Climate change denial, though extremely dangerous, is but a symptom of a greater sickness that has long afflicted human civilization and still persists today. Our progress as a society is challenged every day by climate denialists and their close cousins...antivaxxers, creationists, homeopaths, tobacco risk deniers, ufologists, HIV/AIDS deniers, and on and on and on.
These people believe they have been granted the authority to question and defame experts who employ the best method we humans have developed for understanding the world around us (i.e.: science), because they have indeed succeeded in plying their despicable wares. Unfortunately, the sad fact of the matter is our own human failings have enabled this bravado. Unlike their snake oil remedies, scientific truths necessitate our patience because they come to us slowly, over decades or centuries, through a dogged, deliberate process of repeated verification. Individual instances of peer-reviewed research can be a long, difficult path, and scientific consensus, such as that behind climate change, can take even longer to establish. Anti-science, on the other hand, is the quick and easy path leading ultimately to failure and darkness. And people are often so desperate for answers they will risk this darkness, or so deluded they can't see the inevitability of their choice, or even go so far as to deny the outcome. It's really that simple. Science denial is nothing more than a dead-end shortcut offered by the devious that can and will fool people, because who wants to hear, "Well, the solutions are complicated, time-intensive, and laborious," rather than, "Sure, I got exactly what you need right here, so step right up?"
This is the deceitful bait anti-science screwballs set on their hooks to snag people with very little self-control, attention span, and education. They encourage and capitalize on ignorance. They promise immediate, unfailing results for dispelling the "frightening" unknown, whereas scientists, if they are honest, must give long, nuanced explanations, and complicated probabilities, and ask for more research dollars and time to solve the difficult problems we face.
This is the constant vigil those who seek provable, testable results must maintain on a daily basis, and throughout their careers; the constant temptation with which they are ever at odds. The fictional circumstances in the Garden of Eden pale in comparison. Science denial is the real fall from grace.
But is there more to it? Do denialists thrive and achieve influence simply because we are too impatient to wait for published agreement and well-researched answers? Because we are too lazy/busy to read, and too scientifically-illiterate to understand the journal findings on our own? There has to be more to it. Even when the plain, inarguable facts are delivered on a gleaming, silver platter, as with climate science, they are received with suspicion and distrust, and all too often the snake oil is preferred. Where does this lack of trust come from? Why do entire segments of society as well as, at times, all of human civilization backslide into such counterproductive behavior when it is so clearly wrong and self-destructive? It all boils down to the success of one historical example. One bit of persistent science denial (and it's a doozy, folks) has repeatedly proven since antiquity that it is a reliable means of seizing societal control. It is a potent tool that can be wielded by a determined, rapacious few to gain power over many. Unlike the hard slog of science, against which it is often pitted, it is the easy way out, and therefore incredibly seductive and menacing to our prosperity. But let's allow a much more gifted cultural expositor to explain the elephant in the room here...
Religion is the Godfather, if you will, of all pseudoscience. Long before we had logic, reason, and peer review to show us the way, religion attempted to answer the great questions. Who are we? How did we get here? What made all the animals, plants, terrain, and oceans we see? What made the stars? What are the stars? What exists above the clouds besides the Sun, Moon, and stars? And so on. In a way, religion can be forgiven for these early transgressions and displays of arrogance. After all, we had nothing else to guide us. But when philosophy and reason crept into our consciousness, thought processes, and public discourse, it should have bowed out. It did not. Instead, it raged. And it won. And these successes, these grand victories of the ultimate pseudoscience, which were meaningfully curtailed only during and after the Enlightenments, are what inform the charlatans we still deal with to this day. The modern-day diálymancers.
If you are looking for a reason why we have to deal with ignorant climate change deniers, you need search no further than religion. It is still everywhere. It is still influential to a troubling degree. And its sensational, historical triumphs still instruct the mentally and morally bankrupt.
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