The Hills Have Eyes

Yesterday, I saw a Facebook post regarding the recent developments in the study of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). In case you haven’t heard, researchers have identified that it’s not excess stomach acid backing up into the esophagus that’s the culprit but an inflammatory response to the secretion of proteins called cytokines. It’s no secret that the Internet is full of unfiltered, uneducated, unresearched opinions, but one post I saw when scrolling through reactions to this news stated that because scientists had assumed excessive stomach acid was the cause and were wrong, science is wrong about everything from vaccines to global warming. I clicked on the woman’s page, because how could I not? And I was met with anti-government memes and sloganeering stating things like, “If you keep sending you children to Caesar’s schools, how can you keep them from becoming Romans.” I was just sort of frozen in…I’m not even sure what the word was. I guess the trite but simplest way to put it was this woman’s profile made me fear for the future of humankind. And then I wondered why I had clicked on her page at all. What is it that pulled me down that black hole of ignorance? There are so many better things I could be doing with my time. It’s not like I feel validated or better about myself for looking at her page and hating on it. I’m not learning how the other side thinks because I know very well there are people who believe science is a sham rather than a method of investigating and understanding the world, a method that’s subject to change based on new information that comes to light. All I can really chalk it up to is impulse control. Before I got an iPhone I was much better about not checking the Internet every few minutes, but my impulse control has all be shot to hell since acquiring one. It’s an addiction as bad as any drug around. Just look around you. People checking all the time without any regard for personal safety whether they’re walking or driving down the street. But here I digress (and an anti-technology digression here kind of detracts my pro-science point; not that you can’t be pro-science and wary of certain technologies, right? But again, I’m digressing).

Full disclosure: I’m not a scientist, and I understand that there are people who make science into a faith where they accept every discovery or development as absolute truth. But from my layman’s understanding, science at its most pure is open to change based on the introduction of new evidence. Newton had an idea of physics that worked with most things but not all. So they used his ideas until Einstein came along with something that worked better but still didn’t work entirely. But that’s just it. Scientists don’t just assume they have one thing figured out and that’s that and stop investigating. They keep going, and if the thing they’ve figured out stops being correct, they change their thinking. This is a little different than faith, say, where if new evidence comes to light, you either have to find a way to make it fit with some metaphorical passage in an esoteric text written thousands of years ago or disregard it as an untruth. That’s why I’m decidedly pro-science. This woman saw that science had made an error and carried that to the nth degree with the assumption that an error in one area of biology meant that climate science and medicine were wrong too. Or maybe I’m being presumptive, and it’s not all science she believes wrong, but just the theories she doesn’t like. Still, it’s frustrating because you know that someone like that will never listen to reason. Did you ever fly on a plane lady? How do you think humans figured out how to make that plane fly? Science! And you know, there were things that were wrong about the first planes, so they used new discoveries to make better planes. And if you haven’t flown, because someone like you strikes me as the type who hasn’t ventured too far out of her own zip code, have you driven a car at least? How do think humans figured out how to make cars? The internal combustion engine? That’s right, science. And the first cars had some problems that scientists worked on to make better cars. So if you don’ t like science, stop driving. And even you don’t drive, you’re obviously using a computer and how do you think that computer came to be? Maybe you should just stop using the computer. In fact, you should probably stop living in a house too, go back to the caves, eat raw meat…and, well, at this point I’m picturing that family of mutant savages from The Hills Have Eyes so it’s probably best you stay put and updated us on Facebook where we can keep an eye on you.