How Ignorance, Greed and Ideology Are Warping Science and Hurting Democracy
“Whenever the people are well informed” an optimistic Thomas Jefferson wrote, “they can be trusted with their own government.” Sure - but what if the people have no clue?
Most of the big challenges facing America and the world today - from climate change to disease to population growth - revolve around science and technology. If we - We, the People - are going to make smart decisions on what to do about these problems, we need to have at least a rough understanding of the basic science involved. Problem is, we don’t.
As science writer Shawn Lawrence Otto points out in a tough-minded new book, Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, too many Americans are either plain ignorant of science or actively hostile to it, or both. And that’s as true of political leaders and journalists as it is of ordinary citizens (to say nothing of corporate leaders who see action on climate change, say, as a threat to the bottom line). We think climate change is a hoax; we’re convinced vaccines cause autism; we truly believe - as Newt Gingrich claims to - that embryonic stem cell research involves killing children.
To go back to Jefferson’s point, how can we be trusted with our own government - how can we take on the huge challenges we face - if we’re so poorly informed? Or, as Otto puts it: “How can democracy continue to function in a century dominated by complex science, where science affects every aspect of life?” His short answer: it can’t - unless we make some big changes, changes in how students learn science, in how journalists describe science, in how scientists explain themselves to the public, in how money functions in politics.