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By Geoff Carter
We’re a country that loves its heroes, especially superheroes. We love those guys like nobody’s business. Over the past decade or so, we’ve been inundated—absolutely permeated—with them. There’s the Marvel Universe, the D.C. Universe, Spiderman, Superman, Thor, Black Widow, and a plethora of other fantasy heroes; they’re good clean fun. And very lucrative for the movie studios.
We love our real-life heroes too. First responders, EMTs, soldiers, police officers, and—lately—our health care professionals have earned their share of respect, too. And rightly so. They risk their lives to protect the population at large. Then there is the extraordinary valor of Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg, Emma Gonzalez, and David Hogg, activists barely out of their teens who are ready to put their lives on the line for climate reform, women’s rights, and gun control.
Lately, though, it seems there has been a significant segment of our society whose heroic accomplishments have been largely ignored: the men and women of science who have relentlessly searched for truth and fought against ignorance, superstition, and powerful forces—including organized religion—in their unceasing quest for knowledge.
Scientists have a long and storied history of moral courage. Galileo was labeled a blasphemer and heretic for his discoveries concerning planetary movement, found in contempt of papal doctrine, and was subsequently sentenced to house arrest by the Catholic Church. Darwin was reviled and scorned for his work The Origin of the Species, the seminal research that defined the revolutionary theory of evolution. He never lived to see widespread acceptance of his work. When Edward Jenner proposed using pus from a cowpox infection as one of the first vaccines against the scourge of smallpox, he was scoffed at. So were Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, Sir Alexander Fleming, Bill Gates, and Anthony Fauci for their pioneering works in the medical field. Yet they were courageous enough to stand by their guns, even under threat of excommunication, expatriation, or worse.
These great researchers and thinkers were convinced about their scientific assumptions. They observed, they hypothesized, they surmised, and they came to sometimes surprising and amazing conclusions like the world is round, the Earth does revolve around the sun, germs do cause infection, and viruses cause disease. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Man has only existed three hundred thousand years, a tiny fraction of that time. At one time—long before humankind appeared on the scene—dinosaurs ruled the planet.
Engineers and researchers used these scientific concepts to build great pyramids, to harness electricity and the atom, and to virtually wipe out scourges like smallpox, polio, and rabies. Aerospace engineers have sent men to the moon and automated probes to other planets in our solar system. In only the last forty years, personal computers have become mainstays in our lives. Information is more easily accessible than ever. Medical science has been making gigantic strides in its battle against cancer, heart disease, and even Alzheimer’s. Farmers use the tools of genetic engineering to create healthier and more productive crops.
Not everyone, however, recognizes the value of science. Some Christian evangelicals still reject Darwin’s theory of evolution because it contradicts the Bible. These doubters maintain that since (according to the Bible) the Earth is only six thousand years old, man must have existed alongside the dinosaur—evidence of geology, paleontology, archeology, and carbon dating be damned.
The Flat Earth society still maintains that (because it looks flat to them) the Earth is a flattened disc and use extraordinarily specious arguments to prove that NASA and other mysterious organizations are conspiring to conceal that fact from everyone else on Earth.
But the most disturbing group of scientific doubters are the anti-vaxxers. Originally marginalized groups of self-proclaimed “experts” who claimed that vaccines caused everything from deafness to autism to neurological disorders, these skeptics have rejected the viability of the Covid 19 vaccines. How often have we heard, “I did my own research”? Many have refused to get their shots. As a result, thousands have died, and many more thousands have become infected with new virulent strains of the virus. Because of that, hospital ICUs in some states are packed to overflowing causing excessive strain on medical facilities and providers.
The irony is that many of the patients being treated in the ICUs are those who refused to get their shots, probably getting their anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories from the Facebook apps on their state-of-the-art smartphones. Apparently, these doubters can pick and choose which aspects of science they like. Don’t trust the doctors that tell you get vaccinated, but it’s okay to trust their treatment in the ICU. Apparently, it’s also okay to use aspirin, Neosporin, band-aids, sinus pills, and those prescription anti-depressants brought to you by decades of intensive scientific research.
Don’t trust verified news sources (because somebody somewhere your second cousin knows said it’s fake news), but don’t be afraid to trust the technology that brings you the latest rumors on your anti-vax page.
Don’t believe the repeated warnings about climate change, but trust and believe the meteorologists who bring you the daily forecast every night on the six o’clock news (or your trusty smartphone). It’s all brought to you by science.
Our culture, our technology, and our society are all built on scientific research. To reject it out of hand—or to cherry pick only the facts that fit into an ideology—is to reject everything we are and is as thoughtless and immature as a teenager who spurns his parents’ bourgeoise middle-class attitudes while in the same breath demanding the car keys. Our homes, workplaces, health, and understanding of our place on Earth and in the universe would be unrecognizable without science.
We rose out of the dark ages because of pioneers like Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, Lister, and Einstein. We cannot afford to let forces of misinformation and superstitious conspiracy mongers pull us back into these depths. The minds and hearts that bring us scientific truth and its benefits should not be trivialized, mocked, and reviled. They might not have superpowers, but they are still the heroes that brought us the lives we live today.