Take climate change, for instance. I routinely post about how by forcing the developing countries to abandon nuclear energy, we end up forcing them to use more fossil fuels--after all, their energy needs have to be met somehow, right? The liberals in democratic developing countries like India sing the same ideological tunes and make it difficult to pursue reasonable energy policies.
In my classes, whenever I discuss issues related to food and agriculture, students let loose arguments, almost as a knee-jerk response, critiquing Monsanto--the ideas they have picked up from other classes or readings they did on their own. I then have a tough time engaging them about these important issues.
Michael Shermer has a thoughtful column on this in the Scientific American:
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.Exactly! I am so glad to know that I am not all alone in this.
Surveys show that moderate liberals and conservatives embrace science roughly equally (varying across domains), which is why scientists like E. O. Wilson and organizations like the National Center for Science Education are reaching out to moderates in both parties to rein in the extremists on evolution and climate change. Pace Barry Goldwater, extremism in the defense of liberty may not be a vice, but it is in defense of science, where facts matter more than faith—whether it comes in a religious or secular form—and where moderation in the pursuit of truth is a virtue.Good luck to us in our attempts to engage with people on all the urgent issues of the day.
2 comments:
In complete agreement with you. This is another example of a single issue obsession - in this case the environment. As you note, how else do you feed 9 billion people. How else do you provide energy if you object to nuclear power.
My submission is that anybody who protests must be forced to list the alternate option that he is willing to support. It then will probably take only 5 minutes to prove that the alternative is probably worse than the one he is agitating about.
Oh, come on ... .disagree with me, man :)
Yep ... all the more after witnessing my aunt struggling with 18 hours of blackout every single day ... we should banish all those ideologues to the villages and small towns in India; they will become advocates for nuclear power ;)
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