American election 2012: When science is nuts, anti-science is newly respectable

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 29, 2011

Culture, Intelligent Design, News, Science}

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File:Scopes trial.jpg — Scopes Trial, 1925 - all legacy media need to know about evolution

One characteristic of the recent setbacks for the Darwin lobby is the reduced hold of the legacy media narrative. What every legacy journalist knows: Brave Darwin lobbyist confronts the “anti-science” hordes?

Today, you are anti-science if you doubt that we are living in a giant sim or that design of the universe is “blasphemous.” In other words, if you doubt what is dubious.

In a world where science increasingly means that sort of thing, it is inevitable that the legacy media would be running stories on how popular political candidates are mostly anti-science. Like this one from Discover Mag’s “Bad Astronomy” blog (August 29, 2011:

A lot of folks on the web are buzzing about Paul Krugman’s NYT OpEd today about the antiscience convictions of the current cohort of Republican candidates running for President of these United States. I find little fault in what Krugman wrote. Each candidate on the right is simply scrambling to be even more antiscience than the next.

Or more in touch with reality? That’s where most people live.

Comments

There it is. if one doesn't agree with some conclusions in some subjects on origins then one is ANTI science. He said so! Can't one just be wrong? Can't respect be there for historic ideas on a creator or more Genesis? Can't one like ones computer without being told one is innately hostile to its nature as a thing of science? I say saying Christians or anyone opposing evolution etc are anti-science is just dUMB, immoral, and not showing how a society should get along or TOLERATE each other! I find these commentators dumb, dull, and done relative to Modern North America.Robert Byers_{August 31, 2011
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The legacy media show the proud ignorance of the doomed, They make a point of being awful on religious subjects, just to show they don't care. But others do. As noted elsewhere, the news is no longer written for the average person.News_{August 30, 2011
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The legacy media show the arrogance of the doomed. Consider "California Science Center answerable for canning non-Darwin film": Suppose there is a furious hail of media criticism over the settlement - on the theory that CSC should have just suppressed the film. Most onlookers will think, "Actually, they just shouldn't have, and then we wouldn't all be out the settlement money." People are beginning to sense that the news isn't even written for them any more, so they tune out and increasingly find a variety of disparate sources.News_{August 30, 2011
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The interesting part of this is that the voting public, in general, are (a) overtly creationist, and (b) don't really care about creation, ID, or evolution as a public policy. The unintended consequence of these media stunts will be to cause people who are overtly creationist to start caring about creationism as a public policy issue!johnnyb_{August 30, 2011
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Finding and using successful, populist memes and narratives by which a relatively uninformed population can be manipulated is the oldest trick in the political book. That was much easier back in the day when the public could only become informed via a very small bottleneck of information providers. Today, though, that is much more difficult, as we have witnessed the fall of legacy media and the explosion of information content vehicles. We still have to deal with an academic structure that conditions much of our youth into ideological subservience, though. Using the concept of "science" to disguise a war against competing ideology, and to brand non-conformists as unintelligent fanatics, is a form of intellectual fascism. It stirs up emotional reactions by fostering a sense of superiority and fear against what is implied to be a dangerous "other". We in the ID community are only all-too aware of this, as Darwinistas feel justified in all sorts of dirty tricks against us. The legacy media apparatchik is all-too complicit in this manipulation, selling one crisis after another to keep the population more willing to acquiesce to what is presented as "expert" advice and direction. Under the banner of "science", this faction pushes all sorts of ideological policy, from "expert" government intrusion about how to raise children to what to eat to what we must spend our money on. Under the guise of "expert" science and science-based policy, the net of smiley-face, nanny fascism draws ever tighter.William J Murray_{August 30, 2011
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I'm not sure I'd describe Phil Plait's blog as "legacy media", any more than I'd describe PZ Myers as a journalist (PZ, of course, now blogs for national Geographic). They're both long-time bloggers.Heinrich_{August 30, 2011
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Please, please please reduce the headline font size!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just too big.ronvanwegen_{August 29, 2011
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