The Anti-Information Age (Part 1)

Today I have something to speak about that has been a great concern for me for a while now. That is, the general lack of intelligence of people in the world today. Of course, there are many, many facets too this, far more than I have time to discuss in just one train ride, but I'll get some of them discussed now. Depending on how it goes I may make this a two part series. I'll make a decision at the end of this rant.

Anyways. The actual meat here. Yesterday in my chemistry class we actually had two guest lecturers come in to give discussions on pseudo science in general, each of them tackling different areas of it. I am not ashamed to say that these were far more interesting than the lecture we were supposed to get from the regular professor about transition metals and the like; anyone who knows me will know I'm not a fan of chemistry.

The common strain throughout both of their talks was the general stupidity of humanity and the role the media plays in growing this downwards trend. Recently there has been a major shunning of vaccines because certain people have hypothesized that said vaccines can cause autism. This is just one example, but was one they spoke about at length. In fact, the second lecturer (I cannot recall their names, to my chagrin) works with developing vaccines so he has seen, first hand, all the work and time put into just making one vaccine. And yet, in just a year or two, people are condemning them as a cause of autism and therefore refuse to use them. Once again, I lack the details but there is a web counter that tracks the number of illnesses and deaths that would have been prevented had these vaccines not been suddenly seen as harmful, as well as how many cases of autism have been found to be a direct result of having these vaccinations. One of those three counters hasn't changed since it was made, and I hope you can guess which one.

The whole issue is this; people want to avoid expending effort to do anything. This is clearly seen with all the devices and machines we have created to eliminate the need to do certain tasks. We are, in short, a lazy culture. This is linked to the way people try to inform themselves about the happenings around them; most will take what is said on television or radio as near-irrefutable truth and act accordingly when really, this is not even almost the case. Again, one of the lecturers has actually appeared on a show and was told by the host that their job as television personalities was to be entertaining and if they happened to be true as well, then that was a bonus. It's a sad statement because it is one of the very few things I've heard attributed to a television show host that is factually true.

So you see, we wind up in a viscous cycle. We have a population that wants to be entertained, so the media makes itself entertaining. However, our population wants to be informed as well so who do they turn to for information? Obviously not the people who actually have the information. They turn to the media who are like a king's flatterers; they tell the populace what they want to hear when the want to hear it. Rarely the truth. And this is why the scientists look like the bad guys so often; because they apply scientific method to their research and thus will take years and years of work just to develop one vaccine that will actually work. This particular speaker worked on one for twenty-five years, the breakdown being about fifteen years of research and development and then ten years of testing and fine-tuning. But the public doesn't like to hear this. They want results here and now. This is largely the reason one will hear of so many “cures” that pop up and then quickly disappear as they are disproved.

There is oh so much more to discuss but I have come to the end of my train ride. I'll likely write about this again tomorrow. Until then, have yourself a nice, media-skeptical day.