Welcome to the Age of Denial<\/a> by Adam Frank in The New York Times.<\/p>\nThe Text:<\/strong> IN 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the population who are creationists is 46 percent.<\/p>\nIn 1989, when \u201cclimate change\u201d had just entered the public lexicon, 63 percent of Americans understood it was a problem. Almost 25 years later, that proportion is actually a bit lower, at 58 percent.<\/p>\n
The timeline of these polls defines my career in science. In 1982 I was an undergraduate physics major. In 1989 I was a graduate student. My dream was that, in a quarter-century, I would be a professor of astrophysics, introducing a new generation of students to the powerful yet delicate craft of scientific research.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Much of that dream has come true. Yet instead of sending my students into a world that celebrates the latest science has to offer, I am delivering them into a society ambivalent, even skeptical, about the fruits of science.<\/p>\n
This is not a world the scientists I trained with would recognize. Many of them served on the Manhattan Project. Afterward, they helped create the technologies that drove America\u2019s postwar prosperity. In that era of the mid-20th century, politicians were expected to support science financially but otherwise leave it alone. The disaster of Lysenkoism, in which Communist ideology distorted scientific truth and all but destroyed Russian biological science, was still a fresh memory.<\/p>\n
The triumph of Western science led most of my professors to believe that progress was inevitable. While the bargain between science and political culture was at times challenged \u2014 the nuclear power debate of the 1970s, for example \u2014 the battles were fought using scientific evidence. Manufacturing doubt remained firmly off-limits.<\/p>\n
Today, however, it is politically effective, and socially acceptable, to deny scientific fact. Narrowly defined, \u201ccreationism\u201d was a minor current in American thinking for much of the 20th century. But in the years since I was a student, a well-funded effort has skillfully rebranded that ideology as \u201ccreation science\u201d and pushed it into classrooms across the country. Though transparently unscientific, denying evolution has become a litmus test for some conservative politicians, even at the highest levels.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, climate deniers, taking pages from the creationists\u2019 PR playbook, have manufactured doubt about fundamental issues in climate science that were decided scientifically decades ago. And anti-vaccine campaigners brandish a few long-discredited studies to make unproven claims about links between autism and vaccination.<\/p>\n
The list goes on. North Carolina has banned state planners from using climate data in their projections of future sea levels. So many Oregon parents have refused vaccination that the state is revising its school entry policies. And all of this is happening in a culture that is less engaged with science and technology as intellectual pursuits than at any point I can remember.<\/p>\n
Thus, even as our day-to-day experiences have become dependent on technological progress, many of our leaders have abandoned the postwar bargain in favor of what the scientist Michael Mann calls the \u201cscientization of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
What do I tell my students? From one end of their educational trajectory to the other, our society told these kids science was important. How confusing is it for them now, when scientists receive death threats for simply doing honest research on our planet\u2019s climate history?<\/p>\n
Americans always expected their children to face a brighter economic future, and we scientists expected our students to inherit a world where science was embraced by an ever-larger fraction of the population. This never implied turning science into a religion or demanding slavish acceptance of this year\u2019s hot research trends. We face many daunting challenges as a society, and they won\u2019t all be solved with more science and math education. But what has been lost is an understanding that science\u2019s open-ended, evidence-based processes \u2014 rather than just its results \u2014 are essential to meeting those challenges.<\/p>\n
My professors\u2019 generation could respond to silliness like creationism with head-scratching bemusement. My students cannot afford that luxury. Instead they must become fierce champions of science in the marketplace of ideas.<\/p>\n
During my undergraduate studies I was shocked at the low opinion some of my professors had of the astronomer Carl Sagan. For me his efforts to popularize science were an inspiration, but for them such \u201coutreach\u201d was a diversion. That view makes no sense today.<\/p>\n
The enthusiasm and generous spirit that Mr. Sagan used to advocate for science now must inspire all of us. There are science Twitter feeds and blogs to run, citywide science festivals and high school science fairs that need input. For the civic-minded nonscientists there are school board curriculum meetings and long-term climate response plans that cry out for the participation of informed citizens. And for every parent and grandparent there is the opportunity to make a few more trips to the science museum with your children.<\/p>\n
Behind the giant particle accelerators and space observatories, science is a way of behaving in the world. It is, simply put, a tradition. And as we know from history\u2019s darkest moments, even the most enlightened traditions can be broken and lost. Perhaps that is the most important lesson all lifelong students of science must learn now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: Welcome to the Age of Denial by Adam Frank in The New York Times. The Text: IN 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the population who are creationists is 46 percent. In 1989, when \u201cclimate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We used to think that scientific progress--and consensus on its authority--was a given. After decades of a well-funded fight against it, it's struggling.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We used to think that scientific progress--and consensus on its authority--was a given. After decades of a well-funded fight against it, it's struggling.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prose Before Hos\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-03T14:00:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-12-09T16:28:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/climate-denial.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Article of the Day\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@pbhnetwork\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@pbhnetwork\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Article of the Day\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/\",\"name\":\"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-03T14:00:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-09T16:28:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e\"},\"description\":\"We used to think that scientific progress--and consensus on its authority--was a given. After decades of a well-funded fight against it, it's struggling.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/\",\"name\":\"Prose Before Hos\",\"description\":\"The Far Side Of Politics\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e\",\"name\":\"Article of the Day\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pbhnetwork\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/author\/article-of-the-day\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial","description":"We used to think that scientific progress--and consensus on its authority--was a given. After decades of a well-funded fight against it, it's struggling.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial","og_description":"We used to think that scientific progress--and consensus on its authority--was a given. After decades of a well-funded fight against it, it's struggling.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/","og_site_name":"Prose Before Hos","article_published_time":"2013-09-03T14:00:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-12-09T16:28:33+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/climate-denial.jpg"}],"author":"Article of the Day","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@pbhnetwork","twitter_site":"@pbhnetwork","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Article of the Day","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/","url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/","name":"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-09-03T14:00:06+00:00","dateModified":"2013-12-09T16:28:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e"},"description":"We used to think that scientific progress--and consensus on its authority--was a given. After decades of a well-funded fight against it, it's struggling.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/03\/age-of-climate-denial\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/","name":"Prose Before Hos","description":"The Far Side Of Politics","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e","name":"Article of the Day","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/pbhnetwork"],"url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/author\/article-of-the-day\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141476,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141474\/revisions\/141476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Climate](\"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/climate-denial.jpg\")
<\/p>\n