{"id":30,"date":"2008-10-21T19:34:06","date_gmt":"2008-10-21T19:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jarrodhart.wordpress.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2008-10-21T19:34:06","modified_gmt":"2008-10-21T19:34:06","slug":"from-secular-to-skeptical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"Skeptical society, the logical next step from secular society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, it&#8217;s true, I&#8217;m one of those science nerds who thinks that a good scientific understanding of the world should underpin government. And education, healthcare, the law, etc.<\/p>\n<p>However, I have set myself up for disappointment, because our society doesn&#8217;t work like that. It is simply much easier to use anecdotes to sway opinion, to spin data, and to manipulate with a vast arsenal of marketing tricks.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians, salesmen and journalists all know that the full details (of anything), with all ifs and buts included, will not make a catchy headline or slogan, will not catch the eye or tug the heartstring.<\/p>\n<p>Emotions matter more than facts. People vote with their hearts not their heads.<\/p>\n<p>No amount of simple campaigning for &#8216;better conduct&#8217; by will ever make a damn of difference, as the causesand incentives remain. To move on, what we need is a society that thinks for itself. A skeptical society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, it&#8217;s true, I&#8217;m one of those science nerds who thinks that a good scientific understanding of the world should underpin government. And education, healthcare, the law, etc. However, I have set myself up for disappointment, because our society doesn&#8217;t work like that. It is simply much easier to use anecdotes to sway opinion, to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,31],"tags":[108,190,267,206,269,210,221],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovincialscientist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}