Vaccine Skepticism and Global Warming Denial
Is there some alignment between Americans who are vaccine skeptics and those who deny the reality of global warming? I don’t have any proof, but would bet there is. You can add to that people who deny that evolution is real. The common denominator between all of these is a refusal to acknowledge scientific data and the expertise of scientists. This is a modern controversy similar to the Scopes trial a century ago over the denial of evolution. There is a strong trend among right-wing religious citizens to ignore or disparage information or recommendations that come from scientists and researchers. These citizens are more willing to accept information disseminated on social media from people with no expertise in the fields upon which they are commenting.
Some of these commentators may be educated but not in the areas where they claim to be knowledgeable. Thus, we see President Donald Trump claiming that global warming is a hoax and that drilling and mining for fossil fuels should go full speed ahead to make us energy independent. (Perhaps some of Trump’s embrace of fossil fuels is related to the money his campaign received from fossil fuel companies.) Meanwhile, China is moving ahead with the production of renewable energy, the new technology, employing more than the rest of the world combined. Of course, China still depends on coal and oil, but it is only a matter of time before they switch to renewables completely. They are also supplying other nations with renewables, while the US. leads the world in the production of fossil fuels- the old technology.
China’s leadership also believes in the efficacy of vaccines to prevent infectious diseases, while Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the head of Health and Human Services in the federal government, emphasizes the problems that might occur with the use of vaccines, aiming to cut down their utilization. Because of RFK’s disparagement of vaccines and his changes in the CDC’s vaccine panel, there has been an outbreak of measles in Texas and the Southwest with a number of children dying. Vaccine experts have reaffirmed the safety of vaccines, but Kennedy and his followers have ignored them with claims that vaccines cause autism. The vaccine skeptics have focused on thimerosal which has already been removed from vaccines though no connection was found with autism.
The denial of evolution among groups of religious people goes back to the Scopes Monkey trial in Tennessee 100 years ago. A high school teacher, John Scopes, was tried for violating the State’s Butler Act which forbid the teaching of evolution in the public schools. This was a case of religious fundamentalism against science. Religious fundamentalism won, as Scopes was found guilty. Currently, we have the same problem as the denial of evolution with people refusing to accept the science of climate change and vaccine efficacy. Religion seems to win out in the United States over science, with expertise and knowledge being scorned in favor of religious belief and faith with the absence of any proof.
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Buy The Uninformed Voter on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and your local bookstore.
Posted at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: denial of evolution, denial of global warming, denial of science, expertise, RFK, Scopes trial, Trump, vaccine skepticism
Comments
Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020