The Nature of Things

Maybe we should have more sympathy for the climate change deniers. After all, it's complicated, right? For one thing, climate change, even the more rapidly changing climate of our time, happens over the long term. We, with our lives that are only a blink in time in relation to Earth's history, experience weather as a day to day, week to week, month to month event. We might remember what the weather was like a year ago or five years ago but our memories are probably distorted by other events that happened at the time or since. That's just the way we are. So how can our puny little minds even begin to comprehend the enormity of the threat of a changing global climate? Luckily, there are humans whose minds are less puny than yours and mine and they  can understand these things. And some of them, like Bill Nye the Science Guy, can explain them to us in terms that even we can understand. If I had the power, I would force all of our elected representatives in Congress to watch t...

I was reading a story about Bill Nye, the Science Guy , a couple of days ago when I came across a sentence that literally made me groan out load. It said, "In June, a Gallup poll revealed that 46 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago." So much for science and the fossil record. So much for critical thinking. These people prefer to accept the Bible as their scientific and historical text and not worry their little heads about any more complicated explanations. Oh, well, I guess we should just be relieved that the percentage wasn't even higher. As the story pointed out, the United States stands alone among modern industrialized states in this Know-Nothingism. It's only in the most backward and theocratic places on earth that you would find such a high percentage of people who refuse to acknowledge evolution as settled science. The same disheartening assessment can be made regarding human-caused global warming. ...