Epistemology - Why we can talk about the weather and tree rings, but not (in normal times) discuss politics and religion

Epistemology: the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially concerning its limits and validity.

When we talk about the weather; “It rained yesterday,” “That hurricane was a category 3,” “Today it is sunny,” no one gets upset because it is what it is. The same is true in a dendrochronology discussion (the study of data from tree ring growth), it never gets too heated**.  Unlike the weather, and dendrochronology; politics and religion are normally off the table for discussion. Why?

Intrinsic in physics, chemistry, geology, evolution, etc., is the attitude "no one cares what you believe," it is what it is, i.e., the epistemology is tight and intact.  Religion, on the other hand is fundamentally based on belief, religion flourishes in a venue where truth is relative (in spite of history we are taught to respect is).  Religion can only exist when epistemology is underdeveloped, broken down, or void.  

Politics in the US were once, when the Bill of Rights was written, more in line with dendrochronology.  Meaning the logic of the language was based on the mistakes of past generations, epistemology was intact.  Over a 240 year period, the epistemology of government in the US has lowered to levels equal to many moderate religions.  Our current president, Donald Trump, is not the reason for this, he is merely the contemporary product of it.   His presidency is the proof that what I am writing is true.

Why does religion represent the breakdown of epistemology?  Humanity has created some 4200 religions and gods; all of which are based on faith.  Faith is what humans used to dismiss information that contradicts our opinions.  Faith stops facts from changing our minds.

The writing that arguably was the catalyst to US independence was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.  In Common Sense, Paine warned future citizens of the US not to introduce religion [faith] into government.  Yet in 2018 we have a fervent god-fearing Christian as Vice President, and a President whose most common phrase is “believe me,” have faith in me.  We have elected the government our founders warned us about.

These are not average times, this is why we are forced to discuss politics and religion.  Evangelicalism’s push into politics is a serious problem.  We must talk about it.  We must address it before we repeat the mistakes of theocracies.  We must get back to the secular government our nation was founded on.  We must restore a robust epistemology.

** dendrochronology is only a heated topic in a discussion among Evangelical Christians claiming a 6,000-year-old Earth; because tree rings can date back almost 12,000 years (without having to introduce nuclear decay or radioactivity). 

You will always have the poor among you --- Not so Fast, Check the Data.

The author of John wrote, “You will always have the poor among you.”  Data collected since 1820 may prove the gospel wrong. 

The numbers are compelling.  In 1820, of the one billion people living on the planet; 94.4% were living in poverty, while 83.9% lived in extreme poverty. By 1950 the numbers were reduced to 71.9% and 54.8%.  Since 1980 these numbers have plummeted; in 2015 the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped to 9.6%.  See: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

The 2015 number is the lowest % in the history of our species.  Also the overall number of people living in extreme poverty is lower than it was in 1820 (even though the population has grown from 1 billion to 7 billion).

When Barack Obama said:  “If you had to choose a moment in history to be born, and you did not know ahead of time who you would be – you didn’t know whether you were going to be born into a wealthy family or a poor family, what county you’d be born in, whether you were going to be a man or a woman – if you had to choose blindly what moment you’d want to be born, you’d choose now.”  - it was not a political statement; it was simply a reflection of the data.

How did this happen, particularly considering the population has grown by 6 billion? Before the question can be answered, we must understand that poverty, just like entropy is the default state. Wealth must be created, and evolution of complex economies requires time and energy.

How did we get from there to here?

1. Humans have been free from war between superpowers for decades; for most of us our entire lives.  This is a new, modern trend.
2. Science and Technology.
3. Globalization and Free Trade.

Can we keep the trend going, can humans prove the gospel wrong and move 2015’s 9.6% to 0% by 2050?  Yes, we can, if:

• If the Left can be educated that there is no reason to be afraid of science such as GMOs and Nuclear Energy.  It takes much more time, space, and energy to grow an organic bushel of tomatoes than an intelligently modified version.  I believe the first step is to inform everyone that unless you are picking wild berries in the Teton Range alongside grizzly bears or hunting your meat, you are already eating GMOs.  Nature didn’t give us carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, wheat or even cattle.  These are all human created; the difference is the methods we have today can produce the same change in one year, that it took a millennium to produce in the past.
• The second step is to reverse the Right’s fear of Globalization and Free Trade.  Two axioms are: 
• If one country is producing product ‘A’ for one million of its own citizens they can efficiently scale to produce the same for ten billion globally. Allowing the next country to focus on producing product ‘B’ efficiently.
• Democratically elected governments that trade together do not go to war against each other.

Given that engineers, economists, and scientists (who are historically are not the most outspoken groups) must change the minds of both the left and the right to accomplish the goal - there must be another catalyst out-there, or these groups need to start speaking up.