don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

This essay deals with the need for a high priority, crash, REAL wellness campaign—a monumental undertaking as vigorous and sustained as the Manhattan Project during WW II and the quest, decades later, "to land a man on the moon and bring him safely back to the earth" (JFK). To make the case for such a national campaign, I review three new books that highlight why America must overcome scientific illiteracy and embrace reason and free inquiry.

Welcoa, the National Wellness Institute and other organizations with an interest in worksite wellness campaigns should seek to upgrade employee cognition capacities. It is well and good to do what they do now—promote health by reducing high risk behaviors, but that agenda is out of sync with the greatest need facing the nation.

The real need is for a crash course in science appreciation, followed by continuing education to fine-tune effective decision-making capacities. Real wellness educational efforts, in my view, should emphasize critical thinking fundamentals that promote mental health as part of quality of life enhancement.

This endeavor, like the moon landing that some geniuses today think was a hoax, would be a giant step for mankind. It would certainly be a leap beyond computerized health risk appraisals, if adopted as the new priority mission for worksite wellness.

Let's revisit the kind of worksite wellness I propose we promote. 

Start by asking yourself, "What kind of contributions do YOU want to make?" How many wellness promoters and wellness seekers really want to settle for an agenda of risk reduction, prevention and medical management? Even a focus on exercise, nutrition, stress management and the like seems negligent when the larger crises of moronic citizenship is recognized. While traditional worksite wellness topics matter to a modest extent, far greater problems with extraordinary consequences for our country invite a more ambitious wellness agenda.

If the much larger, more exciting (but very much more controversial) agenda of REAL wellness advancement via reason, exuberance and liberty appeals, then you might want to order three books—post haste.

The first is Science Under Siege: Defending Science, Exposing Pseudoscience. While there are many excellent books on the sorry state of America's woefully impoverished appreciation for science and reason, this jewel from the pages of Skeptical Inquirer magazine deserves priority attention. Released by Prometheus Books and edited by Kendrick Frazier, it contains articles from thirty years of Skeptical Inquirer organized in three-parts: 1) science and skeptical inquiry; 2) critical inquiry and public controversies; and 3) understanding pseudoscience and investigating claims. Not counting the introduction and extensive reference sections, Science Under Siege offers 39 superb essays. Any or all would be worthy topics for study and reflection at REAL wellness worksite forums.

Why should wellness promoters and others read books like Science Under Siege? Let me put it this way: Far too many citizens are easy prey for evangelists like Billy Graham and Pat Robertson, New Age gurus like Deepak Chopra and Jack Canfield, purveyors of extrasensory perception and alien visitations like Uri Geller and Michael Tsarion, whacked out politicians like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin and talk show bloviators like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Polls consistently report large numbers of Americans who claim not to believe in evolution, to take biblical verses literally and to question fully documented modern facts, such as the Apollo moon landing. Conspiracies abound in good measure because people are easily fooled.

On the bright side of things, there are dozens of skilled and entertaining science writers addressing this deficit in the American character. We even have a president now who has vowed to "restore science to its rightful place." (A memorable phrase from President Obama's Inaugural address.)

A second book to consider in the Science Under Siege genre that REAL wellness promoters should enjoy comes from Chris Hedges, author of Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Hedges describes America as a nation in a state of illusion, composed of two societies. "The smaller of the two functions in a print-based, literate world, copes well enough with complexity and separates illusion from truth. The other, much larger majority society has limited use for and even disdains a reality-based world for one offering magical thinking and false certainties." This partially explains the American public's fixation on celebrity scandals, deaths and gossip, termed by Hedges as "the debauched revels of a dying culture." Mr. Hedges has been thinking about this aspect of America for some time—his previous book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, suggests he should have been among the 33 contributors to Science Under Siege.

Hedges' cautions are worth considering: "A culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies. And we are dying now. We will either wake from our state of induced childishness, one where trivia and gossip pass for news and information, one where our goal is not justice but an elusive and unattainable happiness, to confront the stark limitations before us, or we will continue our headlong retreat into fantasy."

The third book of note in the context of boosting thinking skills is entitled Unscientific America. This comes from Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, following an earlier similar work called The Republican War on Science.

Both show how religious forces, science-phobic politicians, a profit-driven media and a citizenry easily manipulated have created a hazardous state of affairs that prevents action on pressing problems. The latter include climate change, an energy crisis, low economic competitiveness, global pandemics and nuclear proliferation. Solutions to these challenges require a citizenry educated in science. There is no such citizenry.

Mooney and Kirshebaum offer this example: "For every five hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science; 46 percent of Americans reject evolution and think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old; the number of newspapers with weekly science sections has shrunken by two-thirds over the past several decades. The public is polarized over climate change—an issue where political party affiliation determines one's view of reality—and in dangerous retreat from childhood vaccinations. Meanwhile, only 18 percent of Americans have even met a scientist to begin with; more than half can't name a living scientist role model."

There are five defining characteristics of stupidity. Recognizing and addressing these five national deficiencies should, I believe, be part of the REAL wellness agenda:

1.  Sheer ignorance. This means not knowing the facts about important events in the news and being clueless about who's in charge. Only one in four Americans can name two or more of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (i.e., freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances) and only one in 1000 can name all five. Of course, we do know the important stuff. For instance, more than half can name at least two members of Simpson's five-member cartoon family (22 percent can name all five).
   
   
2. Negligence. Americans are not inclined to look to reliable sources of information about news events. (Fox News is NOT reliable.)
   
   
3. Wooden-headedness. This means an inclination to believe what people prefer to believe regardless of the facts.
   
   
4. Shortsightedness. This refers to support for public policies that are mutually contradictory or contrary to the nation's long-term interests.
   
   
5. Bone-headedness. This is described as a susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.

Well, what's a REAL wellness enthusiast supposed to think? I'll tell you what I'm thinking: "Are the Aussies granting work permits for Yanks these days?" Just kidding—we need to do what we can, at all levels, to promote better thinking skills here in this country and we need to do it now. Where better to start than at worksites with expanded worksite wellness? The time for REAL wellness at all levels has arrived. The need is great—and the priority should be urgent.

All that aside, always remember—look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of effective decisions. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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