Australian philosopher and medic Chris Ellis thinks that science writers should quit telling everyone that the universe is a meaningless void, even though he seems to think it is:

We live in a deterministic world without free will, yet we must choose to accept science and prevent climate change. And we must act now!

1.The universe is destined to end in a dead, freezing void and life has no meaning. But we must prevent climate change so our planet does not become a dead, overheated void – and we can continue our meaningless lives.

2.As a result of these paradoxes, those who do not align with science’s claims about the fundamental nature of the universe may not accept scientific arguments regarding climate change.

Chris Ellis, “Science communicators need to stop telling everybody the universe is a meaningless void,” The Conversation, November 28, 2023

So what does he propose?

Instead, science communicators would do well to take a more sensitive and anthropological approach to science communication. Understanding what people value and how to reach them may actually help the advancements of science make the world a better place.

Ellis, “Meaningless void”

In short, science writers should misrepresent the situation to the rest of us for our own good. The remarkable thing about Ellis’s proposal is that it comes at a time when, in North America at least, trust in science is already plummeting to an all-time low. People suspect that we are being conned about a lot of things. How would an accepted, admitted policy of conning us not make it worse?

Why should we believe what materialists say anyway?

First, it’s far from clear that the universe is a meaningless void. Generally, the sciences whose ultimate message is meaningless void-ism are running aground. As John Horgan (who would have preferred that things be otherwise) has pointed out,

As for life, Dawkins’s claim that it is no longer a mystery is absurd. We still don’t have a clue how life began, or whether it exists elsewhere in the cosmos. We don’t know whether our emergence was likely or a once-in-eternity fluke.

Brain scientists have no idea how our brains make us conscious, and even if they did, that knowledge would apply only to human consciousness. It would not yield a general theory of consciousness, which determines what sort of physical systems generate conscious states. It would not tell us whether it feels like something to be a bat, nematode or smart phone.

John Horgan, “The Delusion of Scientific Omniscience,” Cross-check, August 13, 2023

For that matter, the war on free will is stalemated. And denial of the significance of the fine-tuning of the universe for life is becoming a hindrance, not a help, in the search for ET. And, as time goes by, it’s probably becoming harder to con people about these things.

Meanwhile, a paper from the American Psychological Association recommends countering misinformation as follows:

– fact-checking, or debunking; – prebunking, or pre-emptive debunking to prevent people from falling for misinformation in the first place; – nudges, such as asking people to consider the accuracy of information before sharing it, or rewarding people to be as accurate as possible; – and formal education or community outreach to raise people’s awareness about healthy online behavior and media use.

American Psychological Association, “Psychological science can help counter spread of misinformation,” ScienceDaily, November 29, 2023

One underlying assumption in the release is that the authority using such tactics is itself a source of correct information. With COVID-19, that was often not the case. The tactics have been used by central authorities to spread propaganda whose relationship to fact was dubious at best. In an information-rich society, people find these things out and trust, once dashed, is hard to regain.

Not surprisingly then, a recent open-access paper in Nature found almost no evidence that top down efforts to fight “disinformation” about climate change had any effect. As the release from the University of Geneva puts the matter,

The ”trust in climate scientists” group, for example, received verified information demonstrating the credibility of IPCC scientists. The “transparent communication” group, meanwhile, was presented with information on both the advantages and the disadvantages of climate mitigation actions. Each group was then exposed to twenty pieces of false or biased information, ten on climate science and ten on climate policy. The UNIGE scientists then measured their impact after these preventive interventions by asking the participants about their feelings regarding climate mitigation actions.

”We found that the protective effect of our strategies is small and disappears after the second exposure to disinformation.

Université de Genève. “Climate: Why disinformation is so persistent.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 November 2023.

The Geneva team vows to develop new strategies. They might do better to confront the reasons people don’t trust science the way we used to.

You may also wish to read: If science were just bookkeeping, fine-tuning wouldn’t matter. Astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser wishes we would just quit asking questions about why the universe is fine-tuned — as if we could… Calling assertions about fine-tuning — whether from theists or panpsychists — “astrotheology” will not help resolve any issues.