The old saying "ignorance is bliss" seems to be universial in its affect on societies and governments over the ages. In the old totalitarian regimes of the Soviet Union and pre-modern Europe, people were kept in the dark. They didn't know much about the world beyond their own homes. Hence, they didn't understand any more than their limited capacity to acquire information allowed them to. There was a time when the Catholic Church considered it blasphemous for anybody to read the bible in any other language other than it's native Latin or Greek. For a while it was even considered criminal for people to read the bible on their own without a priest and come up with their own interpretations. In the old Soviet Union and modern day North Korea, information regarding the advances or superiority of liberty and capitalism is highly censored. In fact, just talking about it could earn someone a death sentance for 'spreading propoganda.'

 

Throughout the ages religion and government have gone to great lengths to use fear to push their own agenda. History has shown that it is only through a free society where information is exchanged and uncensored that understanding and knowledge can propogate. The 21st century has completely changed that dynamic because now anybody anywhere can have access to a wealth of information on countless arrays of issues. It is now possible for people to connect with others they may otherwise have never met and converse with them even though they may not agree with their worldview. In many ways it has made humanity better by being able to spread knowledge and understanding to promote enlightenment and progress. But for some, it only brings out the worst in people.

 

With the freedom and sophistication of the modern age, people not only have the opportunity to access a wealth of information they have the opportunity to customize the kind of information they want to see. They can tailor their information only to their liking so that if someone wants a conservative viewpoint they can do so and those who want a liberal viewpoint could do so as well. It seems all well and good, personalizing how they get their information. But there is a considerable drawback.

 

If people only view information that is specifically selected to agree with their pre-concieved viewpoint then that information will only reinforce their position. It won't get them to think critically or analyze other viewpoints. It will leave them more certain and in some cases downright dogmatic. The information for other positions is there. They just don't bother looking into it.

 

One issue where this is most glaring is global warming. Many environmentalists have conditioned themselves to completely filter out any comments that their ridged beliefs on the matter may not be correct. If some scientist or researcher comes along and says that mankind may not actually be responsible for global warming, they brush it off and consider the scientists lackies for the oil companies or something. Their data could be right and valid by all measures, but the environementalist has been so conditioned to tune criticism out that they are bascially drones to their beliefs.

 

Another issue where this is prevalent is among conservative religious crowds. They too have conditioned themselves to believe that their god and their narrow interpretation of their religion is the only right way and everybody else is wrong. So when someone comes along that doesn't believe as they do, they either look down on them or completely write them off as flawed or wicked. This can lead to even more egregeous behavior like bigotry, prejudice, and in some cases violence. And at no point will they even consider the notion that they may be wrong in doing so.

 

From pundits to popes, viewpoints and worldviews are more skewwed than ever. When people become so reinforced in their beliefs, they get to a point where they cannot even begin to understand another possible way of thinking. And as the old saying goes, people always fear what they don't understand. So in a ways, the fear and ignroance used by religion and government in pre-modern times persists. Only now it isn't because of force or authority. It is because the masses have become willingly ignorant and will not take the time to truly investigate something and look at it from a different point of view. Even with all the information that's out there, they don't even try. Such dogmatic individuals are without excuse. It is lazy in the most pathetic of ways. But worst of all, it is cowardly. It takes a lot of strength and bravery to challenge one's self in their beliefs and understanding (or lack thereof). Unfortunately, such bravery is lacking in this day and age. It can only lead to more fear, more ignorance, and more cowardice in the long run.

Recently the Washington Post did a report on David DeWitt, a teacher from Liberty University, a school with a rich tradition of zealous religious teachings that was founded by a zealous religious man named Jerry Fawell. DeWitt teaches 'biology' at this school and took his students on a trip to the Smithsonian Institute, where his faith base psudo-science came head-to-head with real science.

 

 

The purpose of this visit, according to DeWitt, is to strengthen his students' belief in the strict biblical view of history. Translation: he wants to ridicule certain aspects of science deemed 'threatening' by his fellow religious ideologues and replace knowledge with dogma and irrational beliefs. It is a great example of a real paradox. A man parading around as a proponent of science is pushing his irrational beliefs on students in a place that champions ration and debases superstitious dogma. There is no less appropriate place for a committed creationist.

 

"There's nothing balanced here. It's completely, 100 percent evolution-based," said DeWitt.

 

Well of course it is! That's because evolution is science and creationism is nonsenical, incoherent, irrational belief that has been debunked, disproved, and flat out rejected by decades of scientific and academic inquiry. Nobody will ever find in a science museum displays of theories so irrational they claim a magical sky god poofed the entire world into being by magic and gave no trace of his presence and no means of understanding the mechanisms by which it was done. That sort of thing belongs in magic shows, myths, movies, and churches. Just ridiculing something because it doesn't adhere to a certain set of Bronze Age beliefs is not only arrogant, it is unscientific and irrational.

 

DeWitt went onto say ""We come every year, because I don't hold anything back from the students." Well he's doing worse than holding back. He's spitting in the face of science and everyone who has ever worked to further the knowledge of mankind. He's teaching his students to reject reason in favor of irrational belief. He's teaching his students scoff at anything that isn't written in the bible even if it has done more to improve their quality of life than religion could ever hope to match. These young impressionable minds will only have their already bias minds further reinforced with irrational beliefs that not only go against the very foundations of science, but pervert their own religious beliefs.

 

The article went onto describe how other fundementalist groups are planning other trips. They will be guilty of the same irrational nonsense as DeWitt, insulting the concept of knowledge in exchange for dogma. But to the credit of the Smithsonian and other museums of the sort, they do not reject these anti-science zealots. They welcome them with open arms, which is more than Farwell's igornance spewing school can say. Try entering Liberty as a muslim, an hindu, a homosexual, or heaven forbid an atheist. What are the chances they will be anywhere near as welcoming?

 

The article aslo referenced a Pew poll that revealed around 42 percent of Americans believe in DeWitt's Bronze Age mythological nonsense. That shows just how deep ignorance runs in this country. These ongoing practices of insulting the champions of science are NOT helping. Creationism has been shown time and again to be no more scientific than stories surrounding unicorns, fairies, and mermaids. It's failed every major test of scientific scrutiny and propogating it as a valid alternative is insulting to the very idea of reason.

 

People are free to believe whatever they want. But people who try to poison the well of knowledge, stifle human creativity, and push their dogma on others are enemies of a free and rational society.

Human intuition is an amazing yet complex phenomena. Many everyday decisions are made on intuition. Sometimes it's as simple as deciding what to eat and other times it's as complex as formulating an economic policy. Intuition is like instinct in that it feels intrinsically right so people don't question it or think too much about it. It's a good thing too because it saves on mental energy. But there are times when intuition may be false.

 

Take the current prevailing intuition among politicians and the average joe regarding the economy. They rationalize that since the economy has slowed, government spending will stimulate it by pumping money into it. It's an age-old tactic championed by the likes of FDR and Barack Obama. It sounds good on paper. It makes intuitive sense that pumping money into the economy will stimulate it. But anybody who has a more intimate knowledge of economics understands that it doesn't work that way. Government spending does not create any new wealth. It just takes the wealth from one area and tries to redistribute it into another, often hindering those who would create new wealth. It's the reason why the New Deal didn't end the Great Depression and why these huge economic bubbles keep popping and creating great upheavals. John Stossel explained it a great deal in his article appropriately titled "We can't spend our way to prosparity" 

We can't spend our way to prosparity 

 

Take another less complicated example. In the 70s, the drinking age laws across the country were changed from 18 to 21. The intuitive reasoning was that if the law said that youths couldn't drink until a later age it would cut down on alcohol related deviance. This makes sense on the surface, but research and statistics do not fully support this. The law will not stop youths from drinking. It is not a behavior that involves intruding upon the natural rights of others. It is an entirely self-regulated behavior that affects only the user and how it affects that user will differ from how it affects others. So while many may drink responsibily, there will be those who abuse it. But that applies to any substance or behavior including other drugs and activities like driving. In fact, some researchers claim that those who drink underage do so in more risky ways. Because its legality is taboo, it becomes a sourse of rebellion among users and that can be a reinforcing factor. Another article by John Stossel helps explain this matter further.

 

Take this notion of intuition other domains such as religion and faith. Many reason that if life looks like it's been created then maybe there's a creator. Others reason that because they intuitively feel the presence of the divine, there must be a divine force. These notions seem entirely reasonable, but they have no objective basis in reality. They are entirely subjective assumptions bound by human error. Intuition by its own nature is someone's way of coming to a conclusion when they do not have all the facts. And the irony is that nobody has all the facts and probably never will. So at the expense of torturing themselves over so much uncertainty, intuition provides what seems a safe and reasonable assumption that fills an otherwise uncomfortable void.

 

From humans to insects, intuition has its uses and shortcomings. What seems to make sense doesn't always hold true in a larger scheme. That is why it is important to use inductive reasoning, following the evidence to a conclusion before making a large assumption. And for that which is unknown or unknowable, one must become comfortable with the notion of uncertainty. It's difficult to say sometimes, but the best answer is often "I don't know." But uncertainty is not easy to deal with. Many would rather be certain than be right. That can provide comfort, but it can also cloud judgment. And in a society as complex as ours, poor judgment can lead to major consequences.

Most people don't understand or appreciate how much science has done for them. Anybody living in the United States or any industrialized country owes their lives to science and all it has brought us. Because of science millions if not billions of lives have been saved thanks to medical advancements that have cured diseases like polio and smallpox and millions more can survive thanks to lower infant morality. Because of science our civilization has an abudnence of food that is unsurpassed compared to any other time in history and because of science our understanding of how nature and the cosmos work has been greatly expanded. Everytime someone is able to eat ample food, drink clean water, or heal with modern medicine they are indebted to the advances made by countless men of science who used their reason and ingenuity to further our knowledge and create new ways to live and survive.

 

And yet despite all science has given civilization, there are those who seek to undermine it with age old superstition and dogma. These people feel so threatened by the advancements science has made they are willing to undo it and all the good it does just so they can keep their age old beliefs. Chief among these anti-science zealots are those calling themselves 'creation scientists.' Yet it would be an insult to real scientists everywhere to call these people scientists because what they do isn't science. It is just another way for them to push their religous beliefs on people and by disguising it as science they try to get a certain level of legitimacy, which is impossible because they completely ignore the tenants of science.

 

These creation scientists actually believe that the stories in the bible are literally true. They believe that the world was created by a supernatural being and that there was a global flood that only one man survived by building a single boat that housed two of every animal. They genuinely believe that the entire world was destroyed by their 'loving god' and they can prove this with science even though all of their claims have been rejected by legitimate research. But this doesn't seem to bother them. They reject vast body of geological and fossil evidence, claiming it can be explained by their faulty reasoning and misconstrued, out of context, and often outrageous biblical interpretations. They openly admit that if any evidence or theory of any kind comes along that my counter what their old book of Judeo-Christian myths and legends says then it must be thrown out.

Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis (or Answers in Magic would be a more accurate description), is a well-known creationists who claims to know the actual 'science' of creation, but his claims and methods are about as steeped in science as the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. His site openly admits in it's mission statement that "We proclaim the absolute truth and authority of the Bible with boldness." This basically destroyed their scientific credibility because it states they have their conclusion already and will only shape the facts to agree with it. And that is NOT science. That's nonsense.

Science works in the opposite direction. It takes evidence and draws conclusions of it and often new evidence comes along to change that conclusion. People used to believe demons caused disease, but new evidence came along in the form of scientific observation of bacteria and microbes that proved otherwise. But if Ken Ham's method were applied and the idea of demons causing a disease was assumed since the bible says nothing about bacteria and affirms that demons cause disease, that evidence would have to be thrown out because it contradicts his assertion. Imagine if germ theory had been thrown out and science was not able to develop an understanding of disease. Millions if not billions of people would have died from a lack of understanding of how to treat diseases like polio and smallpox. But at least people like Ken Ham would have felt comfortable that their faith was secure. It only cost millions of lives and countless suffering. Is that really worth it?

Another common claim people like Ken Ham and his cohorts Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research (which is also an oxymoron because they don't research anything but the bible) and convicted fraudster Kent Hovind (the man who loves to claim dinosaurs and man walked together) like to espouse is that they are looking at the same evidence, they are just interpreting it differently. This is also a bogus argument because their 'interpretation' is steeped in dogma that allows for supernatural forces to play a part in natural processes. And in science there can be no supernatural forces whatsoever, otherwise it is by definition not science. Science does not claim to have all the answers, but when it doesn't know something it admits it doesn't know. It doesn't claim to know saying their version of a supernatural entity is behind it all. It actually seeks to investigate the phenomenon and explain it through natural forces.

This is possibly the biggest crime creationists and other anti-science zealots commit. They stiffle human curiosity into looking into a phenomonon. Someone out there may have had the answers to these questions about the universe a long time ago, but because of zealots and dogmas they were afraid or unable to pursue their curiosity and their knowledge was lost. Dogma such as creationism and anything like it teaches people to be content with not knowing something and attibuting it to supernatural forces they can never grasp. It hinders creativity and the human mind itself. These dogmatic zealots are not scientists, they are tyrants of the human spirit.

And their reverence of scripture and age old text (not just the bible but books like the Quran and the Book of Mormon), tries to parade nonsense as science even when it has been thoroughly disproven. There are still people who believe in the geocentric model of the solar system, that is having the Earth at the center of the universe, because that's what the bible implies. And their arguments are even laid out int the following website:

Geocentric Earth Nonsense

Creationists fight so hard to get their views forced into schools in regards to evolution. Yet you don't see many trying to push the Geocentric aspect of their dogma on anybody yet. As Penn Jillette so eloquently put "I'm sure they're just thinking...one step at a time."

This is the ultimate irony. The beliefs and nonsense these creation science and anti-science zealots try to push on the public is known by many to be wrong and good science has debunked it time and again. So they actively seek the government to support them through use of force either through policy or monetary support. They know they can't win in the ligitmate arena so they have to use force and that shows just how flawed their principles are.

I take this time to rant against these anti-science dogmatic zealots parading around as real scientists because they really do undermine the foundations of modern civilizaton. They would have it that we reject that which has given us so much just so they could feel good and secure about their beliefs. They would gladly march us all back into the Dark Ages where medicine involved prayer and exorcism and anybody doing research that contradicted sacred scripture was imprisoned or put to death and where irrational superstition took precedence over reason. And they do it with a smile, not caring of how many people would suffer and die as a result. If there isn't a greater example of ture evil then I've never heard one. If they have such a big problem with science then they should move out of our modernized world and live in hut in the middle of nowhere farming with pick axes and hand tools, just as it was in the days of their sacred tales. Because if science is so bad and so anti-god, then they should practice what they preach.

This is a free society. People have a right to believe whatever they want to believe. But in the world of reason, if you're going to make a claim you must support it with evidence. And faith is not evidence. Faith is faith. Don't confuse the two. Otherwise you'll damage both and all of society, not just science and religion, will be undermined.