The March for Science, a somewhat belated cry from the soul of modern life, as well as science, was a big success. It flew directly in the face of generations of dumbing-down, the media religion of “Dumb is Good”, and the rest of the dunghill of regressive mindsets and behaviours. The society of smug ignorance has suffered its first real counterattack.
The march took place around the world. That fact reflects another fact – Science is under attack everywhere. It’s not a good look. Everything in your home is a product of science. So are the things that made these products. Your home, your street and your phone are all science.
Nor does it make much sense to attack science. Why would plutocrats and other money junkies attack the very things that make them rich? New science is worth gigantic amounts of money. They may not know much else, but they know they want more money.
Why would the media, which is based on technologies which didn’t even exist a generation or so ago, promote Dumb is Good? Well… Duh, hyuck… Dumb sells, is the theory. Really? To whom does it sell? How many people really see themselves as morons looking for role models? Dumb is to laugh at, not to turn in to a way of life, cretins.
Methods of attacks on science – The last few hundred years
One thing all attacks on science have in common is total lack of logic… and facts. Part of the idea of the March for Science is to counteract the “assault on facts”. You’d think someone would know that a fact is a fact, and alternative fact is a fiction, but let’s face it, facts and governments have never been a great mix.
Facts and businesses only coexist to a point. Where facts are of value they’re accepted. Where facts are risks, the fictions come in to play. Yes, this is as dumb as hell and getting dumber by the second, but that’s the state of play.
We’ll ignore the religious angle. Religion vs science is monotonous enough. Religion opposed the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun. 25% of Americans (groan, again) are said by a recent survey to still take the religious line. Nice going, guys, if you can call a totally wrong statement upheld for 400+ years anything but absurd. If science can prevent human suffering, religion is against it, with or without a coherent or even vaguely plausible reason. “Do unto others,” you say, mate? Apparently not. The only equivalent to your stupidity is your hypocrisy.
The March for Science generated some real heat from otherwise usually pretty restrained people. The Guardian came up with a slightly off-centre headline: “When science is attacked, only the elite benefit”. I disagree. When science is attacked, everyone suffers, including the idiots who think they benefit. The idea of referring to serial ignoramuses as “elites” also needs a bit of work. (The rest of the article, by a scientist, is well worth reading.)
It’s not too farfetched to say that if ancient humans had had Dumb is Good as their ideal, making fire would never have been invented. That might have put a bit of a crimp in the rise of super-stupid plutocracies, too, but hey, we’re rich and pig-ignorant, so who cares?
The world cares, maggots. The science is needed to clean up this pigsty of a planet. To heal diseases created by abuses of science and necroses pretending to be economies. To raise humanity out of the sewer, which is exactly what it was doing until your nano-brains got adopted by Big Politics and you unemployable parasites were put in roles you can’t fill.
Check out the global stories about the March for Science. Consciously or not, the revolution against ignorance has begun.
