“I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy.” —Christopher Hitchins
We chartered a fishing boat this summer, and I asked the captain if he had experienced a drop in the number of lake trout and salmon he had been catching on his trips. He replied, “No, not much difference from years past.” I said, “That’s surprising given what scientists are saying about the decline of fish stock.” His assistant chimed in, “Everyone has their own opinions—who knows what the truth is.”
I had just read Dan Egan’s terrific book on the Life and Death of the Great Lakes so I knew the truth:
With the introduction of an invasive species, sea lampreys, from the Erie Canal; the decimation of alewives, the primary food source for lake trout; and the rapid warming of our inland lakes, the ecology of the Great Lakes was severely disrupted.
Environmentalists introduced millions of Pacific Salmon into the Lakes and poisoned the sea lampreys to address these problems, but fishing populations are still vulnerable and in decline, and the health of the Great Lakes, and its ever-more-critical fresh water supply, is at significant risk.
The science is solid. Assessments of Great Lakes prey fish stocks have been conducted annually by the US Geological Survey since the 1970s using bottom trawl surveys. This long term scientific analysis found that total prey fish biomass declined from 1978 to 2015. In our five-hour fishing expedition with ten lines and an expert crew, we caught one eighteen-inch lake trout.
Let me be clear. I would be as guilty as the charter crew if I concluded that fishing stocks must be in decline because I only caught one fish on my one adventure. I would be guilty of making dramatic conclusions based on scant evidence. While I didn’t have double-blind, randomized control trials to support my assertion, however, I did have access to rigorous research. Thus, I turned to the science in an attempt to substantiate my point of view. There is no equivalency between opinion and scientific facts.
Let’s make this issue personal…and political.
If you need surgery, do you want a Harvard trained MD with 10 years of experience and 1,000 successful operations under her belt or do you want an intern from Podunk U doing his first procedure?
Similarly, do you want a leader who has devoted her entire life to government service or do you want a reality TV host with no government expertise and no commitment to public service running the government? There is no equivalency between hard-earned expertise and phony pretending and posing.
In Buddhism without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor calls on us to focus on actions grounded in evidence instead of beliefs founded in fantasy. He writes,
“Dharma practice has relinquished the last traces of belief; it is founded on an authentic vision born from experience. It no longer requires the support of moralistic rules and religious ritual; it is grounded in integrity and creative autonomy. In revealing life in all is vulnerability, it becomes the doorway to compassion.”
Essentially, Batchelor is challenging us to get on with life by acting on the evidence instead of hiding behind our beliefs.
People hold many beliefs to be true that don’t necessarily withstand the test of evidence. Some believe that a woman has no right to choose an abortion. Some believe that everyone should have access to assault weapons. Some believe that banks and corporations don’t need to be regulated. Some believe that “3 strikes and you’re out” is the solution to our criminal justice problems. Some people believe that medically assisted drug treatment exacerbates and prolongs the problem. In short, some want to translate all calls to action into dogmatic belief.
We know the results when poor women are stripped of their rights to choose and when crazy men can purchase an arsenal of weapons. We know the results when greedy capitalists are free to deceive or pollute with abandon. We know the results when we “lock people up and throw away the key.” We know the results when opioid addicts are forced too soon to go cold turkey.
There is no equivalency between evidence and beliefs.
I just finished listening to the powerful and poignant eulogies at John McCain’s funeral—a true American hero. It was a moving celebration of a great life.
I disagreed with many of McCain’s beliefs, but I always admired his integrity, decency, courage, and commitment to a cause greater than himself.
Shortly before his cancer diagnosis, he spoke of his mounting sense of alarm.
He said,
“I’m alarmed by the hardening of resentment we see toward immigrants and the growing inability, and even unwillingness, to separate truth from lies.”
He stated that he was further alarmed that
“more of our fellow citizens seem to be flirting with authoritarianism and romanticizing it as our moral equivalent.”
Even in his death and dying days, he reminded of us of two more false equivalencies: 1) There is no equivalency between democracies and dictatorships and 2) there is no equivalency between truth and conspiracy theories.
In a recent article in the New York Times by Pankaj Mishra, “The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult,” the author suggests that a wounded and swaggering identity puts the world in grave danger.
Wounded and swaggering!! If that doesn’t describe the condition of white men still struggling to re-claim past “privileges,” I don’t know what does.
In his article, Misra quotes an Australian academic named Charles Henry Pearson who predicted in 1893 that “white men would be elbowed and hustled, and perhaps even thrust aside, by people they had long regarded as their inferiors.”
Pearson believed it was imperative to defend the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely, for higher civilization. Little did he know how prescient he would be about the attitudes of xenophobic, white supremacists. Even Teddy Roosevelt believed racist pseudoscience and praised Pearson for his words and work.
Musra concludes in his article that we have arrived at our “final and most desperate phase, with existential fears about white power feverishly circulating again.”
The current personality in the White House is not only promoting this fear-and-hate-based cult Mishra describes, he is also profiting from it. Universal human rights are not equivalent to white rights—particularly white male rights.
It is time to stop accepting false equivalencies.
It’s time to stand up and fight for the truth. It’s time to insist that opinions are bolstered with scientific evidence. It’s time to expose the emptiness of posers who pretend to be experts. It’s time to stand up for democracies that require defending and to dictators who need to be confronted. It’s time to proclaim that all species deserve rights, not just while males. It’s time to declare that truth is truth is truth and quit giving equivalent time to conspiracy theories.
This battle of false equivalencies is being fought before our eyes as we read the work of well-trained investigative journalists taking great risks to get to the truth while Fox news anchors and cable news-bunnies glibly make shit up from the comfort of their fancy studios. I’m tired of talking heads blabbing opinions without doing the work required to find the facts, build the evidence, and understand the science.
And the next time you charter a fishing boat, don’t expect to fill your freezer with fish. That’s the truth.
Also published on Medium.
