Science, Pseudoscience, and the Politics of Fear

Fear. It's driving our world. Not so much in Canada but its there none the less. This fear does not come in the form of Osama Bin Laden and the gaggle of other terrorists, though he's part of the equation.

This entry follows on the heels of my last one. My scathing expose of the world of academics and intellectuals in the realm of politics. Fear perpetrated by academics in the form of junk science. Global warming, for example, I believe to fall under this category. That along with all the other apocalyptic predictions today's academics are making in order to scare people. Whether or not there is truth to these claims is not as important. What is important is that this "science" is being done through partisan eyes. This is dangerous because it scares people out of their wits. Some 33% of Americans think the end of the world will come soon. That's one in every three people. People proclaiming the end of the world is nothing new. If you look back at the history of apocalyptic thinking, the world should have ended hundreds of times over. (I seem to remember the world was supposed to end on New Years Eve, seven years ago. The next possible date is 2012.) What sets today's thinkers apart from those in the past is that these people are scientists, supposedly employed by prestigious think tanks and universities. They spout total crap out of their mouths and people gobble it up like it's fillet minion.

Today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved their Doomsday Clock to five minutes to midnight. Midnight being the doomsday. Obviously this does not represent real time, in fact, nobody knows what this means. Curiously, they ranked 1963 as being the second furthest point we were from nuclear disaster. The same year of the Cuban Missile Crisis where nuclear war was narrowly averted. Fidel Castro reportedly wished the Soviets to launch an attack but clearer heads prevailed. It does show how off base they are in their estimates. The Bulletin's "clock" is a perfect example of junk science.

Fear is a powerful political strategy. However, playing with fear is like playing with fire. Fear is being used by both the left and right wings. However, the left wing is presenting the the apocalyptic version. The fire part is that it starts a panic. It's similar to the riots you get in the wake of natural disasters. The worst part is that academics are using claims that cannot be verified to boost this fear. They simply lie through their teeth while in the employ of left wing political and special interest groups. Never take what the academics say as a given just because of their credentials. Always second guess them. You'll find their "facts" are often pseudoscience.