The Science Deniers

When your car needs repairs, do you ask the first person you meet on the street what to do? Certainly not – you take it to an auto mechanic. When your home heating system breaks down in the middle of the coldest night of the year, do you call your doctor? Of course not – you call a heating expert.

It would appear that calling an expert for help with situations beyond our normal experience is just common sense. So why is it that the farther removed a problem is from our everyday experience, the more likely it is that we will rely on our “gut feelings” or self-proclaimed “experts” for help?

But that seems to be the case. Seemingly normal people will ignore the warnings of tens of thousands of scientists who have devoted their entire adult lives to studying climate change and the associated problems, and heed the anti-science ranting of talk radio pundits.

As with any large group there are a few scientists who swim against the tide, and when one of these is discovered, his opinion is touted as if it were accepted fact by his peers. For example, there is the case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who presented a paper calling attention to the “fact” that measles vaccine is a cause of autism. He later admitted that he had falsified his findings, and in fact there was no correlation between the vaccine and autism. But as a result, even today thousands of parents refuse to have their children vaccinated. No amount of evidence can convince them otherwise.

While enjoying the wonders of instantaneous worldwide communications, medical technology, high speed transportation, leisure time activities, DNA and other wonders of modern science, a large number of people reject science as a purveyor of “fake news,” or as a group of academics with an agenda of their own.

While this is a major problem when the populace has this attitude, it becomes dangerous when the individuals we have elected to office adopt  this approach. For some reason, elected officials seem to think they can ignore scientists and other experts in their decision making. Instead of soliciting the input of knowledgeable people, they go with the input of either their own prejudices, or radio talk show hosts.

Thus a president can ignore the unanimous findings of his intelligence people, who have spent their careers to studying the situation, and go with his gut, or the blathering of “experts” such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Or he can insist, with no consideration of other possible security measures, that a wall is necessary for border protection, simply because building a wall was a promise he made during his election campaign.

Don’t get me wrong; it is possible that a wall or other structure is just what our southern border needs, but it seems to me the input of experts on security should be allowed, no, asked to weigh in. How about consulting people such as wall experts, prison architects, tunnel people, ex-cons and others who know something about security, what their recommendations are.

Again this is  just one example; People who devote their lives to climatology, immigration, security, international trade, foreign policy, computer hacking protection, Chinese and Middle Eastern philosophy and the myriad other problems of today, deserve to be heard and their advice heeded.

We get the government we deserve. As long as the electorate refuses to demand that their representatives make decisions based on the advice of objective experts, we will have a government that operates on gut feelings and the ramblings of radio talk show hosts.

God save the United States of America!

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My books, There Are Only Seven Jokes and The Spirit Runs Through It are available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon.