I've ranted about this before (I think that I have although I can't find the particular post) but it is always a topic worth revisiting. Modern humans live in a world filled with amazing technology: tablets, mobile phones, satellites, GPS, digital books, microwaves. Nearly all of us use these things daily, either directly or indirectly, without any understanding at all of how they work, how they are built, the physics that control their functioning.
Americans are my usual target as they are particularly scientifically illiterate for a country that consumes a big chunk of the world's technology resources. However, it turns out that pretty much everybody is fair game to be lumped into the "scientific idiot" group.
Two weeks ago at work an email was circulated around by the secretary network. Quite a few of the executive secretaries maintain large, informal mailing lists to which they send bcc announcements of yard sales, ads for air fare promotions, and other relatively useful but benign bits of information. But sometimes things a bit more insidious make their way into this informal network.
The email said that people in the area were receiving mysterious "hang up" calls from numbers with Lithuanian and Ukrainian country codes and warned us to not call the mystery number back under any circumstances or immediate doom would befall us. If the call was returned, all of the contact info on our phone would be stripped, and the bad guys would get our credit card info and huge charges would suddenly appear on our account.
Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Cell phones don't work that way. You might incur a per-minute charge for calling that weird number but unless you gave the scammers on the other end your contact info or your credit card number, they certainly couldn't get it automatically.
I copied a web page debunking the scam from a hoax buster site and emailed it to the secretary of my area, suggesting that she might not want to forward emails without checking their veracity first.
Then last week another email made the rounds of the secretary network. This one had an internal forward claiming that it came from a manager over in Aramco's Fire Department. Well, it must be true then, right? It's got that stamp of authenticity right there in the email header!
The email told a story (undated and without mention of source) of a woman who had been driving in the rain with cruise control on in her car. When she stepped on the brakes, her car "took off like an airplane"! The story had lots of detail, like her name and the city where this was supposed to have occurred, but nothing that could be substantiated. These are all characteristics of hoaxes or "urban myths."
Of course, this story is total nonsense as well. People that believe it are basically making a public announcement that they drive two-ton-plus weapons on a daily basis and have no fucking idea how they work.
I typed "car hydroplane hoax" into Google and got over 170,000 hits. I snipped the main search page and forwarded it to my local area secretary without comment.
What's the take home here? First, basic concepts of science, math, and engineering are not being taught to everyone even though everyone needs them. I'm not talking about elite concepts reserved only for specialists but basic principles of physics, algebra, electricity, kinetics, etc.
And second, the ability to read and logically analyze information is a skill that has been lost now for a couple of generations. Very few of my peers are able to present coherent arguments for or against a particular view without resorting to tautologies or ad hominem attacks (it is because it is, or you are wrong because you're a poopyhead). Almost no young people I interact with can present linear narratives (A happened yesterday which caused B today which will result in C tomorrow). And yes, I am aware that I just presented two pseudo-anecdotes in support of my argument and anecdotes do not prove anything either. Sure, my blog, my soapbox. But hopefully I will spur you to research these ideas yourself instead of taking my word for it.
There is good evidence in the geological and biological records that most Cenozoic species (that have existed in the last 65 million years or so) generally endure between 1 and 5 million years before disappearing. There are plenty of days when I am quite sure that Homo sapiens won't even make it to half a million.
Americans are my usual target as they are particularly scientifically illiterate for a country that consumes a big chunk of the world's technology resources. However, it turns out that pretty much everybody is fair game to be lumped into the "scientific idiot" group.
Two weeks ago at work an email was circulated around by the secretary network. Quite a few of the executive secretaries maintain large, informal mailing lists to which they send bcc announcements of yard sales, ads for air fare promotions, and other relatively useful but benign bits of information. But sometimes things a bit more insidious make their way into this informal network.
The email said that people in the area were receiving mysterious "hang up" calls from numbers with Lithuanian and Ukrainian country codes and warned us to not call the mystery number back under any circumstances or immediate doom would befall us. If the call was returned, all of the contact info on our phone would be stripped, and the bad guys would get our credit card info and huge charges would suddenly appear on our account.
Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Cell phones don't work that way. You might incur a per-minute charge for calling that weird number but unless you gave the scammers on the other end your contact info or your credit card number, they certainly couldn't get it automatically.
I copied a web page debunking the scam from a hoax buster site and emailed it to the secretary of my area, suggesting that she might not want to forward emails without checking their veracity first.
Then last week another email made the rounds of the secretary network. This one had an internal forward claiming that it came from a manager over in Aramco's Fire Department. Well, it must be true then, right? It's got that stamp of authenticity right there in the email header!
The email told a story (undated and without mention of source) of a woman who had been driving in the rain with cruise control on in her car. When she stepped on the brakes, her car "took off like an airplane"! The story had lots of detail, like her name and the city where this was supposed to have occurred, but nothing that could be substantiated. These are all characteristics of hoaxes or "urban myths."
Of course, this story is total nonsense as well. People that believe it are basically making a public announcement that they drive two-ton-plus weapons on a daily basis and have no fucking idea how they work.
I typed "car hydroplane hoax" into Google and got over 170,000 hits. I snipped the main search page and forwarded it to my local area secretary without comment.
What's the take home here? First, basic concepts of science, math, and engineering are not being taught to everyone even though everyone needs them. I'm not talking about elite concepts reserved only for specialists but basic principles of physics, algebra, electricity, kinetics, etc.
And second, the ability to read and logically analyze information is a skill that has been lost now for a couple of generations. Very few of my peers are able to present coherent arguments for or against a particular view without resorting to tautologies or ad hominem attacks (it is because it is, or you are wrong because you're a poopyhead). Almost no young people I interact with can present linear narratives (A happened yesterday which caused B today which will result in C tomorrow). And yes, I am aware that I just presented two pseudo-anecdotes in support of my argument and anecdotes do not prove anything either. Sure, my blog, my soapbox. But hopefully I will spur you to research these ideas yourself instead of taking my word for it.
There is good evidence in the geological and biological records that most Cenozoic species (that have existed in the last 65 million years or so) generally endure between 1 and 5 million years before disappearing. There are plenty of days when I am quite sure that Homo sapiens won't even make it to half a million.
No comments:
Post a Comment