Post-Election Demise of Reason

For those of us who wish to use evidence and reason to inform our beliefs and decisions, yesterday’s elections confirm our worst fears. The entire legislative process at the national level, and in most states, will now consist of attempts to implement conservative beliefs. And this has left me with a sense that nothing I do next is going to matter very much.

Now, if conservative beliefs—any of them—were the product of evidence and reason, even if the evidence is imperfect and the reason well-intentioned, then I would not feel this way quite as much. I would respectfully disagree with them. But conservative beliefs—as nearly as I can tell, all of them—are the result of assertions based solely upon their own opinions and held even when the evidence is against them. Evidence and reason simply do not matter to the new Republican majority.

One example of conservative substitution of wild assertions in place of evidence is the Christian preacher Rick Wiles, who posted recently about the ebola epidemic. His first claim was that God sent ebola as a way of punishing atheists, gays, and sluts. His second claim was that President Obama has intentionally spread the ebola virus in order to cause a crisis so that he can impose martial law. His words are nothing but insane hatred. Most conservatives do not agree with him. But have you heard any conservative preachers or politicians denouncing Wiles or other preachers who proclaim similar lies? I am not aware of any. Please post a comment if you are. Preachers such as Rick Wiles use religion to get people to, without the least bit of thought or evidence, embrace far right-wing politics. The right-wing politicians, even those who know that Wiles is wacko, are happy enough to let him lure people into their political sphere. Conservatives seem to not be bothered at all by having such people as Rick Wiles represent them.

All that remains for me to do is to try to do the right thing for my family, friends, colleagues, students, and readers. Scientific evidence and reason may not matter at all to the new majority, but they matter to a lot of people who are actually in contact with me. Though I have no hope of effecting any political change, I will continue to serve all of you.

In a way, those of us who understand and love science must continue working the same way the first-century Christians worked. They told others about what they thought was the Gospel (even though this Gospel evolved over time), they continued to meet (even when in secret), and they did so even though they knew they would have no immediate impact on a government run by clinically crazy Caesars in Rome.