policy & reform
The march of the stupid
Academics and experts must go on the offensive when spin and vested interests threaten to rule. Science is under attack and much of the public is easily persuaded by dubious notions. By Paul Abela
At the Tertiary Education Management Conference( TEMC) in Adelaide last year, one of the keynote speakers, broadcaster Phillip Adams, based his speech on what he termed the“ march of the stupid”.
He hypothesised that everywhere in the Western world, there was so much noise from the ignorant and blatantly biased that their voices were overwhelming any sense of reality.
Example after example was hilariously presented as yet another instance of the reign of the stupid. He gave numerous examples of beliefs held by people now that were dismissed long ago or were just plain dumb. Did you know that 18 per cent of American citizens believe the sun revolves around the earth? That’ s hard to believe but it’ s true.
At this year’ s TEMC in Hobart, Dan Gregory, the marketing and advertising guru frequently seen on The Gruen Transfer, talked about the not-so-clever. He stated that people over-estimated the cleverness of our community. I suspect those of us in tertiary education do so even more.
As a result, populations as a whole are susceptible to nefarious forces( and advertisers!).
For most of us, if we have no frame of reference we are likely to believe anything from a seemingly authoritative source. Gregory explains that in our complex world, our need for simplicity and reinforcement of our beliefs often makes us believe statements on issues of which we are entirely ignorant.
What is important are not the facts, the science or the research, it is the credibility of the communicator and the need many people have for their prejudices to be reinforced.
People who are self-styled experts and opinion leaders, such as Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt, understand this and have exploited it for years. They have mounted such a challenge to, and cast such a shadow over, orthodox experts that we seem to be heading into an age where science, research and sound knowledge gathering is at worst ignored, and at best given equal voice.
What must be understood is a point made by Paul Willis, director at national science hub RiAus, in Adelaide. He states simply that science is not a democracy. It relies on“ consilience”, a concept that overwhelming evidence and proof that all comes to pretty much the same conclusions from different lines of research is what science builds on to reach its knowledge-based conclusions. It is not democratic, nor is every opinion as important as any other; opinions have to earn respect.
In October, The Sydney Morning Herald decided to take a stand on a particularly pressing issue of the day. It announced that it would no longer publish letters to the editor on climate change that doubted the veracity of scientists’ claims that anthropogenic climate change is real. With 95 per cent of the world’ s climate change scientists reaching consilience on the matter, it would now publish only letters that have different views on how to tackle the problem.
In stopping the march of the stupid, this is a step forward. However The Sydney Morning Herald is not an expert either.
18 | campusreview. com. au