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In reply to the discussion: University Of Pittsburgh Scientists Discover Biomolecule That May Neutralize Coronavirus [View all]lastlib
(22,981 posts)Imagine for a moment that a member of the scientific establishment marched into the state capital and declared that Shakespeares pre-eminence as a writer was just a theory. Would politicians then require comic books to be presented alongside Shakespeare? Then why should science be trivialized in this same way? The answer, unfortunately, is ignorance--ignorance mixed with blind fear, a fear that their truth will be supplanted or discredited by a greater truth.
The sad part of this is that it is so absurd. The Dark Ages ended centuries ago. What were debating is high-school-level biology, not Kantian philosophy. We live in an extraordinary age. High-school students can count atoms, deduce stellar spectra, measure awesome geologic ages, and manipulate with their own hands the very future of a species. Over the centuries, perhaps millions of men and women have devoted their lives to peering into the wonders of the universe, to understand, to teach, to advance our knowledge of those wonders. And after all the work, all the striving, along come these self-proclaimed religious/political gnostics who arrogantly deny that it is of any value.
Dressed in synthetic cloths, nurtured by synthetic medicines, shielded from a hostile world by the sciences that feed them, warm them, provide them with bibles, cars and computers, they sweep their preachments before them and presume to save the masses from curiosity and wonder. Their message is clear: Ignorance is salvation; scholarship is immoral; curiosity and inquiry are blasphemy.
And the ultimate cost is death--promulgated, ironically, by a party that prides itself on being "pro-life."