Americans have decided that it’s OK to vote for a dummy. Nope, I didn’t come to that conclusion from watching last night’s 467th GOP debate. No I didn’t look at how many people have contributed to the likes of Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum. I didn’t even Google George W. Bush.
Nope. I read a new poll that came out yesterday. It said that even though a majority of Americans believe in evolution (57%) and even more believe in global warming (69%), Americans are nevertheless willing to vote for a candidate for president who doesn’t.
Huh?
Now I’m a big fan of history, and I would love to time travel. I’m especially fond of the Victorian Age, but I wouldn’t want to have lived back then. Still, I love Dickens, that decorative architecture, and I would really like to have more opportunities to wear those terrific dresses.
But, going backwards to the scientific beliefs of the mid- to late 1800s seems, well, backwards.
Now I work in science, and last I checked, the whole idea of science was to go forward. Yup, it’s true. That’s how we get all the new stuff, like medicines, technology and pollution controls. That’s how we move forward. Science and technology go hand in hand, or actually hand in latex glove, cause we don’t want contaminants in either, you know.
Now science doesn’t always go forward. You know that doctors have started using leeches again? Yup! Apparently leeches are now used in microsurgery where they clean coagulated blood away from the opening. And, a few years ago, I learned that scientists have figured out that our GI tract is just too clean, and that’s why we have so many bowel problems in the West. The solution? Scientists have developed a treatment where the patient drinks worm larvae, which helps their gut work the way it is supposed to. Think of it as meaty yogurt.
Eating? Oops, sorry. My bad.
But most of the time science goes forward and takes the rest of the world to new and better places.
So what does it mean if Americans will vote for someone who ignores thousands of years of accumulated learning? Elects someone who doesn’t understand, at a minimum, that science is good?
It means that there will be no investment in the future. No cure for cancer or even the common cold. No vacations on Mars.
More importantly, it means cell phones reception will never get any better.
FiftyFourandAHalf 