Once upon a time a falling acorn hit Chicken Little on the head.  This startled the bird so much that she immediately embarked upon a crusade to spread the news that the sky was falling.  When I was a child this is where the story ended, with the amusing spectacle of the residents of the barnyard hysterically dashing about bemoaning their fate.  It wasn’t until years that I heard the traditional ending.  A character named Foxy Loxy offered to shelter the panicked livestock from the collapsing sky in his den.  Then Foxy Loxy enjoyed a hearty meal.

Presumably the disturbing end of the story was omitted to spare my innocent young psyche.  From what I’ve read this story is at least twenty-five hundred years old, and our ancestors couldn’t afford the luxury of such coddling.  The tales told children back then were to prepare them to deal with the real world, and the real people in it.  There are actually two morals to the story of Chicken Little.  The first is “don’t believe everything you hear.”  Stories such as this still resonate today because human nature hasn’t changed much in thousands of years.  Much as some seem blind to that fact.

Anyone who has even casually observed a barnyard is familiar with the way chickens and geese will dash about in a panic at the slightest disturbance.  Our ancestors employed this image to teach that people often do the same.  The tendency to panic is likely an evolutionarily beneficial response.  Otherwise it wouldn’t still be around.  When danger such as a predator threatens, chickens, and people, run off in all directions.  Just by chance some of them will be running to safety, even if most aren’t.  The notional predator, constrained by the size of its stomach, will stop after running down a limited number of chickens, or people.  And the rest of the flock slowly returns to the business of scratching a living out of the ground.

Some predators are smarter than others, though, and do not seem to be constrained by how much they need.  Spoiler alert: I’m talking about people. These smarter predators realized that if a panicked herd is offered what appears to be a path to safety, they will trample over each other to take it.  An example is how prehistoric people would stampede an entire herd of horses or bison over a cliff, so the pileup at the foot of that cliff could be butchered at leisure afterward.  Clever, if a bit wasteful.  Eventually, some Neolithic genius hit upon the idea of simply keeping the herd hostage, only slaughtering them one or two at a time.  It was far more sustainable, and the rest of the herd didn’t seem to mind too much until it was their turn.

Unfortunately, people prey on other people as well as animals.  Which brings us to the second moral of the Chicken Little tale. Be immediately suspicious of anyone whose argument concludes, “. . . so you'd better put me in charge right away.”

Alas, there are some who view most of humanity as incapable of making their own decisions.  We need to be shepherded, for our own good.  We are willful creatures, selfish and short-sighted.  Often a judicious dose of panic is required to drive us along the right path.  To that end a good crisis is never allowed to go to waste.  Herding dogs are useful for this purpose. Nowadays the herding dogs of choice are experts and scientists.  Because we trust them.  They are, after all, the saintly seekers of the truth.

The thing is, people aren’t chickens.  Some of us might panic, all of us at times.  But we can learn from past mistakes.  After an initial fright, cooler heads will stop and assess the situation, realizing that there will always be plenty of time to panic later on.  That’s why the sowers of hysteria are ever in such a rush.  Time is not on their side.   Best to snatch at as much power as possible before inconvenient questions start to be asked.

No matter, the tame scientists and experts are conveniently positioned to be blamed once their usefulness is exhausted.  The negligent, overeducated fools gave false alarm.  Among the clamor to punish Chicken Little, the fox has moved on to the next scam.  Frankenstein GMOs, job-stealing AIs, or insidious nanoparticles.  Take your pick as long as it keeps us stirred up.

For a growing number of people, the title of climate scientist elicits a dismissive eye roll.  Because when fate bounced that acorn off their noggins these saintly seekers of the truth didn’t bother to determine that it was indeed just an acorn.   Instead they painted it sky blue.  Climatologists will simply join the long list of discredited and disgraced herding dogs, begging scraps from the high table.

The nature of the crisis is not important, only that there is one to stampede us the way the enlightened wish.  And after that another crisis.  And after that another.  For our own good.

There are too many people!

The oceans are dying!

The icecaps are melting!

The sky is falling!

Never fear, Foxy Loxy has a plan to save us.  How dare we not put him in charge right away?