Don't Panic

Several students have started to ask about 2012. I hope this email addresses some questions.

Science has not only made us safer - it can help us feel safer too.

Vaccines? Perfectly safe. Aspertame in diet soda? Not a worry. Cell phones? People panic, but there's little to worry about. Homeopathy? You can save your money.

Tragically, pseudoscience and fear-mongering has consequences. Fearing the end of the world when the LHC started up, a teen took her own life. The anti-vaccination movement, now seemingly lead by Jenny McCarthy, has a body count. Children die because their parents refuse real medicine on their behalf.

Like the LHC, 2012 is not going to result in the end of the world. I'm sure it will be a great movie (any by any reasonable definition, the movie with the best special effects is the best) but it's just a movie.

Really.

The number of people who have jumped from "internet rumor + movie = it must be true" has reached such epic heights that in the U.S. NASA has actually created a special page to dispel the myth.

Think about that for a moment. This has nothing to do with NASA. NASA, as a scientific community, does not deal with (or really is equipped to understand) popular psychology and internet fads. When enough people become scared, though, it becomes a public menace.

"End of the World" predictions have a long (and failed) history. Be a little skeptical. The number of articles that end a story with "there is no evidence, so the debate continues to rage" misses the point - without evidence there is no debate. In science facts, rather than public opinion, determines whether or not there is a real debate.

And every time you accept pseoduscience as science, you make Carl Sagan Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye cry.

Cheers,

Mr. "the Earth is still flat" Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School