Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, August 10 2005 @ 09:47 AM CST
The President’s ignorance of science might have remained a private matter, but he chose to speak on the subject of evolution and “intelligent design.” This is a great pity.
Science — from the loftiest of theorizing (like that of Einstein or, oh, Darwin) through the conducting of painstakingly difficult experiments to the application of new knowledge to the improvement of human life — science, I say, is the chief engine of our society. The great bulk of business entrepreneurs so celebrated in certain circles as the movers and shakers have made their marks by exploiting the knowledge gained by scientists.
Even its opponents grant the prestige and accomplishments of science by pretending to do science themselves, whether in the form of “e-meters” that turn galvanic skin responses into signs of mystic energy flows in the body or in that of ID, which artfully turns “unknown” into “unknowable” in a flourish of bad math and illogic.
Our education system is systematically pushing kids away from the “harder” subjects like math and science and into areas like journalism and ethnic studies which require little or no intellectual effort whatsoever. So, while the Japanese are cranking out 3-ounce digital cameras, we’re using them to create crap like Current TV[*2] .