22. "Calm yourself, Iago."

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point in my adult life, I realized that intelligence is less a product of education, and more the learned and/or inherent ability to separate the bad information from the good. What is reasonable; what can be corroborated; and what takes one gander at the prospect of honest scrutiny and shrivels up like a salted slug.

Ew.

Throughout the ages, many have touted claims to knowledge about how things will unfold -- claims that any reasonable individual would recognize as improbable, if not outright impossible. A prime example of "bad information". The End of Days is a common theme for these predictions, and an ever-growing population of the religious and non-religious alike are tying this theme to a particular date. I like to think that anyone who may hop into this little closet-o-mine is far too intelligent to be lured in by this sort of (largely) internet-hysteria. But in the unlikelihood that you (or someone you know) may believe that 2012 will bring about the end of pot-smokers, monks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Farscape reference, booya!), and Earth-ridden life as we know it, I give you NASA's official response to these heinous allegations.

"Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012... [This] story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012... Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar."

18. "I Got F#@&in' No Dukes."

There can be no doubt that a schism exists in America between backers of evidence and supporters of a certain religious philosophy – almost to the point that either of them can be caricaturized, labeled with stickers reading “science” and “god,” and released like monstrous mutts into the populace, squelching all opportunities for advancement with needless conversation and easily-raised ire. After a time, the resulting splash damage leads otherwise rational people to build a wall between themselves and what they are willing to believe.

Here I am on the tail end of several evolutionary theory-themed posts, knowing they won’t be the last, and wondering whether evidence for its own sake is enough to turn the tide on this conversation. Because even though I, like Kathy Griffin, find it increasingly bizarre that fact is somehow subject to philosophy in our corner of the world; I recognize, having been raised in an acutely religious environment, the threat that is posed by alternate, more plausible, explanations of origin. It isn’t so much that science labels these explanatory models as “theories” opening the argument to semantics, nor is it that the scientific method forces an honesty that leaves us shying away from treating them as absolutes. The problem is posed by the evidence itself. The mere existence of fact and information undermines the bible’s efficacy – something that doesn’t sit well with a large percentage of American citizens. So we have edited text books, teachers who enter into lawsuits rather than support a non-religious version of history, and teachers as targets of parental disgust for doing the opposite. We have moderate proponents arguing that both sides are viable in the classroom, while others see that with a tad less... shall we say, optimism:




By now, both sides have reason to bury their heads in the sand and stay there until the storm dies down – something that doesn’t look likely to happen any time soon.

I can’t help but wonder whether this scene is playing out in other nations as well. Likely, it isn’t occurring to this degree.

The real question I suppose is: can all of this be avoided? Possibly. Like most individuals, rationalists have no beef with the personal opinions and philosophies of others. What others chose to teach their children in the privacy of their own home may be a subject of some irritation, but for the most part, it has little bearing on the global field of understanding. It is when an archaic belief system is allowed to dictate public policy and the course of education that ignoring the storm ceases to be an option.

Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "I, like Ptolemy, am humbled in the presence of our clockwork universe. When I am on the cosmic frontier, and I touch the laws of physics with my pen, or when I look upon the endless sky from an observatory on a mountaintop, I well up with an admiration for its splendor. But I do so knowing and accepting that if I propose a God beyond that horizon, one who graces our valley of collective ignorance, the day will come when our sphere of knowledge will have grown so large that I will have no need of that hypothesis."

Such an articulate and beautiful sentiment. Would that it could be shared by everyone.