We live in a strange moment of human history. We have this thing called science. Through its fruits (medicines, technology, etc.), many of us live lives fundamentally different from the tens of thousands of generations preceding us. At the same time, through science’s unintended consequences, we have also changed the “natural” world in ways likely to pose daunting challenges to our ongoing “project of civilization.” But strangest of all, in the midst of these profound changes, one growing response to the tough questions science raises in our lives has been to act as if it doesn’t exist. I am, of course, talking about denial. The anti-vax movement, like climate change denialism, rests on the assumption that if you disagree with certain established scientific results you can just ignore them. You call the science lies — or claim the scientists have a political bias.
It’s a sad, strange world we live in today- a world in which angry people with high school educations can question scientists who’ve devoted their careers to the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Even worse, many of these folks are just arrogant enough to miss the irony and sheer ignorance of their denial of science.
The thing about science is that it isn’t something you believe…and not believing in it doesn’t make any less valid. Science isn’t dependent on adhering to a specific ideology; it just is. Believe it or not, it doesn’t matter, nor does it make science and less real.
The reality of global climate change has an overwhelming amount of scientific data- and 97% of climate scientists- to support it. It’s real, it’s all around us, and ignoring it because it doesn’t fit into your tightly structured belief system does nothing to invalidate it. If you came to a bridge knowing that 97% of structural engineers who’d examined it felt it was at high risk of collapse, what would you do? Would you believe the 97%…or would you side with the 3% who agree with your belief and take your chances? No sane, reasonable, or even moderately sensible person would risk their lives and those of their passengers when the odds against them are 32.3-1. And yet that’s exactly what climate change deniers would do.
Good luck making it to the other side, eh?
Infections spread with well-understood mathematical patterns. Planets respond to changes in atmospheric composition via the laws of physics and chemistry. They do this in spite of who we vote for. They do this in spite of our political or social beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad.
The world, in other words, has its own ways. Denial can’t change that.
Vaccines work, of that there can be no doubt given the vast trove of scientific evidence that proves it. Are they 100% safe? Of course not; what in this life is? If the standard for employing anything was 100% safety, nothing would ever get done, and we’d all still be living in mud huts and riding yaks to work.
Neither religious faith nor sheer, abject ignorance is valid reason to deny the validity of science. We are where we are because scientists have tested, probed, and asked difficult questions. They’ve checked, validated, and re-checked their data in an effort to be certain that it’s a true representation of reality. Belief is based on faith- no testing, no authentication, no validation, just the belief that things are the way they are because it happens to mesh with your personal world view.
We are where we are today because science has led the way in telling us what’s real, possible, and attainable. Whether in engineering, medicine, or any number of other fields of human endeavor, progress would be impossible without science leading the way. Denying that out of religiosity or ignorance doesn’t elevate your belief system over the empirical, demonstrable reality that is the raison d’etre of science.
And yet we still have people with high-school educations believing that have the right and the wherewithal to question science simply because it’s doesn’t dovetail with their tightly held beliefs? That’s some world class ignorance and arrogance, don’tchathink?
