So many people seem to be anti-science nowadays. So many conspiracy theories and “alternative facts” are being propagated and lauded everywhere, and respect for the scientific authorities has diminished.
A lot of these “alternative facts” have come from political, social and spiritual leaders especially during this pandemic. Their sentiments towards the pandemic are expressed in reactions such as “they (the experts) are lying to us”, “the virus is from God”, etc.
Or they may say “the virus came from the (insert their least favourite ethnic group/social class/political opposites/nationalities here)” which is always a useful and convenient reflex. The virus becomes a useful tool in their long-running fight against whoever their perceived enemies are.
No proof or evidence for such sentiments is required or necessary. And such scepticism or even outright rejection of science applies even to what we have taken for granted, be it the moon landings, climate change or vaccines, or even whether the Earth is round.
It’s not just among the poorly educated either. The sceptics and deniers can be technically trained people such as doctors and even scientists. They’re well supported with slick social media collateral designed to free us from the shackles of mainstream dogma.
The Trumps, Bolsonaros and Modis of the world (and many of our own local leaders too) are some of the high-profile ones who have jumped onto this bandwagon because they’ve seen how it can be an effective vehicle for exploiting people’s fears and worries for political power.
These leaders have calculated they don’t need to win over the majority of their country’s electorates. Support by this significant rabid minority, their “base”, who are hyper motivated, vocal and passionate enough to campaign and vote, is sufficient.
The more outlandish the better
In conspiracy theories you get to blame everything you don’t like on some powerful but shadowy forces, which, being powerful and shadowy, can’t ever be disproved. The more outlandish the theories the better they seem to work.
This is a lesson well learnt from the Nazis. If you want to lie, lie big. Force people to take a position, and once you have taken it keep doubling down on it regardless of the dissonance in your head. There‘s no retreat. The “twilight zone” is your forever home now.
Looking back to the middle of the 20th century, when the world was feeling good after having won a terrible war against fascism, science was seen as a positive force for good. Science education, careers and investments bloomed.
Exotic science-fiction stuff happened. Moon landings! Computers! Lasers! Scientists became admired and emulated members of society. Science gave us the Green Revolution, modern medicine, the internet and longer human lifespans.
Such successes inevitably led to a backlash. It turned out science can’t solve all of our problems – wealth inequality, wars, environmental degradation. Science now even appears dangerous – robots, artificial intelligence, recurring deadly pandemics.
Our generation, as opposed to earlier ones, has not quite seen our daily life being much improved by science.
Mixed blessings from technology
Look at the internet. At its inception it was seen as the tool that would democratise information and hence society. If information is freely available to everyone, the power that comes from controlling it then disappears. Or so the theory goes.
While we can’t live without the internet now, it hasn’t quite made the world a better place. Just as information is much more freely available, so is the ability to manipulate it to create hatred and along with it, power and often wealth. The internet is a mixed blessing at best.
Then there’s the dumbing down of our education system, which has moved away from being a tool for critical thinking to merely creating functional but docile masses. It’s too great a coincidence to think this happened purely out of neglect rather than by design.
But why did it become necessary to attack science? Why can’t bad science be countered with good science? Why reject science altogether, which many do, even in areas so critical our lives are literally at stake?
Here we see the big power struggle of our age. Many political and spiritual leaders see the rational thinking skills demanded by science as the enemy to their efforts to control people’s minds. Because, in our imperfect democracies, by controlling enough minds you get to control all minds.
Then came the Covid-19 virus that sickened and killed so many of us and mutated into even more virulent variants. While it created a new frightening reality, for many, denial against this reality brings its own comfort too.
What science gets right
Luckily many still turn to the men and women of science and trust their methods and guidance. The scientists may not get it right all the time – science is a messy process, but it does get it more and more right over time.
Science doesn’t sugar-coat things, and hence is not a drug of choice for many. Watching science fight the virus in real time is both fascinating and humbling. You get to watch unprepared defenders (the scientists) learning as they go along. Their stumbling shows how science advances in fits and starts.
But science also had to fight politics and much of society itself too, in arenas where the deniers and sceptics wield real power. Meanwhile all these are happening within an environment where critical and analytical thinking is increasingly being undermined and eroded.
Science has worked well in the past. With it we’ve vanquished polio and smallpox. Even the recent bouts with ebola were well controlled, and HIV/AIDS are finally being turned into chronic but survivable conditions.
But this means our other leaders, those in the political or spiritual spheres (the distinction is becoming harder to make) face a formidable competition. Science and rational belief are their obstacles in the fight to win over hearts and minds, and hence must be dealt with.
A real battle to control minds
In Malaysia, the religious authorities can only give a vapid “take it can, not take it also can” fatwa on the Covid vaccines. The vaccines are tolerated rather than endorsed or promoted, a convenient position to turn on the vaccines later if that’s needed or convenient.
There’s a real battle out there for the control of people’s minds. Those who believe as society progresses people become better educated and more rational have to think things again, because the opposite of that seems to be happening.
Scientific progress is messy. It often meanders along many wrong paths before it corrects itself. But there’s a method to the madness of the universe, and science eventually figures it out. Unfortunately, after a while we’ll start taking it for granted.
And more dangerously, a backlash happens. This is where problems begin, for we often forget these hard-won victories need to be fought for over and over again across generations. It’s not a battle that you can ever declare victory at any point.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
