the delusions that damage us all

[realthog]

I've only recently established an RSS feed from Pharyngula ("Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal"), and now wish I'd done so a long time ago. The atmosphere of the blog is reminiscent of some idealized commonroom in a minor but highly respected university, with intelligent people kicking off their shoes and, over beer or coffee, speaking pretty directly to relevant issues. 

The site's run by biologist PZ Myers, whose most recent post starts thus:

Krazy Kansas Kook wants to eliminate all biologists

When last we heard from Tom Willis, big-wig in the Creation Science Association for Mid-America, he was pondering whether evolutionists should be allowed to vote. Since Tom Willis is batshit insane, he decided that no, they should not, because they're wicked godless atheists with no moral sense (you theistic evolutionists aren't spared — you're even worse).

Now he has upped the ante and is wondering, Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?. I wonder what his answer will be?

The rest of the piece largely quotes Willis's "solution" to deal with rational people who accept what science has discovered, and -- although laughter is the obvious first reaction -- the overall effect is chilling: this lunatic really means it! His proposal is essentially much the same as the "solution" the Nazis doled out to so many whose views they regarded as troublesome.

One of the great myths of democratic societies is that, in them, there is complete freedom of opinion/belief. I've heard this notion expressed in countries on two continents, and of course it's a fallacy. There are certain false beliefs -- born of delusion, ignorance, laziness, self-indulgence, or just plumb stupidity -- which are so detrimental to the national interest that countries legislate against them, or at least against the expression of them, in order to aid the survival of the community as a whole. Racism and hate-speech are the headline examples.

As a further instance, when the Russian launch of Sputnik 1 brought a rude awakening to the US body politic that giving in to Fundamentalist bullying to the extent of teaching Creationism to kids had dealt a near-mortal blow to US science as a whole (much as Stalin's support for Lysenko's loony ideas had almost destroyed Soviet genetics), the government clamped down on the promulgation, at least in the public schools, of this particular irrational belief. Obviously this inhibited the freedom of certain nutcases to poison the minds of the young with false knowledge and blithely hamper kids' understanding of the world around them, but in the long run it promised hugely to increase the freedom of the rest of us, both physically through increasing the country's prosperity (having people who're competent to do science and technology helps the economy) and psychologically, through allowing those kids, now adults, to rejoice in the true beauty and wonder of the universe.

In other words, it was a matter of balancing freedoms. Almost always -- i.e., in every instance I can think of, but I may be missing something -- truth, the acceptance of reality in place of the irrational, brings with it greater freedom, however much some of us may childishly wince and shriek and tantrumize to see our cherished beliefs dismantled.

The idea of balancing freedoms is instant, kneejerk anathema to some: it seems to be incompatible with the American Dream of complete freedom for all. But that dream is quite obviously illusory -- and not just because during the McCarthy years there was the most extraordinary clampdown on the freedom to believe in the ideals of communism (a belief system perceived, whether misguidedly or not, to be damaging to the national interest; op cit).

The everyday illustration of the dream's illusoriness is of course that I do not have the freedom to kill you, I do not have the freedom to rape you, I do not have the freedom to burgle your house, and so on. If I did any of these things I'd obviously be impinging mightily on your freedom. It takes no Einstein to recognize where the balance of freedoms should lie -- indeed, we accept so fundamentally this particular balancing that most of us don't even think about it as a restriction on the hundred per cent freedom we think we have.

And so back to Willis, and his vile beliefs. Or to Jim Adkisson who, a few weeks ago, fueled by the similarly vile hate-speech of people like Michael Savage and Sean Hannity, set off for the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville to kill himself a few liberals. He was a deluded lunatic, we tell ourselves complacently . . . deliberately ignoring, because it's convenient to our comfort-blanket belief system so to do, the fact that his lunacy didn't come out of nowhere. Clearly Adkisson horrendously violated the freedoms of the Knoxville Unitarians; that came about because he and others grossly abused the commendable desire of the rest of us to offer members of our society -- ourselves included! -- as much freedom as possible.

We regard it as a truism that everyone's entitled to their own opinion. That's not quite as true as a truism should be. When your opinion impacts other people, then really your entitlement is, or should be, modified. What you're entitled to express -- and from the very rooftops, if that's your choice -- is an informed opinion. If your "opinion" is based on superstition and ignorance then it's not really an opinion at all; it's a bias or (likely) a bigotry. If you cannot be bothered to gain at least a modicum of education on a topic, then you have no right to inflict upon the rest of us your ignorant views. (What's terribly, terribly difficult to accept is that this applies to me, too. Excuse me while I go and punch the floor and hold my breath and scream.) You might regard it as an exercise of your God-gifted freedom; in fact, it's very often severely damaging to the freedom of your fellow human beings. It becomes monstrous, a true act of tyranny, if you indoctrinate this nonsense into the minds of kids, your own or others'.

Still, they're only opinions, ain't they?

The truth is that some irrational opinions are potentially so dangerous to a society as a whole, or even at a species level, that they must in some way be reined in. The obvious example today is not religious extremism, although that may play a major part in the cancelation of humankind's future, but the denial of anthropogenic global warming. (This is so even if, through some extraordinary improbability, all those climate scientists have got it wrong: if you're told you have faulty brakes on your car you have to be astonishingly dumb to respond that there's a remote chance they may be okay and so you're not going to get them checked.)

The vast majority of those who deny the necessity to cut back on human contributions to climate change do so through ignorance. In the US that ignorance is a deliberate one, almost certainly a product of wishful thinking: I'd rather not have to get up off my fat ass and do something, so I'll just not find out there's a need to. The "opinion" is really just a piece of self-indulgence. And, as the glaciers melt, and the seas rise, and the hurricanes increase in frequency and ferocity, and the dustbowls spread, and the kids starve, and the various species become extinct -- ourselves quite probably on that list of extinctions in the terrifyingly near future -- it's legitimate to ask how long our civilization can commit the matching self-indulgence of smiling benignly upon a false and overwhelmingly destructive anti-freedom view of freedom.

When civilization collapses, where will be our freedoms then?

Comments

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, Pharyngula's blog. Yes. I should have nudged you that way ages ago, if I'd only given it thought. Always an interesting place. And the post you refer to? So many knife-edges for world society to walk.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I should have nudged you that way ages ago"

I've known about the site for ages and have visited it from time to time. It's only relatively recently that it's dawned on my ossifying brain that I should have an RSS feed from the site.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

LJ has a lot of useful feeds out there. I like using it for aggregation. However, Pharyngula is one I have on my Google Reader so I can [over]indulge when I have time and my blood pressure permits.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I have it on FeedDemon. I haven't explored LJ's feed service.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Yikes! I've just realized how early you're up on a Sunday morning!

My excuse is that I woke before 5am and couldn't get back to sleep again, so eventually climbed out of bed. What's yours?

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

I've been up since 4AM my time, actually. Cats fighting on my feet, though in truth I'd been half-awake thinking about the novel.

I like the quiet, and this is primarily when I get a lot of writing done, before the tasks of the day, and my spouse, must be attended to.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

You should read, as I do, Michelle Malkin's blog. It's amazing to see how the right justifies itself. And the freakishness of some of the commentary is fascinating.

For professional reasons, I became interested in the online far-right more than a decade ago, and produced a couple of conference papers on the subject (at the Kentucky Political Science Association and the Midwest Political Science Association conferences in the late 90s). Unfortunately, events in my life made it impossible for me to pursue that line of research further. There's a diversity of groups out there eager to present irrational ideas to the world as revealed truth (consider Holocause denial, for example) and more than eager to tell us that the 'scientific establishment' is colluding to hide the TRUTH from us for nefarious purposeses.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

There's a diversity of groups out there eager to present irrational ideas to the world as revealed truth (consider Holocaust denial, for example) and more than eager to tell us that the 'scientific establishment' is colluding to hide the TRUTH from us for nefarious purposeses.

This much I know -- there's some coverage of such stuff in my Discarded Science and especially Corrupted Science, with more -- and loonier -- to follow in the current megatome, Bogus Science ("An indispensable source of wisdom and wit for all the family" -- Oprah Winfrey).

"I became interested in the online far-right more than a decade ago"

You have a tougher constitution than I do, friend, and I admire you for it. I'm able to contemplate human hatred for at best short bursts.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I do want to understand the people who hate me, and why they do so. That's, in part, a necessity.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Eloquent plea for intelligence.

I've come up with the crackpot theory that humanity is getting dumber and dumber because we have less and less oxygen because we've cut down the trees, paved over the grasslands and polluted the atmosphere.

Love, C.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

With regard to bogus science, see this: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/08/another_possible_dover.php

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Malkin is the only one of the big right pundits I read at all. This is primarily because she's rare in investing herself personally in "the blogosphere" and that, as a result, she and her online pals have actually accomplished a few horrible things, already. Like, on the sillier end, the Rachel Ray scarf debacle. Like, on the for real end, the persecution of Bilal Hussein, tried and held in Iraq as long as he was, primarily, because Malkin and her Little Green Footballs and Jawa Report friends thought his pictures were just a little *too* good.

Coulter gets all the press, but her spunkier little sister is an active force of evil, as opposed to somebody who just shows up on TV to talk shit.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

You're right about her, and Coulter.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Even worse (given something that was mentioned in another discussion): http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20080821-obama-antechrist-evangelist-mccain-united-states

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I've come up with the crackpot theory that humanity is getting dumber and dumber because we have less and less oxygen because we've cut down the trees, paved over the grasslands and polluted the atmosphere."

Did you use this as part of your application to MIT?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Even worse (given something that was mentioned in another discussion): http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20080821-obama-antechrist-evangelist-mccain-united-states

Oh I know the Fundies have been putting this bit of malicious nonsense around in order to poison a few more minds. Little Miss Muffin on the LJ site I referred you to has not made her particular bullshit up out of whole cloth.

From the France-24 piece:

Some claim they see clear similarities between the figure described in the book of Revelation - a charismatic, crowd-pleasing leader with an evil heart who rallies the world around a false message of peace - and the Democratic candidate. According to Eric Sapp, a Democratic consultant on faith issues, the video clip is largely inspired by the bestselling Christian fiction series Left Behind, which recounts the rise of a young and brilliant politician who, after portraying himself as a pacifist, leads the world into chaos and war.

I may be wrong, but I think it's the case that the description given here is almost entirely the invention of modern authors, including (as noted) those of the Left Behind series, and not much at all to do with anything in Revelation. It's been a long time since I read the latter book -- I don't read much genre fantasy these days -- but that's my recollection.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

With regard to bogus science, see this: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/08/another_possible_dover.php


Reading down through the comments beneath the referred article, I had one of those moments of anxious chill. But . . . phew! The commenter's name was Paul Burnett, not Paul Barnett.

The news item itself is of less interest for me for Bogus Science than for the expanded edition of Corrupted Science. There's a very real possibility of this; with luck I'll know more after the Frankfurt Book Fair.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

OK. I look forward to it.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I have never tried to read the *Left Behind* books. There's only so much suffering I can inflict on myself, after all. I did see the film which had Michael York as the Antichrist, and bloody awful it was.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I have never tried to read the *Left Behind* books."

I got halfway through the first one and then threw it at the wall. It's not just that the thing's abysmally written, it's that its underpinning is hatred-filled and vile.

[eglady.livejournal.com]

I think all the science deniers should put up or shut up. If they want to deny evolution, or climate change or the importance of a diverse ecosystem, etc., then stop talking and demonstrate to the rest of us how well their theories work. Show us how they don't need crackpot "scientific ideas." To make it "scientific" though, they'll need to isolate themselves in a bubble so we can "prove" their truths and eliminate all other possibilities. Introduce flu season to their bubble. But don't bother with vaccines, they won't need them. And none of those immunizations for their kids either. For that matter, if they think prayer and faith is all they need to survive, they won't need medicine at all. Let their bubble world go without anti-pollution technology, preferably somewhere seaside, marshy, and prone to hurricanes. They can have all the giant factory farms that fit, and prove that herds will thrive without meds and breeding programs because God gave them animals to exploit and thus disease and in-breeding will never be an issue. They can go to town inside their bubble with all the coal-fired power plants and other pollutants they want. It may be hard to understand why God didn't make any extra "fossil fuels" and needs a bit longer than 6,000 years to make new, so after a while it may get a bit cold and dark in the bubble, but eventually they'll have plenty of methane from the manure, and there's always cow chips. Let them live on original plant stocks, not any of the hybrids, which would suggest some sort of genetic ordering and unnatural reproduction (shouldn't grafting be a sin?). Let them use all the pesticides they want on their foods, and when the pests become immune, that would be god's will, since they don't believe in evolution, and certainly they don't believe in genetic trait banking, there will be plenty of bugs to eat. Actually, what would be add credibility to their arguments would be if they simultaneously live by all the restrictions in Leviticus.

It might take a while, but the effect of attrition will be refreshing. When they're willing to apply that kind of scientific proof to their theories, I'll be more than happy to review their proofs.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

By 'underpinning' you do not mean the fever-dream Book of Revelation?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

The trouble with this otherwise excellent scheme is that they would only come whingeing for help to the rest of us the moment the first TV broke down or the first toe got stubbed.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, Malkin is the only one of the big right pundits I read at all."

You have a sturdier constitution than I do.

[eglady.livejournal.com]

At which point we say neener neener and refuse to let them out of the bubble until the scientific experiment has run to completion. Proofs, you know.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Well, that's not very faith-based of you!

[gayece.livejournal.com]

You were meant to blog. It has inspired me to start my own blog on barrie dentist

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words! I should get back to doing more blogging, but at the moment I'm up to my eyes in work on the current book.

Best wishes for your own blogging activities!