How do we deal with this epidemic of ignorance?

username1204031

Our society is full of people trying to make decisions on complex matters they know nothing about. People who outright deny facts and scientific consensus, or just aren't prepared to understand the intricacies of situations. Our policy is more and more based on "intuition" and puritan "morals" and less and less on facts.

Research and real-world observations show that the most successful education systems are the ones that are becoming more liberal, like the Finnish system. Our government took us in the exact opposite direction, taking us back in time to a far less effective system with no scientific basis whatsoever.

Research and real-world observations show that drug criminalisation simply does not work, and that decriminalisation decreases violent crime, decreases addiction rates, decreases the money going into gangs and does not lead to an increase in drug use. Our government is taking us, once again, in the exact opposite direction by banning MORE drugs with a piece of legislation that was already tried (Irish Psychoactive Substances Act) and made the problem worse. Why? Who the **** knows?

There are countless other similar situations where we have absolute, conclusive evidence that indicates what we should do. And yet, somehow, the majority of the electorate seem completely impervious to facts. You give them a peer-reviewed literature review of 100 studies and they'll say "I disagree". They won't say why they disagree, they won't examine the methodology, they don't have any legitimate criticism, it's just their "opinion".

So many people seem to dismiss expert opinions, scientific consensus and peer-reviewed research without even 5 minutes of their own research, because they somehow believe they know better.

What causes this? Is it a problem with our education system? Is it arrogance? Why are people so unable to accept that they don't know something?

bump

People fear what they don't understand. The same old arguments born from ignorance gets brought up in the legalisation debate, and the same thing has happened with vaping.

Arguments from ignorance benefit nobody aside from the people who prefer to stick to their ill-informed opinions while burying their head in the sand instead of going to the "effort" of doing a little bit of research.

Reply 3

Drewski

Politicians exist only to get themselves reelected.
A policy of legalising such things will never be popular with mainstream voters.

Thus those things are illegal.

Those policies will never change while certain demographics don't participate in politics. Blame your peers.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 4

username1204031

Original post by Drewski

But the big question is why don't those mainstream voters care about facts?

Reply 5

Drewski

Original post by JordanL_

But the big question is why don't those mainstream voters care about facts?

They're set in their ways and the politicians they vote for - either Labour or Conservative - don't embrace those results.

The people who vote are old. Older people have been conditioned that drugs are bad and they have faith in the police and law.

Twas ever thus.

Get the youth voting and the politicians will be forced to present them policies that appeal to them.

Reply 6

flintsober

Original post by JordanL_

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html

Are we becoming more STUPID? IQ scores are decreasing - and some experts argue it's because humans have reached their intellectual peak

Reply 7

FredOrJohn

Original post by flintsober

Totally disagree.
With the wide spread use of cesarean births babies with bigger heads can now be born whereas before they could not.

This means the limits on human brain power has just been removed.

Whats more really rich people tend to have more babies then lower or middle class people thus pushing the IQ boundary up. .

Reply 8

username2228735

Original post by JordanL_

But the big question is why don't those mainstream voters care about facts?

A bigger question is what is a 'fact'? The principle societal topics today are often topics of heated discussion based on research that is often flawed.