Saturday, February 17, 2018
Post #3-Kayla Snell
I won't lie, I was a little surprised to see that my dad and I somehow got a mention in the class assignment. The good news is, I can use the opportunity to put a Descartes spin on a concept I'm usually pretty quiet about to maybe think it through a little better. So, yes, my dad does think global cooling is what is going on in the world right now. This idea stems from the website Armstrong Economics, which is run by a conservative economist who uses a statistical program (that he calls "Socrates") to align sunspots, major historical events, and Earth's temperature to make predictions about the future. Whenever I hear about it I can't help but think it sounds like a wacked out conspiracy theory. My dad insists it isn't. It only gets more odd when my mom interjects with a gentle reminder that "Socrates is NOT God" (by which she means the modern day world-changer and prayer-answerer idea, not the watchmaker of the past). Here is where Descartes and our keywords come into play. We are presented with information, and now we have to use our universal reason, our common sense, to interpret it. For my dad, whose perspective is shaped by conservative ideals and scientific methods, what Armstrong says is rational. Anyone with enough common sense can see the charts, the graphs, the mathematical formulas, the "scientific data", and realize that yes, global warming is an idea made up just so the government can take more taxes from those who use coal as an energy source. For me? Not so much. Common sense says no, one scientific article after another says otherwise, and scientists are the people I should be listening to. What's interesting is that neither of us actually got data from our own work. Our method of gathering data is to read it from another source, and think it through from there. In the grand scheme of things, it seems like the science that speaks loudest will be the one that lines up with the greatest number of people's already preexisting beliefs and political values.
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It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people think that just because they've read one article about something on the internet or hear something and assume that to be the ultimate truth. Through numerous courses I'd assume we've all taken, we learn to carefully analyze every bit of information we're considering citing in a research paper or report. We all rely heavily on the work of scientists who've come before us, who have put in hours upon hours of research into their findings, and have had the results confirmed by their peers time and time again. It seems like common sense would say in whatever educational background you've got that you need to check more than one source, and that you've got to acknowledge the other side to your claims or arguments. Would you say that the access to the world that the internet has provided to us has contributed to these things, such as your Dad's views on "global cooling"?
ReplyDeleteKayla,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see how beliefs often stemming from political agendas can influence so strongly the ways in which we think about the realness of the world around us. I must say, as a fellow scientist, I applaud you for using your own judgement about the factuality of your parents’ beliefs and coming to conclusions through your own research. I feel as though even if unintentional, the beliefs of our parents are often imposed on their children which biases the ways in which we challenge reality for ourselves.