Is Society in General Turning its Back on Intellectual Discussion and Scientific Discovery?

The Roman Empire reached its imperial limits at the edge of the Rhine and Danube Rivers, the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and Hadrian’s Wall in Britain. An empire that thrived on acquisition slowly became more focused on preservation. This retreat from geopolitical expansion is also reflected by a retreat in intellectual growth as Christianity challenged the freer expression and acceptance of ideas that characterized Hellenistic civilization and the Mediterranean world.

The same pattern has been repeated throughout history. Take for example the rise of the Islamic Empire in the seventh century and its rapid expansion that encouraged enormous intellectual ferment throughout Asia, and North Africa, only to succumb to a growing conservatism reflected through dogmatic religious-inspired ideology. Or consider the Ming Dynasty, a period of great intellectual and inventive ferment in the history of China when fleets of ships struck out across the Indian Ocean to discover Africa. Here too, a staid conservatism turned China inward until it was forced to confront the 19th-century threats of European nations with their advanced military technologies.

I point to these historical examples as evidence that in our global struggle to deal with COVID-19, and the existential threat that is climate change, there is a growing anti-intellectual, anti-science movement afoot. And unlike our past histories, this anti-intellectual and anti-science outburst is enjoying all the benefits of the technological revolution that has produced the Internet, global telecommunications, social networks and more.

Did the anti-intellectual, anti-science age begin with the election of Donald Trump? Or is his rise to become President of the United States a symptom of a creeping resistance to scientific research and intellectual discussion? Some argue that the problem lies with scientists and intellectuals who are seen by average people to be elites. And some would argue that big businesses, particularly energy companies, are fueling and feeding anti-science views.

There is no doubt that we live in a disinformation age. The Internet is the medium by which social media spreads its content and is proving to be an effective purveyor of anti-science and anti-intellectual ferment.

Probably the best illustration of this can be seen in the acceptance or lack thereof of the science behind the vaccines being developed and delivered to combat COVID-19. When I was a youngster, before I could go to school I was subjected to a bunch of vaccines to deal with diseases past scientific discoveries had found ways to prevent. I’m talking about measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, whooping cough, and more. When I was in high school, we lined up to take the cure to prevent polio and hepatitis. The acceptance of the science behind these preventives saw little in the way of a backlash. If there was an anti-vaxxer movement it didn’t have the Internet as a medium for the spread of its misinformation rhetoric.

But that is no longer the case. Today, the Internet and social media feed persuasion susceptible people who are threatened by authority and by the potential of them losing control of their own personal narrative. Those who feed them anti-vaccine, and anti-science rhetoric can manipulate audiences to believe vaccines cause autism. In banding together through the online world, what were once quite separate islands of anti-intellectual and anti-science thought, now find commonality within a tribe.

In the United States, the anti-science, anti-intellectual movement is now identifiable through the grifters who make money feeding the tribe and through politicians who tell stories to spread fear and doubt. In the U.S., the Republican Party has served to become home to the anti-science tribe. In Canada, the movement appears to be congregating within the Conservative Party.

The same kind of anti-science thinking is compounding our response to anthropogenic climate change. The “religion” behind the movement to inhibit a significant response to the existential threat of global warming is largely being led by the fossil fuel industry. The anti-science response goes back to the information that companies like ExxonMobil chose to keep from the public even though its own laboratories had established a definitive link in the 1970s between the burning of fossil fuels and rising global temperatures and seas. Fossil fuel propagandists lined up pre-Internet to seed print media and the airwaves with their side of the story in the face of a growing scientific awareness of the causes of global warming. Think tanks like the Heartland Institute were created to challenge indisputable science and spread disinformation. The strategy by the industry was the same as that adopted by Big Tobacco in the face of the link established by science between smoking and cancer.

So is the rise of anti-science and anti-intellectual discourse a prelude to the end of civilization as we know it? The Romans didn’t see it coming. Nor did the Chinese Empire. Sometimes, even the brightest headlights shining into the dark of night do not dispel our fear of what we don’t know and don’t understand. And as we seek ways to allay our fears, we are easily persuaded by those who with quick answers backed by no evidence, feed our existing tribal assumptions and beliefs.