The denigration of competence
Original: Essay
I’ll let you in on a little secret: sometimes science baffles me.
This is because I don’t understand it. But I don’t let that fact worry me. And I certainly don’t say “Science is dumb,” simply because I don’t get it. We can learn to appreciate science without understanding it. We can appreciate all the things science has done to improve our lives. And for those who excel in the sciences we should have the utmost respect. What we should never tolerate are the denigrators of scientific excellence.
Science puts astronauts into space and on the moon. Science launches GPS and communication satellites. Science builds cloud storage and streaming services. Science enables us to fly through the air miles above the earth in metal tubes with wings. Science lets me type this essay on a computer and edit it later on my smartphone and eventually publish it online where others can read it. Science has cured disease and protects us from microscopic things trying to kill us. Science even gave me the sail that allows me to cruise the waters of the Bay.
Science is amazing. So, why do some people insist on demeaning it and speaking out against it?
As a writer, I often find solace in other writers. One of my favorite science fiction writers, Isaac Asimov, wrote an article in 1980 that calls out this very same tendency for people to rail against science.
As he said more than forty years ago, modern culture continues to foster a distrust of experts. We have rebranded these competent experts as the “intellectual elite.” We make knowledge the enemy, replacing it with “The Truth.” And this so-called truth demands belief, not proof.
“There is a cult of ignorance...and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.” —Isaac Asimov.
Asimov offers a very simple remedy: read.
Trust me, I know it’s tough to fight back against ignorance.
You see, we can embrace the astonishing scientific advances of the past couple of hundred years or we can bury our heads in the sand—but make no mistake: despite the frighteningly amusing saying, ignorance is not bliss.
“It surprises me how easily people can be misled and how stubborn they are once they've accepted a lie.” —Peter Cawdron
In fact, our level of ignorance is equally proportionate to our ability to be conned. If you are ignorant, you are vulnerable. Ignorance opens the door to manipulation. Luckily for us, our ignorance is inversely proportionate to the amount of accurate information we have. If you put ignorance on one axis and information on the other, as accurate information increases, ignorance must and does decrease. Reading and absorbing accurate information, then, increases your competence.
The more competent you are, the more resilient you will be in a world full of challenges. Increased competence also results in an increase in our ability to identify those who belittle competence. Being aware of those sorts of people means we can either avoid them or engage them appropriately.
Interesting in that I am trying to figure out a way to reeducate the lot of Trumpets who vote against their own interests. Essentially they voted for Matt Gaetz. During the fire, one doesn’t stop and argue about how it started. One puts out the fire. We are doing everything wrong. You see that. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/trumps-white-women?r=3m1bs