A Shrine to Common Sense

My art project, The Liberty Snakes, is underway again with snakes for science in the works. The Science March on Washington on Saturday, April 22, will have a sister march in Columbia, SC, which I hope to attend. I will post my snaky signs for this march as they progress.

In the mean time, I prepare for this physical march with a mental march. For it is not just climate change science that is under fire, but the entire realm of scientific thinking. And this has actually been going on for a long time. My experience teaches me that what is usually behind this is selfishness, laziness and greed. Greed for money, power, and attention. Laziness to get out of physical work and mental exertions. Selfishness in not sharing resources, influence and opportunity with those not within one’s own narrowly defined community. Exposed for what they are, they would be anathema to any clear, fair-minded person. That is why they must be marketed via appeals to the laziness, greed and selfishness in everyone via channels that strip people of their curiosity and reason.

In order to find the antidote to the above constrictions on intellectual liberty, perhaps the cure begins with sharpening the skills necessary to combat them. To this end, I am reading books on logic, the scientific method, psychology, and politics. I just finished reading Professor Brian M. Hughes’ book Rethinking Psychology: Good Science, Bad Science, and Pseudoscience. The book offers a good review of the basics in scientific method and logic, and then invites the reader along in "armed battle" to analyze the thinking, or sometimes the lack thereof, behind both contentious and accepted ideologies in the science of psychology.

I am now halfway through with Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. This book offers a thorough grounding in the history of anthropogenic climate change and the policies that have developed in response to scientific consensus.

My drawing for this post is called "A Shrine to Common Sense" and lists three methods of reasoning that might be useful to study and review; abductive, inductive, and deductive reason. Of course there is always the technique of just spewing off conjectures and "alternative facts." I like to call that seductive reasoning, as it requires little to no mental exertions. The Hindu reference in the shrine is something of an irony and refers to a doctor who once told me that sometimes, one has to reconcile oneself to the fact that despite cogitations and scientific work, definitive answers can sometimes be elusive, requiring great patience and common sense.