The US became strong by investing in science. Now it will lose ground to China. Cuts to agencies like NOAA, the CDC, and EPA will leave the average citizen less able to protect themselves. Is the intent of this to create a crisis or to set up another expense we all must shoulder such as private weather information or a medical treatment? I’ve got to wonder, especially given the assault on science.

Below, a recent headline:

We’ve long seen lies about science arising from politicians, there is even a whole book about it. In Iowa, evolution has become unmentionable. A group of politicians recently went against the findings of a group of scientists and declared that covid came from a lab, which most scientists don’t see evidence for. Yet most in the US believe this lie and it is being pushed, along with spooky graphics, by the White House.

Here is a somewhat thoughtful reporting on why this might be occurring. In a few words: xenophobia, racism, seeding doubt about science.

Heck, we are even seeing some challenges to long established scientific views such as germ theory and the efficacy of vaccines, as if someone somewhere is prepping for another pandemic. After all, the rich got richer during the last pandemic. Fifty-four percent richer. Why not set us up for another?

I was wondering about this, the why of it, when I saw a lightning stuck tree. As we now know, lightning is a static charge that forms when winds push ice in clouds around. The top of the cloud becomes positive and the bottom negatively charged. The negative charge in the clouds pulls positive charges on the ground towards it. The positive charges move up, using tall objects as their path. (Thank you to NOAA for this great video about it.) Tall trees that contain a lot of moisture will be prone to lightning strikes.

For most of human history, lightning was associated with deities, and often were an expression of the deities’ anger at how humans were acting. Isaac Newton had some doubts about this but it wasn’t until 1752-3 that Ben Franklin convinced humanity of the natural origins of lightning.

What does this have to do with the defunding of science?

If things have a natural cause, leaders, who perhaps consider themselves sent by god, don’t have the leverage they once had. Even back to the time of Galileo, religious leaders have been threatened by science. When natural phenomenon explains tragedies, it makes it tough for these anointed ones to scare people and control them. They can even create a crisis and fix it, or keep us in a constant state of panic, like good narcissists. Science can remove the fear by offering logical explanation. 

Fortunately for the rich people, they’ve found a workaround: fund politicians and set up phony news sources (including the White House itself) to spread lies about science and to top it off, fire scientists and defund education. They are well on their way to becoming the deities they think they deserve to be. After all, lightning does strike twice.