| So I wonder: Exactly
how much evidence does it take for Americans to be
convinced that a thing is true? And how much evidence
to the contrary does it take for Americans to abandon
an established belief? When I look at America’s
widely held beliefs on subjects like global warming,
drug safety, or even evolution, the only answer I
can come up with is, “An arkload.”
I hate to break this to whoever the much-needed new
leadership at the DNC, but it might take more than
four years of deprogramming to make any rational
view acceptable in American political discourse. The
good news, I suppose, is that there isn’t even
going to be an opportunity to re-take the Senate for
at least ten years. So, feel free to spread the truth,
and piss some people off, starting now.
Let’s start with a fairly shocking statistic,
merely as an example of how difficult your task will
be: Polls have repeatedly shown that fewer than forty
percent of Americans believe in evolution—and
even fewer received detailed instruction on the subject
in a public school. Let’s think about this for
a moment. We have a fossil record clearly showing
a progression of the genus homo into anatomically
modern man, complete with several evolutionary splits
and dead-ends, or as I like to call them, “God
Goofs.” We also have no fossil evidence of anatomically
modern man until the end of this progression. The
same fossil record reflects similar change for most
species over time, and shows that species that are
particularly resiliant have changed very little in
this time. One might think that's enough.
More importantly, however, we can actually test
the reality of the driving force of evolution: genetics.
If genes are eliminated from or introduced into a
population, the offspring reflect that. It’s
that simple. Gregor Mendel proved this in 1865, and
scientists have spent the last half century reaffirming
that the process did indeed drive change in our own
species.
Many farmers who claim not to believe in evolution
actually use it to breed livestock in between harvesting
genetically-altered plants. No one would ever dispute
that two Asian people would produce all Asian offspring,
while two people of mixed race would produce mixed
offspring. The same can be said, to a lesser degree,
of short and tall people; this is reflected in certain
populations, as well. In fact, the same could be said
for virtually any physical trait.
Yet still, when we apply the word “evolution”
to this known reality, less than half of us believe
it’s true, largely because our educational system
has been politicked into treating something that is
a fact as pure speculation. They get away with this
because those on the other side have been brainwashed
into believing that if you say you don't believe something
for religious reasons, then your point must be considered
logically valid. Otherwise, you might hurt someone's
feelings, and we can't let a little thing like an
honest, informed education for our children make us
do something so crass as to tell people that they're
just plain wrong.
And the illiterati have three very, very big allies
in this battle against reason. First, they have the
human ego, which says that it cannot possibly have
evolved from a form of life it now views as lower.
Second, they have some within the religious community
who seem to think that Michelangelo’s sixteenth
century vision of Adam is somehow religious canon,
and therefore, if evolution happened, there is no
God. And they say these people are simple-minded.
And, finally, they have a few professionals who have
devoted their lives to proving the theory of evolution
to be false. So far all they’ve been able to
prove is that if we change half of what we know about
the continental drift and exclude all other data (like
tree ring records that go back far earlier,) it is
possible for the Earth to be 6,000 years old. Also,
they've invented something called a "missing
link" that has no basis in reality, but cooks
up nicely with a good red herring.
Luckily, religious scientists have come up with
a happy medium—creationist evolution. It sounds
like a bullshit name, I know. And it’s fitting.
"Creationist evolution” is just a way of
acknowledging what should be obvious to anyone in
this genus—that at some point in reconstructing
the creation of the universe even scientists have
to just throw up their hands and go, “Um, I
guess God did it!” Their point is fairly obvious,
but at least it shows they’re thinking.
Not believing in evolution won’t hurt anybody
(as long as you’re not working on the human
genome project). But is too much to ask for a Democrat
who'll stand up for science? It shouldn’t be
a major campaign issue, of course, but… It would
at least be a show of sanity.
These chromosomally-challenged crusaders are only
assaulting our intellect. A few warning labels on
public school books (I wish I was kidding, but one
text company actually began doing this last month,)
promotes ignorance, but it doesn’t kill anybody.
Unfortunately, these fact-feigning activists to whom
some kind soul was gentlemanly enough to grant a degree
also come out of the woodwork when there are urgent
problems to be addressed, and always with the same
message: Don’t worry, do nothing.
Three “reports” on global warming came
out this week. One was from the University of Washington
using data from England’s Hadley Centre for
Climate Prediction and Research, which reaffirmed
that the lower stratosphere is heating up as quickly
as the Earth’s surface. A Reuters piece on climate
change in Asia quoted scientists on such diverse and
happy topics as alternating drought and flood / hot
and cold snaps on the continent, to the total disappearance
of some island nations under rising ocean waters.
All of this, at the current rate of warming, will
occur over the next fifty years.
Another, released by a conservative think tank and
paid for in part by Exxon, laughably suggested that
global warming could have positive effects for man.
I mean, haven't you always wanted to go scuba diving
through the streets of Calcutta? It also reportedly
included head shots of the responsible scientists,
along with demo reels and a press kit for their latest
book, “How Beating Your Head Against a Wall
Can Rid You of Brain Cancer.”
At least they acknowledged that anthropogenic climate
change is a reality, though. They had to; they’re
from England, where not doing so would be downright
crazy. It’s something our President has yet
to do. When confronted about global warming, Bush
either denies it has anything to do with greenhouse
gas emissions, or pulls out his favorite non-argument:
“We don’t really have enough information
at this time.”
But, then, what evidence do we have, really? Well,
for starters, we know that water vapor, CO2 and other
greenhouse gases trap heat, which can be proven quite
easily in any setting. We also know that our atmosphere
is made up of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen,
one percent argon, as well as traces of water vapor,
CO2, methane, and other heat-trapping (greenhouse)
gases. We know that these gases hold heat from the
sun. And, finally, we know that in the last 250 years,
we have increased the concentration in our atmosphere
by 31 percent. So, one would expect that this would
cause the temperature of the Earth to increase, as
more heat is trapped in the atmosphere. Doesn’t
take a genius—or a “think tank”—to
hypothesize the outcome of this grand experiment.
Lo and behold, it seems that our non-genius is right:
the temperature of the Earth is, indeed, rising—by
.08-.22 degrees centigrade since 1979.
But the fringe theorists that the current Administration
so loves to reference trot out one irrelevant piece
of speculation after another to offer other explanations
for why the these climate changes are occurring, without
ever addressing the clear and obvious logic of the
actual argument. Volcanoes? The position of the Earth?
Aliens? Anything will do, so long as it buys a little
more time for Bush’s big oil cronies to drill
til the well runs dry (which, by the way, should be
about the time India becomes an island nation). Just
so long as the American public is spared the inconvenience
of breathing cleaner air and driving a car that gets
three times the gas mileage they’re getting
now, they won’t put up much of a fight. How
do they do it? That old, mostly Republican stand-by:
“We still need to sort out all of this data…
There is no scientific consensus.”
Well, guess what? There is a scientific consensus,
Americans just don't want to believe it,
the same way we didn't want to believe that the terrorists
were coming. If someone hasn't posted a comment calling
these predictions, which were even the supported by
a recent CIA report, "left wing paranoia"
or overstatement, I'll be shocked. But this consensus
is one reason why scientists overwhelmingly supported
John Kerry for President, and oil families overwhelming
supported George W. Bush. I think that perhaps Democrats
should take this time out of power to convince American
voters that ceasing this rush toward doom should take
precedent over kissing up to the oil and auto industries.
They should start now; it may take some time to
sink in. If I hear one more person in Southern California
deny global warming by saying, “Seems like it’s
getting’ colder to me,” Totally ignorant
of the fact that that is a predicted effect of
global warming on that region, I’m going to
bang their head against that of their Representative
in Congress. Hard.
But at least those morally and logically deficient,
paid superstar experts have good reason to spread
industry propaganda: They’re getting money and
undeserved attention. The good folks at the FDA are
posing the most immediate danger to the American people,
and they’re doing it for an afternoon of golf
and a Pfizer tote bag. 3,000 people died on 9/11;
55,000 died from Vioxx. Merck, who was well aware
of the drug’s dangers since 1998, killed 18
times as many Americans than al Qaeda. Enjoy your
1,320 virgins, boys. I suppose as long as none of
them were fetuses, the mathematically and morally
deficient Bush Administration finds that number to
be acceptable.
Drugs are constantly approved, rejected, or even
made illegal for entirely political reasons that have
absolutely nothing to do with the danger they pose
to the consumer. Is it too much to ask that a Democrat
stand up and call for a total overhaul of this politically-driven
system? Aspirin kills 200 a year (an acceptable risk,
given its benefits). Vioxx killed 55,000 (clearly
unacceptable). I don’t use marijuana (hard to
believe, I know,) but even I know that it only kills
people in government propaganda films made by people
who seem to believe it has roughly the same effect
of an LSD, PCP and horse tranquilizer cocktail. When
Republicans, and the vast majority of Democrats, for
that matter, are confronted with the subject of legal
marijuana, out comes the “Further analysis,”
card. And when it comes to the “good”
drugs, they have consistently allowed pharmaceutical
companies—which have made huge profits keeping
low-cost generic drugs out of the hands of dying poor
people—to police themselves when it comes to
safeguarding America.
Speaking of those generic drugs, one statistician
made headlines this week by claiming (perhaps rightfully)
that African political instability due to the HIV
epidemic is a greater threat to national security
than global warming. While the comparison itself probably
shocks many Americans, what should be shocking them
is the way that conservatives immediately turned the
doomsday warning into, "See? There's no problem
with global warming. Political fallout from AIDS will
get us first!"
I know that to many readers these three subjects
may seem unrelated. But, I assure you, they’re
not. Because, Republicans (and spineless Democrats)
get away with eschewing science, logic, and morality
in these cases simply by taking advantage of the laziness
of the American people. We really don’t wanna
think about anything too hard, so we’ll generally
accept any two sides of an argument as legitimate,
even if one or both are clearly absurd. I call it
Occam’s Sledgehammer: If someone says something,
and you want to believe it, you’ll take their
reason as valid. After all, not believing they could
be right might hurt their feelings, and we can’t
let a little thing like hurtling toward our doom force
us to make the opposition feel invalidated.
Thus, Republicans are particularly good at taking
an argument—any argument that they can’t
win with logic—and muddying it with misinformation
just enough to give their loyalists something to shout
to their neighbors, thereby calling it a draw. And,
when an argument is a draw, error is always on the
side of conservation. One might speculate that we
err on this side in order to play it safe. But, then,
one might also note the staggering degree of intellectual
laziness it takes to accept these “arguments”
as valid, and see that people are likely to be lazy
in other ways, too. Thought takes effort, yes, but
change… Change might actually require getting
off the couch.
Democrats, you have about two and a half years,
starting right now, to not worry about making the
American people feel uncomfortable. It’s time
to bring on the reality. Bring on the science. Make
yourselves the bearers of the painful truth, and more
importantly, of practical solutions. After all, now
that they’re in charge, they can't blame these
things on you.
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