking. If people don't pause to reason and be critical, the result is that fact becomes faith. Once fact is treated as faith, it can then be disbelieved. I have an oft-used email signature "If you put your mind to it, you can believe anything." Truth.

Nowdays, we get bombarded by so many bits of information. How much television does the average person watch per day? It's hard enough to sort out commercial propaganda and network hype from fact and perspective. Have you ever tried to sit through a 'news' show and just categorize statements into 'fact', 'opinion' or 'fluff'. It's tiring. If Springsteen should be remembered for the prophetic "I can see by your eyes friend you're just about gone.
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on." (how quaint). I think we have such a challenge figuring out facts that we don't have much time left to consider them critically. Plus, who wants to be critical about info-tainmnet. Much easier to just believe or not believe.

Once down that slippery slope, a person lets fact become faith-based. Then new learning (or more appropriately the way new learning is presented) becomes an attack on personal 'faith'... like minded people start banding together. Widespread idiocy and bassackward political agendas ensue.

And pretty soon, we're directly harming our society.

[bobsticks]

Sadly, I wholeheartedly agree. Why a gifted orator like Obama can't forcefully and charismatically articulate the centrist position is beyond me. If you can't pick a side, hold the center like you mean it, dammit. Centrists of the world need to unite and call out the asshattery on both ends of the political spectrum...

I agree with much of Feanor's post though I'm sure, as usual, we could debate details endlessly. I think he did a strong job articulating what I was hinting at in points 1 and 3. Because of that, I'm not sure that you understood me in my brevity.

I think Obama has forcefully articulated a centrist argument. Be careful to separate Obama the politician from Obama the administrator. In my opinion, he's been able to adequately articulate his goals but his failure to either implement them or meet the traditional demure demands of the Dems PR machine has forced his opponents to move even farther to the right---hence some of the truly dingbatish nonsense and drivel that now passes for discourse within the Republican Party.

[noddin0ff]

Because of that, I'm not sure that you understood me in my brevity.

I'll probably get it wrong again. :-) I'm certainly guilty of not thinking too deeply enough about politics.

Spouting off impressions of things I don't fully grasp... I think Obama has been good at legislating (health care was a triumph), which would be great if he were a Senator. I would like to believe that his plan all along was to move quietly right-center, using reasonable compromise to force the right wingnuts to the lunatic fringe (the lunatic left can't get organized anyway) and accomplish good. However, deep down, I think he's a lost young senator playing at President. Politically, I think O has gone in over his head with out a rudder. There was a risk in electing him that we were getting someone too green for the job and I think that risk has materialized. It's a miracle he's got the approval rating he does. For me he doesn't inspire, defend, or champion a rationale for his actions. It feels like amateur hour at the White House, politically--2+ years of amateur hour. I missed his jobs speech so maybe I'm behind the curve on this. The communicator in chief is not communicating enough or well.

On the one hand, I sort of want to applaud him for persistently pushing congress to compromise and make the laws since that is their job. He's got poise, polish and smarts. But, as a political leader I just want to yell at him to wake up and move me.

On science in particular, Obama made great pro-science statements. I believe he's a firm believer in the promise of education and research. It kills me that he's not taking the irrationist faith-based ignorant to task and forcing them to own up to their statements. Obama is potentially a uniquely qualified President capable of calmly and cooly, without inflamed rhetoric, defend reason. He could lead a nation to use their heads and to believe in the power and promise of knowledge. But he's not. I wonder why he's not using his own head.

[Feanor]

...

When people are fearful or hurting they tend to go with their guts rather than their brains. And I hate to say it, (but will), that the US has a particularly strong strain of anti-intellectualism; a reflex to reject anything academic or that smacks of learning or that challenges the red-blooded American way.

I do think we have a culture habit of anti-eliticism. Which, depending on the villain can be anti-intellectualism, or anti-aristocracy, or anti-government etc. We're a nation that rewards (well maybe just fetishizes it these days) individualism and accomplishment. The 'anti-' sentiments become evoked when there is a perception that they are defeating the individual.

But, I don't think that the rejection of science is rooted in 'anti-' sentiment. I truly think it is rooted in an uncritical application of faith. Great minds have thought deeply and critically about religious faith and God, and have still maintained their Faith. So, I don't see critical thinking and/or Science as an attack on Faith.
...

"Anti-elitism" is a more accurate, more encompasing description than anti-intellectualism, although I think the latter is an aspect of the former. Surely anti-science is part of anti-intellectualism which is part of anti-elitism. What is so sad is that intellectuals are seen as "elite" by so many. The US does have an elite, I'd argue, but it is class elite founded on money and political influence, (Skull and Bones and all that).

On the other hand I'm not going to argue that religious faith isn't part of the problem. Faith, religious or otherwise, is the enemy of reason and empirical knowledge. It is an attempt by the believer to find simple answers to difficult problems and to cling to the "certainty" and comfort of received wisdom versus the challenge of the new or of self-questioning.

Thus political conservatives in the US (in particular) are believers. Often religious believers, but also true believers in the major American myths: self-reliant individualism, small government, the infallibility of capitalism and the free market, American exceptionalism, American = the world's greatest nation now and always.