Antiscience and Vulnerability to False News in the United States: A Basis in the History of Geologic Theories

Abstract

Disdain for empirical science has a long history dating back to eighteenth-century debates about the Earth’s surface formation. Scientific debates over global catastrophic flooding and the Earth’s geologic age were resolved by the mid-nineteenth century, but subsequent nonscientific debates about the Earth’s age and biological evolution spawned a distrust of science that hardened in the twentieth century. Disregard for science grew in the United States with abandonment of science-based policy by government and manipulation of public opinion by social media. Consequently, climate change denial was readily accepted by a preconditioned antiscience culture. Expansion of antiscience sentiment led to rejection of conventional news outlets and information verification in a “post-truth” era in which alternate realities are acceptable despite clear contradictions with observable facts. Critical reasoning and vetting of information are in decline, which leaves democracy vulnerable to manipulation. Reliable information is available but obscured by disinformation. Public scrutiny of information and demand for fact checking and reporting of sources are essential given growth of alternative media that have no checks on the verity of content. Academics should get involved in popular media to counter propaganda and to reconstruct a culture of critical reasoning by voters and science-based decisions by policymakers. Key Words: antiscience, critical reasoning, democracy, history of science.