Dis-information Explosion

Handy though the Internet may be it has permitted a proliferation not merely of misinformation but of dis-information and downright stupidity.

Any fool — and this could include yours truly — can now publish their ramblings on the Internet. Any fool can find, courtesy of content-blind search engines, some emotionally appealing theory that fits their prejudices and sneaks past their lack of logic and/or knowledge. The problem, of course, is that few fools, as Giorgio W. Borgia illustrates, know that they are fools.

Once upon a time, editors of peer-reviewed scientific journals determined what information was valid in scientific fields. Nowadays, a proliferation of religiously-biased pseudoscience is foisted onto an already science-ignorant society that lacks sufficient acumen to determine that most of the supposed uncertainty surrounding science has been manufactured to suit religious ends. This is not to say that science has all the answers, but it is to say that denying scientific facts does not constitute evidence that science has found few valid explanations.

Most scientists – Michael Behe is an egregious exception – have not sold out to biased philosophical pretentions that claim to represent genuine science. However, religiously oriented websites and internet trolls abound to glorify creationinsts and promote anti-educational sentiments.