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141 " A scientific theory is the one explanation that is confirmed by all the known and validated experiments performed to date. Experiments involving evolution have numbered in the hundreds of thousands over the past 150 years. A theory is thus among the most certain forms of scientific knowledge, with evolution among the most certain of theories. "
― Shawn Lawrence Otto , The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It
142 " The central idea of postmodernist thinking was that both traditional religion and the Enlightenment had gotten it wrong: there is no such thing as objective truth, and any claim of objectivity is suspect. "
143 " With its broad use, weeds are now adapting by becoming glyphosate-resistant in the same way superbugs are becoming antibiotic-resistant. "
144 " scientists may be “authorities” in their fields and able to speak “with authority” on a given topic, what authority they have comes only from the antiauthoritarian exploration of nature. It is not grounded in the scientist, but in the evidence from nature itself. "
145 " Any claims of scientific objectivity were simply myths used to preserve or gain power, similar to the claims of religion. You had to figure out what the vested interests of the speaker were to get at what he or she was really communicating. "
146 " God could have created all this.” Sure. Why not? But it’s got nothing to do with knowledge, which flows, as Locke demonstrated, from observation. "
147 " Science, by its very foundation on Bacon, Locke, and empiricism, limits itself to probabilistic conclusions that explain observations of the physical world. Science makes no statements about the ultimate reality outside of these limitations, and teaching that it can is a corruption of its clarity of thought. "
148 " Other ads claimed the science behind global warming was “a hoax” and called it “the greatest scam in history,” quoting climate-change denier John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel. "
149 " The best definition we have found for civilization,” he wrote, “is that a civilized man does what is best for all, while the savage does what is best for himself. Civilization is but a huge mutual insurance company against human selfishness. "
150 " The Exxon Valdez oil spill is a case in point: litigation took decades to make it through the courts and was ultimately resolved for a fraction of the actual loss. Clearly, this route to accountability is ineffective, unjust, and inefficient. "
151 " Thus all approaches to knowledge must be deconstructed to expose hidden biases and assumptions. “What differs? Who differs? What is différance?” asked Derrida. "
152 " Many journalists believe there is no such thing as objectivity, rendering otherwise brilliant minds unable to discern between objective knowledge developed from years of scientific investigation, on the one hand, and a well-argued opinion made by an impassioned and charismatic advocate on the other. This problem extends beyond journalists. Cumulatively, newspaper editors have allowed themselves to be heavily manipulated by antiscience public-relations campaigns. "
153 " By elevating subjectivity, one could dismiss science’s claim to objectivity as just the internal values of one of many cultures. Then the troublesome implications of science (that there is an objective reality) were easily dispensed with as the undeconstructed claims of a power elite seeking to maintain that power. Suddenly everything seemed new and mysterious and possible again. "
154 " We have globalized the economy but have no global regulatory structure, and so have recreated the Wild West on a global scale, requiring the battles over labor and environmental standards be fought anew. "
155 " They chase the cheapest labor, the weakest environmental regulation, and the lowest taxes under the premise that they are creating shareholder value, when in a bounded pasture they are in fact destroying it. "
156 " Science, by contrast, has no voices speaking on its behalf from the pulpit or almost anywhere else in the political dialogue. So it’s not hard to imagine how such a vast swing in public opinion on evolution could happen over a few short years. "
157 " Ultimately, the war on science comes down to the rise of authoritarianism—corporate authoritarianism, antigovernment authoritarianism, religious authoritarianism, and, in its rejection of objectivity, a rejection of the idea that we could all work together with a common view from both nowhere and everywhere to make life better for everyone while preserving and improving our shared home. "
158 " Lyotard rejected what he called the defining narratives of modern white Western culture, and announced the postmodern age. The postmodern era was to be a time when we could do away with the ideologies upon which modern culture had relied: religious, political, economic, familial, scientific, and others. These ideologies were exposed as so many fables we had created to comfort ourselves or oppress others. "
159 " The teaching that there is no objective reality, but rather many subjective realities—or, in this case, that subjective realities are on par with objective reality—degrades students’ views of the primacy of knowledge and increases the education gap rather than closing it. It is no wonder that there is so much antiscience in Western culture—we’ve been teaching it for forty years. "
160 " Absolutism is considered morally objectionable because it leads to intolerance, but that is only true when it is applied to a matter of “faith, or opinion, but not knowledge.” In the case of science, precisely the opposite has proven to be true. By acknowledging that there is an objective reality, and that we can form knowledge about that reality by using science and observation, we remove questions of fact from the authoritarian argument "