Being in the midst of the year in which we celebrate the life and work of Charles Darwin on such a grand scale (and rightly so), I am being constantly reminded by both scientists and creationists alike the very major role language plays in the dissemination and interpretation of fact. It is a topic which I dedicated a few very sizeable papers to during my undergraduate career. Much to my linguistic anthropology professor’s chagrin, I repeatedly chose a topic of great personal importance: the role of language in the “evolution war(s).” And today, as I see article after article roll into my RSS reader on the topic of “The Year of Darwin” I find myself not just reminded of the role of language in the culture of science, but of the amazing ignorance with which many scientists present their arguments to the “other side”.
Mind you, before you stop reading, this is in no way a post attacking science. On the contrary, it is my take on what scientists need to be cognizant of, and act on, in order for their profession as scientists to become more important to humanity as a species.
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We are all taught the cliché from a young age – “the truth will set you free.” And, when it comes to cliché’s, it is probably the one I took most seriously. It was one that I constantly reminded myself of as, through my teenage years, I stripped off the southern baptist faith I had been born into. It was one that I fought with, but which ultimately propelled me into an uncontrollable love of science, and a future career well within its reach. Yet, during this time I have come to notice an element to this cliché that is only present by trick of illogic, that “the truth will set us free.” And this is what I am really here to discuss, because there is no other word for this than “bullshit.”
It is a concept that no doubt you, or many of the scientists or philosophers you know, may believe in wholeheartedly, as it appears (superficially) to justify the professional practice of science. Yet, from my understanding, it does nothing of the sort. In fact, the professional practice of science is justified merely by the pursuit of fact, of truth, not by the dissemination of it; the latter is merely a much craved side effect. I see this truth dissemination as one of the greatest feats a scientist can accomplish, don’t get me wrong, yet holding it to set us free, as it may have set you free, and certainly set me free, is absurd – it is a pipe dream when put in the perspective of an us rather than a me.
Humans are born into and develop within a culture that dictates to them social norms learned over (usually) a great deal of time. These norms are primarily linguistic, as language is the most prominent method by which humans spread and maintain culture, and yet reading these blog posts and articles I cannot help but think that scientists either have a warped view of humanity as tabula rasa, or that they simply cross their fingers and hope everybody will just “listen to the truth.” If this isn’t the case, then they are fairly good at hiding the truth.
Where do I get this feeling from (For, it is a feeling, and not based on any statistical observations I have made)? It reaches back to my initial foray into the world of cosmology and evolutionary biology as a teenager. Very quickly I realized from reading book after book that what I had been taught as a southern baptist was not consistent with reality. Now, for me, this was enough because I had gone looking for the truth myself. I have observed in my world travels, and in my maturation as a student and individual here in the United States, that for many the truth is simply not enough.
Time and time again scientists demonstrate that their experimental findings have no support whatsoever for the existance of a supernatural being, and time and time again the religious fervor in various countries around the world (The U.S. in particular) becomes stronger for it. It is obvious that scientists need to do something now that is very unscientific, something the philosophers would shame us for the rest of eternity. Scientists must adopt more than logic and experiment if they truly wish the world to be free of the detrimental forces of religion, they must adopt a strategy to the dissemination of truth which is, in a way, dishonest.
It is a strategy which the “other side” has utilized for far too long. In fact, they have used it their entire existence, as their beliefs are based on no observation of fact whatsoever, it is all that propels their existence. I am talking in short, of course, of propoganda. It is something I perceive many scientists to be completely unsupportive of, as they believe (against all evidence) that the truth will set humanity free. Yet, what we have seen over the past century is that despite the scientific evidence to the contrary, people go on believing in the supernatural.
We must understand, now more than ever, that we cannot rely on logic and truth to clear away religion without the help of propganda and political strategy. You cannot fight with truth on your side and expect to win, when the other side is supported by politicians, propoganda, and a hefty endowment. Philisophically this is unsound, and it is the criticism I have heard voiced most often when I have discussed the topic with other scientists, yet I can hardly say the last time philosophy has had any real impact on American culture outside of academia. To me, knowing that I have arrived at the truth through the scientific method, which has proven itself the only useful method by which to understand natural world, is the only philosophically sound path I must take in the dissemination and, ideally, destruction of religion. From this point on it is up to our cunning to win, it is up to our ability to harness the utility of propoganda.
Am I now “stepping down to their level”? If this is truly your response, I advise you go hide in your corner and continue on your path toward absense of progress. If I am truly stepping down to their level, I am there with the truth in hand rather than a book filled with myths. In fact, I see no other way to fight an enemy but to be level with it; how else am I to get a good swing in?
Very interesting article.
One thing I’m having a hard time seeing is what exactly you mean by “propaganda.” What I mean is – from a practical standpoint – what exactly should us scientists/bloggers who are working to disseminate science do that we are not doing?
Personally, I agree with your sentiments when it comes to many normal scientists – they often don’t have the will (and more often the skill) to really bring their science to the public. In fact, many of us do not want them to try, because of the negative effects of having bad communicators (but great scientists) interface with the public.
In fact, I view science bloggers as the leading edge right now of knowledge dissemination. I mean, sure there are many many boiler plate Darwin articles out right now, but there are just as many that really take the science of evolution down to the people.
I think the success this is having is more than evident (if for no other reason than many of our nations teachers now use us science bloggers as sources of cool and current cutting-edge info to facilitate classes).
So to get back to my main question – I’m confused as to what you think our deficit is – what is it we’re not doing? How is our view “warped”?
I hope none of this comes across as being overly critical – it’s a great post and intellectually stimulating.
What I am getting at when I write the word ‘propaganda’ is the (what I believe to be) necessity of our focusing not simply on intellectual superiority when it comes to battles such as that of creationism vs. evolution. Time and time again I see us simply wishing the opposing side would listen to logic and evidence, and time and time again we see that it has marginal effect. So, when I say ‘propaganda’ I mean that we need to step beyond simply relying on dissemination of fact by the strategies we have relied on in the past. We MUST admit that there is a war (Which is not the same as saying scientists are divided on the theory of evolution), and we must focus our resources on something like an advertising campaign of sorts. Think if there were some catch phrase like “Got milk?”, but for evolutionary biology.
Our culture thrives on clips. We need to come to grips with the fact that the American people won’t sit down and read/watch/listen to a long drawn out argument between creationism and evolution.
This is an interesting topic, and I’ve thought about it a lot since I found this article. Thank you for posting it.
Apart from the need to cut down on the jargon and use language that most people can actually understand, I think the biggest problems with scientists communicating to the public at large are relevance and credibility.
Most people won’t think about something they don’t care about, so if you or I have a message we want to get across, we have to make it relevant. That’s just marketing, but scientists don’t do that very well, it seems. Making it relevant means making it personal, and that’s anathema to the normal method of presenting scientific results. If people can’t see how it affects them, personally, they won’t care.
As for credibility, that’s another thing scientists often lack, for largely the same reason. Credibility is more about trust than qualifications. It’s always easy to find two ‘equally qualified’ people with opposing views to sit on the chat-shows, the one who carries the day will be the one who seems more credible. That means the one who sounds most convincing to the audience. Again, it’s marketing. “Why should we trust the scientist, whom we can’t understand, when there’s this guy who sounds credible and is saying the opposite?”
Scientists concentrate on being accurate and correct in their statements, but unless they are both relevant and credible with it, they won’t get the message across.