I should know better by now, but today, a politician’s answer when asked a science question about a fundamental, well-understood matter made my blood boil. The question was simple enough; it was about how old our own good earth was. As I read it, he danced around the question, at the end saying that the age of the earth was “…one of the great mysteries.”
Well, no. It is not a Mystery. It is well-established; again, no mystery there, nothing to see here, move along.
Look it up. I won’t even tell you the answer.
I kept thinking and thinking about it and I could not decide what was worse among the following possibilities, that Senator Rubio:
**Did not remember his high-school science education.
**Do actually remembers his science, but chose not to say what he thinks lest he antagonizes potential voters.
**He really never heard about it and he does not care about the evidence
… And many other possible reasons, none of them good.
To add the proverbial insult to injury, according to his website:
http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/committee-assignments
Senator Rubio serves on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation! One of the subcommittees is the Subcommittee on Science And Space. This subcommittee, according to the same website has the following responsibilities:
“The Subcommittee has responsibility for science, engineering, and technology research and development and policy; calibration and measurement standards; and civilian aeronautical and space science and policy. The Subcommittee conducts oversight on the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.”
As Darth Vader said when he was told that Padme died:
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
A simple question, my dear readers: If you get a toothache, would you go to a botanist, a zoologist, a dermatologist (feel free to think about all the “-ists” you can think of), etc?
I will go to a dentist, thank you very much.
Why on earth (pun absolutely intended) will a person that by his own admission does not know any science agrees to serve in such a comittee? Worse, how was he allowed to serve there? I know, I know, not the first case, and will not be the last one. The history of the last national election gave us many “wonderful” examples of this kind of thing, and even worse, since all the women’s issues comments (which were almost invariably said by men) affect real lives.
Let’s be honest, you can live all your life believing in a flat earth for example, and you could live a perfectly normal life however wrong your geology may be. With other issues, like the ones above, well, not so much.
That said, Mr. Rubio is in an ostensibly hard-science committee, that among other things, deals with space sciences…
For those reasons and many more. I am soooooooooooooooooooo afraid for my science!!!!
If you want to know what I mean and want to understand my frame of mind please take a look at these posts of mine here, and here.
Now, the anticipated answers to the three main objections to my comments that come to mind:
***Baldscientst said that about Senator Rubio because Mr. Rubio is a Republican Senator.
Nope! I will get equally pi**ed if it were a Democrat, and Independent or a &%^&^%#^ Martian!
**Baldscientst said that about Senator Rubio because Senator Rubio is Latino.
Wrong again! I am latino too, and very much pround of it! (:-)
**Baldscientst is anti-religion.
Strrrrrike three and you are OUT! I am a regular churchgoer, who actually gets in church and listens to what they say. By the way, about church:
Do I have doubts? Yes (and so do you; I don’t care what you say).
Do I have hope? Yes (and again, so do you; I do not care what you say).
Just don’t tell Richard Dawkins, he’ll be mean to me…
My two (maybe a little more) cents.
(:-)
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