When Fundamentalism and Political Hackery Trup Science
By Randolph T. Holhut
American Reporter Correspondent
www.OpEdNews.com
DUMMERSTON, Vt. - Can a country where more people believe in the
devil than in evolution maintain its leadership in the sciences?
That's a question that David Baltimore, Nobel laureate and
president of the California Institute of Technology, asked in a recent
op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times.
Baltimore believes that "Asia has the potential to blow us out of
the water" because their scientists and engineers "are as good
as ours, as
imaginative as ours - they work longer hours and are more dedicated."
The numbers bear him out. India's colleges and universities are
turning out more than 40,000 computer science graduates each year, and the
enrollments in those programs are rising while U.S. colleges struggle to
fill their science programs. And China produces more 325,000 engineers
each
year, or five times more than the United States.
By contrast, Baltimore wrote that our nation has a "lack of federal
leadership in funding schooling that emphasizes math and science"
with a
"fragmented educational system that leaves much to local
control" and an
attitude of "general anti-intellectualism."
China is not a paradise politically, but it isn't having arguments
over whether Darwin's theories are correct. It isn't rewriting science
textbooks to give the Biblical version of creation equal weight with
evolution. It isn't letting narrow political agendas or special interests
trump scientific or medical facts.
Anti-intellectualism has always been a powerful force in America.
Combine that with religious fundamentalism and you have a recipe for
economic, scientific and political disaster. Because scientists in secular
societies like Asia and Europe aren't fighting fundamentalist dogma and
political hackery at every turn, they are now poised to kick our
collective
butts. And when this happens, most Americans will never know what hit
them.
Why are we still arguing about Darwin? Why are more schools around
the country forcing teachers to treat "intelligent design" (the
new
euphemism for creationism) as something as valid as evolution? Why do
two-thirds of Americans (according to a CBS News poll taken last month)
favor teaching creationism and evolution side-by-side in public schools?
This is happening because America is now a post-literate,
post-logical society where truth and reason no longer matter.
Fundamentalism appears to be gaining on modernism and what's become known
as the "reality-based community" is treated with total contempt
by people
willing to distort science (and facts in general) for political gain. All
you have to do is look at the way the Bush administration - that perfect
nexus of religious fundamentalism and cynical politics - treats science.
Take the issue of global warming. There is little doubt in
reputable scientific circles that the earth's climate is changing and that
those changes - mainly brought on by the burning of fossil fuels - will
ultimately cause major environmental problems.
The rest of the world's reaction to this is to work on ways to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Europe has taken the lead in this area,
developing new technologies to reduce energy use and pollution. The United
States lags behind because it has been decided by the Bush administration
that global warming is a myth. The United States - the nation that
consumes
about a quarter of the world's energy and natural resources - has rejected
the Kyoto Protocol and any other steps toward reducing energy use.
This sort of willful blindness infects every bit of the Bush
administration's treatment of science. If the facts conflict with their
beliefs or the ability of their corporate patrons to make more money, they
either ignore the facts or fund studies that give them the version of the
facts they want.
The anti-intellectual, anti-reason myopia that now infects America will
come back to haunt us. As this nation turns into a religious cult with
nuclear weapons, scientific innovation will migrate to places where
radical
clerics and corrupt politicians aren't calling the tune. Just as our
manufacturing base has migrated overseas, our scientific and intellectual
base will travel the same path.
Baltimore wrote in his piece for the Times that the thousands of
international students who once filled our math and science programs are
now staying home because the schooling in China and India is as good as
America's and the Bush administration has made it increasingly difficult
for international students to study here. Both China and India have poured
huge sums of money into education, while American schools are falling
behind.
The countries not held hostage by fundamentalism will ultimately
overtake the United States. The technological lead the United States once
had will vanish. We will become an industrialized nation without industry,
a technologically advanced society without technologists.
The future belongs to those who aren't slaves to dogma and are
willing to innovate. It belongs to societies where intelligence and hard
work are rewarded and excellence is celebrated. Sadly, these qualities are
not in great supply in the United States today.<
Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more
than 20 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade
Books). He
can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.
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