Saturday, June 23, 2018

The war on science

The war on science is over, and science has lost in a crushing defeat. How else can you explain the pseudo scientific garbage out there that people so strongly believe in? From republicans denying that global warming and climate change are real, and that homosexuality isn't biological to democrats believing that organic food is better for you and that economics (yes, also a science) is a right wing conspiracy-both sides clearly have a war on science. Everyone of course claims to "love science" until it conflicts with their values. Science is a harsh mistress who doesn't care about your personal views.

What really alarms me is how many people on both sides blindly believe things that simply aren't true. A full moon doesn't effect human behavior at all, but people (even vastly intelligent people) believe that it does. No one is hiding a cure for cancer, but conspiracy nuts believe that something (the Masons, pharmaceutical companies, the illuminati) is hiding it for their own gain. "Vaccines cause illness and harm people" is another garbage belief- (actually, they save millions of lives). So many people of all stripes believe such nonsense about science that it depresses me deeply, and I don't even like science. I'm an English/humanities guy to the core.

I blog about it so much (sorry to be repetitive) because it's such a passion of mine. Scientific illiteracy is a huge problem in our culture, and no one seems to give a damn. So the war on science is clearly over.

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