I have been enjoying Prof Brian Cox's history of science in Britain, complete with some very satisfactory explosions, and his simple explanations of why the lot of the scientist has ever been distrust and ridicule. This very evening, he explained what a scientific "theory" is. It's not a wild stab in the dark, it's a peer-reviewed truth that may be supplanted by a later, better truth. What's important, though, is that the original theory will still be true. (I knew this already, having lectured scientists at Imperial College, and no, I'm not going to stop milking that particular cow - ever.)
Coincidentally, the programme aired on the day when scientists from across the globe reported on climate change and put forward the peer-reviewed theory that man-made activity is responsible for such change. In other words, there is no other explanation that will fit the gradual warming of our planet, the rise in sea levels and the extremes of weather that are happening around the world.
Now, for most people, this doesn't matter much. Barring those whose roof has blown off in a hurricane, of course. Most of us live a fair way above sea levels. It's going to worry the people in the Maldives a heck of a lot, though, given that their islands rise about two inches above the Indian Ocean. It'll worry people in Southern Pakistan, too - a region that actually submerges during parts of the rainy season.
What angers me is exactly what Prof Cox is trying to combat - the wilful ignorance of "most people". People who smugly say, "Well, scientists don't know everything" (recommended answer, after you've bounced their head off the bar counter - "Well, they know a fuxsake more than you do. In particular, they'll be able to tell you whether that's an epidural or a subdural haematoma.") The people who say "If there's such a thing as evolution, why don't we see more apes turning into humans?", or "The earth has always warmed and cooled, I mean there was an Ice Age. I read this book by some American academic who had a degree in truthology where he showed that global warming is bunk, and that last year's summer was colder than the year before."
There are people who refuse medical treatment for illness, and they call themselves Christian Scientists. They'll produce all kinds of arguments that a special form of prayer will cure any disease, but what they won't produce is evidence that can be tested a hundred times over and give the same, exact, result every time. There are parents who refuse the MMR vaccine because they've "heard" that it can cause autism, yet when they're told that this erroneous idea came from a paper by an ambitious doctor who later admitted that he made up the results of his study just to get published, and that all proper academic studies show that the MMR vaccine lowers infant death rates dramatically - still refuse the vaccine, "just in case". There are schools that teach "Intelligent Design" rather than evolution, and their students who want to be doctors or biologists get a nasty shock when they are not admitted to further education - where real scientists lecture.
I suspect that Prof Cox is fighting a losing battle, the "s'common sense, innit?" crowd will drown us in their lowest-denominator, simplistic, uneducated, anti-education arguments, sponsored by KFC.
And as if to prove it, when I turned to another channel, there was an advert for a steam cleaner with a voice-over from a smug woman, boasting that "In our house, there are no chemicals..." Really? Because I counted an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrogen atoms in that steam. I'll take an each-way bet on two carbon atoms co-valently bonded to an oxygen atom as well, just as long as you're breathing, dear. Mind, in the mood I'm in, I can remove that pollution by strangling you, as I dearly wish to.
Oh, and assuming your house is on planet Earth, there's going to be a shitload of nitrogen as well. And don't let's start on the polyesters, acrylics, silicones and polyurethanes in that cheap overdeveloped kettle you're holding.
Mao Zedong herded people into compulsory re-education camps during the Cultural Revolution, and has been criticised for doing so. Tonight, though, I have some sympathy with the old feller. Stupid people should be helped. Those who deliberately seek stupidity should be hit with sticks and sent to work in the rice-fields, because they are of no value to society beyond incoherently shouting on the stage of the Jeremy Kyle show, for the entertainment of other sofa-bound snaggle-toothed blimps.
Me, I'm with the scientists. And I have chemicals in my house.
No comments:
Post a Comment