Policy is front and center when it comes to change, or lack thereof. Policy is what directly affects our daily lives. We can sit and bemoan day and night and when it comes to progress, our hands are tied if we don’t have the proper plans in place to see the desired outcome for a more beneficial life. Everyone wants to talk about the 1st, and the 2nd amendment which are certainly impactful, but on a micro level there are conversations that need to be had about how the government is failing us, and why.

We are, by and large, scientifically illiterate and are quite naturally drawn to pseudoscience because it doesn’t require the empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since the 17th century, but instead only relies on statements, beliefs, and practices that only claim to be factual and scientific. It’s why there are people who believe the earth is flat, and on a level closer to most of us, it is why people believe in the fake news conspiracy.

Frankly, we are moving farther and farther away from a civilization that demands our leaders to understand science. I believe that in 1995 when Republicans gained control of the Senate and the House, they defunded the Office of Technology Assessment because they deemed it as wasteful and worked against GOP interests. The was the one office of administration that would examine issues involving new technologies, assess their impacts, and analyze alternative policies to avert crisis, and call on scientific expertise to advise the executive branch.

Now, with no one reporting to congress potential ways to assure we are teaching our kids ways to be skeptical, we are raising the next generation to have to filter all of the information they are getting on a daily basis. What we have is a recipe for disaster, and we are already watching it unfold. We have abandoned all of the criteria that have gotten us many of the advances when science mattered.

Obviously there are still those who are working in private sectors who follow the scientific method, but what happens 10 to 15 years from now, when they are fewer and farther in between? Scientists are not born, they are nurtured through careful and purposeful means of education. We have to bring the scientist out of the individual and we are falling behind because our senses are being dulled with all of the screens in front of us with information overload. It is not hard to believe almost anything you see, especially with AI and CGI, social media, people are influenced easily and often.

Critical thinking becomes paramount for the future and there must be involvement from the scientific community to advise Congress and the Executive Branch of our government to come up with ways to educate our children and get them interested in what science is and how it is different from pseudoscience.

There is fake news, it just isn’t what conservatives are saying it is, they are the fake news, and they are responsible for its stranglehold on our youngest citizens.

The destruction of intellect is completely on the laps of our populace that elected them. The republican right has played the long game and they have damaged our image beyond repair. 2023 us looking in the mirror at 1980 us are two completely different images. From our intent to our impact, we are miles apart, and the only semblance is empathy. That’s the difference between the left and the right. It is what drives me more than anything else

Ann Developer Siegle, Administrator

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