What has happened to us?
“We have systematically devalued and dismantled education in this country to the point that the Japanese, Europeans, and so on aren’t just beating us at math and science. They can beat us at essentially anything, because most of us can’t comprehend things we read, retain simple facts, or construct an argument that adheres to the basic rules of logic. We are ignorant of the past, the present, and even our own professed belief systems. We often bemoan apathy, our national lack of desire to understand the government, law, economy, or politics. But the problem is not simply that we don’t want to know; if our slipshod grasp of the few things in which we do profess an interest are any indication, we wouldn’t get it if we tried.” -- “The Heart of the Matter,” Gin and Tacos, September 29, 2010. Accessed at http://www.ginandtacos.com/2010/09/29/the-heart-of-the-matter. As noted in Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War Against Reality, p. 35.
“One factor in the modern fad for science denialism may be the collapse, at least in the US, of the mass middlebrow culture, a phenomenon that came to an end by, arguably, the early 1970s. Middlebrows read books copiously (even though many of the books they read were looked down upon by self-styled highbrows), followed news and current affairs with a keen interest, listened avidly to “improving” radio broadcasts, displayed an enthusiasm for rationalism, and, most relevantly, had an abiding and prodigious near reverence for the discoveries of science and the accomplishments of technology. Added to this was the zeal for self-education: If the Reader’s Digest fast-food meal of astronomy or medicine wasn’t enough to sate the appetite, there would likely be books on the subject in the public library, not to mention a portfolio of middlebrow scientific digests, from Scientific American to Popular Mechanics and beyond, available at the newsstand.” - John Grant, Denying Science, op. cit., p. 26.
"Another way of looking at today's widespread phenomenon of scientific denialism is that it is, in essence, a sort of large-scale bull session gone horribly wrong." -- Ibid., p. 26.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” - H. P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu,” Weird Tales, 11, No. 2 (February 1928), 159-78, 287.
We are in deep shit.
“One factor in the modern fad for science denialism may be the collapse, at least in the US, of the mass middlebrow culture, a phenomenon that came to an end by, arguably, the early 1970s. Middlebrows read books copiously (even though many of the books they read were looked down upon by self-styled highbrows), followed news and current affairs with a keen interest, listened avidly to “improving” radio broadcasts, displayed an enthusiasm for rationalism, and, most relevantly, had an abiding and prodigious near reverence for the discoveries of science and the accomplishments of technology. Added to this was the zeal for self-education: If the Reader’s Digest fast-food meal of astronomy or medicine wasn’t enough to sate the appetite, there would likely be books on the subject in the public library, not to mention a portfolio of middlebrow scientific digests, from Scientific American to Popular Mechanics and beyond, available at the newsstand.” - John Grant, Denying Science, op. cit., p. 26.
"Another way of looking at today's widespread phenomenon of scientific denialism is that it is, in essence, a sort of large-scale bull session gone horribly wrong." -- Ibid., p. 26.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” - H. P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu,” Weird Tales, 11, No. 2 (February 1928), 159-78, 287.
We are in deep shit.