Letter: Voters choose candidates based on ignorance

Editor,

American politics is quite silly — absurd, even. This irreverent perspective goes beyond a critique of the veneration that cartoon characters like Donald Trump receive from much of the conservative body politic: It is a viewpoint that strikes at a very deep, very real problem that appears to be embedded in the American political fabric.

The problem, you see, is the American voter’s dutiful allegiance to a willful culture of ignorance. American culture, broadly speaking, is not well-known for scientific literacy. After all, we are rather good at turning out high school students who simply do not measure up in STEM areas compared to students from many other “developed” or “First-World” nations.

This, in turn, means that science is not respected for what it is: the most effective tool in building models that accurately (with some degree of approximation, of course, for you philosophy of science fans out there) reflect reality. In fact, scientific evidence — and I mean actual scientific evidence that is at once rigorous and comprehensive — does not seem to play much of a role in American politics.

Consequently, American politics goes like this:

We are drawn to candidates who believe that, no, human-caused global warming is not really an important matter. This, despite the voluminous body of scientific evidence to the contrary. Now, let’s go set up some more oil pipelines (much of the body politic loves their hydrocarbons).

We are drawn to candidates who fervently argue that there is an undocumented migrant “crime wave.” The rather extensive scholarly, scientific research, of course, is quite resounding in its conclusion: actually, no, the undocumented population does not increase crime, and in fact functions in a sociobiological context to decrease crime. But still, why don’t we let our xenophobic alarm of the “Other” (the “Other, in fact, being an imaginary construct of prejudiced minds keen on creating arbitrary social dichotomies in the name of power) take hold of us? We can blame this faceless “Other” for our problems, too.

We are drawn to candidates (not necessarily presidential ones) who align themselves with anti-GMO activists and anti-vaxxers. I am lumping the two together because they have a common denominator: an utter disdain for scientific evidence and all that entails.

We are drawn to candidates who, without any professional training in bioethics, have the audacity to comment and hold strident views on abortion, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

The list could go on and on. It would touch fields as diverse as economics and social justice (though, to be sure, these two are intrinsically, inexorably interwoven).

Is it necessary for the obvious to be belabored? That a long-lasting and just democracy requires informed voters — voters who are not informed solely by political pundits, newspaper articles and news sites? It is regrettable that it has come to this, but it should have been predictable: without an effective education system that turns out scientifically literate students, the whole American edifice comes tumbling down.

Sincerely,

Livingstone Marmon

Former student