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In a recent edition of This American Life, Ira Glass interviews a 14-year old named Erin Gustafson at a Glenn Beck rally. Erin thinks that "global warming is propaganda. That's what I believe."
In this clip from the most recent Real Time with Bill Maher, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) holds fast to his opinion that the jury is still out on climate change. He is also, incidentally, of the opinion that evolution is a lie, because he does not "believe a creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day."
This morning, I watched the Frontline report The Vaccine War. The program labors mightily to take an even-handed approach to the so-called debate over whether or not vaccines cause autism, but there was an insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of that objective, namely: the sum total of all medical and scientific data that exists on the subject.
In essence, the Frontline report was about a loud, public battle being waged against science and the public good by non-experts who believe that their opinions and beliefs carry more weight than those of people who have, for example, been to medical school. Former Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy speaks with absolute authority about her [thoroughly debunked] opinion that vaccines cause autism, as though it would be absurd to question the depth of her expertise in the face of her dearly-held belief; Representative Kingston does not need scientists to tell him what God has already told him; and Erin Gustafson is not impressed by her school's curriculum because it flies in the face of what she believes.
Dr. Roberta Johnson, the Executive Director of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is given a chance to sway Erin on the radio. She presents a brief but detailed explanation of the science that has been used to reach the consensus that the climate is warming and changing. Erin is unmoved. Ira Glass asks "Is there anything that any science teacher could say that could convince you of this?" Erin groans a bit and, with greater reluctance than it is possible to convey in print, says "Quite possibly. If I saw both sides of the argument arguing for...both for and against global warming...see those two arguments completely side by side...laid out...then...maybe...I could see how it...would be true...or even more definitely how it isn't true."
And therein lies the problem. There are not two sides to these issues. Unsubstantiated belief is not the other side of a debate with a peer-reviewed expert community. (Surely there are many legitimate, important debates occurring within those expert communities about obscure medical, scientific, historical, epidemiological, and anthropological particulars - but those are based on statistical variations, methodological differences, and the need to hypothesize about the unknown as a scientific method toward filling in the gaps - a method that unequivocally throws out any hypothesis that does not stand up to empirical research.) If you saw "those two arguments completely side by side," you would see one side stacked with 99% of the scientific community and the other with pundits, politicians, radio-hosts, preachers, and perhaps a handful of "experts" who happen to be on the payroll of a major oil company. They have opinions - or, as I would like to propose calling them, fauxpinions.
A fauxpinion is an opinion about a matter on which you have absolutely zero standing to have an opinion in the first place. You can lack standing by virtue of youthful ignorance, ulterior motives, lack of expertise, political allegiance, or brain damage. It doesn't matter. If you lack the education and experience to know jack shit about the subject, you don't get an opinion. You have a fauxpinion. You might, for example, have the fauxpinion that the two bottles of beer in front of me are full of beer, but I'm here to tell you that you're wrong because I have the standing to know that I fucking drank them both already!
Let me take it one step further: On the broad question of evolution, for instance, there is no such thing as opinion or belief. Bill Maher was mistaken to ask Jack Kingston "Do you believe in evolution?" Evolution is not something to be believed in or not believed in. Evolution IS. Some people don't "believe" in the holocaust. Do we give a flying fuck what they believe? No...because they're fucking nuts. Just like Jack Kingston is fucking stupid if he doesn't "believe" in evolution. There is no opinion to be had by a backwater hillbilly from Georgia on the subject. Just like Jenny McCarthy doesn't get to put her tits away and suddenly declare herself knowledgable about the phyisological and neurological effects of vaccines on children - especially when doing so is endangering the rest of the population.
"So," you may be asking, "why are you allowed to 'believe' in climate change, evolution, and the safety of vaccines?" I'll tell you why. Because it's not a belief. It is acceptance of the work of experts in those fields. When you step onto an airplane you don't believe that airplanes have been well engineered or that the aerodynamic princples of flight are true. You accept those facts based on secondhand knowledge. (Patrick Wilson's theory of Cognitive Authority describes the various ways in which we construct knowledge.) Most of us have precious little knowledge in the broad scheme of things and rely almost exclusively on secondhand information. The politicization of certain issues by zealots makes them appear different in nature and as a result people tend to pussyfoot around the naysayers rather than calling them what they are. They are WRONG. They have accepted and are propagating factually incorrect information. Period. They are the equivalent of holocaust deniers. They have decided to reject a specific piece of secondhand knowledge while continuing to rely upon it in nearly every other aspect of their lives.
This epidemic of faux expertise is hugely dangerous. Science matters. Education matters. Is everyone entitled to their opinion? Sure...everyone is entitled to their opinion about whether Ingmar Bergman films are tedious and depressing, or whether Elton John and Rod Stewart should have died sometime around 1985 for the good of their respective legacies. But facts are facts. I could hold the opinion that Sarah Palin has the head of a rabid, snaggle-toothed badger where her vagina should be, but I don't currently have access to the facts and, more importantly, it's either true or it isn't. Opinion doesn't enter into it at all. So I'm not about to go around saying that Sarah Palin has the head of a rabid, snaggle-toothed badger where her vagina should be. That would be a fauxpinion.
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