I came across some startling statistics the other day. According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of American adults read below a 6th-grade level. One in five is considered functionally illiterate. Perhaps no less sobering, America’s literacy rate ranks 36th in the world–behind Ukraine, Russia, Cuba, Finland, and even North Korea. For somebody like me who earns his keep largely from the printed word, and who aspires to offer more sophisticated prose than those found in, say, My Friend Flicka or Jack and Jill magazine, these numbers are disconcerting, and not merely because it means fewer prospective customers willing to buy my Cordell Logan books.
There are no doubt many reasons to explain why more than half of us, if the numbers are to believed, read at the same level we did entering puberty, when our ability to think critically is still largely undeveloped. Digital distractions? The time constraints of modern life? Our ever-decreasing attention spans? Whatever the explanations, the fact remains that reading is vital in learning how to objectively assess evidence, recognize cognitive biases, and question unreliable sources. Learning to read critically empowers people to function more analytically, to resist the emotional and cognitive traps that often accompany wildly unscientific, unfounded beliefs otherwise known as conspiracy theories.
Consider, for example, “chemtrails”.
Those who believe they’re real contend that chemtrails (short for “chemical trails,” which not to be confused with “contrails,” short for condensation trails) are part of a government plot using commercial jetliners to spray dangerous chemicals on We The People for top-secret purpose. These purposes range from politically motivated weather manipulation and mind control to all manner of covert geoengineering. Believers refuse to accept the proven science of contrails, which form when hot, moist air from aircraft engines meets cold air at high altitude. Exhaust gases produce water vapor that condenses into tiny water droplets or ice crystals, creating visible but otherwise harmless streaks in the sky. The more wind in the atmosphere, the more squiggly the lines.
I found myself not long ago unwittingly in the middle of a chemtrails/contrails debate. I waiting in the checkout line at my local hardware store, when I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation taking place in the next line over–although “conversation” in this case would be a misnomer. A bearded, middle-aged, somewhat wild-eyed guy was intently lecturing an older woman standing in line in front of him about the dangers of chemtrails and how the government was out to screw us all. She listened to him mutely if not politely, nodding in places, raising her eyebrows occasionally in surprise, but I could tell by the set of her jaw and the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes that the guy making her a little uncomfortable. I figured it was none of my business. The guy looked harmless enough. So I decided not to intervene. That changed after I paid for my purchase and headed out to the parking lot.
Mr. Chemtrails had followed her out of the store and was still telling her all about mysterious sky-spraying and the “Deep State” and how the lamestream media was covering the whole thing up while she loaded the plants she’d bought into her hatchback. She was parked a few stalls away, with her back turned to me. I reminded myself that the world is filled with misinformed individuals and that you can’t educate them all. But as I backed my truck out and started to drive away, I could see by her expression that she just wanted the guy to leave her alone. I stopped and rolled down my window.
“Not to interrupt your lecture,” I said to him, “but that’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. There’s no such thing as chemtrails.”
“That’s what I thought!” the woman blurted out with a look of noticeable relief.
I told the guy I was a pilot, and his notion that legions of other pilots would knowingly or otherwise participate in a secret plot to poison the population was preposterous. All he had to do, I said, was look at footage of the condensation trails made by American bomber formations over Germany and Japan during World War II. Was the government back then out to poison the enemy and blow them up, too? How was it possible that after 80-plus years, with all those tens of thousands of airmen supposedly in on the plan, that the “truth” of chemtrails could remain hidden from the public?
“You need to get out of your information silo,” I said, “and read some established, respected scientific journals about how contrails are formed. Do your own research. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own set of facts.”
The guy stared at me blankly, then responded in a way I didn’t expect.
“Thank you,” is all he said.
I drove on.
Was I rude in butting in the way I did? Maybe. Did I help change his mind? I’ll never know. But I do know one thing: learning to read analytically is key to the attainment of knowledge, and knowledge is power. We’re going to need a lot of power if we are to save ourselves (and innocent weekend gardeners) from the peddlers of mistruths who prey increasingly upon the ill-informed among us.