Thinking Clearly

IN 1976, the Mariner space probe landed on Mars, took pictures, and showed what looked like the letters "BG2" etched into the desert-like Martian surface. Many people were abuzz. Out came the alternative cosmic paradigm crowd, including millions of alleged alien abductees. Intelligent life on Mars verified! A day or two later famed astronomer Carl Sagan made one of his frequent appearances on "The Tonight Show" with famed host Johnny Carson. Seated between Johnny and famed side kick Ed McMahon, Sagan, in response to Carson's question, asked: "How likely is it that an intelligent species on another planet, with no apparent prior exposure to human culture, would inscribe a message into another planet's soil using Arabic numerals and English letters"? A disappointed but content studio audience remained silent, as did probably millions of disappointd but newly aware American television viewers. Ed McMahon probaly guffawed, as he did at most anything, but memory has faded after forty five years. Or, maybe the Martains had been closely observing the English speaking world, and wanted to communicate effectivelly. But..why only two letters and a number? Why not a coherent sentence or two? And..where, otherwise, were they, the intelligent Martians? Invisible, on the already comprehensively photographed Martian surface, or lurking beneath? Or had they left the planet long ago, presumably long before the English alphabet and Arabic numbering system were invented, and leaving behind not a trace of their highly technologically developed civilization?... Five years later, in 1981, I once again encountered problematic thinking, this time from my older sister, a patriotic American supporter of Ronald Reagan with a military background. During one of our infrequent "intellectual" converstaions, she informed me, in response to a claim I made, that, no, the United States did not lose the Viet Nam war. Sensing a biased, hagiographic viewpoint, I camly, Sagan-like, inquired of her: "Then why has Saigon been renamed 'Ho Chi Minh city', and why does the communist government in Hanoi now govern the entire country of Viet Nam? In 1981 she had no answer; now she admits her inadequate interpretation of modern American history, and, god bless her, it only took forty years for her to evolve and accept our American defeat in Viet Nam. It could have been worse, I suppose. Like Sagan once said, there is no shortage of intelligence in America nor anywhere else; there is only inadequate eduction and inadequate teaching of critical thinking skills. Sagan also said: "Extraordinary claims of fact require extraordinary evidence". Now in the science fictiony year of 2022, education has expanded, but so has uncritical thinking. The list of examaples is long, too long. Anti-vaccination folks, stolen election sycophants, conspiracy theories of all make and model flood the internet and abound and multiply in the hearts and minds of the improperly educated, the uncritical thinkers. A high percantage of Americans refuse to believe in the obvious reality of human made climate change and human evolution by natural selection. Poor thinking runs the gamut. Our modern proliferation of false thinking is dangerous. Dangerous because it harms society. A single, powerful, influential person can do great harm. Twice, the reverend Wm. Miller disrupted the lives of thousands of Americans, in 1843 and again in 1844. His followers liquidated their assets and their lives and camped atop hilltops in anticipation of the second coming of Christ, which failed to happen not once, but twice. That they were fooled a second time discredits them, not him, as the Chinese maxim says. The most brazen diaboical example of bad mental processes is Hitler, who murdered millions with the power of his intellectual nonsense, conatined in his pompous idiotic book "Mein Kampf", publisned years before he made it come true, aided and abetted by poor thinking among millions, like a contagious disease. That weventy five million Americas tried to reelect Donald Trump, that one third of the American people still believe that his reelection was "stolen", and that his insurrection was justifiable speaks volumes, not only about putting political dogma and party before country, but also about the willingness of erstwhile intelligent human beings to abandon reason in the defense of malignant personal beliefs and agendas. The world needs more Carl Sagans, more Anthony Faucis, and far, far fewer shrill, bleating radio talk show hosts screeching right wing lies and hatred, and at least one fewer narcissistic, mentally ill demagogue.