“Citizens United 2.0” and the First Amendment

Anyone paying attention to the 2012 campaign understands that it was supercharged with high monetary spending to all major parties and candidates. Most Americans do not know why this is, or the reasoning behind the sanctioning of big money in politics. It was a Supreme Court case in 2010, Citizens United v. FEC, which entirely changed the way that money works in U.S. politics. The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to limit the free speech of corporations and organizations in political election fundraising. This allowed corporations and people to contribute practically unlimited amounts of money to “super PAC’s” in the 2012 campaign. Citizens United allowed for the creation of “Super PAC’s,” or political action committees, which can receive unlimited donations from disclosed corporations, organizations and individuals. In addition, they can give unlimited sums of money to advocate for candidates or oppose others, although Super PAC’s are prohibited from giving money directly to candidates (Opensecrets.org). According to The Wall Street Journal’s website, Super PAC’s spent $567,498,628 in total on the 2012 presidential election (disclosed expenditures) (projects.wsj.com).

Many people, like the Free Press movement, argue that the ‘Citizens United’ case is unconstitutional in that it inhibits the citizens’ free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Barnie Frank in particular tried to initiate a proposal with House Democrats that would tax these corporate political expenditures and put laws in place to “ban foreign corporation” from spending on elections (Grim). Republicans in the House of the Representatives have filibustered attempts to have a vote. Many people (like in the Huffington Post article above) react by saying that Citizens United repealed “over one hundred years of law”, but the Supreme Court decision is a little more nuanced than that. It involves the conciliation of many principles that resulted from a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 20th century (namely Buckley v. Valeo (1976), discussed later). Eugene Volokh, in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution writes, “Despite the originalist debate between Justices Thomas and Scalia, today's free speech and free press law is not much influenced by original meaning. It is mostly the creature of the experience and thinking of the twentieth century, as the Court first began to hear a wide range of free speech cases only in the late 1910s” (Volokh). 

The ‘Citizens United v. FEC’ case arose because Citizens United (a Conservative advocacy group that produces commercials and documentaries) released the movie Hillary (2008) a day before the Democratic primaries. As defined by McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, the movie and its related ads were considered “electioneering communications,” and were thusly regulated by the same restrictions to any other political speech leading up to an election ("Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."). When the case reached the Supreme Court, they ruled (in a 5-4 vote) that the campaign spending limits of the McCain-Feingold Act (also known as Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) were unconstitutional, and this led the way to legalizing unlimited donations to special “super” political action committees. What the Citizens United case has made permissible is corporate donations to independent organizations. Organizations must have independence, meaning that they cannot be affiliated with a candidate. The law only allows for “uncoordinated” expenditures, which means that the corporations and candidates cannot be in correspondence with one another (Intelligence Squared Debate). In other words, it is illegal to donate money directly to a candidate, but it is perfectly legal to donate large sums to super PAC’s (which have explicit views and openly support a cause). The only people who are really granted with any extraordinarily new privileges are non-profit advocacy corporations (e.g. the Sierra Club, NRA, Planned Parenthood) that use their right to political speech to express their view on relevant issues.

As expected, the Supreme Court has a rigorous logic for their removing limits to campaign spending. The court’s interpretation of corporations as persons in Citizens United is not new. Since the outset of the establishment of the United States government, the corporation (as an entity), has been seen to need similar protections by the law as a natural person would. And for almost as long as it has been implemented, the Fourteenth Amendment has been used to defend the legal rights of corporations. The Reconstruction Amendments ratified after the Civil War, including the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, intended to protect the rights of freed slaves. The clause at the end of the Fourteenth Amendment reads: “…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It has been interpreted ever since that likewise corporations cannot be denied equal protection of the laws. In the late 19^th century, the corporation was ideal for capitalistic ventures, and the preferred form of budding entrepreneurs. The corporation is what helped millionaires like Vanderbilt and Carnegie to become moguls of their respective industries. The first historical case defining corporate personhood was Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819), which gave corporations the rights to contract. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1885) was the first case to recognize corporations as having some of the same rights as individual people, by virtue of having been created by individuals with rights ("Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company").

In the historical logic of the Supreme Court and Congress, corporations must be treated as persons because corporations are essentially abstracts of the individuals that run the firm. A very clear explanation of the ‘corporate personhood’ logic was discussed by YouTuber 'Liberalviewe (his real name is unknown to me), a lawyer and ACLU activist who talks about current political affairs and media bias. He brings up three fairly strong points in his video entitled “Is It Just Corporate Free Speech?,” in response to people who have seemingly “mischaracterized” the Supreme Court case decision (Liberalviewer). His first point is that corporations need to be legally treated like persons “to be able to sue and charge them of crimes.” The second is that corporations do not have all the rights of people. They cannot marry, be murdered, or have the right to habeas corpus. The principle of corporate personhood is not an absolute one. Lastly, corporations are associations of people, and groups of people must be treated as people. The Supreme Court in the Citizens United case ruled that “the government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity.” 

Although corporations may represent the people who belong to their association, corporate interests are often greater than the interests of the people they represent. We ought to be concerned about whether corporate interests are influencing decisions in Washington D.C and how much influence (or “say”) that they have in Congress. A contemporaneous example is the minimum wage laws which allow fast food companies like McDonald’s to make record profits yearly without paying their employees a reasonable income. The minimum wage has not modified with the rise of inflation, so it no longer constitutes a living wage. Some wonder if the corporate lobbyists have too much of a stranglehold over politics. It appears as if corporations want to keep the minimum wage low so that they can continue to hire cheap labor. These policies are beneficial for the corporations and their CEO’s; it is clearly not beneficial for America as a whole, socially, politically, and economically (59% of Americans work a minimum hourly wage job (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)). A majority of Americans are convinced that lobbyists in Washington have more influence over policymaking than the peoples’ votes (Rasmussen Reports, "Most Voters Say Lobbyists Part of Any White House Campaign."). Most also support banning the lobbying of business firms that make most of their profits from government contracts (like the big defense firms i.e. Northrop Grumman) (Rasmussen Reports, "65% Say Ban Lobbyists for Firms That Live Off Government.”). Many fear that our political-economic system is too entrenched with “crony capitalism.” For some this is enough evidence to suggest the “appearance of corruption.”

Many agree that public funding of elections would be the answer to the problem of overwhelming political expenditures. Of course, there is a severe lack of public funds because it has not been well supported by the taxpayer checkoff in the last four decades. Public funding was first proposed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, who “recommended public financing of federal elections and a ban on private contributions” (fec.gov). Lawrence Lessig (one of the founders of Creative Commons) is a supporter of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would enact citizen-funded elections for Congressional elections. This would lessen the influence of big donors in order to increase the number of small donors (contributing up to $100). Under the Fair Elections system, donations given to candidates would be matched by the Fair Elections Fund $4 to every $1 spent ("Fair Elections Now- Money in Politics.").

There are a considerable number of common misconceptions about the Citizens United ruling and its effects on the political system. Most of the confusion is understandable because the law is not distinctly clear. The particulars of the case are never really explained that well in the media, and rarely discussed in a non-partisan way. There is a lot of misunderstanding about some of the key components to campaign finance law. The following is a list of the types of donations that are allowed in the presidential election and what restrictions apply to each: 

1) Individuals can give up to $2,600 to any candidate (or all candidates) in the presidential election. In addition, to quote the Federal Election Committee’s website, “You may contribute up to $30,800 a year to a national party committee and up to $10,000 a year to a state or local party committee” (fec.gov).

2) Individuals can donate unlimited money to Super PAC’s. 

3a) Individuals can donate to organizations- also known as “secret funds.” 

3b) Corporations, 527’s, “advocacy groups,” and organizations can donate to Super PAC’s. *In contrast to what some have said, Citizens United did not overturn the 1907 Tillman Act which “prohibits corporations from directly contributing to candidates” (Liberalviewer).

The crux of the campaign finance constitutionality debate lies in the interpretation of the First Amendment (“Congress shall pass no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”) in the context of the Framer’s original intent, and modern electioneering practices. The typical argument from supporters of Super PAC’s (in Robert Rosencranz’s words) is that, “in order for speech to be heard, it needs money behind it” (Intelligence Squared Debate). The Supreme Court and Congress have continually agreed on the fact that money is a physical requirement for running a campaign and broadcasting ads. Since all political speech is protected by the First Amendment, raising money for political ads is defined as free speech. People often cite the idea that due to the outcome of the Citizens United case, money is now equated with speech. Although this may be somewhat true, it does not clarify the actual nature of the ruling. Money does not literally equate with free speech in the wording of the law. Rather, election advertising (which requires money) is a form of free speech expression, of which one’s right cannot be denied. 

The synthesis of this rationale stems from Buckley v. Valeo (1976), which concluded that “some forms of communication made possible by the giving and spending of money involve speech alone, some involve conduct, and some involve a combination of the two.” Also, “this is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the event. The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech” (Petoskey). This is the vital argument that money is crucial for political campaigning. Often cited as supporting evidence of this fact is the amount of money spent on elections, and the amount of time politicians spend fundraising. If corporations are persons with free speech rights, then giving money donations to super PAC’s is automatically protected under the First amendment. One key ethical problem is the issue that corporations may be speaking for their shareholders, and possibly their consumers, because money is considered speech. That is one of the reasons that large corporations tend to give relatively equal sums of money towards both Republican and Democratic parties, attempting not to alienate their base or make any public political affiliations (Rosencranz). 

Without getting too deep into the history of Free Speech rights in America, there are some important aspects that make up the application of First Amendment law as it stands today. Of course there are standard exceptions to Free Speech such as incitement, lying, obscenity, profanity, threats, or misleading commercial advertising. The classic example is how one is not allowed to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. Free Speech also guarantees protection for hate speech and radical ideologies, such as those expressed by Neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc. The First Amendment protects speech for speakers and writers, as well as other forms of expression. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution explains, “It also extends to conduct that is necessary in order to speak effectively, as, for example, using money to buy a public address system or to buy advertising. Restrictions on independent campaign expenditures, for instance, raise First Amendment problems because restricting the use of money for speech purposes is a speech restriction.”

The main argument against the Citizens United case is fairly straightforward. We need less money in politics. As Robert Rosencranz says in the introduction to “Two Cheers for Super PAC’s,” an Intelligence Squared Debate, “Their best argument, it seems to me, is that things have gotten out of hand. There’s just too damn much money involved in politics, and we’re drowning out the voices of people that can’t be heard because they don’t have access to money to get on the airways.” Super PAC’s are given individual contributions, which is then pooled together to support a single cause. These Super PAC’s are acting as agents to allow rich individuals to donate exorbitant amounts of money. One huge criticism of campaign finance spending is the problem of anonymity. Obama is one of the hardest critics of the Citizens United case ruling for this reason. He has repeatedly asserted that undisclosed donations need to stop. 

Some have proposed that a Constitutional amendment is necessary in order to clear up the language of the First Amendment. These proposals, supported by groups like Move To Amend, Free Press and Democracy Matters, intend to specify that “the rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only” (wethepeopleamendment.org). This amendment proposal is similar to the debate over gun control in how some argue that the Second Amendment is antiquated and obsolete. Others say that the proposed amendment is not feasible, and that we ought to not tinker around with the First Amendment.

The one problem with discussing the effect of the Citizens United case is that it is relatively new. The only real conclusive source for studying the impact of unlimited campaign contributions is the 2012 election. One thing we know positively is that more money was spent in that presidential election than ever before. The two biggest receivers of campaign contributions were Republican party nominee Mitt Romney, and Democratic party candidate Barack Obama who was running for re-election. Mitt Romney’s overall spending for the 2012 campaign totaled $1,238,072,571. Barack Obama was close behind with $1,107,080,937 (www.opensecrets.org/pres12). These figures only give one an idea as to the enormity of the donation sums. We find the real scope of Citizens United’s effect in understanding who the big spenders are. A full detailed list of all disclosed expenditures can be found at OpenSecrets.org, the Center for Responsive Politics. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson (Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Adelson Drug Clinic, respectively) each gave $15 million to Restore Our Future super PAC (supporting Mitt Romney) and $11.5 million to American Crossroads (opposing various Democrats) (projects.wsj.com/super-pacs/).  Restore Our Future, Priorities USA Action (Obama-supporting super PAC), and American Crossroads were the top three Super PAC’s in 2012 (wsj.com/). 

An inherent flaw of the campaign contribution system is that it serves the wealthy. The public has the opportunity but no means to have a political message of their own. Only 0.53% of US adult population donated $200 (the min.) or more in the 2012 election cycle, which means that more than 99% of the electorate were shut out of this form of political speech. One could relate this disparity in numbers to another pressing issue in America: economic inequality and the distribution of wealth. As Pew Poll’s 2011 data suggests, the wealthiest 7% of Americans (household net worth above $889,279) owned 63% of the nation’s overall household wealth (Fry). Average Americans no longer feel like they have a role in the political system and this too gives wealthy individuals a significant advantage over the general public to participate in the various forms of political expression in the mass media.

Candidates who win elections are often the ones who receive the most donations, because of their favorability. As much as the argument is voiced, the converse is not true. More spending does not always necessitate more votes. Regardless of the seemingly ridiculous amount of money donated to the Republican party, big money spending did not guarantee success for Romney’s campaign. Even with Romney outspending his opponent, Barack Obama still carried the election with 332 electoral votes.

On October 8^th, 2013, the Supreme Court reviewed McCutcheon v. FEC, a case concerning Alabama resident Shaun McCutcheon who believes that the federal limits on individual contributions are unconstitutional. It has been coined “Citizens United 2.0,” because of the possibility that it could further repeal federal restrictions on candidate and party spending. According to Rose Nimkiins Petoskey and Katherine Hinderlie, “As of September of 2012, [McCutcheon] had contributed over $38,000 in total to sixteen candidates, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (“NRSC”), the National Republican Congressional Committee (“NRCC”), and the Republican National Committee (“RNC"). McCutcheon wanted to contribute to twelve other candidates and to increase his donations to the NRSC, NRCC, and the RNC, but in doing so he would have violated FECA’s aggregate limit” ("McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.") Shaun McCutcheon argues that the donation caps ($2,500 for any candidate in an election) are unconstitutionally too low (nytimes.com). The reasoning behind these individual limits has historically been based in the prevention of corruption or “appearance of corruption.” The Supreme Court has determined that individual contributions can have a corrupting influence, and thus have always ruled in favor of the law which stands, including strict restrictions and donation caps. Money cannot be considered speech if it promotes the influence of “corruption,” or even has the “appearance of corruption.” It regards individual limits on donations to candidates or parties, as opposed to the Supreme Court ruling of ‘Citizens United’ which defined limits on money donations (“free speech") from independent organizations as constitutional.

As always, it is difficult to presume how a case is going to be determined in advance of the actual preceding. Case in point, news anchors that are “inside” politics (and the ones that have law degrees) tend to be more careful about trying to predict the Supreme Court’s decision ahead of time (LiberalViewer). Since the Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of campaign spending constituting free speech, it is possible to imagine how they would deliberate over whether McCutcheon is having his free speech rights violated by the FEC’s rules, but there is a precedent. The Supreme Court and Congress have always seen restrictions on individual contributions that may bring about the “appearance of corruption,” because of the rational expectation of politicians to return governmental favors (or “buying influence” on key issues) in exchange for money. It would be unprecedented for them to decide otherwise that individual limits are unnecessarily regulated. In general, the justices must understand that the law should prevent personal (or corporate) interests from overshadowing the public interest. ‘Citizens United 2.0’ has the potential ability to repeal the ‘Citizens United v. FEC’ case, which has spurred activists to make people more aware of the campaign finance issue, but it is unlikely that corporate expenditures in future elections will be challenged. [2018 note: this paper was written in December 2013...in the McCutcheon v. FEC case, the limit on individual contributions was decided to be unconstitutional]

The government and its people request transparency for the entire democratic process. Some would argue that it is the job of the media, if not to uncover the flawed system where money is mixed with politics, then to at least inform the public about campaign spending. To many, transparency seems of utmost significance when it comes down to political influence in our legislative and executive branch. The Citizens United ruling acknowledges, “The First Amendment protects political speech and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages” ("Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."). This makes clear that the right to anonymity as a donor is not guaranteed by the First Amendment. If the citizens of the United States are to stay informed about money in politics, it stresses the need for adequate journalism (‘free press’ protected by First Amendment). Informing the public should constitute an unbiased reporting of elections, providing equal coverage to every candidate as to elucidate their position on key issues. Good journalism ought to “use the facts to challenge a politician’s bogus claims.” This must also include exposing the money donors and their explicitly stated views. More than ever, we need contemporary “muckrakers” that investigate big donors and expose big money interests and possible corruption.

One legitimate concern is that the excessive amount of airtime dedicated to political ads before elections has created an unbalanced state of affairs on television network news. It has been observed that television networks show increasingly more political ads as more money is funneled into politics. As a consequence, viewers are disproportionately seeing campaign advertising rather than actual news coverage of the election (freepress.net). It begs the question of whether voters can really judge the candidates based on their merits when advertisers control the basic mediums of mass communication. Although one can buy airtime, one cannot buy elections.

What does Citizens United v. FEC mean for a democratic society? The Supreme Court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to prevent corporations (who have some basic rights as persons) from expressing political speech (which is considered impossible without money in our modern technological age). On the other hand, it is a compellingly strong argument that unlimited campaign spending is limiting participation from the general populace. After having given one million dollars to Priorities USA Action Super PAC, comedian and talk show host Bill Maher urged fellow millionaires to “come out of the closet” in support of the Democratic party. His intention of giving one million dollars to “Obama’s Super PAC” was not to serve as a model for other liberals but more to support the democratic side simply to oppose Romney. Maher’s solution is to outspend conservatives, not necessarily by the virtue of supporting Democratic policy but by the virtue of challenging “radical” right-wing views. This is a similar tactic of comedian Stephen Colbert, who started his own Super PAC, ‘Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow’, for parody purposes, but also to expose loopholes and shed light on the absurdity of money in politics. It is possible that unlimited spending has actually allowed for more free political speech, despite that only the wealthiest speak the loudest. 

Simply having money does not guarantee a win in an election, that point cannot be underscored enough. With more and more corporate money being spent each year in politics, it emphasizes the importance of voting, in electing officials as representatives of the state. If there is any hope in America’s ideal of a democracy, it is in our ability to get involved in the local community and to choose competent leaders. The American people demand a government that they can trust, which means putting regulations on corporate campaign spending. It requires an informed public, an informing free press, and ultimately a society where all ideas can be shared freely.

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Why vote?

If you’re one of those people who thinks “Why vote? My vote doesn’t matter anyway,” then realize that by becoming apathetic you are giving up your privileges as a democratic citizen. By thinking that your vote doesn’t matter, like a "self-fulfilling prophecy,” your vote won’t matter. If you don’t vote today, you’re not allowed to complain to me about politics. I constantly hear people complain about their politicians, yet the voters re-elect the same people every time. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The only way that one can complain about politics and actually be heard is by voting. That’s my spiel.


George Carlin had a funny comedy routine about why he didn’t vote. He said, “If you vote…you have no right to complain,” but I think the logic in his bit was impractical because it abdicated the responsibility of the people to remain the bulwark against the corruption of power. By not voting, one hands over the 'power of the people’ to the 'power of the few'- the oligarchs, plutocrats and theocrats.


Carlin had a separate bit about how we do not have ‘rights,’ we only have ‘privileges.’ His point was that it’s not a ‘right’ if the government can take it away from you whenever it pleases. I think he feared that we unwillingly let the government take our rights and privileges away when we become unaware of their necessity. I think that voting is a necessary privilege in a well-functioning democracy (as well as education and a free press). I think that by refusing to vote one is throwing away their rights or privileges. Sometimes the government doesn’t forcibly take our rights away, but in our feeling apathetic and powerless, we voluntarily give them up without a fight.

Anti-Social Media

       We're all connecting on social media but it seems that no one is connecting in face-to-face interaction anymore. We get addicted to craving the instant gratification of “likes” and “favorites” and we forget about real quality friendship and meaning in the world. It’s great that we can also find meaning on the internet but it’s disconnected from reality. It’s a facsimile or simulacrum of the real. By constantly having one's cellphone to their ear or their eyes in public, people are restraining themselves in the present moment, closing themselves off from the possibilities of interacting with other humans in a shared space, and limiting their potential physical contacts with humanity. We have bypassed the 'physical' reality for the 'virtual' reality enabled by modern technology.

       In 2017, internet addiction has become a ubiquitous phenomena. Despite the over-optimism in the 1990’s about the internet and how its responsible use was going to revolutionize the planet, it has taken a disastrous turn. As philosopher Martin Heidegger warned us, technology has its unintended consequences. I like to hold two opposing views about technology simultaneously. One is the optimistic “utopian” view that technology connects us, helps us solve problems faster and ultimately makes the world a better place. Technology is supposed to unite humankind and bring us together (which it has in many ways made the world a smaller place).

       On the other hand, there is the pessimistic “dystopian” view that technology divides us, creates more unnecessary or unintended problems, and makes the world a more miserable place. It has also divided us into increasingly smaller social “bubbles.” We’re creating political “echo-chambers” of thought where people segregate themselves according to their beliefs and worldviews. We’re becoming more susceptible to confirmation bias because we only wish to subscribe to media channels, forums and groups that we agree with. More and more people are becoming okay with the idea of limiting other people’s free speech rights (simply because they don’t agree with them), not realizing that this endangers freedom of speech for everyone. The President’s attack on journalists and the free press is certainly not helping, and is completely antithetical to what enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Jefferson sought for a thriving democracy. As Dan Carlin points out, we can’t even have rational political debate anymore because people can’t seem to agree on objective truth.

       Our focus and concentration gets swept away by distractions from social media. Humans are prone to use any gimmick to help us ignore reality. We will rationalize anything to keep us from seeing the world and our minds for how things really are. Internet addiction is leading to shortened attention spans and vision/hearing problems. Continued use of cellphones and television causes neck and back problems. Our communication suffers as a consequence of social media addiction. We have phones with voice calling yet we choose to text instead. Meaning is lost in the process. The only communication that our brains recognize as real is face-to-face social interaction. With technology we are replacing real communication with artificial virtual “reality.” 

       People rarely speak to strangers in public anymore. People used to engage in small talk. Nowadays everyone retreats to their cellphones and everyone ignores each other when faced with an awkward moment of silence or seemingly uncomfortable situation in a waiting room. Via social media we have the ability to talk to people across the nation but we won’t talk to our neighbors. When I was in high school (graduated in 2008) the lunchroom was a place for socializing, joking and laughing. Now every scene of a school cafeteria that one sees on the television news depicts everyone looking down at their cellphone. It’s a microcosm of what is happening across America- we are surrounded by people yet we are all alone, segregating ourselves to our own personal digital worlds.

       It’s no secret that social media becomes an addictive behavior, and the companies like Facebook know this and manipulate the user with its algorithms. Studies have shown that there’s a dopamine surge that occurs when we get a new message, comment or “like” on Facebook. After a while, our brains begin to crave this dopamine surge. Consequently, one may feel “down” when you log-in to find no new messages. It’s no surprise that people who frequently use social media feel more loneliness and depression.

       Social media takes advantage of a primal need for social interaction and the social need for belongingness to a group. As evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson explains in ’The Social Conquest of Earth,’ for millions of years of human evolution we were part of a small tightly-knit band of thirty to fifty people. In our modern age, we lack this support group and thus seek out this network on-line, but it is insufficient for our needs as social group animals. As a result we are promoting individual self-interest at the expense of losing empathy and altruism. Without community and shared responsibility, humans begin to act out in unproductive and anti-social ways. Without social bonding and closeness, our self-esteem and self-worth diminishes.

       Not to mention, social media brings up concerns over issues of privacy. Facebook and Amazon sells your information to Google who then sells that data to advertising firms who direct their products forcibly onto your computer and/or cellphone screens. This is an ethical dilemma because these companies can prey on our innate weaknesses and persuade us to buy things that we don’t need. How many of us have seen an advertisement on Facebook for a product related to what we were searching on Google? These companies don’t need to physically spy on you because they already know what you’re searching, what you’re sharing, what you’re watching and what you’re buying. We have unwittingly made a deal with the devil and received nothing in return. I fear that in the end the devil might just take our “souls.” We’ve bought into the myth that consumer culture will somehow give us what we want, but unfortunately we’ve been sold a false promise. As Zeynep Tufekci points out in her TedTalk, “we are the products being sold.” We have created for ourselves a surveillance society where we willingly give up our information and privacy to the highest bidder. We have created for ourselves the Panopticon that Jeremy Bentham predicted and feared. Many people fear that our world is looking more like the vision prophesied by George Orwell’s ‘1984.’

       “The medium is the message,” wrote Marshall McLuhan. The ways in which we communicate now with social media affects the way we think about ourselves, society, and our place in society. The technological interfaces that we use influence the way that we behave, whether we know it or not. We have all witnessed firsthand the horrors of Instagram addiction: self-aggrandizing, unbridled narcissism, attention-seeking, “look at me” mentality. This is a consequence of celebrity worship and a new perverse attraction to fame. We have created an unobtainable standard for people to live up to with the images of men and women portrayed in our popular culture.

       People get addicted to checking their Instagram feed multiple times per day to see what their 'following' posts and to see how many new 'likes' they have.  These devices and apps give us the illusion that we are more connected and know more about what’s going on in the world, when in actuality it erodes our closeness and trust with people at the interpersonal level. How often are you trying to have a conversation with someone, but they’re busy checking their Instagram feed and not listening to a single word you're saying?

       Another seemingly benign neurological addiction is Netflix and YouTube bingewatching. Studies show that bingewatching leads to impaired cognitive development in young adults. Also, people are more likely to bingewatch an entire season of a show if they are lonely and depressed. These factors are also the case with pornography addiction which is an increasing phenomena among men. The human brain has a predisposition to be fascinated with images and sounds. We are a visual and auditory species. With movies and television, we are dulling the mind by bombarding it with such intense stimuli, over-stimulating the visual cortex. We are desensitizing our minds to graphic images of sex and violence to the point where it has become “normal” (which I would argue it is not psychologically normal). It is no wonder that people are unhappy, despite having more advanced technologies and more widespread access to knowledge than ever before. No wonder patients are overprescribed with antidepressants and pain relievers (which has directly led to the current opioid crisis). Many of these epidemics in our society are self-induced. We feel unfulfilled because we cannot possibly satiate the monster of our own creation.

       Since I have laid out a list of social problems here, it is practical that I present a solution to the modern social media and entertainment addictions: books. Books are the nutritious brain-food which increases our knowledge and ability to navigate the real-world, as opposed to the internet and social media which is like unnutritious junk food for the brain. Reading improves memory. It also makes one a more interesting person. We have forgotten that learning can also be entertaining. It is not required that media to be visually stimulating for it to be beneficial, although quick “soundbites” have become the trend with overstimulation and shortened attention spans. Taking a break from social media and reading a book instead is a sure way of recharging the brain’s neural capacity and bringing more fulfillment and enjoyment in your life in the long-term. Just like we must exercise our muscles with a daily workout routine, we must exercise our brain muscles in order to stay cognitively alert and healthy into old age. We must remember that boredom and sitting with one’s thoughts is good too because it causes one to reflect on one’s self, to contemplate life and generate new ideas.

       To me, the most troubling new occurrence is that parents are no longer reading to their children. Two-thirds of American parents do not read to their children. It is imperative to the future of our children (and the future of our society as a whole) that we read to our children. Books activate the imaginations of developing humans. I would argue that its neglectful not to nurture the minds of maturing adolescents with stories and non-fiction books alike.

       Community is also important. Join a local community organization or find a group of like-minded individuals, even if you only meet once a week or once a month. It is important to socialize and share ideas with people off-line, not just on social media. It’s important to learn how to have civilized discussions and rational debates with people that you might not always agree with 100% of the time. We get an incorrect view of how people behave by limiting ourselves to interactions on the web. It’s too easy to isolate ourselves in this digital era.

       In more ways than one I suspect that American society is shooting itself in the foot. I worry that we have become complacent and are now witnessing the decay of our civilization. This decay is imperceptibly slow but it will eventually catch up to us. We are fooled by the delusion that technological progress will magically grant us with prolonged health and mental well-being. Unfortunately it does not seem like the American education system is going to pick up the slack either. We could sit idly and blame the politicians but -needless to say- the American people elected those in power, so we have no one to blame but ourselves. We must all take responsibility for our failings. We must find solutions that address the root causes of our problems. No one has an excuse to not work towards making this world a smarter and better place.

Response to Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker Article “Is Science Kind of a Scam?”

I think that saying that science is a scam (or another kind of ‘faith’) is intellectually dishonest. Adam Gopnik, in his New Yorker article “Is Science Kind of a Scam?,” makes a number of logical fallacies and erroneous claims about science. These are common misconceptions about science so I think it’s worthwhile and beneficial to discuss a few of them in rebuttal to his widely circulated article. I might add that many scientists do not spend enough time to refute ‘anti-science.’ Unfortunately this is at the expense of a scientifically illiterate population that can be duped by authors such as Gopnik.

It’s possible that there are many people who believe the things that they hear out of conformity (or “out-of-faith”) but these are not ‘good scientists’ or critical thinkers. Good scientists are true 'scientific skeptics' who want to see the empirical evidence. There is a hierarchy of knowledge from which one can gain insight and wisdom. To say that there is no way of knowing is to claim that all truth is relative (truth relativism), and that deters us from searching to find the truth. One cannot possibly research everything that there is study, so one defers to the experts who sift through the data for us, and then tell us their findings. One could degrade this process by calling it a kind of “faith,” like Gopnik does, but that seems to be drastically missing the point. To some degree we take one’s word for what we read in 'Nature' magazine or 'Scientific American,' because the authors and editors have the credentials and qualifications backed by research institutions. These journals are peer-reviewed and go through a rigorous process of fact-checking and correction before publication. They are careful not to publish false or misleading information. It’s not having ‘faith’, but rather trust and confidence in a method of acquiring knowledge and epistemology (how we know what we know) that works.

What makes science great is that anyone can help with the process, as long as one is courageous enough to test the limits of one’s own understanding. That is the beauty of the 21st century: science has become democratized. One does not need to be an evolutionary biologist in order to grasp the fundamentals of evolution. One does not need to be an astrophysicist to share in the wonders of the cosmos. One does not need to be a physicist to become curious about the nature of atoms and subatomic particles. Granted, it’s not easy to understand some of these concepts- that goes with the territory- but it can be done.

Of course there are limits to our knowledge. After all, we are only human. Also, there are human biases which often enter into science and there are often implicit biases in specific fields. It's unfortunate when people interpret one specific bias (or simply a “quack”) as a reason to write-off the entire scientific method and scientific achievements of humanity as a “scam." Yes, scientists are human and humans are fallible, but the scientific method takes this into account. It has error-correcting measures that make sure that one’s findings conform to reality and not conform to the preconceived ideas of what the experimenter wanted to discover. That’s why a good experiment is replicable. Scientists encourage others to repeat the experiment/observations to test their results. If one wishes to challenge/disprove a "scientific theory” (a scientific fact) then one must devise an experiment and testable theory which is more universally valid and fits the data better than the previous theory. Much of science relies on Karl Popper’s notion of ‘falsifiability’- that a good theory must have a way of proving it wrong. If one finds new data that does not conform to the theoretical framework then we must re-work the theory. Proving that a theory is false (or has “holes” in it) is a way of furthering our knowledge because every test result that supports the theory makes it stronger, and every result that falsifies a theory teaches us a lesson.

When one discovers a more accurate theory which overturns the old, this creates what Thomas Kuhn called a “paradigm shift.” Facts change as scientists find better models that approach a closer approximation of the truth of reality. This process is called learning- and it is necessary that scientists are allowed to learn and adapt with new data findings. It’s possible that there will be a "new Einstein”- a grand unified theory (GUT)- that will replace the current “paradigm” of the theory of gravity, but a lot of theoretical physicists like Lawrence Krauss & Neil Degrasse Tyson say that it’s unlikely in their lifetimes (StarTalk Radio).

I think that it’s intellectually dishonest for Adam Gopnik to imply that the 20th century paradigm shift in science (namely quantum physics in the 1910-20s) raises questions on scientific knowledge today. I think that this is a typical ‘red herring.’ The differences between Niels Bohr & Albert Einstein’s views seem to me like fundamental disagreements on the most valuable aspects/implications of the paradoxical equations regarding quantum mechanics. When Einstein referred to “spooky interactions” it involved the “quantum entanglement” of atomic particles in the Double-Slit experiment. Everyone was puzzled by how a particle can act both as a wave and a particle, existing in a "quantum state,” where according to the Heisenberg principle, the results of the experiment (the observed) become inextricable from the observer. Bohr & Einstein admittedly did not comprehend the vast implications of their own equations. For example, Einstein wrote a paper (On the Quantum Theory of Radiation) describing the fundamentals of LASERs decades before anyone found a practical use for it. A brilliant theory can be way ahead of its time and it’s true that it took a long time for theoretical physicists in the first half of the 20th century to adjust to the newer paradigm of Einstein's relativity. This should not be a point of criticism but rather a triumph of science. Science does not proceed by what one thinks is true. It proceeds by what experimental data shows us to appear to be true, even if the results are bizarre and puzzling as is the case with quantum physics. Shared understanding comes about through rational debate and collaboration.

Gopnik’s question, “Why, then, did Einstein’s question get excluded for so long from reputable theoretical physics?” is therefore not a very practical question and rather a moot rhetorical point. The answer is that no one (or very few) in the 1920’s understood what was going on in terms of “non-locality” with the Double Slit experiment. The Einsteinian paradigm was brand-new and physicists were still conditioned to the “machine-like” view of the world from Newtonian mechanics. Plus I would argue with Gopnik’s claim that there was not “decisive debate” because (in my understanding) the paradox was later clarified by the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky paper in 1935 and the collapse of the wave function was later explained by David Bohm (Bohmian mechanics). “Quantum entanglement” can still be explained by Einstein’s theory of special relativity. It seems to me that Bohr and Einstein simply disagreed on why or how the particles act with “indeterminacy” (i.e. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which shows that either a particles’ speed or locality can be measured accurately, but not both at the same time). Their misgivings about the consequences of the experiment is not a mark of sciences’ failings, as Gopnik implies, but rather a testament to these two scientists’ rigor, fortitude, and intellectual curiosity. I think Gopnik is right about the fact that the public could benefit from stories about these men’s lives but not for the reason which he proposes. We could show that science & physics equally involves brilliant creativity as much as the greatest art & music.

It should not be surprising that the nature of the universe eludes our understanding at the atomic level. The universe did not evolve to make sense to humans. Likewise, humans did not evolve to make sense of the atomic world. This example of Einstein’s equations reveals another characteristic of physics: that when we find answers to hard questions, it often raises more questions. This is a unique feature of scientific knowledge, that the answers lead to more questions which broadens our horizon on what can be known. This hypothetically unending set of questioning is often mischaracterized by dogmatists as a shortcoming of science- an example of its inability to find definitive answers about the universe. This is simply not true. It frankly shows the power of science in its ability to ask questions which we would not have previously thought to ask about the universe.

The author also appears to be intellectually dishonest to bring up Galileo & Copernicus without really discussing Newton’s laws of motion, or even mentioning Kepler who accurately discerned the laws of planetary elliptical orbits. The author cites a moon crater drawn by Galileo presumably as an example of ‘bad science,’ not mentioning that Galileo was the first to ever use a telescope to view celestial objects in the night sky. To me it shows a lack of knowledge in the history of science (anachronistic thinking) to not acknowledge how in the 15th-18th centuries science was still co-opted by the Catholic Church, and not to mention how Galileo was punished by the Inquisition for not accepting authority and forced under threat to change his public views.

Then Gopnik cherry-picks a theoretical physicist (Lisa Randall) who wrote a book hypothesizing that ‘dark matter’ is a plausible explanation for why large comets occasionally get flung out of the far reaches of the solar system towards the gravitational pull of the Sun. He ridicules this idea but I don’t see this hypothesis as a harmful one. Carl Sagan, in his book ‘Comets,' proposed that comets are simply jostled out of the Oort Cloud as our solar system revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. And Sagan proved to be right about a lot of the things that he predicted, like the presence of organic compounds on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons. Sometimes the seemingly “wacky” and “out-there” ideas have relevance in science because it implores other scientists to test the hypothesis and prove it wrong. That does not mean that we take these notions for granted, or outright ridicule them. We test the hypothesis for what it’s worth. We sometimes discover truths by testing radical theories and we often make new discoveries when we choose to look in a new place in a new way. One can discover truths by finding out what’s not true. This is an example of the ‘natural selection’ of ideas in science. If a hypotheses is proven incorrect, one can adapt the model to better fit reality and re-test it. This is not a flaw of science- in fact it shows the flexibility & strength of science to change in the light of new evidence to work towards solving new & complex problems. The ‘trial and error’ method is sometimes cited as proof that scientists don’t know what they’re doing, but ‘trial and error’ is a way of arriving at knowledge when faced with a complex problem with numerous data points. The important lesson here is that it often takes a lot of error before one reaches an informative conclusion. It’s the nature of human inquiry into how the physical world works. Luckily the scientific method has an in-built error-correcting mechanism for determining what works and what doesn’t work.

To me, the line between science and magic is not so “fuzzy” or complicated. It’s simply the line between what is known, unknown and unknowable. The “lunar tides are occult” when they seem like mysterious unknowable forces; “the next day they are science” when they become describable as an interaction between the gravity of massive objects in space. What Gopnik seems to be struggling to point to is the fact that many times in the history of science, the biggest mental ‘revolutions’ occur when people come up with a novel concept which radically overturns the previous paradigm. For Copernicus it was observing that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than the geocentric model. For Newton it was observing the existence of a force of attraction between massive objects, called gravity, which is proportional to the inverse square law. For Einstein it was that space-and-time are inseparable dimensions in one space-time continuum, and that gravity is due to a curvature in space-and-time. This ought not to be surprising that a radical new scientific idea is contrary and counterintuitive to what came before it. What makes it seem “magical” to the average person is that these discoveries were not made in nature but they were intuited from the mind with the use of mathematics. This is not ‘magic’ but perhaps just the work of brilliant minds that are able to unshackle themselves from the ordinary mainstream ideas of their time and use the new tools and instruments available to them. Scientists might seem like ‘magicians’ to those who do not understand science but this does not make it ‘magic.’ Although I would argue that learning about the wonders of nature can be a magical and often spiritual awe-inspiring experience. 

Gopnik makes it seem like science is part of conspiratorial cover up. “Why,” Adam wonders, “weren’t we told about the puzzle until after it was solved?” The answer: because unlike religion, science doesn’t claim to know the answers before it does the experiment and gets the results. As an example, Einstein’s theory of relativity predicted gravitational waves as a consequence of his equations, one hundred years before they were discovered. Unless you previously understood the theoretical consequences of Einstein’s equations, this would seem like “magic” (although it’s fundamental physics using the tool of mathematics). It might seem like Einstein just made up gravitational waves out of thin air, but no. In fact, it took civilization nearly one hundred years to build an apparatus large and precise enough (the LIGO detector) to measure these gravitational waves. But in science, it isn’t until we actually get a measurement that scientists are able to confirm that something like gravitational waves exist. Adam Gopnik seems to be laboring under a common misconception about science and the history of science. One could easily look back and say, as Gopnik does, that it looks “retrospectively engineered.” We might ask post-hoc: why didn’t anyone make a big deal about gravitational waves before they were discovered? Well, duh. Physicists were making a big deal about it and searching for the answers- but no one else noticed. No one in the general public seemed to care (or needed to) because there was no evidence for it yet. Scientists must wait for the concrete evidence before claiming a new discovery, no matter how convincing the clues are. Gopnik asks “What makes science different from faith?” The answer is evidence.

It’s good in a way that people like Gopnik are skeptical about science but I question what their ulterior motives for doing so are. I wish they would use this same inquiry to ask questions about the universe and ask how we discover these truths. If one does not know enough about how science proceeds, one might be tempted to agree with Gopnik that “science is a scam.” In my view, this is a dangerous canard. It is not the right kind of skepticism- the kind which requires reasoning and logic to further our understanding. Questioning things is good, but sometimes asking misguided questions can lead us to a troublesome place where there are no good answers. Sometimes questions lead us to answers which do not make us happy because they challenge our preconceived notions and do not conform to what we want to think is true about the universe.

On Bret Weinstein & The 'Day of Absence' Debacle

The attempts at Evergreen State college (in Washington State) to falsely accuse professor Bret Weinstein of ‘racism’ and, in a confrontational way, demanding that he quit is absolutely absurd. The context, as always, is important: in an e-mail, Weinstein challenged a recommendation by a campus group that people who are “pro-minority” should absent from going to classes that day: a policy which Weinstein rightly saw as discriminatory. It was the reversal of a thirty plus year tradition where once a year people of color would absent from going to classes at Evergreen in solidarity in order to show how important that community is to the campus population, based on the Douglas Turner Ward play ‘Day of Absence.’

Bret Weinstein got in hot water for rightly calling out the new version of "day of absence” for being discriminatory against non-black people (which in turn of events became demonstrably true). But of course, the one thing that’s intolerable to the “social justice warrior” activists who protested him is calling them out on their “bigotry of low expectations." So instinctively, they’ve flipped the script on Weinstein, calling him a ‘racist’ and forcing him to resign through acts of intimidation and physical threats to his person and family. It is apparent that these Evergreen state student protesters are confused. Their views on free speech (that your "free speech doesn't matter anymore" when you start inciting violence) is ironic, because the student protesters can’t look in the mirror and realize that they are the ones suppressing the free speech of professor Weinstein and that they are the ones inciting violence. Many of the college students appear to be jumping on the bandwagon of "social justice” without squarely looking at the facts of the situation and without really thinking about what terms like ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ mean (or "social equality" for that matter). Ideally in a free and open democratic society, we all want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. But they don’t get it. Free speech is threatened on campus by this regressive ideology.

Verbal dissent and non-violent protest is allowed for. We have the right to protest and the freedom of assembly. But when one person or a group of people are disrupting the classrooms and the school environment where students are trying to learn and get an education (that they’re paying for) then that can’t be allowed. The student protesters actions are just ridiculous and counter-productive to the causes which they purport to be fighting for. For example, the student protesters refused to have a dialectic with Bret Weinstein, instead shouting him down and chanting slogans at him. Also, how they took the president of the college, George Sumner Bridges, hostage in his office (even not letting him use the bathroom without their supervision). As absurd as it is what Bridges has done (or rather not done), I can see why the president of the school has given in to the students’ demands. The fact is that he shares their same ideology and admittedly has guilt that he’s in a position of power. He doesn’t want there to be any suppression of dissent, but in so doing he has missed the opportunity to support the free speech of the school’s professors and the suppression that they’re facing from radical protestors.

The “social justice warriors” want to “weed out people like Bret” because it’s easier to kick out the professor that doesn’t agree with their views than actually contend with his rational arguments and sane position. This strategy of “weeding out” the people that disagree with you (especially by labelling them a ‘racist’) is not going to work, people! History is not just a “power play," as much as the lense of “oppression”- a dynamic between oppressor and oppressed- is a simple and convenient way of seeing the world. Some ideologies are self-destructive and the regressive “far-left” has sadly become one of them. Let me add that all extremes on the political spectrum are bad because both far-left and far-right extremes “horseshoe" into the realm of authoritarianism. To be clear, I am not in support of far-right groups who think we need to quell the protests with more police presence. That can not be the answer either.

Many of us have succumbed to this mob mentality which is causing people to go on a witch-hunt for anybody who appears to question their belief system. Unfortunately, many young people are succumbing to 'group-think' and accepting a militant ideology. When I was at a college campus, I had some experience with what I saw then simply as a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism & 'confirmation bias.' To me then, it was just an abstract academic viewpoint but it was not yet fully operationalized. Fortunately there were enough teachers & faculty at my college who understood the importance of freedom of speech, freedom of the press & freedom of religion (the First Amendment, Enlightenment principles and 'classical liberalism') that my concerns were mild. But now on various college campuses across America it seems to have become a visible danger to critical thinking and free speech.

During my academic career I read a lot of “social constructionism” and many of the thinkers whose ideas make up the core of the post-modernist philosophy, like Michel Foucault. Understandably I did not make any sense of Foucault's books. It was gobbledygook. I thought it was a function of not having enough knowledge to understand the complicated systems of “oppression" and “intersectionality” (highly popular terms in the “social justice warrior” community because anyone can claim that they are oppressed [even the wealthiest and most “privileged” among us] and anyone can claim that their subjective experience is proof of systemic social problems). Now I’ve come to realize that I’m not alone in thinking that this is a bunch of highly stylized nonsense. It’s a belief system based on emotions and not on facts and evidence. 

But nowhere in that post-modernist philosophy did I get the sense that these philosophers advocated for violence as a "means to an end” to fight against perceived oppression, or that the “ends justify the means.” Where did this idea come from? This seems to have stemmed from an anti-capitalist anarchist mentality which has also given rise to groups like the anti-fascists. What happened to the cherished ideas of civil disobedience and non-violent protest? People fought hard (and died) for these principles during the civil rights era in the 50s and 60s. Now it seems like people have forgotten our history- where we came from- and where we’re going. We’re at the point now where any perceived act of “oppression” is labeled a “micro-aggression” and this trivializes the real prejudice and discrimination which exists in the world.

The First Amendment is not in place to give a “carte blanche” to everyone to say whatever they might want (like hate speech, incitement to violence, death threats, etc.). The principle of free speech is there to protect people who have unfavorable views. Unfortunately, Bret Weinstein’s anti-racism has been misconstrued by students on the liberal campus of Evergreen State College as being antithetical to their “social justice” ethos. The irony kills me. This is an example of how the far-left has become like an ouroboros, eating its own tail and cannibalizing its own members. They have become so “triggered” that they are unknowingly demonizing self-proclaimed 'progressives' that ought to be on the same side as they are- on the side of fighting against true discrimination.

I implore everyone to read a history book (instead of reading one’s Facebook and Twitter). History does not repeat itself, but we’re bound to make the same mistakes over and over again if we don’t learn from them quickly. I am in full support of Bret Weinstein. If we continue to demonize our brightest and most courageous intellectuals in this country, we will eventually pay the price.

On Google's Firing of James Damore

The firing of engineer James Damore from Google is an example of how one can be punished for simply trying to understand the world around us. It’s an example of how authoritarianism does not like it when its cherished beliefs are challenged. Oddly enough, what offended most people about the Google memo was that Damore introduced the term 'neuroticism,' which is one of the measurable personality traits on the 'Big Five Personality Model' in psychology, and he gave supporting evidence for how women score higher than men on this psychometric scale in personality tests. Many interpreted this as an "insult" to women but its merely scientific data. It sounds like a pejorative if you don't know what it means. In multiple podcast interviews (like the Rubin Report and the Joe Rogan Experience) Damore said that, in retrospect, he regrets using the word 'neuroticism' but I think that this is silly and wrong to back down from knowing something when faced with undue criticism. We cannot be forced to self-censor ourselves simply because some people are ignorant and uneducated about psychology and the historical definitions and terms used in scientific literature. Anyone at Google could have easily searched the definition of 'neuroticism' and the historical use of the term but instead people decided to take offense as part of this new 'outrage-and-victimhood culture.'

In many ways, it’s not surprising that James Damore got fired from Google because a lot of the "social justice left” is very open about their policy which is: 'Shut them down. If they don’t agree with you, get rid of them. If they don’t go away easily, threaten & tar them with accusations of “racism” and “sexism.” Shout them down.' The irony is that in a quest for “diversity,” Google has set up policies which explicitly discriminate against people on the basis of race & gender. They claim to be all about inclusion when in secret they are enacting policies which are non-inclusive. As they say, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Not only will individuals suffer as a consequence of this, but the society as a whole will suffer from censorship and the shutting-out of ideas. We want “equality of opportunity,” not “equality of outcomes.”

We witnessed this tactic with the example of Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College in Washington (see stevenrepka.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-attempts-at-evergreen-state-college.html). The tactic is to stifle the debate, suppress the dialogue and prevent a real discussion or dialectic from occurring. The “social justice warrior’s" way of ‘winning’ the argument is to make sure that the opposition is not heard, and often making false accusations and claims about the person (i.e. ad hominem attacks). Many have surmised that this tactic is used because they have no supporting evidence for their claims. Their argument is based solely on emotions, feelings, and irrationality. Like Christopher Hitchens said, if you have a better argument, one must have the courage to have an open and public debate about it. Let the audience decide who wins the argument. This is called civil debate. The level of suppression of free speech on liberal college campuses across America in the 21st century is astounding to me. Did we not learn from our history? The point of 'freedom of speech' (and the First Amendment) is not for speech which conforms to our pre-existing beliefs but rather to protect people who may have unwelcoming perspectives or non-conformist views. 

There’s a strain of anti-intellectualism which seems to have become more predominant in the past decade in America with the advent of the internet (I personally did not realize how controversial the findings of psychology and psychometrics were in many academic circles until I went to a liberal arts college and discovered many of their ideas in the social sciences). We have entered into the “twilight zone” where subjective meaning outweighs objective truth. This is very dangerous and this development ought to be considered an affront to logic and reason. Good science questions everything. In science, a good theory must be testable and falsifiable. The scientific method works so well because it has built-in measures to prevent cognitive biases from influencing the results.

To Google: this is what happens when radical social constructionist ideology overshadows reality. This is what happens when people are lead by dogma instead of empirical evidence, knowable facts and objective truths. This is what happens when people ignore scientific consensus in favor of their personal biases. Biological sex differences exist; that is evolution, that is science. The exceptions do not disprove the rule. [Can we move on to bigger things and more important discussions now?]

Religion Does Not Belong in the Science Classroom

Halfway through the semester of my freshman high school biology class (in a New York State public school) when we got to the chapter in the textbook about Darwin’s theory of evolution, our teacher sat down on the front of her desk & explained to us calmly that we had to skip the chapter on evolution because one student’s parents did not approve & it did not match their household’s religious teachings. I was quite upset because I had been looking forward to the teacher’s discussion about evolution, especially since I wanted to talk about dinosaurs & fossils which had fascinated me ever since childhood. 

I understand now that our biology teacher and the science department did this because of fear of litigation. If the parents sued the school district then presumably the high school could potentially lose its funding. It’s a shame because I know that most of the students would have loved a discussion on prehistoric animals and I felt like we were unfairly punished by an imposing religion. Somehow the curriculum was affected by a religion that was not even the choice of any of the other thirty students in the classroom (or their parents for that matter). Kids are put into school to learn, not to regress to their parents’ ideologies and religious dogmas. What perturbs and saddens me the most is the way that our lovely teacher had to break the news to the classroom, that we couldn’t learn about evolution because someone’s parent objected to the known facts.

I consider this to be a foolish mistake on the part of the New York State educational system, to let science get taken over by religious superstition in the science classroom. The science curriculum ought to stay as it is whether objectionable or not to parents. The scientific consensus of reality does not change because one likes it or not. Even as a freshman in high school I thought we had grown up enough as a society not to let tribal religion enter into our science classroom and overturn the work of thousands of scientists simply because it challenges someone's religious convictions. I think that this is emblematic of a bigger problem which failing American school systems face. I feel like our education and the students’ learning experience in that biology class was unjustly deprived because of one parent’s beliefs that the Book of Genesis is literal truth - and the false implication that the empirical fact-based reasoning of Darwin’s theory (fact) of evolution would somehow impart knowledge that would damage their child.

The opposite is obviously true. The ‘theory of evolution’ (“fact of evolution”) has mountains of evidence for its support (and it would require extraordinary evidence to become discredited (i.e. fossil rabbits in the Precambrian strata of rocks). On the other hand, the Book of Genesis (and the Bible largely) is an 'allegorical cosmogony' (a term from Lloyd M. Graham) filled with fairy-tale nonsense copied from earlier Bronze Age myths. A literal interpretation of Genesis presumes that there is no prehistory, that God created everything in seven days ~5000 years ago for which there is no evidential support. As Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." This is the kind of junk that one hears proffered from creationists like Australian Ken Ham and the "Focus on the Family's Truth Project." It’s ridiculous claims like this that make me sick knowing that this BS (belief system) is being taught to children. As Richard Dawkins states in his book “The God Delusion,” to deny a child scientific knowledge and indoctrinate him/her with these erroneous beliefs is akin to “child abuse.”

Scientists do not run into churches shouting and waving the ‘Origin of Species’. Why do religious people go into science classrooms waving the Bible? Threatening that knowledge defames their beliefs? And claiming that we need “equal time” for infactual unsubstantiated claims? By and large, most American citizens understand that we have freedom of religion which means that one is allowed to have whatever stupid belief they want behind closed doors. But this is only “freedom,” by definition, if religion does not impose itself on the beliefs of others- especially not imposing itself on the understanding of science in a public school. We all have the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, but this also entails the right to freedom from religion (in a secular setting i.e. public education). It’s not that our biology teacher had to teach us the Book of Genesis instead of the chapter on biological evolution but the act of preventing us from learning about evolution is a real-life example of how religion often co-opts science for its own nefarious purposes. Whenever religion overcomes science in the public sphere (schools, courts, government), we lose value as a society.

Why don’t we leave the scientists to do science and leave the religious to do their religion? I think it’s OK for religious people to “believe” and go to their places of worship, but it's not OK impose their beliefs on people's education. Don’t impose one’s falsities on a group of growing developing individuals in a public school with a well-qualified teacher simply because someone told you that one’s ‘holy book’ has divine authority. One ought to teach Genesis in Sunday school but not in a public school science classroom. Certainly I think it is worth studying ancient peoples and their creation myths in the context of history and comparative religion. They reveal to us how the ancient intuitional mind functioned (and how they interpreted experiences under the influence of psychedelic drugs). But this does not give much meaning for us in observable reality. The theory (fact) of evolution is the study of “objective reality” whereas ancient religion, for the most part, is the handed-down accounts of peoples’ “inner experiences.”

Religious people feel they are being “attacked by science” because science overthrows their entire worldview and up-ends their whole system of lies. No wonder they feel threatened because these ancient texts no longer hold up to any modern rational scrutiny. Religion also claims to be an authority on morality which it simply is not. A person does not become a “good” ethical moral person simply because they fear punishment from a capricious surveilling celestial dictator entity that watches every minute to see if you’ve been “good” or “bad.” Plus, the scientific studies of psychology in the 21st century have revealed much more about ethics/morality than religion ever has. Religion has only granted us with one universal (not culture specific) worthwhile commandment which is ‘the Golden Rule.’ But I argue that humanity does not need religion to figure that out for ourselves. Religion wants a monopoly on this domain of knowledge and morality because it protects them from any skeptical inquiry. And of course they target the youth because it's understood that children are the most impressionable and vulnerable to become inculcated by religious teachings. Science is not “attacking” religion. In fact (if you were reading carefully) it’s apparent that it’s quite the opposite, that religion is waging an assault against science for dismantling its paradigm and weakening its control over civilization (and it has been since before the times of Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, etc.).

Religion does not belong in the science classroom. That’s not how science (or the scientific method) works. It relies on questioning, verifiability, testability and falsifiability. Religion works in exactly the opposite way - believing things essentially on “faith” and taking the truth-value of its books’ claims based on the notion that it’s the “Word of God.” It is important to inform children about the benefits and usefulness of science and teach them the tools of questioning, experiment and discovery - the scientific method, the best tool we have of understanding the universe and how it works. It is not good enough to teach people what to know, we must teach growing adults how to know. Without a scientifically literate population, America will not succeed in the future. We have already been surpassed by dozens of developed nations in terms of science, math and technological innovations because we have not yet removed the shackles of ancient religion. Without giving our children the adequate knowledge of our modern scientific achievements we are neglecting them the full intellectual life which everyone deserves.

Twelve years later I’m still appalled at the fact that our 9th grade biology teacher in a New York State school could not teach a chapter in the course textbook which focused on evolution and dinosaurs because one of the student’s parents did not wish it to be taught since it contradicted with their faith. Presumably it was more practical for our teacher & the administrators to skip the lessons on evolutionary theory rather than risk the student’s parents suing the school district. Thus the entire class of students missed out on a valuable lesson in empirical evidence-based evolution because of one family’s absurd religious teachings (a.k.a. the creation myth of Genesis). For me, this was one of the first signs that the American public education system has problems. 

This is a personal anecdote but I know for certain that it cannot be an isolated case. This is an example of how creationism not only affects the people who wrongly believe it, but also that religions’ nonsense claims that its beliefs must have protection does more harm to others than good. In a democracy everyone ought to have access to information and truth, especially in our institutions of learning. Science taught in public schools ought not to be censored by religion simply because it offends the sensibilities of fundamentalists. Churches (and places of worship) are allowed the freedom of religion in America. Science classrooms ought to be granted freedom from religion.