“We are sliding back into a dark era,” said Nina Fedoroff, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at the 2012 AAAS meeting held in Vancouver in February. “And there seems little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms.”
Fedoroff, one of the world’s most distinguished agricultural scientists, was speaking at an event most noted for its annual unveiling of scientific accomplishments. But instead of the expected introductory speech of ‘We are scientists and here is what we have learned,’ the audience heard what many knew but were loathe to voice. Fedoroff admitted out loud, in public, and in an official capacity that she was “scared to death” of the anti-science movement.
The movement is spreading throughout much of the western world at an alarming rate, primarily among large religious and conservative populations. It is the most powerful in the U.S. where, despite the Obama administration’s friendliness to science, a hoard of Republicans are actually regulating and campaigning on anti-science platforms.
Most notable of the science deniers is Rick Santorum, a GOP presidential candidate who is currently leading in the race. At the Republican party debate in Florida, Santorum declared he should be the presidential candidate for the party because he caught on to the “hoax” of climate change earlier than his opponents. This claim is hotly contested by his opponents not for the obvious error in calling climate change a hoax, but in which of them labeled it such first. Further, the candidates are competing on how fast and hard they can stomp evolution and climate change science out of existence. Worse still, throngs of followers are applauding the demise of science.
Up until recently, scientists believed turning the tide back to logical, critical thinking was a matter of education. The facts, scientists thought, would surely rectify the error in denying scientific findings. But that has not been the case partly because recent educational efforts have lacked the high-visibility of previous efforts such as those done by the patriotism-evoking NASA, and partly because the anti-science movement is attacking education itself.
The anti-science movement is attacking education on many fronts:
- by insisting creationism be taught either as a replacement or beside evolution;
- by lobbying to defund public education from the earliest grades through college level thereby limiting access to science education;
- by thoroughly discrediting acclaimed scientists as alarmists and snake-oil salesmen;
- and, by attacking science supporters as “snobs, elitists, and anti-religion.”
In the U.S. the anti-science movement has been hugely successful because it has been coordinated and funded by such huge corporations as Exxon that fund operations with innocuous sounding names like The Heartland Institute. A report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) titled “Heads They Win, Tails We Lose: How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense” chronicles the many ways corporations attack science and scientists in order to protect their profits.
If science and the businesses that rely on using the sciences topping the movement’s hit list, e.g. genetic modification and climate change, are to succeed the fight-back must be as coordinated and well-funded as the anti-science movement is. Further, the pro-science efforts must appeal emotionally and not just logically to the man-on-the-street. Pro-science efforts must also protect and promote the value of education in general and not just for science and math. Others believe science defenders should also use fear to drive home the true severity of the problems mankind is facing. You can hear that argument in the video below.
Scientists are just now beginning to realize the behemoth threat in massive organized efforts to “undermine scientific data by people for whom that data represents a threat to their status quo” says Professor Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, San Diego and co-author of Merchants of Doubt. “Given the power of these people, scientists will have their work cut out for them.”
But businesses from the agriculture-based to alternative energy producers are going to have to step up and defend science too. If they fail to do so, they can expect to be heavily regulated or their businesses outright banned by those who would use religious dogma as a weapon against commercial competition and/or regulation of their own industries.