At the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, a large proportion of the American public does not know that the earth orbits the sun in a year-long cycle. Over half of the people are unaware that dinosaurs died before the appearance of humans, and about as many affirm that the earth was created during the Bronze Age (Otto 2016: 224). Astonishingly, an equal number of our citizens believe in the existence of ghosts, extraterrestrial beings, paranormal monsters, alien abductions, Bigfoot, hauntings, demonic possession, angels, miracles, and so forth (Chapman University Survey of American Fears 2018; Smith 2010: 22– 23). This mostly scientifically illiterate public seems to lack the rudimentary skills to distinguish between contending claims to knowledge. We now live in a scary and confusing “post-truth” era of disinformation, “fake news,” “counter-knowledge,” “weaponized lies,” conspiracy theories, magical thinking, and sheer irrationalism (Sidky 2018).

Even the paragons of our political system are unashamedly declaring that it is impossible to distinguish between fact and opinion, that for every fact there is “an alternative fact,” that truth is whatever people want it to be, and that science is just another story (Otto 2016: 175– 76; Sidky 2004: 394– 412, 2007a). These political doyens have normalized anti-science rhetoric and irrationalism in US politics. Their main objective is to circumvent input from scientific experts and exclude scientific studies from the policymaking process, thereby jeopardizing the ability of the United States to cope with current and future public health and environmental problems (Carter et al. 2019; Otto 2016: 29).