Here we go again. The conservative, fundamentalist version of a jobs program. At least for lawyers. Gotta love those billable hours.
“In the real world, outside of academia, scientific theory is up for all kinds of argument. I don’t think it’s right to exclude any particular kind of argument prima facie. If a student wants to discuss a criticism, he or she should be able to.” Pennsylvania rep Stephen Bloom.
Oh, buruuuuther. Another politician who probably never got past the basic science requirements in college who wants to tell the scientists who really do the work how it’s done. For the record he has a law degree and also teaches some business management courses at a small, private Christian college.
I love how the fundies try to separate the people who do the real work of science from what they call the “real world.” Academics are somehow a different breed of human from us real humans out side the ivory towers. Yeah, those rarified academics who slog through swamps collecting plant samples. And tramp through recently burned forests studying how the ecosystem heals itself. And go to places on the edge like Antarctica to see just what kinds of critters they can find under the ice.
When I was a sophomore taking intro biology it would have never entered my mind to question the basics of the science. Of course I was already predisposed to take the evolutionary side of the science. I never got a chance to really use it, but my major was anthropology. The first time I got to hold a replica of a hominid fossil, part of the skull of one of the Australopithecines, was fantastic. What did they know? How did they see the world? How did they see each other? My world got a little bigger that day.
And to be honest I have to wonder who is providing the cash to support these continued and usually unsuccessful attempts to force a particular Christian view of the world on the rest of us under the guise of “academic freedom.” Can you think of any corporations that have a massive interest in ignorance? After all, if you understand how natural selection works you’ll realize that RoundUp ready crops will end up in the dust bin of history. That in the attempt to keep the money coming in it will take more and stronger poisons. Poisons that will be less and less effective while causing more and more damage to the already badly frayed ecosystems.
Free market capitalisms dirty big secret. Monsanto and Dow post their profits. The stock holders get their dividends. The rest of us get left holding the bag to clean up the mess. If it can be cleaned up. While we’re concentrating on climate change monoculture farming is costing us tons of topsoil every year. It isn’t being renewed and what happens when it’s gone? Hey, rep Business Management do you have an answer for that? This is the "real world" as it gets. My nieces, nephews and THEIR children are the ones that are going to be left holding the bag.
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