There used to be a common phrase I’m hearing less and less these days. When people would start to spout meaningless opinions based on prejudice, conjecture, or something they heard at the grocer, someone would say: “It’s hard to argue with science”. In my childhood and teenage years, that phrase used to be enough to silence most, and yet, now, many don’t only feel inclined to argue with science, but they actually seem intent on completely disregarding it.
I’ve always struggled with understanding the arrogance of thinking you know better than someone who has dedicated their entire life to a discipline while you’ve based your vast wealth of knowledge on three articles you read while doomscrolling at 3am, but now, that struggle has turned into anger and disbelief that we seem to be ricocheting well and truly back into the dark ages.
This week, an article about the findings of a Eurobarometer survey was published. The survey had over 38,000 participants from across Europe and a scientific theme. This study found that only half of the Maltese sample believed in evolution.
Only four EU states registered rates lower than ours – Romania, Latvia, Cyprus and Slovakia. Almost four in 10 of the Maltese interviewed disagreed entirely with the Darwinian theory, saying it was false, while 8% said they didn’t know.
The most tragic part of all this? The proportion of Maltese citizens who believe in evolution has dropped by 20 per cent since the last survey that was carried out in 2021 – the most significant drop in the EU. If ever there was a measure of how education is failing in this country, this would at least make it to the footnote section of our history books.
An idiot is no less an idiot because they can find other idiots to leave likes on their ill-informed comments. Likes are not a real currency when vital issues are being discussed; true education is- Anna Marie Galea
It’s hard to know what to say in the face of such ignorance, and it’s even harder not to draw parallels with what is happening at the moment in the US. I keep remembering what scientist Carl Sagan had written about the dumbing down of America, the credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, and the celebration of ignorance, and I shudder at the direction Malta seems to be taking. It sometimes feels like all the progress made in the past decades is being threatened by those who must keep others blind to control them better. Nothing is more of a threat to totalitarianism than an educated mind with the tools to think for itself.
If you are not able to believe proven knowledge, then your mind becomes fertile ground for fanaticism and fancy.
If you cannot be humble in your limitations, you become prey for cunning tyrants to use you to their advantage. Your inability to understand science is not a valid argument against it. Just because everyone’s opinion is now given equal space on the vastness that is the internet, it doesn’t mean that they are, in fact, equal.
An idiot is no less an idiot because they can find other idiots to leave likes on their ill-informed comments. Likes are not a real currency when vital issues are being discussed; true education is.
Teach your children to read books so they can learn how to read between the lines. Otherwise, someone else will brainwash them for you.