Ignorance And Power (Tony Heller)

What would Carl Sagan know about having a healthy distrust of authority?! A lot ! And yet the lessons he dished out seem to have been forgot. He reminds us that science is NOT a body of knowledge but a way of thinking - with a fine understanding of human fallibility.

"If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious leader who comes ambling along". He says people have to be educated and exercise their skepticism or else they will lose control of the Government that is supposed to serve their interests (protect their rights).

In considering what he says about charlatan political leaders, our problem today is that people running various institutions in the USA, whether it is the CDC or the FDA, or even NASA, are highly political people. If you go back to the causes of the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion that killed 7 astronauts, a lot of the blame can be placed on the political leadership overriding concerns made by engineers. When it comes to health today, the oversight bodies are corrupted by big pharma money so that unsafe products are getting a free pass. These are the sorts of political people in authority that Sagan warned about, or it's right next door to what he is saying here. In any event it is vitally important to exercise one's skeptical and scientific mind.

It is a Very Bad idea to simply trust any source of authority at face value. We had the Enlightenment period in our history for a good reason. If logic and data reveal problems with what we are told then it's our duty to be skeptical and to look further. Otherwise we are selling ourselves, and other people, short ... and crapping on the hard won wisdom of the past.

[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, May 24, 2023.]