Recently, the United States has been at the heart of one of the most fascinating conflicts in modern history. This conflict has revolved around our willingness to accept a scientific worldview as the foundation of our society. Opposition to this worldview is both hypocritical and dangerous.
If we want to continue down the path of increased understanding and reduced suffering, resistance to science needs to be understood and dismantled as soon as possible.
Resistance takes two important forms.
First, we find it based on a naive perspective. It is all too common for people to suggest that we cut support for research programs because they don’t appear to be producing discoveries that are immediately beneficial.
This shortsighted excuse for depriving a program’s funding is as lazy as it is absurd. We don’t have to look hard to notice history is littered with bright people underestimating the future impact of seemingly obscure discoveries.
The internet comes to mind. In fact, many of the most important technological advances we enjoy today were discovered serendipitously, such as penicillin.
This is not a surprise, as the nature of exploration and discovery is, by definition, something we don’t even know we should be looking for until we stumble upon it.
Thus, criticizing scientific exploration and expecting discoveries to come in neat packages on a set schedule is completely antithetical to the whole endeavor.
The second form of resistance to scientific exploration is a response to “inconvenient truths.” Society is filled with economic and social structures built on assumptions. All too often, empirical observations are at odds with these assumptions, and the resulting reactions rarely prompt acceptance. Cognitive dissonance ensues.
People have a habit of ignoring, trivializing and generally denying newfound information, at least initially.
Making matters worse, we have well-funded institutions helping us carry on in our denial. Our grandparents’ generation had the tobacco companies on their side when medical evidence made it clear that a difficult lifestyle change was in order.
Similarly, Exxon Mobil has our generation’s back in that it promotes convenient truths when climate science tells us it’s time to make some difficult changes ourselves. The examples go on and on, and that’s before we even start to talk about religion.
Whether or not somebody’s resistance to scientific exploration is based on a naive paradigm, a stubborn desire to accept only “convenient” facts or a combination of both, they all have one thing in common: those who resist are all going through life believing in a paradigm based on a flawed double standard.
No one who complains about research funding based on a perceived lack of short-term benefits turns down penicillin when in need, which was not deemed to be consequential in the short-term.
Similarly, no one who rejects climate scientists’ empirical observations is willing to reject their own empirical observations about the traffic on the city street they are about to cross.
Obviously, when the consequences are imminent, no rational person can reject the power of empirical observations or decline the benefits of sometimes-vague explorations.
Thus, we need to realize that our attitude should be no different about bigger questions where the consequences are not so immediate.
Adopting and embracing a scientific worldview is the only way to do this.