Informational Awareness, Carlin Style: You Are All Diseased

Recently, the results of a few studies have been bantering their way around the 'net(s): the state of informational awareness regarding the scientific process and fundamental underpinnings of scientific knowledge, globally -- little things like, does the sun go 'round the earth? Does it take a year? Was there a big bang? Etcetera?

The answers are, well, extremely depressing:


By way of explanation of the above: Ptolemy was the man who pushed the idea that the sun revolved around the earth, as opposed to the much later, Copernican idea of "heliocentrism".

More Bar Graphs Showing Answers to similar questions:
"Does The Earth Go Around The Sun?"
"Did The Universe Start in a Big Explosion?"
"Did humans evolve from lesser life-forms?"


And don't you go thinking that these little gems are the results of a uniquely American experience... Per the National Science Foundation, they're not (apparently, it's Bar Graph Day...).

But here's is what is the most disturbing aspect of all of this (From USA Today):

26. Which comes closer to your view -- [ROTATED: a presidential candidate's views on evolution are a legitimate indicator of whether he or she is qualified to be president, (or) a presidential candidate's views on evolution are not really relevant and therefore should not be discussed as part of the campaign]?

Legitimate indicator

Not really relevant

No opinion

25

70

5

Let's examine this for a second, shall we? Statistically, the number of Americans who don't believe in evolution are in roughly the same percentage of Americans who believe that whether or not you believe in evolution isn't a qualifier for the single most responsibility-laden position in the planet. Now, this is not an argument for technocracy, the rule of the people by the elite. Rather, it is simply a statement that basic competence in intellectual pursuits is a mandatory element of someone who is going to be responsible for, well, "the little red button" and the course of humanity. There are so many challenges which face this world, today. And there is a great deal of obfuscation of those issues, of politicization. In this cloud of rhetoric and bias, only a mind grounded in the fundamental elements of reasoning through uncertainty can hope to keep the ball rolling, as it were.

It is simply a tautology, that anyone who understands the scientific process will accept the results of that process. Some things, there is simply too much material evidence to doubt, really: little things like, does the earth orbit the sun? Is the planet round? Now, many people try to claim that evolution isn't a process that can be inclusive to this -- yet it has been observed to occur in nature:

The article is on page 22 of the February, 1989 issue of Scientific American. It's called "A Breed Apart." It tells about studies conducted on a fruit fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, that is a parasite of the hawthorn tree and its fruit, which is commonly called the thorn apple. About 150 years ago, some of these flies began infesting apple trees, as well. The flies feed and breed on either apples or thorn apples, but not both. There's enough evidence to convince the scientific investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action. Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them otherwise.

It's one thing to have doubts about something that has neither been experimentally documented as a process, nor observed in nature (such as the CO2 link to global warming). But evolution, "for Chrissakes"!? Forgive the hyperbole here, but it warranted: do we really want someone in charge of the nation who is going to cherry pick the information they receive in general? Even if doing so contradicts the bulk of information they receive?

Some things are simply not tolerable; willful self-deception in positions of authority is one of them. I say: "If you do not believe in evolution, you are not a viable candidate for office." There's no room for budging there.

But how, then, does this get itself conveyed to the population at large? If we're going to continue as a democracy, how can this situation be resolved: that the supermajority of people simply do not know where controversy is, and where it isn't? (More people accept the "absolute" AGW hypothesis than accept the "absolute" evolution theory). We could lay the blame at the education system: the "mediocratization" of the public schools of America has been continual and ongoing (and well-documented in this blog.) Once again, we are left with that singular argument: that something must be done to augment the human learning capacity. If good information is so hard to obtain, obtaining information in general must be made easier.

Maybe if we all have Ghost-in-the-Shell-esque "Cyberbrains", then the kinds of Presidents we've had for the last thirty years won't be able to squirrel their way into office again.

See More Here:
-- On Education
-- On Global Warming
-- On BMI & Learning
-- On Information Suffrage