blinded, not by science

the vatican this week is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of darwin's "the origin of the species." by having a seminar about evolution.

notably excluded from the invitee list were members of the "discovery institute", who espouse creationism and intelligent design. in fact, nobody who believes that hooey was invited. to the vatican. to. the. vatican. the organizers said they had barred intelligent design proponents because they wanted an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy.

most of the world is ok with it. the pope is ok with it. he is not in conflict that evolution can coexist with faith. pope john paul II articulated the church's position most clearly in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, saying the theory of evolution is "more than a hypothesis."

my thoughts on faith aren't relevant here. yet i am again dumbfounded to realize that half of americans do not believe in evolution and think the world is less than 10,000 years old. i mean, c'mon, there are not THAT many mormon science teachers. i first learned about evolution from nuns, for heaven's sake.

in a poll i read today, 44% of americans could not name a "famous scientist". of those who *could*, they most frequently named bill gates, al gore and albert einstein. none of whom were scientists and one is dead.

bush famously crushed science during his tenure. any truth supporting climate change or rational discussion of deforestation, the effects of toxic waste, strip-mining, pesticides, big-ag, nasa discoveries, blah, blah, blah (god, i'm a broken record) was subverted or buried. cnn has let go all its science people. science coverage on the tv news is nearly non-existent unless a rover goes rogue, and although my papers still have a science feature on tuesdays, i somehow suspect that's not the case in smaller towns or more shrill publications.

obama has already got physicists (climate guru) and science geeks hard at work. what worries me is how much time has been lost. an entire k-8, or junior high to senior year school career being taught only enough rote and bad science to pass standardized tests. the equivalent of a generation. our tradition of curiosity, imagination and innovation squashed by disinterest and disinformation.

of course, maybe now that hedge funds and banking have lost their get rich quick sheen, perhaps some of those bright young things might actually think to look to the stars -- through a telescope and not at the hamptons.