The science of anti-science

Debunking bunk about non-bunk that is perpetuated as bunk

Skepticism luckily keeps science honest but outright science denial is a step outside skepticism to absolute denial of reality even when faced with evidence proving otherwise. For example; evolution, climate change, vaccines, AIDS, archaeological evidence for ancient civilizations, space exploration, etc. are just a few examples of some of the types of science that is commonly denied.

The real issue is that it is easy immediately dismiss the people who deny that AIDS exists or deny that we landed on the moon, but that it's difficult to dismiss people who deny vaccines, climate change, archaeology of ancient civilizations, and sometimes evolution.

It's difficult because they're everywhere, it is alarmingly popular.

The belief that climate change is a hoax seems to be not rooted in any actual argument but for political motivations; that somehow if we all agreed we'd be taxed as a way to solve it (which is a leftist perspective) and fear of those implications means throwing out the science all together (which is a rightist perspective). The real problem with this is the fact that politics should take no place in the realm of science. Similar to the billions in bailouts paid by the U.S. taxpayer to fund alternate energy companies who in turn just went bankrupt as committed by the current (left) administration, just as the left pushes to take away certain freedoms and think forcing the tax payer to pay for something that has no current monetary value in solving will somehow solve the whole issue, the right wing side or former administration replaced scientists with lobbyists for the oil industry to fund research on the denial of climate change and then claimed that it "wouldn't alter the results".

There is no "correct" answer to the issue of climate change from either sides of the political spectrum because they're both wrong simply because it's political.

Vaccinations hold the same merit, as long as a few celebrities are willing to risk their entire careers being against a science that has saved millions of lives, claiming it is causing an autism epidemic. So instead of looking at the facts or talking to your doctor, you're willing to risk your child catching a disease because you don't want to "risk" your child developing a disorder that they're not really at risk for. 

Or when the History channel (claiming to be about actual history) airs hour long segments of UFOLOGY and ancient alien theories to somehow "debunk" the non-existent bunk surrounding the fact that human beings figured out a way to build something that seems unusual to us, so we must revert to the most absurd assumption possible and claim that extraterrestrials built them for some unknown reason.

Are republicans responsible for science denial?

No. There is science denial on both sides of the political spectrum.

Vaccination denial, nuclear energy safety denial, and genetically modified foods safety denial seem to be semi isolated in the realm of the political left with some historical denial thrown in.

While evolution and climate change denial seem to be semi isolated in the realm of the political right with some historical denial thrown in. The common belief that all anti-science solely comes from the right is also bunk that comes from the left.

These individuals believe these claims because they're more "fun" than believing the facts and believe them with absolutely little or no convincing, while it could take a lifetime of factual convincing just to get them to consider the other option.

They may seem as if they're only a few steps away from understanding because of their ignorance in certain scientific premises, which is true.

(An example would be denying global warming because the sun will "burn out" like a log fire. A simple understanding of nuclear fusion (should) change that person's perspective.)

But there is something else entirely that is going on in the minds of these people.

Why are these people so crazy?

A psychological explanation:

Denial is a psychological defense mechanism (as stated by Freud) that even when you're faced with the facts and even when you understand the facts you still revert to some un-provable rationalization because you simply don't "want" to believe it.

I want you to think of this the next time you have a conversation with someone and they are making these outlandish claims and once you've provided the facts for them, they still are absolutely ignorant to the facts, then understand they have a psychological disorder.

They simply cannot accept reality because it is too painful to them, it is too painful for someone to accept that the Bible may have got it wrong on creation or that the world is just a little more complex that you'd like to think and this is too much for you to emotionally handle.

An evolutionary explanation:

In early humans; our brains made quick assumptions based our positive or negative feelings about something or someone.  Our brains are programmed to apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only about people or predators but also data. This is basically also the reason for our capacity to believe in things that are not true. (as explained in a previous post)

We needed to make quick assumptions to avoid predators while having limited amounts of information. However useless it is that our brains still do this, the fact is your brain doesn't really know the difference between rationalization or reasoning. You feel before you think, and basically any argument you have with no preparation is an argument on feeling, whether or not your feeling is rational or irrational. Politics is the hidden persuader in anti-science, (i.e. fear of nuclear war, therefore fear of nuclear science.) Politics sway people by the emotions in the same way that early humans were swayed emotionally by their environmental stimuli.

How do you solve this problem?

Convincing someone who is anti-science may be easier than you think. It could basically require you demonstrating the faultiness in human perception. Show them an optical illusion and explain the reality of it, explain what is going on in their brain and make it fun. Then explain the purpose of science and how science is a method and process in which we weed out any possible interference with human perception and our emotional assumptions. Then explain why people can believe in things that are false. Then.. get to your original point and show the data. There may be a chance that this particular individual may consider for a brief moment that they were wrong. This approach may not work because this seems to happen only if the information is being spoken about on a large scale and repetitive. Similarly in the evolution in early humans, if the rest of my group that protects me decides to believe something else, I will too, for fear of rejection from the group.

Politics is a method that continues to keep science tribal. 

If you get science out of politics and keep tribalism out then you won't have several different "tribes" of people cherry picking the facts and denying the ones they don't like. (The very people who vote, whom make decisions that affect lives of others, whom are in charge of funding research to advance and improve the lives in human beings) 

Science is for everyone and it is here to help us truly understand our world and better our lives and the lives of our future generations.

The biggest mistake

Try not to be abrasive in communicating with these individuals.

If you aren't one of these people then you're most likely infuriated when speaking to one of these people, because you emotionally cannot fathom why anyone would be so ignorant to reality.

Here's the issue, you must be the one whom takes the high road if you want to see less anti science and the reason is this;

If the basis for science denial relies on our early human's survival needs to deal with threats, then abrasiveness will only keep that emotion going. A scientific understanding of why people think this way is important to know, because now you know how to take your own emotions out of the argument and understand that if you possess a human brain then you are every bit capable of the same thinking patterns. 

The meaning of life: A scientific approach

It all starts with asking a few philosophical questions, such as 

“What is this life all about” and “Why am I here?”

Humanity has been searching for the answers for thousands of years but the questions concerning the meaning of life seem to come from gazing at the stars.

In Ancient Greece, philosophers like Plato followed by Aristotle asked these very same questions and they were on a quest to try to explain the meaning of existence. In trying to do so they turned to the night sky, they thought if they could explain the natural world and our significance in the universe, they could explain the meaning of life. You could say this was probably the birth of science. Throughout human history people have used religious beliefs to explain the significance of their existence, from an idea that the answer to those questions will be revealed to you by a supernatural force. This view point is still wildly popular today and people still turn to religions that claim to have all the answers. Holding the idea that what you believe on faith and your behavior in regard to your beliefs provide the significance. One thing these religious answers have in common is the belief and reliance on the afterlife.

Religion and science were born from the same questions but do not exist for the same reasons.

You might feel like a scientific approach to the meaning of life is bleak and dull, depressing and confusing. Allow me to convince you that it is much more marvelous than you think.

Science is built upon asking questions; in fact that is what the scientific method is all about, asking the right questions and following a process that weeds out your “emotional desire” for the outcome as well as the faults of human perception, so that whatever the answer may be, it’s a factual answer. Science is based on one belief; that reality is worth understanding, that knowing the truth is better than believing a lie, that searching for the real answer will always bring about more marvelous and amazing answers than trying to keep the world small. So you must carry one belief around with you; the belief in truth. From there it is all scientific testable theory.

Religion claims to have all the answers but does not provide evidence, it urges to you deceive yourself in fear of a painful afterlife and discourages any attempt to continue understanding our universe, while denying any new discoveries of that understanding if the facts contradict the beliefs.

Ancient civilizations tried to answer the mystery of our origins by explaining the phenomena of the natural world with the use of all powerful beings. When trying to explain something no one else understands, it is comforting for a little while to assume there is someone much smarter than you out there controlling the universe. Modern religion has evolved from this notion commonly with the help of a few human beings claiming to be of supernatural origin with supernatural powers.

Supernatural explanations for the origin of life and the universe are far more common and have been around much longer.

The reason for a supernatural explanation for our origins and life’s meaning is simply this; humans turn to supernatural understandings at the limit of their own intelligence.
We are programmed by our genetic code to do so, in an earlier edition I discussed why we are capable in believing things that are not true. That explanation applies here.

Let’s say we scientifically explain the origin of life and the universe, should we then abandon those beliefs because now our intelligence is not as limited? Should we change our minds because we now have new information and evidence? Yes.

We have been able to trace our origins back millions of years in which we have discovered that life changes over long periods of time guided by a process called Natural Selection. Yet we are still working on how life got to Earth in the first place and we are extremely close to figuring that out.

That still leaves us with more questions.

Is there other life in the universe? If life got here somehow, where did it originate? Is the universe finite or infinite? Why did the big bang occur? Will the universe ever end? Oh.. the questions go on and on.

What is wonderful is how close we are to answering them. Through asking these questions and taking a scientific approach, accepting the evidence for how the universe works the way it does, we have discovered and been able to explain some really complex stuff.

Neuroscience has come far by studying the psychology of meaning, death anxiety, consciousness, and the origins of morality and happiness, etc.

Astrophysicists have been able to answer the question that the universe had a beginning and that it’s expanding rapidly, they are currently looking for other planets capable of containing life, studying the potential fate of the universe, and working on a unified field theory to bring together quantum mechanics and general relativity. They are closer than ever before in understanding how matter on a microscopic level came into existence and some theoretical physicists are working on figuring out the possibility of multiple universes and string theory.

Biologists have explained the origins of the variety of species on our planet and are still trying to answer the questions of how life began on Earth, through that process they have answered many questions explaining certain phenomena in human behavior and helped us to better understand ourselves.

You’re probably considering how complex all these questions have come and that it may be pointless to examine this any further, it’s easier to believe in the supernatural.

However, I ask that you consider the following;

What if there is no such thing as an afterlife? What if this is your only life?

Would you want to waste it in delusion just because it makes you feel better right now?

If you’re wrong about it, seems like a shameful waste.

To quote Carl Sagan:

This is what science has come to for now, we are in the moment where we cannot currently define what life is all about, but we live in a much more exciting time, we get to be the ones who will discover it.

A scientific approach to life takes bravery and fearlessness, it is not a bleak and cold view of life, it is the understanding that life is beautifully complex and it matters whether or not something is actually true. It is so marvelous, complex, and wonderful, we have been given a brief moment to experience it’s awe and beauty with the capacity to try to understand it for future generations.

Throughout Sagan’s work he explains the purpose in science and how to cope with letting go of delusions and accepting reality for what it is.

“The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counter-intuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true” 

What if the purpose for us right now is to use our abilities and our fantastic minds to understand just how complex and awesome reality actually is? Understand that no one has been given any superior knowledge to what you know. No one knows the answers for certain., but if we hold onto delusions, that will prevent us from ever knowing. 

Once we accept the truth that we don't know and humble ourselves from the heights of delusional certainty, maybe one day we can unravel life's mysteries together.

Because...