Lily Kane/Winonan
Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of “Fool Me Twice”, presented “Science, Politics, and the future of Democracy” in the Science Lab Center at Winona State University on April 4.
Otto discussed his views on how science-related questions have been dealt with in America’s politics.
There are many topics in today’s politics that deal with science-related issues such as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, food, environment, population, and the big one: climate change.
Otto discussed climate change in detail because it is an important issue that he believes isn’t getting talked about properly.
However, Otto thinks that all of these topics need to have a better understanding for government leaders to be making better policies.
A big problem with congress is that out of 535 members only nine have backgrounds in science (one microbiologist, two physicists and six engineers.)
Comparing this to the 226 that are lawyers, the problem becomes apparent.
While Jefferson originally believed that if people were well informed they would have the ability to make policies, it seems the people are no longer well informed.
One small case that Otto used to present the idea of no longer being well informed was back when a case study came out that said that phones could cause cancer. If looked at closely, the case also said that this probability was almost non-existent, but people got scared and policies that weren’t necessary were made.
The main point, though, is that the waves emitted from a phone are the size of a pea, so the damage they could do to use is about the same as getting hit by a pea.
The same idea applies to climate control; people are not looking at the scientific facts. Since they can’t see or picture the harm they don’t believe it’s there or they do believe it but then it starts to fall into the roll of religion and beliefs, not facts.
There is two key concepts that Otto wanted people to understand. The first was that science is never partisan. The second was that science is always political.
Right now there is a “cold civil war” over science in politics. Both sides have a say on science but neither side had the input of actual scientists. More so they never really debate the issues of science.
In the 2008 presidential elections there were five talk show hosts that interviewed the candidates, a total of 171 interviews, and out of the total 3,000 questions asked, only six were about climate change.
Herein lies the main problem. It’s the media’s job to be a check and balance on the government and hold them accountable for what they do. But if the media isn’t doing that and people are getting bad information, how are they supposed to govern?
This problem can be fixed and Otto gives many ways to do so: hold the media accountable, blog about science, speak up for objectivity, complain about inaccurate data, go to sciencedebate.org and, of course, read Otto’s book, “Fool Me Twice”.
Contact Lily at [email protected]
