Faith Middleton Show: Denialism

Here's a question - do we fear science at least as much as we embrace it?  Antipathy toward the ideas of progress and discovery represent a fundamental shift in the way we, in the twenty-first century, approach the world.  Where we once celebrated scientific achievement, we now see leaders of African nations who let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains.  Pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by greed.

In the book Denialism: How  Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, New Yorker magazine staff writer Michael Specter examines the symptoms of what he calls denialism or denial writ large - when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie.