[DIYbio] Re: Science literacy

The symptom has shifted but America is no stupider than before, meaning, America always fostered stupid.  Consider that just 1 generation ago, the ignorant person would have claimed this instead: "I don't believe in viruses because Jesus said, 'I am the Lord Jesus Christ, I died for your sins. Repent and come to Me before It's too late. I will save.'   Jesus will protect and heal me.  Jesus IS LORD.  He loves all his children.  His Father's arms are open to his disciples.  Lord sent Jesus to die for you on a cross so you and I wouldn't have to!  Jesus protects me from evil.  He is love and he will protect you, if you join in our love of him."    Basically, the ignorant person is allowed to express this because of freedom of religion, which is a foundational aspect of America.  Basically America was created in the spirit of allowing ignorance & stupidity to thrive.  In fact this year I had a friend who has become more of a bible thumper over the years tell me they weren't taking precautions during the pandemic because, "The Lord decides when it's my time or not."  Roughly 50%-70% of America has always been "a believer" type, that's roughly 2 out of 3 people.   Religious zealotry has been on a strong decline in America since the 1950s and it has been replaced by conspiracy theorists, who find many gullible fans.   In general that means:  in any group of people, look to your right, then look to your left, those 2 people are both nutters i.e. uneducated, ignorant, gullible people.   

What biologists should be asking is this:  Since the traits which cause these symptoms continue to thrive, why is there no selective pressure to suppress these traits?  Where is the selective pressure(*) for humans to become smarter i.e. stronger critical thinkers?  One interesting aspect of the selective pressure against stupid gullibility is that organized religions train disciples to have much higher than average number of offspring.  Mormons are an easy example.  Mandating a rule like, "have more kids for The Lord," operates against natural selective pressure.  But otherwise biology fails to explain this phenomenon of the success of ignorance.

The solution to your situation is unpleasant yet simple and is in line with what social scientists teach currently (whether that's correct or not, I don't know, but it is what they teach):   call out the ignorance, don't argue, and state the facts.  I guess this is based on the idea that you can't help someone who won't help themselves.   The distilled version is to tell the person:  "You are an ignorant crackpot.  You need to get an education.  Get help.  Later."

There's no consolation in recognizing that social media has exposed and amplified the gullibility traits of Americans.  #DeleteFacebook because Zuckerberg fosters it to profit from it.  The internet itself has been on significant decline in signal to noise ratio for years.  It used to be enough to say RTFM.   People don't even remember what that means today.   (Look up any of the research done on the purposeful, engineered spread of the "flat earth" conspiracy in just the past 5 years.)

What bothers me more than the percentage of ignorance in America is the significant gap between the ignorant and the smart, which was much narrower in 1950.   Not so long ago the "older person" in the story would have been made fun of for not being able to set a digital clock to the correct time, which is funny but a relatively harmless gap between competence and incompetence.  Imagine that level of ignorance existing on the human-colony Moon base or a manned mission to Mars, both of which will exist within our lifetimes?

Secondly, the person's ignorance and gullibility is independent of her raising goats and growing kefir grains.  Unless she eats the goats or drinks its bodily fluids, both of which are ignorance.  Don't eat animals or drink their milk.