radio silence

If the anti-science conservatives win the battle for hearts and minds--a battle happening right now in America--by the year 2055 there will be a top rated radio show named "What Is Your Opinion About This Fact?", with people calling in ("Hello Fayetteville, Arkansas, you're on the line!") and saying: "I don't much agree about this gravity thing" or "Who says water is always wet? Who says?"

I will be dead or addled by 2055, but for the record (a silly scientific concept) all the faith-based belief being pushed by conservative he-men and preachers and creationist teachers--the elevation of opinion over fact, of religious fervency over science--is at core touchy-feely, twinkly and hippie-dippy. They have become the cultural thing they used to mock--the "If it feels good, man, just go with it" mantra now applied to dinosaurs and global warming, instead of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll--sharing a bed (however unknowingly) with those they once despised.

Like Oprah and "The Secret", tarot card readers and UFO abductees, they know that what they Believe Is True. Which would be fine and dandy and their own business, if only it were enough for them--but it never is, for any true believer.



They are also demanding that the culture completely rework itself--from schools to government studies, everything bending and twisting to suit their anti-science conviction--in the process robbing the rest of us of something precious: knowing the difference between truth, and belief.