CSotD: Oh, it’s lying time again, you’re gonna believe me
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I've put Neil Degrasse Tyson's reboot of "Cosmos" in the category of things I'm glad are happening but that I'm not actually going to watch. I did watch the first part long enough to get tired of whiz-bang special effects telling me things I already knew.
But, if I still had little kids, I'd be making it a family event, which is why I'm glad it's on.
I'm also glad for another reason. But I'll let Derf handle that part of the discussion:
The knotted-knickers aspect is fun. This is one time when Derf's trademark grotesque art does not exaggerate the situation: A mountain of stupid is being piled upon a mountain of ignorant, and the worst part is, I don't think the people doing it are deliberately lying.
I think they are actually that clueless. As much as I hate to see the education-bashers go after our schools, we sure seem to be pumping out a lot of people who genuinely, sincerely have no idea of how post-medieval science works.
There is, in modern life, a similar dysfunction at both ends of the spectrum in reconciling scripture and science:
At one end are the cynics who cannot see the beauty and metaphor in scripture and rail against the obvious logical flaws of an ancient, multi-source text.
At the other are those who believe so whole-heartedly in the "inerrant truth" of scripture that they also see none of the metaphors.
For the record, I see the inerrant truth behind the metaphors, which I think is the position of most scientists who are also religious. The notion that folk tales have to be factual in order to accurately reflect social values is utter nonsense.
It is a seven year old's magical view of reality.
"How did Noah get all the animals in the world into the ark?" is no different than "How does Santa get into our apartment, since we don't have a chimney?"
And the creationist mind-set begins by noting that, well, on Christmas morning the stockings are full and there are presents under the tree, so, obviously, Santa Claus got into the apartment somehow.
And then it twists reality and logic in order to come up with an explanation for what it has already assumed to be true.
Cute when it's a seven-year-old desperately clinging to a belief in Santa for at least one more year.
Just stupid when it's an adult applying the same childish desperation to Noah and to Creation.
It's nothing new, and that's the point: Aquinas and Anselm also began by knowing the truth and then seeking logical reasons to explain it.
But, as we learned more about the world than could be seen from one tiny, mud-caked village, there was the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and the development of the scientific method, which every school child is supposed to learn no later than seventh grade: Meat and maggots and bell jars and Louis Pasteur.
(Oh good lord, the idiots are claiming him for their side. All it requires is to assert that evolution is based on the theory of spontaneous generation. When you are dealing with an audience that will believe anything said often enough, facts are optional.)
Anyway, if I find Cosmos kind of boring because it tells me things I already knew, the above rant is probably having the same impact on you.
Or none at all.
Because Neil Degrasse Tyson isn't getting through to the people who disbelieve in reality and science.
What's weird is that, other than a general benefit in keeping the public ignorant, there's no real profit incentive in fundamentalism beyond enriching individual preachers, which is why I believe the creationists are sincere.
Ms. Sorensen points out what it would look like if there were real money at risk. And, while this is all delightfully sarcastic satire, the last panel ought to scare the bejesus out of everyone, because not only do really big, moronic lies work, but some (no names please) say they work best.
However much libertarians may misjudge the value of the free market to establish equity, those who applaud the loss of gatekeepers are just as wrong about "crowd sourcing" the truth. There was value in having Walter Cronkeit and his cohorts going through the news and sorting reality from nonsense.
Screwballs who denounced FDR as a Jew (which they were certain was as bad a thing as looking as though you might have been born in Kenya) and who believed in UFOs and that Elvis faked his own death were marginalized.
But, wow. The tech explosion has sure been a benefit to them.
And speaking of things that shouldn't be taken literally:
Loved today's Frazz.
I get frustrated when otherwise intelligent-seeming people post stories from satirical sites under the belief that they are real, but, of course, that's how "A Modest Proposal" was greeted when Swift published it.
Swift, who said: "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."
And who said: "I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."
And who said (Sorry, Neil): "Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired."
That Swift.
You might think I particularly loved today's Frazz because it reminds me of my favorite Frazz ever, the original of which hangs over my desk.
But I also love it because it reminds me of my favorite headline ever, which hung over a review of the godawful dog's breakfast Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg made of the Dean's masterpiece:
Okay, let's go to Bakersfield and scratch that earworm:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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