Something disturbing is happening. Somehow, a significant percentage of Americans have decided to celebrate ignorance. It's been going on for some time, but it's really seemed to come to a head recently. In the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, Sarah Palin was presented as "aw shucks" know-nothing. And we were supposed to believe that this was preferable to Barack Obama, who as a Harvard graduate and one-time law lecturer, was an ivory tower intellectual and a fancy-pants elitist. A big chunk of the McCain/Palin campaign strategy can be summed up as "Shut up, Poindexter!"This worked with a percentage of Americans. Don't bother us with facts, they say, we feel stuff -- truth isn't about facts, it's about the stuff you believe with all your little heart. Liberals and intellectuals and scientists with their facts and knowledge have just made the world worse. Bacon cheeseburgers are bad for you now, because "they" invented cholesterol. They invented evolution, which turned us all into stinking monkeys. And now they've invented global warming. Science just brings bad things, so we should stop listening to scientists.
Or, even better, find some sort of counter-science we can appeal to. We can build an entire belief system that revolves around the stuff we feel is true. The things that we know in our hearts is right, because we believe it so strongly. And we can use that to pull the smartypants out of their ivory towers, so we get to eat bacon cheeseburgers again. Huzzah for made-up belief!... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
