Of High School and Politics.

"I don't even like science.  It's not even my sixth favorite class."
- Luke Evslin, 2002

When I was a junior in high school two friends and I did a science fair project titled "Dimples, Hydrodynamic Drag, and the Law of Variable Proportions."  We won the Kaua'i High Science Fair, the Kaua'i District Science Fair, and the Team and Engineering divisions at the State Science Fair.  The project was the culmination of two years of experiments, email correspondence with scientists around the world, hours of help from family and friends, and countless afternoons spent with my science teacher.  I was really proud of the work that we did and optimistic about the potential ramifications of our findings.

Yet, when our high school newspaper did a story on us I lied about all of it.  I was embarrassed to admit that I liked school and loved science.  Nobody could know that I read a lot.  Or that I actually studied for tests and read books on SAT prep.  So, when the interviewer for the school paper asked "what motivated you to do this project," instead of proudly linking my desire to learn with my passion for outrigger canoeing, I dismissed the whole thing by saying that I didn't like science.  As a high school student struggling to fit in, that was the only safe answer.

As I look back in profound disappointment at my sixteen-year-old self, it's hard to not be equally disappointed that the anti-intellectualism inherent in the high school pecking order is even more inherent in today's political pecking order.  While we (on the political left) love to prod conservatives on their egregious climate change and evolution denialism, the left can be equally obtuse.  As Scientific American puts it:

On energy issues... progressive liberals tend to be antinuclear because of the waste-disposal problem, anti–fossil fuels because of global warming, antihydroelectric because dams disrupt river ecosystems, and anti–wind power because of avian fatalities. The underlying current is “everything natural is good” and “everything unnatural is bad.”

Whereas conservatives obsess over the purity and sanctity of sex, the left's sacred values seem fixated on the environment, leading to an almost religious fervor over the purity and sanctity of air, water and especially food. Try having a conversation with a liberal progressive about GMOs—genetically modified organisms—in which the words “Monsanto” and “profit” are not dropped like syllogistic bombs.

This blog exists as my own personal frustration release valve for that type of simplified logic. There is a need for healthy skepticism and science definitely can not answer everything.  For example, a few weeks ago I made the argument that we need to recognize the inherent, unquantifiable value of nature.  And, while I've also made the argument that GMO technology isn't the culprit in our failed food system, I do sympathize with the completely non-scientific argument that genetic modification is an assault on that value.  But, recognition of that argument does not mean that we can throw the entire scientific establishment out the window.  As an editorial in the NY Times reported today: "kneejerk opposition to technologies like G.M.O.s or nuclear power provoke kneejerk defenses of those technologies, and you end up with these two sides, and both are avoiding the true subtleties of the issues.”

If you need a reminder of our infatuation with anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-establishment rhetoric, just scroll through Facebook.  We now receive our news completely in pre-packaged sound bites and memes.  Look at the new batch of candidates we have for political office on Kaua'i; some of them wear their disdain for science as a badge of honor.

All science does is explain the world as it is.  It has the dual power of muting irrational fears that are overblown (i.e. vaccines and chem trails) while amplifying rational fears that aren't being taken seriously enough (i.e. climate change).  The job of politicians and policymakers is to take the objective findings of science and use them to create a better world.

Yet, the constant barrage of emotional appeals at the expense of fact and logic end up shifting the entire political spectrum into fantasy land.  Why don't our Kaua'i politicians do more to call out the growing anti-science rhetoric on Kaua'i? They stay quiet for the same reason that every conservative politician has to deny climate change and evolution, and for the same reason that I pretended to hate science in high school.  Politics and high school are the only two arenas where popularity is everything.  And on Kaua'i, the route to political popularity is by appealing to emotion.

Come November, if you vote for a candidate who is openly anti-science, then you are guilty of perpetuating our shift away from reality and discourse. In a world where the average political sound bite is 7 seconds (or 140 characters) and where our addiction to the internet (yes, I'm guilty) means that we self-select our news sources to what fits our ideological agenda, we need to remain vigilant in rejecting anti-science rhetoric.