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Fletcher calls it like it is

Media gives faux reality the same weighting as scientifically tested data

Re: Science loses ground to superstition, (B.C. Views, Oct. 2)

Tom Fletcher’s column hit on a subject that has bothered me for some time.

Maybe it is the media’s preoccupation with eyeballs but it seems to me that we are getting a lot of media output that gives faux reality the same weighting as scientifically tested data.

We, the public, are still untrained in appreciating the truth ‘free-for-all’ that the digital world has dumped on us and our educational system is not yet set up to notch up student’s BS meters.

Thus we get public support for almost any “conspiracy theory” or economic myth, whether scientific or social.

Here on Vancouver Island, this means we see the repeated return of the “zombie” E&N passenger rail solution to the “Colwood Crawl” traffic congestion; the global warming “Chicken Little” performance; the never-ending suggestion that more healthcare spending will solve our health-care issues; that everyone needs a university degree regardless of what it is; that science is usually wrong in the long run; that money obtained from another level of government is free; that we are entitled to anything/everything we can think of; that “they” are the cause of all my problems; that we do not need to create wealth - the rest of the world will always send us whatever we need; that we do not really need oil to maintain our current lifestyle; etc.

Fletcher has a deserved reputation for “telling it how it is.”  Keep it up.

Jim Knock

Esquimalt