Why does the sun rise in the east and set in the west? According to a recent survey by the National Science Foundation, 1 in 4 Americans believe it’s because the Sun circles the Earth.
That the Earth was the center of the cosmos was, of course, a mainstay of what passed for science for thousands of years. But little by little – first with Copernicus and later with Galileo – this belief fell away, replaced by the knowledge that the Earth orbits the Sun. Somehow, though, that news has yet to reach 25% of Americans. Ironically, it’s even worse in Europe, birthplace of this knowledge. There 1 in 3 don’t know the Earth goes around the Sun.
Does it matter, though, that so many people know nothing about science? After all, so long as people don’t believe it’s a good idea to follow lemmings off a cliff, does it really matter what they do believe?
Bill Nye, the “Science Guy,” thinks it does. Nye recently debated creationist Ken Ham at Kentucky’s Creation Museum. Ham believes everything in the Bible is true and anything that contradicts it is false. Nye maintains that by rejecting science — the basis of our technology — beliefs such as Ham’s jeopardize our nation’s future.
Both Nye and Ham seem sincere in their beliefs, and both would seem to be reasonably intelligent men. Ham believes that “science has been hijacked by secularists” while Nye believes that reason is superior to religious dogma in providing the foundation for knowledge. Which is right – science or religion – is a question that many people grapple with, and though there is middle ground, many refuse to see it.
This debate isn’t unique to the Christian world either; there is strong pressure in the Islamic world to reject science in favor of the Koran. A conference was even held in Pakistan to discuss ways to generate electricity using Genies – apparently there are people who believe that the powers Barbara Eden possessed in that old sitcom I Dream Of Jeannie are real. And they are running much of the Moslem world.
As easy as it is to mock such beliefs, it’s important to remember that humans hold their beliefs so dear that wars are routinely fought over them. Beliefs are vital to our psychological well-being, yet beliefs sometimes have little connection to reality. In fact, our ability to deny reality in favor of belief may be one of human kind’s most successful survival strategies.
In a new book entitled Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind authors Ajit Varki and Danny Brower assert that denying the realities of suffering and death has allowed humanity to prosper. Our ancestors through most of history would not have been inspired to do much, they say, if they’d realized how bleak their future actually was.
Belief in ourselves, belief in the future are essential to living a good life, and have enabled us to create a world – for better or for worse – that no other species could. The problem with belief – whether scientific or religious – comes when we believe we know everything — this makes us unwilling to accept new information.
Denial is a double-edged sword; denying how bleak the future is may be essential to human achievement. But denying that there could be more to the Universe than our text books — or holy books — explain denies us a chance to grow. And our capacity to grow is much more important than is our tendency to deny inconvenient truths. Without growth, there is no future, and there’s no denying that.