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Difference between revisions of "War on Science"
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==Strategic defense initiatives== | ==Strategic defense initiatives== | ||
| − | This all leaves a question about how | + | This all leaves a question about how one will fight this war, and keep (or return) science in its place as "The best way to find answers", and those answers as "worthwhile just for the sake of knowledge". |
| − | One of the best answers was started by [[Carl Sagan]] and continued by [[David Attenborough]] | + | One of the best answers was started by [[Carl Sagan]] and continued by [[David Attenborough]] [[Brian Cox]], Jim Al-Khalili, Marcus Du Sautoy and the BBC in general in Great Britain—as well as [[Michio Kaku]], [[Bill Nye]], and [[Neil deGrasse Tyson]] in the US: make science popular by making it fun, exciting and understandable. Modern computer graphics, which help to bring scientific concepts to life visually, are also a great help. |
| − | On a more pedantic | + | On a more pedantic but no less critical front, the [[National Center for Science Education]], along with plenty of parents and concerned citizens, need to remain diligent in school districts, taking measure to ensure that science is important, highlighted, and taught well. |
| − | + | It is also important to remind people that investment in science, be it financial or the personal choice to become a scientist, can lead one to unknown places; and yes, it really can lead to amazing and '''profitable''' inventions like, for example, the MRI as an offshoot of the study of particle physics. | |
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
Revision as of 20:32, 28 December 2011
| When peace makes them bored, people declare War |
| A view to a kill |
The "War on Science", a part of the larger culture war, is an attempt by a vocal minority to directly attack science by regulating what can be taught or studied, and indirectly attack science by trying to discredit science and lessen its impact. Underlining the attacks is a basic fear and belief that science is out to disprove and destroy religion, specifically Christianity in the US and Europe, and that what science studies should be discredited in order to prevent this.
Specific attacks include attempting to ban the teaching of evolution, spread global warming denialism, and disallow and/or block funding for fetal stem cell research for ideological, religious, and economic reasons. There are many people who actively distrust anything a scientist has to say, and who will go out of their way to discredit them.
The phrase "A War on Science" is the title of a Horizon (BBC) episode documenting the Dover, PA trial and the local attempts to discredit evolution and introduce intelligent design into the classrooms.[1]
Contents
Perpetrators
The War on Science is carried out by several different groups, with largely different motives.
Religious control
The most common attacks come from conservative Christians who believe it is their moral duty to fight perceived evils; which more than often include science butting into areas that fundamentalist faith already has answers for. In this respect, the War on Science can be seen as an abusive use of the NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) position - stating that science not only doesn't overlap with religion, but is actively not allowed to go near it, for fear of actually disproving it. This contrasts with more liberal religious persons who believe it is their moral duty to fight poverty, oppression, and environmental degradation. The start of the modern era in this part of the anti science movement was carried out in large part by George W. Bush, who was the first president to have a whole organization composed of Nobel laureates to campaign against him. It is possible that, with the installation of an apparently sane president in the US, many elements of the war will be canceled.
In this religious context, War on Science bears some similarities to the War on Christmas, in that the "war" term is only used by people fighting against it. Liberals, atheists, secular humanists have never had a "war on Christmas" despite claims to the contrary by the religious right. Similarly, those fighting against science's influence wouldn't call it a "war on science", more of them defending their rights to put their holy texts and beliefs above benevolent research. The key difference between the two, however, is that there is evidence that there is a war on science; present in the form of strong opposition to medical research, climate research and so on as well as very active attempts to remove the ability of teachers to teach evolution. The War on Christmas, on the other hand, merely consists of an annual spree of blog posts end editorials about events that are either highly exaggerated (such as the "Winterval" festival, which mentioned Christmas many, many times in the press release, and was only named Winterval because it also overlapped the New Year period and most of January) or just plain urban legend.
Political motivations
A second, smaller group is the political and financial conservatives around the world who control the fossil fuel industry, the thousands of factories that pump crap into our air, the automobile industry, etc. For these people, casting doubt on science is a tricky sword, because while they are major benefactors of people deny global warming and other environmental problems, they sell products using "ScienceTM" to convince buyers one car is safer than another, or that new products on the market are better at cleaning, killing, flying, keeping you thin, etc.
On the flip side, but still political, is a growing group of participants in the War on Science for reasons of being (supposedly) "Green". Green is natural, it is healthy, it is better. Science is technology. It pollutes, it destroys. Among this group are the anti-nuclear types, the anti-GMO types, and the all-around Luddites. They attempt to paint science as the enemy to Nature, as if science itself is the same as the technology that comes out of it. They publicize situations where science experiments got out of hand and caused damage, where science failed to warn the consumer of dangers associated with new products, or where science is "inhumane" in its treatment of people or animals.
All three of these groups feed a growing generic distrust among lay people of science and scientists.
Methods and Efficacy
The most effective methods used by the War on Science crowd are not the direct attacks against science, such as open debates, or changing out text books. Rather, the most effective methods are subtle, almost indistinguishable from actual quality science writing, but which cast slight seeds of doubt. For example, stating that "Evolution is a Theory", which is correct, then reminding the reader that all theories should be challenged, for this his how science works. Casting science is unfeeling, and scientists as ruthless, especially when dealing with humanity. "Science tries to tells us we are just animals; we are more than animals". This is simply a type of appeal to emotion. They exaggerate all the mistakes science has ever made, and remind readers endlessly of the most recent frauds in science, attempting to paint all science with the same brush of doubt.
One of the reasons attacks on science, especially of the more subtle kind, is so effective is that science is complex, hard to understand, and therefor scary for many people. In a sense, building on the fact that many kids simply dreaded their science classes, there is the very human tendency to fear what you cannot understand. And when you look out into the world, things that are dangerous seem to start and end with "science". Must humans are able to deal with that (slight) fear, but the fact that it is there at all, leaves a breading ground for anti-science types to jump in.
Sadly, their methods are working. In a BBC Horizon special, Science Under Attack[2], Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society shows that the trend to generally distrust science, and think they are "trying to get something past you" is growing in the UK. He speculates that it's equally high or much higher in the US. Nuclear Energy, Genetically Modified Foods, and Global Warming are all targets in the UK, where religion and evolution itself are less of an issue. But the War on Science is in full swing there.
Tangible consequences of the War on Science
Sadly, the United States has seen a very tangible effect of the War on Science, that goes far beyond the classrooms[3].
- NASA's budget has been cut in the last 10 years[4] , with few far reaching projects planned and financed
- the Tevitron at Fermi-lab, partially government sponsored, shut its doors in 2011, unable to compete with the LHC. In and of itself, not an issue, except there the plans to replace have come across issues with Federal funding in the "do we really want to pay money for something we can't understand" era of modern politics.[5].
- The top telescopes [6] no longer belong to the US.
- Fermi-lab's new project, NoVA had its budget slashed by 52 million dollars (1/3 of the cost of building it), putting the project almost 2 years behind schedule, and pushing other projects off Fermi-lab's "to do" list. [7] It is now up and running.
- The "Best and the Brightest" no longer come to US universities to study or do research, because there is simply too little funding of the sciences, and too many religious based restrictions on what can be studied (like stem cell research).
- The Shuttle stopped flying. Again, like Tevitron, it was outdated, so that in and of itself is not a problem. The problem is that any plans to replace it (directly, or with something totally new) have been shelved by NASA, and rest in the hands of the "private sector".
Other nations have similar funding issues. While individual scientists have always had to beg for money for their pet studies, the idea that heads of science institutes at large were having to go out of their way to convince their governments to fund science is a recent development. [8] In 2011, the UK conservative-liberal coalition government is demanding a 25% cut to science funding.
Examples
- The blind support of abstinence programs for sex education, even though they have been proven to be a dismal failure compared to conventional teaching methods.
- Stickers placed in Texas schools books that remind children "Evolution is only a theory" and "All of science should be questioned".
- Until recently, complete disregard for world wide concern and efforts to reduce anthropogenic components of global warming.
- Demonization of evolutionary biology and the teaching of evolution in public schools. Advocating teaching creationism alongside, or in place of, evolution.
Strategic defense initiatives
This all leaves a question about how one will fight this war, and keep (or return) science in its place as "The best way to find answers", and those answers as "worthwhile just for the sake of knowledge".
One of the best answers was started by Carl Sagan and continued by David Attenborough Brian Cox, Jim Al-Khalili, Marcus Du Sautoy and the BBC in general in Great Britain—as well as Michio Kaku, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson in the US: make science popular by making it fun, exciting and understandable. Modern computer graphics, which help to bring scientific concepts to life visually, are also a great help.
On a more pedantic but no less critical front, the National Center for Science Education, along with plenty of parents and concerned citizens, need to remain diligent in school districts, taking measure to ensure that science is important, highlighted, and taught well.
It is also important to remind people that investment in science, be it financial or the personal choice to become a scientist, can lead one to unknown places; and yes, it really can lead to amazing and profitable inventions like, for example, the MRI as an offshoot of the study of particle physics.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ Videosift: Horizon - A War On Science
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y4yql
- ↑ In general terms, see [1]
- ↑ The numbers are based on the percentage of the Federal Budget their dollars represent. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA for the OEOB numbers
- ↑ http://digitaljournal.com/article/302463
- ↑ Both in terms of size, and in terms of new technologies
- ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NO%CE%BDA
- ↑ The same BBC Science Under Attack shows several prominent UK scientists attempting to both explain and justify why projects like John Southerland's research into Amino Acids were worth funding.