The Nasty Side of Nonsense
by
Dave Palmer
February 1996
A correspondent wrote:
>Please fill me in on the nasty side of nonsense.
And so I said:
I can only give you a brief outline here, because the subject
is really alarmingly huge. If you're interested in this sort
of thing, I urge you to check out the skeptic mailing list,
or pick up a copy of the Skeptical Inquirer, which is the the
magazine published by CSICOP. It's available in some bookstores.
The ugly side has a long history, as you probably know. Belief
in witches and demonic possession has resulted in uncounted
numbers of murders and torture, all in the name of "helping the
victim," of course.
These days, skeptics are fighting what I'm afraid is a losing
battle for rationality in education. In a misguided attempt to
avoid offending the small but vociferous minority that believes
literally in biblical creation, elementary school science textbooks
all over the country have been watered down, sometimes to the point
where evolution is barely mentioned.
The rallying cry of the "creation scientists" is that evolution
is "only a theory." Unfortunately, their idea of what "theory" means
is drastically different from the scientific meaning. They think it
means "a wild guess." The pending bill in Tennessee is just the latest
in a never-ending push to send science education back to the dark ages.
If passed (and it looks like it will), this bill would forbid the
teaching of evolution as anything but a theory...which, of course,
denies the observed reality of evolution, and then opens the door for
the teaching of alternate "theories" such as creationism.
Television exacerbates thew situation by running credulous
pseudo-science shows, which it passes off as truth. A big topic
of conversation on the skeptic list this week (Feb 26, 1996) has been the
ludicrous "Mysterious Origins of Man" program that just aired, which
claimed (without any evidence) that humans and dinosaurs lived at
the same time, and that when brave, maverick "scientists" try
to bring this to light, they are cruelly repressed by the evil
scientific establishment.Unfortunately, there are all too many
people who believe this sort of junk.
Another battle going on in education is over Political Correctness.
This has led to some real travesties, such as the teaching of
pseudo-history. A collection of essays, called the African-American
Baseline Essays, is used as the standard teaching tool in quite a few
schools across the country. These essays teach, among other things,
that the ancient Egyptians (and possibly the Greeks!) were actually
black Africans, and that they invented most of what we call "western
civilization"...including the airplane!
Medical quackery and sham health regimins are actually responsible
for killing people. You can't get much nastier than that. When people
believe in dubious "alternative medicine," they will avoid going to
real doctors, and instead dose themselves with the latest fad. This
can lead to fatal consequences. One sometimes wonders how anybody
could fall for this stuff. There was just a post on the skeptic mailing
list of the latest long-life fad in India: drinking several glasses a
day of your own urine...
Repressed Memory Syndrome is a psychological fad (which,
thankfully, seems to be on the decline) that has caused a lot of
grief in the last few years. Patients with psychological problems are
talked into believing that they had been sexually abused by a parent
or family member, and that they have repressed the memory. This, of
course, leads to bitter divisions in families, and some people have
even gone to jail on no more evidence the a "recovered memory." Of
course, there is never any collaborating evidence for the abuse.
This sort of thing also plays a factor in uncovering the alleged
vast Satanic conspiracy, which supposedly involves tens of thousands
of people all over the world. "Survivors" of such cults tell horror
stories of babies raised for human sacrifice and so forth. No real
evidence for any of this exists, but the accusations alone have ruined
a number of peoples' lives.
Belief in astrology and New-Age nonsense is not just the harmless
entertainment some have suggested. Not only do people blow billions
of dollars a year on fortune tellers and such, but it also seems that
an alarming number of people in power rely on the mystical to make
decisions that affect the lives of many people. Nancy Reagan used to
consult an astrologer regularly, and it's likely that she influenced
the President's schedule and policies based on that. More recently,
the financial manager of Orange County, California used the advice
of psychics and mail-order astrolgers to make financial decisions.
His mismanagement bankrupted the county, which is still struggling
to get back on its feet.
Of course, there's no calculating the ultimate cost of all this.
When people are raised believing science is "just a theory" and
instead seek answers in quack medicines and tarot cards, human
civilzation can't help but suffer. The world population is
spiraling out of control, and the only hope we have is in science
and reason. Instead, we're doing our best to march the other way.
It scares me. How about you?
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