How did the U.S. become a society that’s suspicious of science? – ‘How did bay-at-the-moon lunacy come to occupy a more prominent place in our public discourse than textbook science?’
By Keith M. Parsons
15 October 2014 (Huffington Post) – I grew up in the heroic age of American science and engineering. In my lifetime, the space program put men on the moon, the interstate highway system connected the continent, Salk and Sabin conquered polio, and computers went from room-sized behemoths to hand-held wonders. In my youth, America clearly led the world in its ability to conduct large-scale science and engineering projects. True, some of these projects were morally disturbing. The Castle Bravo test of March 1, 1954, a 15-megaton thermonuclear blast at Bikini Atoll, caused radioactive fallout to rain down on unsuspecting victims. Yet the nuclear tests also represented scientific and engineering expertise of the highest order. […] Fifty years ago science was king. Science had respect; it was bigger than ideology. No longer. Radio blowhards contemptuously dismiss scientific findings and endorse ideological claptrap. Anti-science stalks the halls of Congress and kooky ideas are rife among Boards of Education. Formerly, all parties in public debate, liberal and conservative, displayed deference to science. Now we have Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, openly denouncing the findings of climate scientists as a hoax. The Texas State Board of Education, which is dominated by religious fundamentalists, prefers the propaganda of ax-grinding cranks over the recommendations of hundreds of qualified scientists and scholars. How did this happen? How did bay-at-the-moon lunacy come to occupy a more prominent place in our public discourse than textbook science? How, indeed, has it ever come to be thought that there is still a scientific debate over evolution, or that pluperfect nonsense like creationism is worthy of a hearing? How did there come to be a multi-million dollar “creation museum” in Kentucky, with full-scale models of dinosaurs fitted out with saddles? (Why saddles? So Adam and Eve could ride them around Eden. Duh.) […] Big money is the worst enemy of science. Big Tobacco found the way to fight science. What do you do if the science shows that your product is deadly, killing tens of thousands of your customers a year, yet that product brings you profits beyond the dreams of avarice? You deny the science. You hire your own “experts” to do science your way and reach the conclusions you require. It is easy. […] By generating doubt about the science, Big Tobacco avoided meaningful regulation for years. What worked for Big Tobacco now works even better for Big Oil and Big Coal. By funding obscurantist opposition to climate science, they have effectively scuttled any reforms that might threaten their profits. Indeed, as Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway show in their superb book Merchants of Doubt, manufacturing doubt about science is itself now a big business. [more]
How Did We Become a Society Suspicious of Science?
The facts:
Americunts are the dumbest fucking people on the entire planet. They embrace superstition, fear, paranoia, Manifest Destiny and ignorance, institutionalizing all of these dubious distinction into special class of "stupid".
"Bay at the moon" only barely begins to describe how completely stupid Americunts truly are.
Ever been to a gun show? Or a trade show? Or a political rally? Or a town hall meeting? I have – at all of them, and the idiocy expressed by Americunts is stunning.
The rejection of science, and the scientific method, facts, evidence, research, and expert experience is preferred over uninformed opinions, superstition, ignorance and rank denial.
Tossing out the science, we're instead entreated with the Bible, preferentialism, and connedservative "values" that resemble the Dark Ages.
Republicunts are not the only guilty "party" (Bubba and their bloated beer bellies), the other guilty "party" is the Demoncunts who are just as dumb, stupid, blind and ignorant as their other Americunt counterparts. They actually have a great deal in common.
Only a tiny, tiny few Americans are actually informed, aware and concerned about what is unfolding, the rest are bamboozled by the corporate oil-soaked media that has bought and paid for the entire spectrum of infotainment, on and offline.
It's an unbelievable embarrassment to claim oneself as even being an American these days, because it conveys such horrible connentations.
To declare oneself "an American" is the same thing as saying "I'm dumb, stupid, fat, lazy, proud, arrogant and ignorant – and damned proud of it!"
The real facts from the rejected scientists and science:
Only .7% of scientists do NOT support AGW, ie., "global warming". That's not even 1% that refute this.
97.2% of scientist DO support AGW (human caused).
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
Watch the video included: http://bcove.me/c1li8rcl
Over 10,000 published scientific papers were reviewed.
"It’s hard to find a reputable scientist who denies that human emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the planet and that there will be consequences for human society and the biological health of the planet. There are a few holdouts who, for various reasons, either think humans are not causing warming or that the warming will not have much consequence.
Some members of this vocal minority spend a lot of time trying to convince the public that they are right. They write letters to newspapers, appear in slick movies, give press conferences, promote their views to Congress,
and so on. Their high profile gives the public a false sense that there are two relatively equal-sized bodies of experts that cannot agree on climate change; this is not true."
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/