Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. Let that sink in for a minute. The state of scientific literacy in this country is bad enough, but it is certainly symptomatic of a larger issue. By the way, if you don’t know the answer to the question above, you might just want to stop reading right now. Nothing in this essay is going to help you know. If, however, you’re in the upper half who knows a bit about the relationship between our calendars and our solar system, please keep reading – because even if you know how many days are in a year, you might still be suffering from a few gaps in your system of knowledge. Even if you know it takes a year, where else are you less than up-to-speed on some common everyday issues that affect your everyday life? What is the difference between an antibiotic and a vaccine for example? What causes radiation and what sources does it come from? Surely, if you use a cellular phone to make an appointment at the doctor for your children you have at least briefly thought about this.
Lack of scientific literacy or even basic inquiry, like I stated earlier, is symptomatic of a larger problem in this country. Skeptical inquiry and critical thinking skills are dead. You see it in politics, where rhetoric trumps reason. You see it in the media, where ratings trump journalism. You see it in education, where faith trumps evidence. We do have a number of basic cognitive biases and heuristics that cloud our thinking to deal with and these mental handicaps often trick us into coming to false conclusions. We also have the internet, 300 television channels, smart phones and radio bombarding us with a constant stream of information so that it becomes harder and harder to pick the signals out from the noise. Additionally, who has time to process all of this information with work, children, and all the other activities that demand our time? The result is that we tend to blindly accept the conclusions of any politician, talk-show host, journalist, media talking-head or authority figure just because it fits into a neat narrative. And if that narrative fits into our pre-conceived view of the world, it becomes adapted that much easier.
The problem, however, is that once you are that susceptible to blindly accepting any narrative for whatever reason, you are ceding control of your critical thinking abilities and well, do I actually need to spell out the dangers of blindly accepting any narrative? Basically, you then are at the mercy of the story-tellers. And if the story-tellers do not necessarily have your best interest in mind…
Almost a decade after the giant debacle in Iraq has come to a close, after maybe more than a trillion dollars were added to our national debt, thousands of soldiers taken from their families forever, and countless more forever damaged, most of us now agree that the entire effort was a fruitless waste of our resources. We’re so much wiser a decade later aren’t we? In hindsight, we all knew that the war was a huge mistake. Well, I knew…but the vast majority of people in this country did not. After being attacked on 9/11/01, with the country’s emotions (fear and anger) still high, we went to war against a country with no connections to the al Qaeda terrorist network that attacked us, to find weapons of mass destructions that most experts said didn’t exist, to fend off an attack that was clearly never going to come. Yet, still, we marched blindly into a war. Mostly because too many people believed a narrative, and were fed “evidence” that supported that narrative. Critical thinking went out the door. Critical questions that were being asked were ignored. Evidence that contradicted our reasons for going to war was dismissed. And for the record, saying that someone saw the same evidence that you did is NOT the same as saying that someone saw ALL of the evidence that you did. It’s too easy to cherry-pick data, give it to the decision makers, and let the confirmation bias play out.
Meanwhile, as the war in Iraq soured, and enough time from the 9/11 attacks had passed, a number of conspiracy theories arose surrounding who had actually planned and implemented the attacks. Never mind that mechanical and structural engineers had debunked many of these theories – scientific explanations don’t fit the narrative, and the conspiracy theorists marched on. After all, it’s much easier to trust your eyes than your brain, and besides – engineering seems a little difficult to grasp. And why should we trust the so-called “experts”?
Why indeed? Why trust scientists, economists, analysts, doctors when we can rely on evidence that makes sense to us! Why trust doctors who tell us that vaccines don’t cause autism? Why I know someone whose child developed autism symptoms after receiving their measles vaccines? Coincidence? Well, considering that autism symptoms manifest themselves at the same age that most children are receiving their basic vaccines – that’s a clear example of the old adage that correlation doesn’t imply causation. Besides, studies have conclusively shown that autism rates are no different in populations of children who have been vaccinated and those who have not. So why have incidents of autism increased in the last few decades? Well, we’ve vaccinated children for a much longer period of time than that, and it’s more likely to be caused by higher awareness, better diagnostic tools and a reclassification of diagnoses than anything else. After all, it’s not like the rate of vaccinations has changed dramatically. But all of these rational explanations are ignored when we’re talking about the emotional issue of a child with autism – and since those explanations don’t fit the established narrative, they are discounted. Experts are ignored, because there are plenty of websites that will contradict the findings of experts. You know – experts – like doctors.
After all, it was “experts” that got us into this mess, so let’s blame the experts. And instead of “experts” let’s put everyday people into positions of important responsibility and power, like – political office. Here’s where I can take out the sniper rifle and take down a lot of goldfish in the rainwater catcher, but honestly if there is a single area where lack of expertise is more on display – it is politics. If you’re wedded to a particular political ideology, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading up to this point. You might want to log off and get a latter – I’m glad you made it this far. Both parties are guilty of sending completely unqualified fools to office. Well, maybe that’s not entirely fair. Since most politicians are lawyers with legal degrees, I’m sure that they are VERY qualified to write and interpret law. But the cognitive bias know as the Argument from Authority is very much in play here – that DOESN’T mean that they are experts on issues of science, economics, finance or other issues that require a deeper understanding than simply the legal concerns.
Only recently, most of the Republicans vying for the office of President of the United States have been debating and campaigning and saying some pretty dumb things. I don’t have time to discuss Michelle Bachmann, so let’s focus on some recent comments by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. When asked which cabinets should be eliminated from the federal budget, they state the Departments of Education, Commerce and Energy. I won’t discuss the Department of Education, because there may be good reasons to return much of that responsibility to the states. But the Commerce Department includes the Census Bureau (which is mandated by the Constitution) and the Patent and Trademark Office, which most businesses might want to consider keeping around. Commerce also houses the National Weather Service. Hope you folks in tornado alley and along the Gulf Coast are ok with that decision. Then there is the department of Energy, who only manages our nuclear research labs, our nuclear weapon arsenal, handles removal of radioactive waste, and provides nuclear reactors for our Naval fleet. How many Republicans are willing to part with these services? I’ll give Perry and Gingrich the benefit of the doubt and assume that these services would just be rolled into another cabinet department, but if the point of the rhetoric is to cut unnecessary spending, then the reality is that spending just gets reallocated to other departments. In short, the rhetoric of these cases is what is important, not the logistics, not the reason, and certainly not the facts.
Ah yes, the facts. It’s hard to argue based on the facts nowadays. Basic strategy in arguing your case falls into three categories – arguments from Authority, appeal to emotion and appeals to reason and logic. Sadly, the entire state of the nation is a result of scrapping the appeals to reason and logic and focusing almost entirely on the Argument from Authority and appeals to reason. When these two are combined together, it can be dangerous, especially when data, evidence, logic and reason are taken out of the equation – then it leads to demagoguery. Without evidence, logic, reason there is no reason to use our Critical Thinking skills and there are no reasons to practice Skeptical Inquiry. If the data and evidence is in direction opposition to the argument from emotion and argument from authority, then there is simply no need for the facts – they can and need to effectively be scrapped and ignored, and more effectively they need to be discounted. If the facts cannot be refuted, and the facts are in direction opposition to your opinion, then rather than change your opinion, your best option is to question and attack the facts or simply ignore them. This is why politicians don’t seem particularly bright, but keep getting elected. This is why we all have deep amounts of distrust in the media, but we continue to tune in. This is why we all want lower taxes and a balanced budget, but just don’t want to cut those programs that make up 90% of the budget. This is why people don’t know it takes a year for the Earth to orbit the sun. Math is hard or inconvenient, we don’t have time to engage our critical thinking skills, and it’s simply easier to accept a narrative that someone has already pieced together for us.
I always wondered – is the Flat Earth Society for real, or is it an organization dedicated to exposing the irony in it? After all, we have museums featuring cavemen riding on saddled dinosaurs. We have people who still think the question about how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun is in fact a trick question because we all know it only takes one day for the Sun to orbit the Earth. There are some generally dumb people who simply don’t and never will embrace scientific inquiry, skeptical inquiry, critical thinking and respect for reason because those people are simply not interested – they already have the answers. Well, that is the opposite of wisdom, so those people are simply doomed and there isn’t much you can do but take their money, wave to them and make sure you turn out to cancel their vote on Election Day. But what about the rest of you? Why did you give up so easily? When you did all get so damn lazy to exercise a few basic skills such as thinking for yourself, seeking out data and evidence and coming to your own conclusions? When did the view of experts (and when I say “expert” I do not mean “authority” – I mean someone who might be more qualified to comment based on their background and NOT simply because of their position) become so easy to discount and since when did basic facts become subject to popular opinion? Why has everyone allowed themselves to simply believe the narrative that they are being told and then let that shape their decision making and refuse to question whether that narrative is accurate to begin with?
After all, studies have shown that people who are MOST certain that they are right, are most often those who are wrong. Wisdom is usually gained through acquiring knowledge, and the more knowledge to gather, the more you realize just how much you DON’T know. When you aware of your own lack of the facts, you become more likely to seek them out and to find answers. In short, people who are wise people are smart enough to know that they don’t know – then to research and find the answer out themselves. People who are unwise will latch onto the first explanation they are given. This is called the Illusion of Confidence and it is a major obstacle to being a self-aware Critical Thinker. Unfortunately, in certain areas like, oh say, POLITICS – the people who are LEAST knowledgeable are the ones who THINK they are the most. And this isn’t that hard to believe, but the MORE partisan you are, the MORE passionate you are about a particular political party, the more likely you are to not have a good grasp of current events.
Yes, the sky IS blue, and the reason isn’t because you trust your eyes. Because when the sun starts to approach the horizon, the sky really ISN’T blue anymore – it tends to be more red, pink and purple. The facts haven’t actually changed, just the observations and the reasoning behind the color of the sky remains fixed while the only thing really changing is your perspective. Ask yourself if you know WHY the sky takes on those colors, and whether or not you care enough to learn. If you are someone who is worried about exposure to radiation when you are talking on your cell phone while tanning at the beach, ask yourself if you really understand what radiation is. If you’re outraged at federal spending, and don’t want your taxes raised, but don’t want to cut Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Benefits, maybe you might want to take a class in either Accounting or possibly Arithmetic.
Oh, maybe this entire essay was a waste of time. Why bother? You’ve all got your opinions, and you all have a nice little narrative about the way life works. You don’t trust the media, but you’re willing to accept their stories as factual and unbiased. You don’t trust politicians, but you keep voting them back into office, especially the ones who speak to your side of the spectrum. Who am I to suggest that exercising your right to think for yourself might benefit you in any way? Besides, critical thinking is tough! It asks you to NOT blindly accept opinions and narratives, and it also asks you to NOT blindly reject them either! And in your binary thinking world, what other option do you have? Well, folks don’t commit the Either-Or fallacy. There is a third way – but it DOES require a bit of effort. First, you become aware of the mental traps that you can fall into. Then you get in the habit of going to the source and investigating the facts yourself. Yes, it requires a bit of effort – suck it up. Then you weigh the evidence and come to your own opinion, and suddenly you’ll see how the narrative, how the story that you’re being told, has a lot of holes in it – not just inconsistent conclusions but actually omissions or distortions of the facts themselves.
Think for yourself. For goodness sake, it just takes a LITTLE effort to open your mind and exert a little wisdom.
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