By SANOMALY
Updated: Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:47:10 UTC

Recently, around the world, but espcially in the United States, something incredibly dangerous has been happening: people have begun to become proud of their lack of education. It sounds ludicrous but it is an all-too real situation. There are now multiple areas of science that are being roundly rejected by a large portion of the public even though there is significant and continually mounting evidence that the science is correct: the widespread rejection of climate change and of the theory of evolution are just two examples. Although I believe that people are entitled to their own opinions, some people are doing something beyond rejecting widespread scientific opinion: they are flaunting the fact that they don't want to know the steps that science took to get where it is. How can one denounce any opinion if one has no knowledge of one entire side of the argument? Whenever I hear something new that people disagree on, I research both sides of the argument and decide which one sounds more logical based on my knowledge of science and reason. How many arguments and problems would be solved if more people did this?

The idea of someone being proud of their lack of knowledge is a terrifying one. What impact will it have on the future look as more and more people reject the popular scientific approach to data? What happens to a future where a majority of people refuse to accept the scientific method as the correct way of evaluating a hypothesis?

I have always looked at the future with optimism. In fact, I have been warned that my expectations of the future are unrealistic as I describe the technologies that I believe we'll have within the next twenty to forty years. But what will happen when the world's growing rejection of science causes our no-longer exponential technological growth to reach a halt? Will we enter an age that will be known in later centuries as the second Dark Age?

Perhaps some people blame religion for this phenomenon. Although religion does play a large role in the battle to bring truth to the human race, it’s not the only reason for people being proud of their inability to use logic. Public school education is showing time and time again that children are not being taught what they should be taught in order to fully understand the stances they take on scientific issues later in life. I constantly run into people who don’t know the scientific definition of a theory and who don’t even have extensive knowledge of their own side of the argument, let alone the other side’s point of view.

What can we do, collectively, to turn around this stampede of irrationality? Is there still time to nip this problem in the bud or should we start working on a plan to slow down this failure to think analytically before trying to figure out a solution that will end it once and for all? After all, being uneducated with a desire to learn more is one thing, but being uneducated with no desire to learn more and being proud of that lack of desire is another thing entirely.

TAGGED: EDUCATION, REASON, SCIENCE