Day after day, we are slammed in the metaphorical face by anti-science policies and messaging coming out of the White House, Congress, Fox, and even our daily lives. There have been a number of instances in the past year that have just made me think, “People don’t understand how science works. Americans don’t have decent training or understanding with regard to the scientific method.”
Admittedly, it was in advanced stages of my bachelor’s degree and later my master’s degree where I really came to appreciate rigorous statistical analysis, the scientific process, and the difference between believing something because it sounded good and believing something because it has been proven via well conducted science. Unfortunately, most people don’t benefit from that level of education, and there are also many who do have that level of education but didn’t digest the lessons.
All in all, though, it’s become all too clear that many Americans are more inclined to believe something because it goes against the science and the scientists (dweebs) than they are to believe common scientific messages.
Yes, certain segments of the population — certain groups of people, organizations, and companies — have waged long-term anti-science campaigns on specific topics. Perhaps they only cared about one or two key topics, but their campaigns against the science have influenced people more broadly. “Can’t trust those scientists” is a common perception, especially with people from certain religions, industries, or cultural groups. But when you can’t trust the people documenting their work, reproducing it, having it backed up by other scientists who are reproducing it, having it backed up by extremely incisive peer review, and so on, then, really, who can you trust?
And perhaps that brings us to another crisis in the country. I am certain we have a conspiracy crisis. People are obsessed with conspiracy theories. Yes, there are indeed conspiracies out there — hence the existence of the word. However, a lot of people look for conspiracies everywhere. They want a complicated, wild explanation that makes unsuspecting people evil villains more than they want to see the basic, simple story for what it is. (I’m inclined to think there’s a drugs element here, but I won’t go down that road.) Working in the media industry, it was about a decade ago (or more) when I started noticing that big conspiracy theories got tons of attention, and that there were giant media platforms obsessed with a constant focus on various conspiracies. Now, as it turns out, a lot of conspiracies are never proven — the excitement of the potential deceit gets them started and keeps them going and going and going, even with no credible evidence. This even happens to absurd degrees. Evidence? Who needs evidence? We just need an entertaining story, and even better if it’s one that winds us up.
We now have people leading our country who are attacking wind and solar power based on anti-science, attacking electric vehicles based on anti-science, attacking our health science network based on anti-science, attacking professional scientists in a large variety of fields based on anti-science, and — crucially — defunding a great deal of positive work on renewable energy, climate science, medical science, public health science, and, well, higher education in general. They have waged a cultural war on higher education and science in general.
I would like to find a positive spin on this. But the article has been in drafts for days and I can’t find one. Yes, there are still countless people who are working to advance science in all of these realms. That is indeed a positive. But when those numbers are being reduced because we have a rich version of Homer Simpson running the country, it’s hard to tag that on as positive spin. I guess that’s the best we can do, though. There are still people driving the cleantech industry, medical science, climate science, and public health forward. There are still people who believe in the scientific method and use it everyday. However, we definitely need to work on reviving a respect for science in US society. We need to push back on the people saying that we can’t trust scientists. When someone claims that their armchair opinion on a subject is just as valid as the opinion of someone who has a PhD in the field, we need to push back on that.
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