[ We live in a very different time, where the skeptics see science
not as Truth, but rather as propaganda of the dominant elites to
manipulate and control us.]
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CRISIS OF FAITH: SCIENCE DENIAL AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION  
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John Peeler
October 17, 2023
LA Progressive
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_ We live in a very different time, where the skeptics see science
not as Truth, but rather as propaganda of the dominant elites to
manipulate and control us. _

, Cagle Cartoons: Randall Enos

 

Scientists—those who actually practice scientific
research—understand that scientific findings are never final, are
always subject of revision in light of new evidence. Still, those
findings are routinely made the basis of public policies. They are the
best knowledge we have about the problems we face.

That last sentence means different things to different people. For
scientists, it is a straightforward statement of the state of our
knowledge. For the rest of us, non-scientists, it is a statement of
faith: we believe in the truth of what the scientists are telling us.
Except some of us don’t believe it anymore.

For more than a century, since the late 19th century, science was
believed by pretty much everybody. Christian fundamentalists refused
to accept the evidence for evolution, but even they accepted Newtonian
physics. What we heard from science was, for the vast majority of us,
the Truth.

Now, increasing numbers of us don’t assume that such messages are
true. A prominent feature of right-wing politics these days is
skepticism or outright rejection of such scientific findings as the
efficacy and safety of vaccines, and the dangers of global warming.
Even those not on the Right get into the act: consider the widespread
skepticism toward genetically modified crops and food.

This current crisis of faith in science is just the latest in a series
going back centuries in Western civilization. If you go back to the
Middle Ages in Western Europe, there was just The Church. But after a
thousand years of hegemony, that Church had become corrupt and
sclerotic. There was a crisis of faith in the Church: it was not
meeting the spiritual needs of many people.

After a long and bloody struggle, the Protestants led by Luther and
Calvin came to dominate in the North. In many cases the Protestants
replaced the Catholics as the established churches. Henry VIII
established the Anglican Church, breaking from Rome so he could
divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Other Protestants,
like the Anabaptists, followed the logic of the Reformation to split
off and form independent religious communities.

In France and Southern Europe, the Catholics held on, but the openness
to new ideas that characterized the Renaissance nonetheless undermined
the Church’s authority. Anticlericalism questioned the secular
authority of the Catholic hierarchy. Even where Catholicism remained
established, fewer people were believers. The crisis of faith
continued.

Growing from the Renaissance, a new truth, empirical science, began to
emerge, first with Isaac Newton’s physics, later with such scholars
as Joseph Priestley, and finally with the stunning theory of evolution
developed by Charles Darwin. Even as religious leaders tried to keep
faith alive, ever more people went to church on Sunday but lived
secular lives.

By the late 19th century, religious faith had receded in importance,
being replaced increasingly by a faith in science to point the way to
a better life. Whether in industry or agriculture, whether in public
health, medicine, or education, science was Truth. This high water
mark of popular faith in science would last through the 20th century.

Now we live in a very different time, where the skeptics see science
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as Truth, but rather as propaganda of the dominant elites to
manipulate and control us. Acceotance of scientific findings is now
correlated with partisan loyalties. Republicans are significantly less
likely than Democrats to be fully vaccinated for Covid—and they have
a correspondingly lower life expectancy.

Scientists, meanwhile, keep the faith. They do their research, they
publish their findings, knowing that they are provisional, that they
are not Truth, but are the best knowledge we have.

They are priests who keep the faith, but are losing the faithful.

What will we believe in next?

_JOHN PEELER is a retired professor of political science at Bucknell
University, specializing in Latin American and international affairs.
After growing up in Florida and Georgia, he moved north as a teenager,
and began a lifelong leftward migration. He’s been writing primarily
for LA Progressive since 2008. He continues to live in central
Pennsylvania._

* Science
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* skepticism
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* Propaganda
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* Right wing thought
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