Author Michael Specter says the public’s growing fear of science and reason spells disaster for human progress:
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Denial of Science “Spells Disaster”
That is patently untrue. Disaster contains “t” which appears nowhere in denial of science. The number of letters isn’t even the same.
As informative as this was, I cannot see it persuading people away from their fears. The pathos he notes is just far too entrenched in the mind to be shaken by logos.
I suppose if we can’t eliminate willful ignorance and gullibility through education, then it will be simply done by natural selection instead. Nature doesn’t tolerate stupidity.
Sure it does. Guess how we got here.
Scratch that, we beat down nature and developed our own: society. Society tolerates stupidity.
Society protects stupidity. Let nature take its cause and let society remove all warning signs!
A tyranny of the intelligent over the stupid is not a place I would want to live.
I was not implying tyranny by the intelligent, but society (state?, government?) has so many rules to protect the unwary, that often I wish natural selection would be a much better solution.
In a modern society, even the most intelligent cannot possibly be vigilant against everything. To my mind, this sort of thinking merely is advocating the elevation of the lucky over the unlucky, and has little to do with the merit of the person or their behavior.
I am not advocating the elevation of the lucky over the unlucky, but chance is the viable option. Lucky or unlucky is just our interpretation of any incident happing to a person, whatever the result may be.
Merit or behaviour are worthwhile for both the stupid and the intelligent, I fully agree with that, but chances are higher that the unprotected stupid fails.
Didn’t this post relate luck with some form of intelligence?
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/02/17/how-to-be-lucky/
He said “demand evidence” but what if you “feel the evidence”? What if you see another human being getting brutally cut in the face and beaten by another human and spontaneously you intervene – you act! Putting your own life at risk. By your action you save someone from dying- you protect someone – and you feel something, an emotion so overwhelmingly powerful that you begin to cry uncontrollably. Tears pour from your face like water….What then? I have no evidence to give you – but yet – I feel it to my core………
A beaten up person is clearly a real evidence.
What I suspect will happen is a power shift. Denial of Science is not evenly spread about the world. While it is growing in some parts it is diminishing in others. Eventually the areas where it is diminishing will gain an advantage over the areas where it is increasing.
I really thing that current ever increasing copyright and patent law is an unconscious attempt to prevent this form happening, by slowing innovation everywhere.
The youtube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAKt2wtHNQM
I feel like an idiot. I just bought multivitamins yesterday!!!!!