Why so much hatred of science?

I don’t hate it, do you?

I read an essay by Issac Asimov about his issues with “swords and horses” fantasy. Usually the strapping lad who solves problems by swording them to death is the hero, and the sorcerer who commands mystical forces is the bad guy. He goes into why this is, and it boils down we don’t understand what the sorcerer does, or how he does it. But we all understand how Meaty McRockcleaver operates, and the simple goals he has (save the princess).
Science is beyond the understanding of people who aren’t dedicated professionals (in their niche field), but we depend on it. When our iPhone breaks, we can’t tinker with it in the garage like days of yore, we have to take it to the… wait for it… genius bar… to have hipsters roll their eyes at us while we’re just trying to fix our pre-teen daughters phone for chrissake! Very emasculating.
When we get sick, doctors tell us very serious things, and we’re too afraid to ask them to explain it to us, because the appointment is for 12 minutes, and that includes the doctors paperwork, but also because were afraid that if the doctor dumbs it down and we still don’t understand it, he’ll think we just fell off the turnip truck on our way here. Humiliating, so everyone pretends to understand, while inside they seethe.

Just remembered a commercial in the early days of cyber commerce, where a credit card advertised “they’ve got people in there”, the “there” being the internet. We are surrounded by this technology who ever growing reach we can barely keep up with, nervous that our identity will be stolen (“What? – me, 15 years ago), our bank accounts will be cleaned out, etc.

No one thinks they hate science. They just reserve the right to pick and choose the “science” they agree with. The fundamentalist creationists I grew up with never, ever badmouthed science; they just had very particular ideas about what was “good” and what was “bad” science.

It’s not hatred for me. I dig science. Scientists may be given the talent by God to find Him, who knows?

Because they are so slow at developing 3D porn.

I might not blame someone who “hates science” because of what scientific discoveries have led to in terms of developing more powerful and harmful weapons and such. Science can be used for great good, but also great evil. But a general mistrust of some scientific endeavors shouldn’t lead one to “hate” it as a whole. Much hatred is founded upon misunderstanding and fear of the unknown, and certainly there is much of that in regard to science.

I don’t understand the religious opposition to science; it truly makes no sense to me. It always sounds like the religious are afraid science will disprove their religion, but why would they fear something like that? It’s ludicrous. Neither one is a replacement for the other.

@Dom Some people insist Jesus wIll heal via prayer but most of us go to doctors. We all have personal lines we draw.

Scientific truths interfere with faith in explaining the world. Mess with someone’s faith and you, too, will be hated.

People are ignorant and undereducated.

@KNOWITALL Attagirl! :-)

Chris Mooney has written quite extensively on this.
To wit: http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science-/dp/1118094514/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1381354085&sr=8-3&keywords=chris+mooney

You’ve also got the Backfire Effect, whereby presenting people with evidence contradicting their beliefs has the perverse effect of making them more entrenched in their beliefs.

Because if everyone were actually educated regarding a lot of things involving science, and appreciated just how important it were, we would not be able to do 99% of the terrible things we do!!!!!!!! Therefore, no profit for a lot of the big wigs! It is so, so, so sad!!!!!

Science keeps taking our jobs away.

But it adds new ones at the same time @YARNLADY.

@Dutchess_III My issue is the disappearance of non-skilled jobs for teens and inexperienced people with a high school educations. The new jobs all require college.

Hatred is such a harsh word. Perhaps it would be more exact to ask: “Why so much abuse of science?” Just because people manipulate, distort and take liberties with the truth doesn’t mean that they hate the truth.

I don’t think that people who believe every word written in the holy bible hate science. They just pick and choose the aspect of science that correlate with their beliefs. Scientific facts like evolution and historical geology are big problems for them.

Also it if doubtful that the eeevil fat cat Republicans and religious fundamentalists are conspiring to destroy science.

@YARNLADY what jobs does it take away? If you ask me it’s only ones that needn’t have existed in the first place.

Can you give me an example @YARNLADY? They can still be sanitation workers, mechanics, factory workers, CNA’s, dishwashers, etc. You don’t need a degree to work at McD’s or Braums or at a convenience store.

@deni she’s referring to robotics, basically. It was a real problem when assembly lines went automated early in the 20th century. Those jobs existed for good reason, but machines would do them for free so they did replace some humans in the jobs. However, then they needed mechanics to fix the robotics when things went wrong.

@Dutchess_III One example is pin setter in bowling alleys.

Many of the examples I thought of are actually still available, but are done by undocumented workers.

There is a great deal of ‘resistance’ of Science by the religious evangelicals. Unfortunately, too many of the religious faithful disagree with the Scientists & (also unfortunately) too many conservatives also disagree with the Scientists. Also the Creationists (in TX & LA) are insisting that Science classes teach “Creationism”.

@YARNLADY I doubt you’re losing nearly as many jobs to improved technology as you’re losing to greedy corporate executives who save a few dollars by shipping these jobs overseas – or, as you say, to illegal immigrants. The point being that the jobs are not going to machines, they’re going to people who can’t afford to demand a living wage.

There are too many evil scientists in movies – ET, Spider-Man, Planet of the Apes, etc.

I just thought of two more – telephone operators and elevator operators.

Plus call centers – I can’t even understand many of the people who answer my calls because of such thick accents.

@YARNLADY You must realize… this does not represent a lot of people losing jobs to science.

less human telephone operators = less cost of telephone = lower price = increased use = increased utility to other business = lower overhead = increased budget to increase hires…?

it’s not a fixed sum game, is what I’m saying

@Jaxk Would that a larger block of your political party were cut from the same cloth you were cut from.

@drhat77 Yeah, I can see those issues. But how do they relate more to Republicans than Democrats. There really isn’t a Democratic Party war on science.

@glacial Studies say no.

@KNOWITALL Good going. I was careful to qualify my question, indicating it was not ALL Christians or all Republicans.

@ETpro I think the natural obfuscation of niche science creates some confusion, which the clever can capitalize on, especially if the science does not support the purse masters. I just had some gentle musings about the foundation of that hatred.

@rojo Do you think the Fundies would spend their time on the holodeck?

@DominicX Doesn’t make sense to me either. That’s why I’m asking. I get that the Christian right insist on a literal understanding of the word “day” in Genesis, but dial forward to to Daniel and they insist we must understand that week doesn’t mean week, because if you read Daniel’s prophecy of the Messiah’s coming literally, then Jesus was born 473 years too late to be the Messiah. So literal interpretation is something that can be turned on or off as needed to make things come out as the fundies have decided in advance they should. Why not just accept that a day in Genesis could mean something other than an ordinary day and that there might then be no conflict between the Bible and science.

@Sunny2 & @tinyfaery Yes, I suppose that is true.

@Rarebear The book is already on my To Read list at Goodreads.com.

@thorninmud Yes, being married for 35 years I have a certain amount of personal research devoted to studying the “backfire effect.” :-)

@deni I bet that’s behind 99% of it. Like Deepthroat said, follow the money.

@YARNLADY That’s utter bunk, but if you think it, there are probably lots of others that think so too. If science isn’t done here, that won’t stop it from being done. It will just mean that while globalization takes our manufacturing jobs away, there are no high-tech jobs to replace them. The high-tech jobs will all be offshore too. We could enjoy life without the millions employed in that sector.

@gondwanalon See this.

@Linda_Owl Exactly what I am talking about.

@glacial True, but will it change YARNLADY’s mind. I doubt it.

@RocketGuy You know, that fact has bothered me for some time. I think it’s high time we start demonizing the real demons, the would be oligarchs and plutocrats.

@drhat77 That most certainly plays a role. It’s sad our media giants can’t see that programs like Nova would probably do them more long-run good that Ancient Alien Theories and Ghost Hunters.

@ETpro ”@glacial Studies say no.”

Not sure who you meant to respond to there, but I don’t think it was me.

@glacial OMG, so sorry. I meant to reply to thorninmud here.

A lot of people want 100% certainty. Religion guarantees 100% that certain things will happen if they believe and follow. Science can only give probabilities. That’s not good enough for those people.

scribes

@RocketGuy 100% certainty but only related to things that are guaranteed to happen after you die. If you don’t believe the claims, just check with all our satisfied customers—who are already dead and reaping their benefits. What’s wrong with this picture?

@drhat77 “Science is beyond the understanding of people who aren’t dedicated professionals (in their niche field)”

Not true. Science can be understood by laypeople, given enough time and effort.
While you might have to take your iPhone to the “Genius Bar”, you can fix your Android device yourself. The difference isn’t that iPhones are more complex- it’s that Apple is keeping information from you. Science isn’t like that- if it’s not open, then it fails.
Your doctor should be working for you. If you don’t understand what he’s telling you, you get him to write it down and then you go do some research. Or, if you can, get him to explain it to you: if he can’t explain it, then he probably doesn’t understand it himself. Professional qualifications are no guarantee of competence or complete understanding of one’s field (even in fields where “complete understanding” exists at all or is possible in principle.)

People hate science because science is hard. It takes effort to learn it, and more effort to use it. Dogma and superstition are much, much easier- and sometimes work just well enough, just often enough.
Superstition is easier because it’s simple. The superstitions that last are the ones that are easy to remember, and that work often enough to not be immediately discredited. This doesn’t need to be more often than pure accident would cause; but a superstition that was wrong every time would probably not last.
Science is not necessarily simple, although the best theories are simple. Science gives rise to technology, and the use of technology complicates the world. These complications are confusing and irritating to us dumb monkeys. We want the world to be simple so we can get about our monkey business. Technology brings complexity that disrupts our apparently-orderly mental models of the world, and so we blame science.

@rexacoracofalipitorius elegant in its simplicity, as opposed to my obfuscated mess! I love it!
@ETpro it provides 100% certainty if you believe that God works in mysterious ways, and it makes moral quandaries simplicity itself if you believe killing an abortion doctor is something God commanded you to do.

There’s a very informative and entertaining documentary on the evolution vs. intelligent design issue called ‘Flock of Dodos’.

At one point, they discuss how the religious side has a host of buzzwords and catchphrases that succinctly define their position. It’s easy for them to promote what they think, because or all boils down to a few words – Teach the Controversy! – whereas science-minded folks tend to favor thorough, detailed explanations that are less relatable to the general public.

@YARNLADY Yes, pin setters and taffy pullers. But the kids who would be setting pins in the 40’s now work in fast food joints, and fast food joints are only possible because of technology. I guarantee you the fast food industry has made many, many more jobs available to youngsters than pin setting or taffy pulling ever did.

Telephone operators are now call center customer service reps, made possible because of technology. There are a lot more call center reps than there ever were telephone operators.

@Seek_Kolinahr Wasn’t “Flock of Dodos” an 80’s hair band?

Teach the Controversy A good name for a metal band know for it’s thorough and detailed lyrics.

Ooh, @rojo, you’re a funny one, you are!

1) Cases of misuse of technology
2) Bad news is good news paradigm of most media (technology benefits outweighing risks go unnoticed)
3) Craving for simplicity (it’s easier to understand the Bible literally/Koran is the only book we need)
4) Affluence (young people prefer stuff that is seen as cool over stuff that is hard such as math, physics and chemistry – young Indians want a better life and they don’t hate science)

Indians?!! RLFLOLL! Watch it, bud!

I was talking about software developers and civil engineers in India. They are called Indians, aren’t they?

@mattbrowne I thought they were called “geeks” and sometimes “nerds”.

Around here they are called Asian Indians or East Indians.

Thanks for the clarification. In German we have two different words: Inder and Indianer.

@mattbrowne I’m thinking German is such a great language. Lots of highly specific words. We English speakers adopt terms like “doppelganger” and “zeitgeist” because it would take a paragraph to say the same thing in English.

@ETpro – Sometimes it’s the other way round. A great example is “jet lag”. In German it’s something like Zeitzonenkater. Far too many syllables. So Germans use the English term “Jetlag”.

Cool. How long till international speak? There are some great words in every language.

I believe you have some interests in linguistics. The Pirahã people have a very primitive language with just eight consonants and three vowels. They have no words for numbers. They have a word for one, a few, and many. That’s it. But subtle vocal inflection modify meanings, and thus this seemingly limited language can be used to tell complex stories. Not only that, the emphasis on inflection makes it possible for them to tell stories by whistling, and for other Pirahã to readily grasp the story.

@ETpro – Yes. Here’s a great example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm

Globalization of languages and concepts. And yes, during my graduate studies my minor was linguistics.

@mattbrowne Aha. That explains a lot about your book—a book I am thoroughly enjoying reading, BTW.

@ETpro – How far along?

^^^ Middle of page 272.

A lot more pages to go ;-)

@mattbrowne Yes, I know. It’s a big book.

@ETpro – I fear that’s why I haven’t sold more. The majority of readers seem to prefer shorter books.

Could be. But I admire what it took to write it. As I read, I think in terms of organizing and telling a story that grandiose. It would be tough to break into a trilogy given the time traveling in the story line, but it would have probably been more marketable told that way.