It occasionally happens that I go to some site for a quick update on something seen on TV or mentioned in a conversation, and I realize after a while that I've just spent 7 to 8 hours straight following an interminable chain of links from site to site trying to make sense of the mess. The latest example of this for me was last Friday (Winter Solstice 2012) when I wanted to know what the "Georgia Guidestones" are, and ended up sometime Saturday bewildered by the insanity that is conspiracytheory.org and its obsessions.
To save y'all a similar experience their premise is that The Illuminati (an outgrowth of the Freemasons and the Templars, etc.) are behind The New World Order (via Skull & Bones) seeking to establish a technocracy/oligarchy using the "science" of Darwinism (aka evolution and Malthusian dialectic).
And just tonight I came across an article in Cell Biology about how to deal with science denial with special concern to not just condemn the deniers as ignorant. (The key is to realize that they are not necessarily ignorant, but are reacting from a position of personal fear and emotional/social convictions.)
This has given me some personal insights on how to deal with some folks I cannot just ignore (i.e. family, good friends, co-workers). I'm going to write about some points I'm going to try.
First, I will want to draw a distinction between science as an epistemological means of learning, and its handmaiden of application, technology. The method of science is a logical framework used in many fields of endeavor. In the scientific method, facts (in the form of observed phenomena) are examined and related to each other to form a hypothesis. The hypothesis is used to generate predictions, and more observations are gathered to test those predictions (experiments.) This framework is similar to the philosophical method of dialectic, which is used to extend and explore the moral and metaphysical questions of philosophy.
Science makes no particular claims of being infallible or of possessing any particular Truth. Anyone truly versed in the scientific method knows this and can cope with the paradigm shifts that sweep through fields of scientific inquiry every so often. Once a collection of hypotheses gather a large body of evidence, the collected framework may obtain the status of "laws" or theories. This is in contrast to the fields of religion and morality, which have an extremely poor record of dealing with contrary evidence.
One of the most significant organizing paradigms of modern science is the concept of evolution -- which is nothing more than a statement that future conditions come about as a result of changes in previous conditions. That is, there is a cause and effect relationship between conditions yesterday and conditions today. The theoretical framework has a host of attendant mechanisms as to what these causes are, giving rise to the "Theory of Evolution" that is so upsetting to the conservative mindset.
One must draw a distinction between the theory of evolution as a scientific paradigm, and the (deliberate) confusion between the process of natural selection and the phrase "survival of the fittest." The process of natural selection is totally value neutral, there is no consciousness determining what is good or bad in terms of the changes that occur by natural processes. The "fitness" is determined simply by whether or not the changed processes still work or are more efficient than the previous form of the processes; if the new form of the process is less efficient or adversely changes the continuation of the process, it simply will not replace the previous process nor will it continue to exist in parallel with the previous process. The political concept of "Social Darwinism" is not the same as the natural process of evolution.
As a brief digression, I would examine the historical development of this confusion. Charles Darwin did not propound "Evolution" as a complete theory in his seminal work "On The Origin Of Species". It was based on previous work by others, and was refined by many others after him. The reason that Darwin get the credit is that he proposed the mechanism of natural selection in combination with random changes (mutations) in biological organisms as the best explanation for how new species arise from previous species. This synthesis was not possible until genetics and biochemistry showed the mechanisms of mutation; the geological effects of population isolation were observed and formalized; and the process of natural selection was hypothesized and confirmed. It became controversial when non-scientists seized on Aldous Huxley's (unfortunate) use of the phrase "survival of the fittest" in Huxley's promotion of Darwin's theoretical framework.
This phraseology had its antecedents in Malthus and other political and social theorists. Additionally it is apparently close to a Masonic concept of "becoming" which refers to a moral progression of Man towards his destiny of apotheosis and union with the divine. (N.B. I am not a mason although I'm familiar with much Hermetic and occult thought -- my personal belief system is not currently consistent with their membership requirements. I cannot accept or profess a belief in a Great Architect.) William Jennings Bryant used much of this imagery in his prosecution of Richard Scopes in the "Monkey Trial" of the Tennessee's anti-evolution teaching laws.
Clearing out the emotional cruft of the conflation of the scientific mechanism of evolution -- the best organizing principle of modern biological disciplines -- and the morally repugnant concept of "Social Darwinism" which is blamed for the perceived moral and social degeneration -- that seems to be the inevitable result of failing to learn from history -- may allow one to change an argument from a position of "I'm an Evangelical, I can't believe in Evolution" to one of "How may I reconcile evolution with being an Evangelical?"
Evolution is not, however, the only example of science denial currently facing the world. The "anti-vaccination" problem, and the global climate change deniers are two other controversies currently in the American social consciousness. Both of these, as well as the anti-evolution controversy, actually use a misapplication of the methods of science to create a strong "pseudoscience" to support themselves. They misapply the scientific method primarily by excluding from their hypotheses and conclusions any data that doesn't conform to their pre-supposed theories.
The internet, in the form of the World Wide Web and Social media, make this all too easy. I, personally, have seen this happen in the "unfriending" on Facebook by individuals when I throw grit in the workings of their minds by pointing out contradictions. It is all too easy for these people to elect only to read sites and pages and messages that support only the information they want to believe. There is a deep connection between science and faith, in that they rest ultimately on a premise that what we perceive with our senses represents an underlying "objective" reality. This is an debate for philosophy, and therefore not exactly the domain of science qua science. (The "Philosophy Of Science" is another whole realm of inquiry!) However, the scientific method cannot properly use belief as a filter for the data it examines in evaluating the correctness of a theoretical framework.
In my excursion down the rabbit hole of the internets I was struck by the observation that many of the conspiracy theories that I saw on this trip were easily refutable by methods and information that I knew by the time I graduated from my North Carolina High School in 1971 -- not to mention the continuing advance of observed phenomena since then. (One particular strawman for the New World Order technocracy is their postulate that "Science" will become the only government approved source of information. It is already too late for that in that the internet and WWW provide instant access to all kind of "unauthorized" information. Attempts to suppress information at the level required for a NWO regime to succeed is no longer possible. Witness the failures of the "Great Firewall" of China and the attempts by Iran and North Korea, among others, to prevent access to information they deem dangerous. [Well, N. Korea succeeds better than most simply through the lack of access to any network connections.])
So the answer to science denial is simple -- more real information and education in the scientific method. Just as the answer for hateful and ignorant speech is simply more correcting speech. This very weblog is engaged in that "culture war" by making some of that speech. I invite brave readers to become fellow warriors by engaging in the ongoing discussions that are taking place.
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