Proselytizing for science

I'm trying to get into blogging a bit more, which is why I've been writing so many blogs recently. The reason why is that I've been considering starting a podcast, but without any experience doing it (other than being on Sidetracked a handful of times), it's a little intimidating to just start doing it. So I've decided to start blogging for a bit, try to organize my thoughts, and see if there's anyone out there that might be interested in listening to what I have to say.

Most of these blog entries will be about random thoughts that occur to me, and I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about science and skeptical topics. I'll probably do some blogging about comics and video games as well, and probably The Beatles, since these are things that I spend a lot of time thinking about as well, but I'm actively trying to get the word out about skepticism a bit more. I've decided to be a proselytizer for science.

That's a bit of a misnomer, really. Proselytizing involves trying to convert someone to a religion, and science is the furthest thing from a religion you can have. Religion is based on faith in what cannot be proven (but which can be disproven, oddly enough), but science is based on evidence, facts, and truth. Not believing in science is literally the same as not believing in reality. Which describes a lot of religions, actually. Spreading science and truth is NOT proselytizing, it's educating. It's like calling a math teacher a "proselytizer for algebra."

So what do I mean when I say I'm going to be proselytizing for science? Isn't proselytizing bad? Oddly enough, it's not. Despite the fact that I disagree with Christians on a fundamental level, I can't argue with the fact that they are trying to get the word out about their faith. If I believed in Jesus and truly believed that people who didn't believe in him were going to Hell, I'd be out there trying to convert nonbelievers too. But I don't believe in Jesus, or Allah, or Zeus, or any other supernatural being. I believe in science, and I believe that rejecting science is not only bad on a personal level, it's bad for humanity.

There are small but extremely vocal segments of the population that are actively anti-science, both on the left and the right side of the political spectrum. These people are fucking it up big time for everyone else, and need to be stopped. Fundamentalist Christians who want to include their religious dogma in science classes mascarading as "intelligent design" need to be stopped. Jenny McCarthy, spreading misinformation about vaccines and directly causing the rate of measles and mumps to rise (and causing children to die) because of her bullshit, needs to be stopped. Muslim men that force their wives and daughters by threat of violence to cover their faces and bodies in public need to be stopped. "Psychics" that take advantage of grieving survivors need to be stopped. Alternative medicine practitioners and chiropractics that peddle bullshit and snake oil on an unsuspecting public need to be stopped.

In the past I've rolled my eyes at these people and kept my mouth shut out of respect, but these kinds of people don't deserve respect. I have no respect for someone who tries to take advantage of people by telling them herbs will cure their cancer, or telling them they can talk to their dead loved ones, or telling them there's a god in the sky who will send them to Hell unless they give 10% of their paycheck to the church. These people are loud, they are forceful, and to the unskeptical observer, they are BELIEVABLE. Skeptics have to be just as loud and just as prominent. We HAVE to get the word out there, or the bullshit is just going to spread. The world will get more spiritual, more religious, and science (and humanity as a result) will suffer.

So I'm starting small. I'm going to start blogging and I'm not holding anything back. From now on I'm a warrior on the side of truth. Maybe if this works out I'll start a podcast. Maybe I'll move on from there to books and magazine articles. Maybe someday I'll be giving speeches at TAM or other skeptical conferences. Or... maybe none of that will happen and I'll get tired of this in a month. We'll see.