Science vs. Superstition
May. 13th, 2008 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribSo, over on John Scalzi’s blog, he’s running one of his “Big Ideas” pieces, which plug the “Big Idea” behind an author’s book. This particular Big Idea is the conflict between science and superstition. The possessor of the big idea, Melinda Snodgrass, has taken the conflict and created a novel positing a real-live war between the “forces of rationality and the Old Ones From Beyond Time.” It sounds like an interesting read, but alas my To Be Read pile is threatening to topple over and crush me, so I’ll have to take a pass.
I would like to take a serious look at the topic. Why do creationists, crystal power adherents and fake psychics using dime-store books on how to do a cold read get any credence in modern society? What’s worse, actual scientists struggle to even get time on the media, let alone advance their views. There are a number of factors at work, not the least of which is the idea that there’s a sucker born every minute. But I’d like to focus on two broad factors.
Factor #1 – The End of the Age of Optimism
One of the striking aspects of the Victorian Age was the sense of optimism about technological advances. It was pervasive and led by a lot of popular thinkers and celebrities. From my study of history, the first sign of this Age of Optimism ending was the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Here was a massive systems failure that was in many ways unique. There was no one reason for Titanic’s sinking, but rather a bunch of factors, all of which had to align. It was a complex failure, something that would become increasingly common.
If Titanic was a signpost, World War One was a massive chasm in the road. Here was a truly indisputable showcase of what modern technology could do. Through another massive systems failure, the shooting of an Archduke engineered by a two-bit state (Serbia) led to a world war. Thanks to technology, this war was long and exceptionally bloody. The political response to the systems failure led to communism, fascism, Islamic fundamentalism (The Islamic Brotherhood was founded in 1920 in response to post-war political factors) and a host of other –isms. Most of history since then has been dealing with these issues.
The bottom line, though, is that people felt, with good cause, that technology was not an unmitigated good. In my view, technology is a tool, like a hammer. You can use a hammer to build a house or break into one. But some people went a step farther, and argued that technology was bad, or at least suspect.
Factor #2 – Science as Faith
The world of 2008 is indisputably more complex then the world of 1908. There’s more “stuff” to know. For this reason if no other, many people feel compelled to take scientific facts on faith. They “believe” in global warming much like other people believe in God. These believers don’t understand the science, and so have no way to evaluate a counter-argument. This cuts both ways. If your basis for evaluating global warming is that somebody you trust says it’s true, then why wouldn’t you take somebody else’s word that crystals can heal people?
Lots of supposedly well-educated people (including folks with college degrees) fall into this science as faith trap. They hear a trustworthy person say “crystals heal” or “vaccines cause autism.” They then hear the scientist say “double-blind studies” or “null hypothesis” and literally have no idea what that means. One might as well be speaking Chinese. This is aggravated by poor education in statistics and general science. It truly amazes me that we let people get a college degree without taking a course in statistics, but I digress.
Factors one and two feed on each other. If you don’t understand why the scientific method is better (for most things, at any rate), and you know technology is not always good, it’s easy to fall for superstition. Once you’ve fallen, getting up is very difficult.
I would like to take a serious look at the topic. Why do creationists, crystal power adherents and fake psychics using dime-store books on how to do a cold read get any credence in modern society? What’s worse, actual scientists struggle to even get time on the media, let alone advance their views. There are a number of factors at work, not the least of which is the idea that there’s a sucker born every minute. But I’d like to focus on two broad factors.
Factor #1 – The End of the Age of Optimism
One of the striking aspects of the Victorian Age was the sense of optimism about technological advances. It was pervasive and led by a lot of popular thinkers and celebrities. From my study of history, the first sign of this Age of Optimism ending was the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Here was a massive systems failure that was in many ways unique. There was no one reason for Titanic’s sinking, but rather a bunch of factors, all of which had to align. It was a complex failure, something that would become increasingly common.
If Titanic was a signpost, World War One was a massive chasm in the road. Here was a truly indisputable showcase of what modern technology could do. Through another massive systems failure, the shooting of an Archduke engineered by a two-bit state (Serbia) led to a world war. Thanks to technology, this war was long and exceptionally bloody. The political response to the systems failure led to communism, fascism, Islamic fundamentalism (The Islamic Brotherhood was founded in 1920 in response to post-war political factors) and a host of other –isms. Most of history since then has been dealing with these issues.
The bottom line, though, is that people felt, with good cause, that technology was not an unmitigated good. In my view, technology is a tool, like a hammer. You can use a hammer to build a house or break into one. But some people went a step farther, and argued that technology was bad, or at least suspect.
Factor #2 – Science as Faith
The world of 2008 is indisputably more complex then the world of 1908. There’s more “stuff” to know. For this reason if no other, many people feel compelled to take scientific facts on faith. They “believe” in global warming much like other people believe in God. These believers don’t understand the science, and so have no way to evaluate a counter-argument. This cuts both ways. If your basis for evaluating global warming is that somebody you trust says it’s true, then why wouldn’t you take somebody else’s word that crystals can heal people?
Lots of supposedly well-educated people (including folks with college degrees) fall into this science as faith trap. They hear a trustworthy person say “crystals heal” or “vaccines cause autism.” They then hear the scientist say “double-blind studies” or “null hypothesis” and literally have no idea what that means. One might as well be speaking Chinese. This is aggravated by poor education in statistics and general science. It truly amazes me that we let people get a college degree without taking a course in statistics, but I digress.
Factors one and two feed on each other. If you don’t understand why the scientific method is better (for most things, at any rate), and you know technology is not always good, it’s easy to fall for superstition. Once you’ve fallen, getting up is very difficult.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-14 10:23 pm (UTC)We are hardwired by evolution for tribal belief, because tribes as a concept have great survival value. I have an inborn aversion to tribalism, and if this were five hundred years or more ago, I'd be long dead for it.
There are other contributing explanations that apply to narrow realms of superstition. Some percentage of human beings have a tendency to transcendent experience, and superstition can serve to explain those weird mystical moments to an individual who otherwise wouldn't know what was going on.
Some individuals just don't seem cut out for rationality, and in prior centuries few of them would ever have gotten a higher education. Today we'll put anybody in college, but for several reasons we demand much less rationality than we used to of educated people. Superstition and unchallenged tribal beliefs are a natural consequence of this.
The scariest part of all is that most people will insist that they're being completely rational when they defend (or deny) "global warming" (or any number of other issues with tribal baggage) without having any least understanding of the actual issues.
The concept behind the Snodgrass novel makes me grin, albeit somewhat painfully. Why do we need The Old Ones to explain what evolution gave us to keep us alive? It's almost...almost...Creationist.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 01:02 pm (UTC)