With science, you don’t get to pick what to accept
I’m back, with more questions.
These ones are for the anti-vax, anti-science, climate change-denying, conspiracy theorist morons out there.
Sorry, is my language indelicate? Too bad. It’s time the sane, rational people of the world start fighting fire with fire with these idiots.
Measles outbreaks? A resurgence of whooping cough? In 2024? Congratulations, you’re the cause of that. For what? So you can take us back to a simpler time? The good old days? Like the good old days of polio outbreaks? Cholera? The plague?
So you don’t believe in the science behind vaccines, eh? Just like you didn’t believe in it with COVID-19?
Have you ever flown in an airplane? How do you think that worked? Do you think it’s a magic silver tube held aloft by pixies? Of course not. You’re relying on the physics behind flight, which states that if lift and thrust can overcome drag, mass and gravity, an item will rise into the air and remain aloft.
That gas-guzzling pickup truck decked out with Canadian flags you ride around in, how about that? Do you really think there are hundreds of tiny horses under the hood giving it the horsepower that makes it move?
Of course not.
You believe in the science of the internal combustion engine. (But of course you probably had that one figured out because you’re likely also part of the “axe the tax” mob too, trying to protect your right to burn fossil fuels).
When you turn on Fox News and Tucker Carlson and the other slobbering fools who help confirm your idiocy, do you think they’re actually inside that wondrous flat panel you have plugged into the wall? Of course not. You believe in the complicated science of how pictures and sound can be transformed into electronic signals and transmitted over long distances.
Same with that box of wizardry we call a computer, which allows you to rat-tat-tap conspiracy theories to the other denizens of your echo chamber.
Did you make plans to watch the eclipse? (Gentle reminder: don’t be like your patron saint, Donald Trump, and stare directly at it). How did you know there would even be an eclipse? Guesswork? Your Ouija board told you? Of course not. It’s the science of astronomy.
But vaccines? That’s where you draw the line? That’s the science you don’t believe?
See, here’s the thing about science. You don’t get to pick and choose the parts you accept and the parts you won’t accept.
Science isn’t a religion, it’s a process. A rigorous process at that.
Science is “the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.” That’s the actual definition.
It involves critical analysis. It involves repetition. It involves verification and testing. It involves exposure to scrutiny and peer review.
I happen to know a little bit about this. Before I was a journalist, I earned a university degree in human biology. In fact, I think starting out in science helped make me a better journalist.
My science background helped me approach my writing projects with order and logic, helped me gather information, make sense of it and synthesize it into a coherent picture.
And finally, if you are one of these anti-vax, anti-science conspiracy theorists and if, God forbid, you get the unfortunate news you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, I’d better not see you at the Juravinski centre lined up for chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Because if you say you don’t trust the science behind vaccines, how on earth can you say you trust the even more complicated science that lies at the heart of modern cancer treatments?
Feel free to try any of the unproven quackery out there instead, like horse urine extracts or coffee enemas or music therapy, and see how those work out.
Stop the foolishness. Stop the hypocrisy. There’s no excuse to be uneducated in 2024.