Fat Comforts Are Being Threatened
“In times like these, when their fat little comforts are threatened, you may be sure that science is the first thing men will sacrifice.”
I'm just going to leave this here. There is a recent related thread here about "97%". Several years ago when I personally stumbled upon some shocking scientific facts on my own I happened to be reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time. I was very concerned that what I was seeing firsthand was the opposite of what the news media was reporting. Trust me. This can be troubling to experience. Late one night during that time I was laying on my living room floor by the fire reading Atlas Shrugged when I came across this quote. I had trouble sleeping that night and the quote has stuck with me since. This is where we are now - no doubt. Frankly, it's a dangerous time. It smacks a little of a new dark age and that's what I've been calling it for a couple years now. When you start hearing calls to jail "climate deniers" you know we're in trouble...that science is in trouble.
I'm just going to leave this here. There is a recent related thread here about "97%". Several years ago when I personally stumbled upon some shocking scientific facts on my own I happened to be reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time. I was very concerned that what I was seeing firsthand was the opposite of what the news media was reporting. Trust me. This can be troubling to experience. Late one night during that time I was laying on my living room floor by the fire reading Atlas Shrugged when I came across this quote. I had trouble sleeping that night and the quote has stuck with me since. This is where we are now - no doubt. Frankly, it's a dangerous time. It smacks a little of a new dark age and that's what I've been calling it for a couple years now. When you start hearing calls to jail "climate deniers" you know we're in trouble...that science is in trouble.
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What I suspect we'll be seeing is more research on making renewable energy affordable, and carbon fuel use more efficient and cleaner. There will probably be renewed interest in space based solar power arrays.
Of course, a retreat from the extremist, hysterical envirowacko path we've started down won't make the left wing happy, but their teeth have been extracted, for the time being. Also, there are over 100 Federal judges to be appointed, and thanks to Harry Reid, they only need a Senate majority for approval. Trump can, in effect, pack the court system with judiciary that recognizes they shouldn't be legislating from the bench, which has been the unconstitutional path used by the left for several decades.
Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
Lead author of many IPCC reports
”Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
Sir John Houghton,
First chairman of the IPCC
”It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
Paul Watson,
Co-founder of Greenpeace
"The average person today understands the basic concept of science, of creating theories and models based on experimentation." Definitely nope. You honestly think the average person understands this?
you can not stop with this quote, for the entirety of Atlas demonstrates that fact. We are in trouble now and can it be saved in my opinion no.
=> "... according to Michigan State University's Jon Miller, Americans are slightly ahead of their European and Japanese colleagues in general scientific knowledge, though everyone has room for improvement.
“A slightly higher proportion of American adults qualify as scientifically literate than European or Japanese adults, but the truth is that no major industrial nation in the world today has a sufficient number of scientifically literate adults,” he said. “We should take no pride in a finding that 70 percent of Americans cannot read and understand the science section of the New York Times.”
Approximately 28 percent of American adults currently qualify as scientifically literate, an increase from around 10 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Miller's research. (Science Daily here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases... ) " (from my blog "Education in America: at least two cheers.")
We had a discussion about fossil fuels at work. (One of my colleagues used to own a petroleum drilling supply company. We are all military now.) The point he made is that fossil fuels are easy to transport: can of gasoline; bucket of coal; you can't do that with wind.
On your wider point, though, I am not so pessimistic. In fact, I gave up on the end of the world after Y2K. I expected it ever since I read Anthem and then Atlas Shrugged in 1966. I even had a window sticker for my car: "Barbarians. Mystics. Bread and Circuses. / Save your candles - The Dark Ages are Coming." We passed 1984 and even Halley's Comet. (My grandmother told me that they went to church because they expected the end of the world in 1910. It was perhaps her first mental shift on religion; our family never practiced.) Even in those so-called "Dark Ages" (which only affected a corner of Europe), soap was invented, antimony was isolated as a metal, astronomy advanced beyond the Roman model, slavery was forgotten, and trade continued.
On that last point in particular, a king in England, Offa of Mercia c. 750-800, struck coins in imitation of Islamic dinars because of trade. Some of the largest hoards of silver Islamic dirhens are found in the Baltic and Viking lands, again, because of trade.
What was "dark" about the "Dark Ages" was the lack of local histories by competent writers. What was lost from Rome was the diary, the daily self-reports of people of influence. But it came back, eventually. It is compelling to read about "pioneers" (i.e. peons; paisons; countrymen; farmers) leaving their manor farms to go out and chop down groves to open new lands and found new villages, c. 900 AD. At that same time frame is a perhaps curious report of a "religious community" of men and women in central Germany who founded an astronomical observatory.
You would not want to give up your life now for life then, but it was an advance over Rome. We are too easily dazzled by the marble that hides holes in the common social structure. Like its buildings, the Roman Empire was largely a facade.
Throughout history people call for jailing people they disagree with. In modern times it's a few weirdos. There are parts of the world were blasphemy is a serious criminal offense. But in most of the world, it's a joke. "It's _blasphemy _to mix a good single malt with water." The average person today understands the basic concept of science, of creating theories and models based on experimentation.
Consider your example of people who deny the human role in climate change. It's bad they reject the science, but it's amazingly good that they often criticize the science by likening it to a religion. That means, at least in principle, they're saying they accept science. They usually are not making an argument based on counting the number of begats in the Bible or something.
Similarly people who deny the science showing vaccines and GMOs are safe or that ESP and homeopathy are not real at least claim to be looking at the evidence and not forming their opinion and then seeking whatever evidence to support what they wish were true.
The biggest thing is the average person knows value comes from applied science. This is huge b/c value used to come from land. For much of history there wasn't even a concept honest ownership of the means of production. It flowed from divine right. Now the average person understands he could use technology to create value that wasn't there before.
These are actually great times for science, IMHO.