Build a Better Tomorrow Today: Using Science and Skepticsm

Everyone is focusing on what is wrong with the world, when we should be turning our attention to what is great about it, and how we can make it better. That starts with becoming better thinkers and decision makers. Then, we can become leaders in anything we choose to do. 

"The point of an argument or debate should be progress, not victory." 

The initial intention behind the start of this blog was to help other people who were like me and felt lost amongst all of the spiritualness in the world. I could not find my place, but knew I was part of something bigger than just myself. Was I Apache, Navajo, or Hopi? Was I white? Where did my answers lie? In one of those tribal religions or perhaps in the white mans' religion? 

I am not trying to change people's minds about their beliefs just because I don't agree with them. I am not out searching the internet looking to debunk myths. I am simply trying to get people to think for themselves and become just a little more skeptical. But, when I say skeptical, I don't mean cynical. I mean scientifically-skeptical. A large portion of science and scientific skepticism is open-mindedness. That tenet should always be clear and present in the forefront of our minds. In order to understand science, you have to get to know skepticism. This is what makes us better critical thinkers. 

"You don't change people's minds, you give them the tools to decide on their own."

This is what science, critical thinking, and skepticism have done for me. These tools are proven to be the best ways for vetting new information and attaining knowledge. They can even act as a self-defense system for your brain!

My focus went from studying the things we don't know, to the things we are pretty certain about. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of these patterns I see in nature? These questions began to seem less relevant to me as my brain was now infatuated with learning as much as I could about the universe and our place in it. 

I started my journey thinking that science was all about math and facts. Cold, complex, and boring. Along the way, I found out that it was much more than that, it was "a way of thinking." Now, I see it as being humbling, awe-inspiring, and elegant.

"Who is making all the decisions about science and technology that are going to determine the kind of future our children will live in?" (Sagan 1996) 

 

Carl Sagan on Charlie Rose in 1996.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, are the implications to our civic duties. Socrates used to stress that it wasn't enough for the  people of Rome to vote. They needed to be well informed voters. Because, when we stop questioning authority, we leave ourselves open for them to take advantage. Then, the people don't run the government, the government runs the people. Thomas Jefferson was also a big fan of questioning authority because of these same reasons. 

Who will govern the governors?" There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government. (Jefferson 1903-04)

Benjamin Franklin has been quoted as saying, "It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." I hold a similar belief. Socrates believed that ordinary citizens were not fit to govern themselves. He didn't believe that the general public was informed enough to make big decisions and often voted against their best interests. But, I have more hope for people and would like to see a world where more can think for themselves and are not afraid to question authority or the status quo. A place where we can argue constructively and find progress, despite any differences. The aim isn't to win debates, but to be just a bit more skeptical. About as much as you would be when buying a car from someone. It is especially important when we are most vulnerable. 

This is the difference that I would like to make in the world. If I could leave a trail for others to follow like bread crumbs, that would be fulfilling. Whether it is through a story or shared experience, the end result is finding some common uniting factor and building upon it. 

Original Artwork by Noah Nez.

Sources: 

Sagan, Carl. 1996. Charlie Rose. YouTube. Can be accessed online at: http://youtu.be/d8O1e_TZHZo.

Jefferson, Thomas. 1903-04. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson on Politics and Government. Memorial Edition (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors). 20 Vols., Washington, D.C. Can be accessed online at: http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/thomasjefferson/jeff0350.htm.

Review: NYC Epicenters: 9/11 to 2021 1/2

 

I just watched the first episode of the Spike Lee joints on HBO, “NYC Epicenters: 9/11 to 2021 ½”. Here are some of the initial thoughts and feelings about the two-hour long episode. Firstly, it was such a relief to feel acknowledged by the past I experienced as being real. Sometimes, the past year can seem like it was a bad nightmare. This felt like an acknowledgment of all the feeling and emotions I had being validated. The betrayal of the government handling of the pandemic to the protest against police brutality and injustice around the world. This felt like a validation that it actually happened. It wasn't a dream. I was there. Here is the footage. It's want what the media presented at the time, from ANY side. It was peaceful, lovely, and inspiring. Honestly, I feel sorry for you if you didn't get to experience that global movement like most of humanity did during that time. Once again, I am so glad Spike documented and presented so it is immortalized as it happened.

 

Some may try and change that narrative, like it wasn't as magical as it was, like the global agreement acknowledging systematic racism and injustice under the law around the world didn't happen. But, it did. And it was just as glorious as Spike Lee depicts it. My memory doesn't have the same soundtrack, but the spirit and emotion of his score fits to what I felt during those first, uneasy moment of the COVID19 Pandemic.

 

The film reminds us of our own experiences in the unfolding of a contagion. Namely, the bad. For it wasn't until it got really bad that Americans took notice. The failure of leadership across the board leaves you dizzy trying to blame every level of government. But, ultimately I couldn't help thinking of Socrates and how we elect every person fumbling the ball now. For he did not think the “ordinary people [of Rome] were fit to govern themselves.”

 

That might sound offensive to read. But, his explanations were reasonable and convincing. I used to be one of these contrarian, hipster wannabe, armchair scholars watching YouTube thinking I was smarter than the entire scientific, and medical establishment. I get it. In a world of Dr. Oz selling BS on daytime TV, it can be tough for the lay person to follow. Now, when we see the general public science literacy every year, I get it and I agree. The question of whether the Earth rotates around the Sun or if ghosts are real should not be controversial. Certain scientific facts like evolution, get politicized. However, modern biology and medicine wouldn’t make sense without it, therefore they would not exist.  

 

Carl Sagan used to inspire me and leave me in a state of wow. Now, his words mostly just haunt me...

 

“A world built on science and technology, which no one understands it…is liable to blow up in our faces.” A recipe for a perfect storm of disaster.

 

Now, social media and the internet provide so much information that the BS is indistinguishable from the truth. There is no better example relevant than the misinformation, fear mongering, and conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID19 vaccines.

 

Turns out the modern age didn't give us flying cars, jet packs, and hover boards. The future made processing power smaller and more powerful. So, we get computer phones and digital cameras in our palms. You can thank space exploration and telescopes like the Hubble for technology in the phone you are using now. The spinoffs are not calculable.

 

But, this comes back to how it all works against us. Access to information quicker, also means access to disinformation quicker. Once I heard the question, if you were asked to prove the world is not flat, could you? Without the use of the internet, but sheer logic and experiment. I knew this was an important aspect because I couldn't do it. Ancient people could do it. What knowledge did they have that I did not?

 

Instead, I learned how all those ages ago, someone measured the angles of the shadows from a sun dial in two different locations at the same time. The results are what proved the truth of the universe as we know it today, the world is indeed not flat. They could even find the circumference of the Earth with the results they found with incredible accuracy.  

 

According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of the word “epicenter”, means the central point of something, usually unpleasant or a difficult situation. New York City often serves as the center of many situations that we tend to forget about. We get examples of how the pandemic helped bring people closer together in certain ways and pushed us apart in others. Not just in a physical sense, but in a personal, psychological sense.   

 

When we get saved from this global pandemic, remember that it is not because of any politician or world leaders. You give credit where it is due, to the health care workers on the frontline and scientists developing new technologies such as the vaccinations that will help us win this war. Never has there been a time that peoples attention and interest should be in science. This is our moonshot. As Americans we should rally behind the efforts to find solutions and support the healthcare workers. We have a common enemy in the virus killing indiscriminately, whatever your beliefs might be. It is killing Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even germ deniers all the same. During the moon missions, people complained about the cost of sending men to the moon. I am sure people asked how much it would cost to shut down St. Louis during the Flu of 1918, but the opening back up before it was safe, would cost them more than they could ever imagine.

 

I am sure there were people saying they overreacted in St. Louis closing the city down during the Flu of 1918. But, all of those people soon felt like assholes when the virus had a second wave worse than the first, and a third when science deniers protested the disease into each others uncovered, open mouths. I am sure most people have not heard of this, because those who do not know history, are doomed to repeat it.

 

Original Artwork By Noah Nez 

*Series is available on HBOMAX now

Conspiracy Theorists Will Not Read This!

While it is easy to shrug off and laugh at, we are seeing more and more grand conspiracies being highlighted by social media. Some are less concerning, while others are more. Superstitious thinking isn't harmless and has real world consequences. The internet has always had this problem, but information gets around quicker than it ever has in the past. A viral video can travel around the world before the truth can get its pants on. 

The problem with combating these types of things, is that they get emboldened when ridiculed.  It's easy to condemn and come off condescending in the process.  Have you ever been persuaded by being ridiculed?

People would rather be wrong on their own, than be ridiculed and proven wrong by someone else. Therefore, it can be tough to be cordial and understanding when talking about something like vaccines. When I first heard of anti-vaccine groups, it drove me crazy. Crazy enough to start this blog and thus my whole campaign of consumer protection advocacy.

I used to ridicule my cousins for getting flu vaccines every year, while making the same argument many vaccine hesitant people make today. "I am young and healthy, therefore I do not need a vaccine." But, that is wrong, followed by more wrong. Those are just more  reasons for getting a vaccine. You get vaccinated for the ones who cannot get the vaccines themselves. Like babies, old people, or the elderly. The immunological response the human body has when expose to immunizations is far safer and effective than any natural method. Vaccines are a technological marvel of science and should be celebrated for adding decades to the human lifespan. 

At the end of the day, conspiracy theories aren't about science or a search for the truth. It's about human psychology and the pitfalls in our thinking when we aren't taught how to reason. Our brains, like the internet, they  are powerful tools of information. But, if we aren't taught how to use them, we could end up with more misinformation than what is tried and true. Like a chimpanzee with a machine gun. 

There is a subtle difference between being skeptical and being cynical. Carl Sagan once said,

"Science is more than a body of knowledge. Is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs." 

One of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, said something similar in "a man who does not stand for something, will fall for anything."

It turns out, researchers have found something similar to be true when they study it with experiment. An extreme example would be, highly educated individuals without any formal critical thinking skills or science literacy are not more likely to be right, but are more likely to rationalize with more elaborate explanations.  

In skeptic circles, we call it "hand waving". It reminds me of politicians who overuse gestures while they talk, or frauds who sell bunk science with over complicated technical terms. It's a psychological tool to convince you they know what they are talking about. 

Not having one skill is bad enough. Not having either is a recipe for disaster. Some fraudsters and con artists would say you deserve to be taken advantage of as a result. How do you feel about that? There are people out there who knowingly pull the wool over the eyes of the susceptible, and there are even more who know and do not care. Well, I care. People are taking advantage of others and exploiting this blindspot and nobody does anything. I can at least call it out. 

Critical-thinking is being able to challenge one's own beliefs and positions. It is the crux of any decision making process. 

So, mere doubt isn't good enough. Asking questions of all authority isn't good enough. We must ultimately demand evidence and be able to differentiate what credible with standards of validation. 

If you don't believe any of this, good, look it up. You do not have to take my word for it.  Challenge any, and all, preconcieved notions. Especially, your own. 

Original Artwork By Noah Nez 

American Hero Story: How Native Americans Became Pulp-Fiction

The First Nations of Americans

The common generalizations of First Nations people was shaped during the rise of Hollywood through portrayals in classic American cinema. So much to the point, that even Native people grow up with these misconceptions about their own people and culture. If we are not some primitive version of man called savage, we are often the complete opposite. Peaceful societies that once knew more about Nature than we do today.  A version of man that was more in tune with Mother Nature, a version of a Native called noble. 

"Hollywood has made over 4000 films about Native people; over 100 years of movies defining how Indians are seen by the world." (Diamond 2010). 



If you do not know any First Nations people personally, you likely think of one of these tropes that are not reflective of a people as a whole. If it is not some version of a primitive culture deduced to a mascot, it is some projected stereotype of what many people think is a Native American shaped by movies and pop culture.

The First Avenger, Jim Thorpe, Captain America 

United States president Theodore Roosevelt might have been Americas loudest conservationist. He liked to travel and journal his observations of wildlife, landscapes, and cultures along the way. When Roosevelt toured the Southwest in 1913, he made sure to schedule some time to see the Hopi Snake Dance. He also made sure to chronicle that leg of the journey in his diary. 

We were received with friendly courtesy, and that was partly due to showing good manners ourselves...There were hundreds of onlookers the day we were there. Many of the tourists did not show the proper respect for the religious observance they were watching. (DOI 2016)

Tourism in rural areas has its obvious negative sides, one of them being the watering down of traditions due to consumerism.  As the chairman of the Hopi tribe, Benjamin H. Nuvamsa explains, 

The Snake ceremony is of such a sacred nature and was becoming so heavily exploited in past decades and became so overrun with disrespectful tourists that it was threatened with extinction...Facing this, and coupled with the advent of easily affordable hobbyist photography, the practitioners, left with no alternative, closed the ceremonies to non-Indian spectators in approximately the 1950s. (Myers 2008) 

That depicts this negative aspect to perceiving Native people as some culture that once held the keys to life, a path to tranquility, or the secrets of enlightenment. People are just people. No matter what time they lived. Some just have an ability to describe it. 

These stereotypes do not just effect individuals outside of tribal communities. They also stain the brains of Native people just the same way.

Neil Diamond is a Canadian filmmaker from the Cree tribal community. Reel Injun is a documentary inspired by his experiences as a child in Waskaganish, Quebec. Like many children from his era growing up watching John Wayne, he would play cowboys and Indians after local screenings of Westerns in their remote community. 

Diamond remembers that although all of the children were in fact "Indians", they all wanted to be "cowboys". As an adult, he would constantly be questioned by non-Native's if his people still lived in teepee's and rode horses. He realized that all of their preconceptions about Native people were derived from those classical Hollywood films he grew up watching and mimicking. I had similar experiences all throughout school. I remember other students would ask me if we lived in teepee's or had regular houses.

There is a cultural disparity amongst Native people from the rest of America that is different than the ones we normally see in our country. It is the main reason people  do not find these stereotypes harmful. Native American religions are not accepted as being legitimate. Our Federal Courts will overrule a tribe's cemetery as being sacred burial ground and orders to relocate grave sites in the name of progress. This type of thinking sets the tone for how Native culture, Native religions, and Native people are to be treated. Consider this, the First Nations of people in America were not granted full citizenship until 1924.


The year of 2013 was tougher than normal for farmers in California. The severe drought was impacting their livelihood, their crops. Today, there are many that find the evidence supporting climate science hard to believe, yet are willing to consider the Native American Rain Dance as a plausible solution to "changing the climate back."

Not only was 2013 the driest calendar year on record in California, but in some places 2013 eclipsed previous record minimum precipitation values by around 50%. Nearly the entire state is currently experiencing dryness that hasn’t been experienced in living memory, and across the most populated parts of California the ongoing drought is more severe than any previous event in well over a century (Magee 2014).

This is an example of how the noble stereotype has influenced the perception of Native Americans. Often, it appears in society as a form of new age mysticism.  A Rain Dance ceremony to end that severe drought in California was being performed when passersby could not help but notice and say, “It’s pretty impressive to see this. It does make you think about things. Maybe there is something to the rain dance. I don’t know. We try to teach our daughter to conserve and do what we can to help out.”


Bree Steffen is a reporter for KOCO in Oklahoma. She reported on an incident involving tribal communities clashing with a pop culture stereotype.

"Protesters led by Choctaw musician Samantha Crain staged a protest at the Norman Music Festival in Oklahoma, as Native Americans were outraged on social media when Fallin wore a Native American-style fringed shawl with the word "sheep" on the back and performed a fake war dance while her boyfriend Steven Battles ridiculed the protesters and flipped them off from the stage."  

Those classic westerns did a lot for progressing cinema, but they also took Native people back in many ways by re-introducing us into popular culture as the noble savage or godless heathens. That is the problem using First Nations people as team mascots, it perpetuates and promotes this grouping of Native cultures into one of the  few stereotypes. This leads to a lack of respect for Native Americans religious beliefs. 

"We know the Plains headdress, or warbonnet, is a powerful image. Within the indigenous cultures it comes from, it represents honor and power. The man wearing it has been acknowledged as a person worthy of great respect. Highly symbolic, headdresses are of great spiritual importance and were only to be worn by the consent of tribal leaders, usually on ceremonial occasions. But in the popular catalogue of images of Indians in America, it represents all natives. It pronounces us wild and majestic, a warrior people who once were but do not exist now." 

Normally, only worn for ceremonial occasion under the consent of tribal leaders, headdresses are strictly to be adorned by the worthy. They are not merely aesthetic, they are of great spiritual and religious importance. 

Honor. Power. Respect. 

These are the terms we associate with the headdress. For so long, I could not articulate or understand my strong gut reaction to seeing people make up their own headdress. There is the obvious and blatant mocking, but this upsets me more than the typical chants, slurs, or stereotypes. This is the slow knife of subtle racism that twists, reminding us that we have been reduced to a ghost image of what we once were. I think about my ancestors looking up at that star spangled banner waving as their people were massacred in front of them. Turning their heads to a crucifix that was raised after all of their people were slaughtered in God's name. Not everyone looks at an American flag and sees the same thing.

Liberty and justice for all?

Just as, "Calling the rain or praying for rain," is not the same thing as "praying TO the rain." An indivduals intent might be pure, but when the meaning is lost, the ceremony is lost too. Without that original meaning, a dance becomes just a dance, and a song becomes just a song. Like the headdress, when we talk about our tribal chiefs and warriors, it is akin to another culture's military veterans. Just as you would not desecrate our United States military, the same respect should apply to ours. 

In the end, it is easy to understand why these stereotypes have been around for so long. Much like urban legends, superstitions, and other common misconceptions, stereotypes perpetuate by ingraining themselves into the popular culture. So much to the point, they are no longer preconcieved notions and folklore, they are the truth. 

Sources:


DOI. 2016. US Department of the Interior. October 27. Article can be accessed at: (https://www.doi.gov/blog/conservation-legacy- theodore-roosevelt).

Diamond, Neil. 2010. Reel Injun On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian. Article can be accessed online at: (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/reel-injun/).

Magee, Maureen. 2014. When in drought, rain dance. The San Diego Tribune. (January 25). Online article can be accessed at: (https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/sdut-rain-dance-drought-oceanside-park-native-american-2014jan25-story.html).


West, Weather. 2014. The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge continues into 2014; California drought intensifies. California Weather Blog. Article can be accessed online at: (http://weatherwest.com/archives/1085).

Brettman, Allan. 2019. Native American group asks Nike to stop selling Cheif Wahoo gear. The Oregonian. Article can be accessed online at: (https://www.oregonlive.com/playbooks-profits/2014/04/native_american_group_asked_ni.html).

Christina Fallon Explained. Everything Explained Today. Article can be accessed online at: (http://everything.explained.today/Christina_Fallin/).

Myers, Jay J. 2008. The Sacred Hopi Snake Dance Impressed Theodore Roosevelt. Originally published Wild Wild Magazine. HistoryNet. 2018.  (https://www.historynet.com/sacred-hopi-snake-dance-impressed-theodore-roosevelt.htm).

Skinwalkers

Skinwalkers might be the most popular paranormal creatures in Native American culture. A close second to Bigfoot. While there are many stories about them, I have never heard one about their origins like I told in the Skeptical Briefs 2012 spring edition titled, Skinwalkers. After going through historical documents, I discovered a chilling secret...

* You can follow the link to the entire article here---> Skinwalkers

The full article originally appeared in Volume 22.1 of the Skeptical Briefs 2012 spring edition, which is now available over on the CSI website.