This past week eSkeptic published an interesting interview with Napoleon Chagnon, an American anthropologist who became world famous for his intensive study of the Yanomamö, an Amazonian tribe. His findings were published in a series of books, beginning with Yanomamö: The Fierce People (1968) and several widely-seen documentary films done in conjunction with Tim Asch. His 1968 book is the bestselling anthropological text of all time and is a standard text in many classrooms.
31 Comments
The Voice of Russia reported that a 300-million-year-old piece of aluminum machinery turned up in a piece of coal a Russian man was using to heat his home. News reports alleged that the artifact resembled the teeth of a cog wheel, even though the object itself is not curved, and Sharon Hill of Doubtful News quickly explained that the object is in all likelihood a natural crystal. Russian media have been promoting false “ancient alien” artifacts since Soviet times, so this bit of tabloid hype is nothing new or out of character.
I’ve been reading David R. Montgomery’s The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood (Norton, 2012), which, despite its creationist-baiting title, is actually a science book about the development of geology as a science. I concur with many other critics that this is a lively and engaging volume that dispenses scientific history along with a good dose of discussion about the changing way the Bible’s absolute truths have been continuously reworked over the years. But that’s not what I want to talk about today.
Back in May I wrote a blog post about early modern maps of the Arctic and the Classical sources they used to imagine a magnetic mountain at the North Pole. John J. McKay has an interesting blog post exploring this same topic and offering an interesting sidelight on the Arctic lands.
Sonja Brentjes has taken great offense to the post I made back in October about an article she and Taner Edis wrote in Skeptical Inquirer about the shortcomings in the 1001 Inventions traveling exhibit on the Golden Age of Islamic science. After Aaron Adair wrote a thoughtful discussion of the degree to which Arab science was dependent upon the Greeks and Romans that preceded them, Brentjes weighed in last week with additional criticism of me.
In the interest of (finally) putting this issue to rest, I’m going to review Brentjes’s criticism. I will explain the points where she is correct about mistakes I made, and I will explain again where she is misrepresenting what I wrote. With the American election rapidly approaching, much of the talk in the media has been political. I don’t usually like to talk politics on my blog because it only serves to make people irrationally angry; however, there have recently been several stories that discussed the connection between politics, culture, and alternative claims, all trying to claim the moral high ground for a particular ideology.
Note: The following post has been edited in response to criticism from Sonja Brentjes. A discussion of the edits is available here.
In the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer (November/December 2012), Taner Edis and Sonja Brentjes have an interesting article challenging the traveling British exhibition 1001 Inventions on the great inventions of the Golden Age of Islam. The two authors find the exhibit offensive because it suggests that medieval and early modern Muslim societies engaged in technological and intellectual investigation that contributed to later European scientific developments. I find the article difficult because if combines serious criticism of the exhibit’s mistakes and flaws with what seems very much like a politically-motivated philosophical disagreement with the presence of Islam in science, which in turn colors much of their discussion. Warning: This post contains mild profanity some readers may find objectionable.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) made headlines this weekend when a videotape shot Sept. 27 showed him claiming that evolution and the Big Bang were “lies straight from the pit of Hell.” While this may seem a standard issue belief for certain segments of the American population, this was especially distressing because Broun chairs the oversight and investigations panel of the House Committee on Science. (Before readers start commenting and emailing about my alleged political bias because Broun is Republican, please note that I also criticized President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid, both Democrats, last month for their efforts to grant national status to a Nevada museum promoting Roswell UFO conspiracy theories.) The media made a big deal out of a June 27 statement from the National Ocean Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), that “No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.” Pundits and commentators found this statement something between bizarre and hilarious (as opposed to the CDC’s “no zombies” press push, which was treated as a response to a real issue), and speculation mounted that the statement was meant to refute Animal Planet’s fictional program on the existence or mermaids. NOAA refused to confirm whether their aquatic humanoid statement was related to the Animal Planet program.
The media failed to report that the mermaid page is actually a history lesson on the myth of the mermaid and was placed in the “Ocean Facts” section of the NOS website, part of NOS’s educational content. It was not a press release or an official government announcement. It sits alongside such other pages as “Can penguins fly?” and “What makes the right whale ‘right’?” The postings are made intermittently, apparently in response to questions NOS receives. But could it be that this web page is part of an elaborate government cover-up more than three thousand years in the making? Journalist Chris Mooney has made something of a career of framing questions about science through the lens of partisan politics. His breakout bestseller The Republican War on Science (2005) carefully documented how the Bush administration pushed an ideological agenda and worked to marginalize scientific findings that contradicted the assumptions in that agenda. Several more books on the same theme followed. His new book is The Republican Brain: They Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality. While the book itself is more subtle than its title, I have to take issue with the concept.
There is nothing inherently Republican about disliking science, nor can the supposed neurological traits of the conservative—rigidity, fear, aggression—be correlated to efforts to ignore or suppress scientific findings. (Mooney uses conservative as a synonym for Republican, though this is not strictly speaking true.) At best, conservatism can be correlated with specific reasons for suppressing or ignoring certain types of science, especially politically-inconvenient science such as global warming and evolution. Conservatives continue to support applied science, including technology, oil exploration, and nuclear power in large numbers. Conversely, liberals, whom Mooney identifies as open-minded, tolerant, and enamored of ambiguity, are no firm supporters of science either. Liberals have embraced such pseudoscience as homeopathy, astrology, ancient astronauts, and anything New Age. Liberals, according to surveys, may trust science more than conservatives, but this depends on what we define as science. Liberals are more likely to think that non-science is actually science or an “alternative way of knowing.” They’re still advocating for beliefs that aren’t true at the expense of science. They just don't think that's what they're doing. This is why I dislike partisan claims that one ideology or another is to blame for America’s retreat from science and reason. Had this book been written 40 years ago, it would have been called The Democratic Brain and complained about how liberals were pushing anti-scientific social welfare policies and advocating for alternative medicine. Mooney has previously written about alternative medicine, so he is not unaware of this problem, but overall the thrust of his writing matches the thrust of his politics. The fact is that despite the euphemistic term “political science,” politics is not a profession governed by reason, and self-identification with a party or ideology virtually guarantees embracing some anti-scientific ideas since ideologies of any stripe are defined by adherence to dogma, the very opposite of science. The short version is this: People support what they like and oppose what they dislike. |
AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
Enter your email below to subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my latest projects, blog posts, and activities, and subscribe to Culture & Curiosities, my Substack newsletter.
Categories
All
Terms & ConditionsPlease read all applicable terms and conditions before posting a comment on this blog. Posting a comment constitutes your agreement to abide by the terms and conditions linked herein.
Archives
April 2024
|