Anniversary Of Amazing

My friend Dougie sent me this today, on the anniversary of the event. Among the many takeaways: science. Is it cool, or what? Too bad an entire policial party and millions of its minions reject it.

Also, look at the names and faces of the scientists, and tell me why immigration is a bad thing.

But, mainly, wow.

Perspective

Ovation. Standing. Watch. Listen. (Ignore a couple of F-bombs.) Be thrilled. Look beyond.

Joy

I post the above because it so perfectly addresses some oft-heard tropes, without actually addressing them: if you don't believe in god, you must not be able to love life. If you don't believe in god, you must be an evil person with no moral grounding, no ability to experience transcendent joy, to live softly in this world.

And as long as we're on that subject, Sam Harris has a new book coming out, in which he argues that science has -- and ought to have -- much to say about morality. Here's a paragraph from a brief essay that summarizes his point.

As I argue in my new book, The Moral Landscape, questions about values—about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose—are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Throughout the book I make reference to a hypothetical space that I call “the moral landscape”—a space of real and potential outcomes whose peaks correspond to the heights of potential well-being and whose valleys represent the deepest possible suffering. Different ways of thinking and behaving—different cultural practices, ethical codes, modes of government, etc.—will translate into movements across this landscape and, therefore, into different degrees of human flourishing. I’m not suggesting that we will necessarily discover one right answer to every moral question, or a single best way for human beings to live. Some questions may admit of many answers, each more or less equivalent. However, the existence of multiple peaks on the moral landscape does not make them any less real or worthy of discovery. Nor would it make the difference between being on a peak and being stuck deep in a valley any less clear or consequential.

Makes sense to me.

An Entire Party...

Sure, there'll always be kooks and cranks. But a whole party?

Of the Republicans running for the thirty-seven Senate seats -- and that means a lot more than thirty-seven people, because we still gots primaries going on -- only one, ONE!!!, seems to accept the idea of anthropogenic climate change. And he just lost. To someone who campaigns against masturbation. On biblical grounds.

Now, I don't doubt there are a few Republicans who accept the concept of science: heck, even McMaverick used to, and Lindsey Graham, before they stuck their fingers into the jasmine wind. But it doesn't matter. If they exist, they're voiceless.

What matters is that the only people who can be elected by that party nowadays are the crazy ones, or the stupid, or (to put the best face on it) the shameless panderers. This is the party about to retake power. It bodes ill.

You don't get to select which science to accept. You can't take antibiotics for infections while denying the science behind climate change. Scientific method is scientific method. If you don't buy it, fine. But how can you get on an airplane if that's how you think? Surely you'd never trust GPS, or lie under my now-sheathed knife. If science doesn't work, neither do nuclear power plants, or moon shots. Deniers should live in caves. And why not? That's where they'll find their heads.

I don't know climate science by personal investigation; but I do know science as a discipline. It would be the mother of all conspiracies if, as so many on the right say, all the scientists in all the countries around all the world have colluded -- rejecting, one would also assume, a few billion dollars in incentives from oil and coal companies -- to falsify data. (The email debacle notwithstanding: it was, to the surprise of none but the Foxobeckians, a molehill.*) To what end, one must ask, would the conspiracy exist? Is it that scientists, because of their intelligence and curiosity, must all be liberals and, therefore, communists who hate capitalism? One can only wonder.

In what world does an entire party plant its flag firmly in anti-science denialism? How did science become a partisan issue, anyway? It's kind of digital, really. Ones and zeroes. Where's the politics in that? (Okay, I guess that's obvious: the liberal/conservative brain thing, once again. And, of course, the extent to which science threatens biblical literalism.)

Well, that's the way it is. We have a party with its collective head in a cave, factophobic, its mantra "I got mine, I'm keeping it, screw you." Or, at best, "Glenn said it, I believe it, that settles it." And they're winning the argument.

Simply amazing.

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*Truth be told, at my place molehills are a big deal. But that's another story. And I can now, scientifically, recommend those worm-shaped bait thingies.

Science Speaks

And I say it's about time. (Of course, I also say it'll make no difference at all to the thought-challenged among us.) In response to the overwrought and underthought rhetoric that passes for legitimate discussion nowadays, two-hundred-fifty scientists have written a succinct and clear statement about what science is, and, in particular, the facts as currently established about climate change. Appearing in one of the world's most highly regarded scientific publications, Science (in which my brilliant niece has placed several papers), the statement says, in part:

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. [...]

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. [...] But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of "well-established theories" and are often spoken of as "facts."

[...] Climate change now falls into this category... [...]

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. [...]

But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

You'd think (or hope, anyway) such a statement would be unnecessary. But as this product of our education system shows (and I don't think he's even Texan), it's only gonna get worse.

Two Worlds?

On the concept that by some sort of definition, science can have no opinion about religion, this says it about as well as it can be said.

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Mad Scientists

Finally, they feel free to speak out. That they haven't, heretofore, and are now, speaks volumes. Nor is it limited to the FDA: science (facts of all kinds), to George Bush, has been something to be avoided. Redacted. Distorted. Be it climate science, reproductive science, public health, environmental, geological or political science (although that last one might be an oxymoron), we've been through eight years of ignorance, in both senses of the word, the latter one being the act of ignoring.

It's not as if science is all there is. But as a method of evaluating reality it's the best we have: self-correcting, open to questions, orderly, fact-based. There are those who like to point to the past errors of science; but it's the very fact that once-held scientific conclusions are subjected to constant scrutiny and updated and corrected, that confirms its power. Contrary to the contrarians.

Even the most steadfast deniers don't really reject science. (Ben Stein, by the way, is a despicable prick. Smug. And most colossally wrong whenever he opens his mouth; especially on the economy.) How many creationists and young-earthers refuse to fly on airplanes? Won't use GPS, or computers, or the internet? Refuse antibiotics or chemotherapy? How many deny the ability to calculate and predict radiation decay and conclude nuclear reactors are impossible? Refuse radiation treatments? Such self-selection of facts is, of course, anathema to actual science; and it's been the defining modus operandi of the current (still??? My god, it's like waiting for a bus when you're late to work) administration.

So it's refreshing that some scientists are (belatedly) speaking out. It suggests they believe they'll have, in the new White House, a sympathetic -- and intelligent and curious and thoughtful -- ear. Which, by all indications, they will.

Praise the lord!

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