We live in an age of reason--sort of. We don't follow prophets, but we do worry about profits. We know that the fortune cookie is just for fun. We read our horoscope, but only consider whether it might be meaningful after the day has ended. We only spend money on palm reading at fairs and faires and affairs.
We believe in science--mostly. We know about research, making predictions, understanding that relationships are not the same as cause and effect; realizing that just because somethings works sometimes, doesn't make it dependable, or safe, or cost-effective. We understand the difference between chance-probability and just plain luck.
But in the news, in the guise of scientific predictions and statistical analysis, we make plans for a future world as if it is set in stone.
Frequently those predictions are off, slower to arrive, faster to arrive, never to arrive. And when that happens, we treat them the same way as the horoscope that wasn't true. We laugh and go on. But frequently, the great engine of the world has already spent years working on the predicted event. Things like space travel for money, controlling the weather, and more commonly, immigration patterns, voting patterns, economic changes. The stuff that consumes the dreams and nightmares of the power people. The act of predicting a thing changes everything.
Once a prediction is made, we begin to plan for it, or we start to make the change occur. Its sort of like a self-fulfilling prophecy only on a grande scale. We rarely ask what could we do to make this never happen and we don't ask ourselves if maybe the future change might just be a good thing. We just dig in and start building a dam for the oncoming flood.
Looking at two events, one, a prediction made in the late 1970's---"by 2000, everyone up to our latitude would have to speak spanish to be employable". The end of any prediction like this is unspoken, but becomes the focus, "if we don't do something now" We have now spent 35 years trying to "do something now" and it is still a huge political issue and poor people that were born here are still in fear of losing their jobs to those spanish-speaking immigrants.
Most of us still don't speak spanish.
But what did that prediction cause us to focus on? Did anyone say "why are people coming up here from Central and South America when they know they are going to face a language barrier? Did anyone try to help those countries with the problems that were making their own citizens run?
NO!
We focused on two goals, teaching our own public school children in spanish immersion programs (novel and not a negative bone in its body, but we never had the number of teachers needed to do this for many places) and targeting "illegals", "undocumenteds" and anyone that has a trace of a spanish accent or that has an hispanic last name. (I even heard one woman, brunette with the first name Maria, be asked how she learned such good English, she was speechless, but I had been raised near her and knew her roots were Irish, German, English, and Wales. She qualified for the DAR, old poor families love to brag about that.)
We don't really seem to know our own history in this country. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, , in fact, everything west of the Mississippi was at one time claimed by Spain. We should be expecting Hispanic surnames in our own citizens that have roots here as old as the oldest settlers to the U.S.A.
All the original prediction proved, was that when faced with a change, we are mostly bad neighbors, and snobs about our roots and language.
The second event was not a prediction, but a lack of a prediction. The Ebola scare that is filling the news and the political speeches for purposes of getting a vote was never predicted except perhaps by a few B-movies. We did nothing to prepare. The Western African Gorilla population wass nearing extinction from this virus just ten years ago. If we had treated this information as important, we might now have a cure or a vaccine already. But they are gorillas so who cares.
The first recognition of Ebola was in 1976. In Africa,(
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak
) the virus was discovered in a Belgian Nun working in Zaire, translate as first civilized person known to die of this so let's find out what it is, and the virus was identified. It has continued to rear its head, with thoughts that it is contracted from the remains of infected animals. The eating of primates by humans is not unheard of, although to most of us it is as disturbing as putting chicken remains in chicken feed and cattle remains in cattle feed, there are those that were raised on primate meat, not a preference but an availability issue. It also lives in bats in the area.
It is a class 4 infective agent, think anthrax, think SARS, think high mortality and no way to prevent it if there is an actual exposure. It is not airborne, although Bubonic plague has two ways to be spread, and the airborne is worse, so the fear with any virus is that mutation will eventually go there. Diseases in horror stories frequently mimic the worst-looking symptoms and take full advantage of the way that humans panic.
But we didn't predict this, and we assumed that because all the people that went to nursing school and medical school new what was needed to contain a class 4 infective agent. And they have heard about it, but
1) most places don't have the expensive equipment available to use in case something that has never happened before shows up at their door, 2) don't necessarily remember anything about a thing they heard about in school but never thought they would need to use, 3) and never prepared for because hearing about a thing is not the same as doing it.
So what does that mean to us? It means that we have an election in a few weeks and for those politicians that want something better than immigration to beat their dead horse with, they can complain about Ebola, like it is a political issue, like it is new, like it is someone's fault--and obviously not theirs.
Watch those predictions, they are made frequently after scientific research is published, but the populist version is always aimed at creating panic and anxiety in the masses. Learn to read the actual research. Or make sure to not get just one version of what it means. Be wary of predictions passed on by religious leaders, politicians, and rich folks with agendas. We are all capable of making intelligent predictions based on information and don't need someone else to tell us what to believe.
Think for yourself.
