and an avid reader of scientific publications I think I have some qualifications to make this statement.
The "error" which the powers-that-be committed following the Sputnik launching was to subsidize University education without limiting it to the physical and biological sciences. They created a "monster" of edumacated (sic and sick) individuals who could actually base conclusions upon a foundation of science and, quite frankly, higher-order truth, rather than upon superstition, proverbs, cliches, and misinterpretation of writings which date back to a time when Mankind was struggling just to survive.
To correct this path, the notions of having an informed population, or more exactly, electorate, had to be negated. What better manner of execution of this than the use of religious writings, which, taken out of context, seem to negate much of what had been taught in schools and in higher educational facilities. The vast majority of the politicians who are promulgating this no more believe in its truth than Ronnie Reagan believed in the sanctity of the lives of the unborn. This is a given.
By re-introducing so-called creationism ( I shall not capitalize that word and lend it credence) they posit that no scientific principle is truly valid, it is merely an appearance and a generalization; a fossil record, for example, appears to be millions of years of age, but it is perceived to be God's testing of us or some other rationalization for having to face a fact which is inconsistent with their ultimate "Truth". It is intellectually and rationally repulsive to attempt to engender this way of thinking in a society to achieve the ends of Power and Money. But since people historically wish to believe that bad things are "God's Will" or "God's Plan" of that "Everything happens for a Reason", it is effective in its implementation.
The effect of this technique of manipulation is that it maintains subservience and fosters ignorance which is of course, anti-Democratic and anti-intellectual. Without referencing the entity which causes many to precipitously and unwarrantedly reject a sound argument in toto, please allow me to state that all of this is just a variance of The Big Lie. It is an attack upon the Progress of Civilization and unfortunately, it is working to a fair extent. They are well aware that more efforts need to be expended, but they are willing to fight the long war, and accept setbacks with their usual aggression, anger, and hatred doubled and redoubled.
The problem for all of us, including for them, is that occasionally there is an event of a Cosmic scale which demonstrates that their willful repression of Nature's principles is dangerous for the Many. I am not referring to horrors such as the Newtown, CT shooting, or the grotesque lying which submerged us in Afghanistan and then Iraq: I am talking about the laissez faire attitudes which will someday cause massive destruction of property and lives irretrievably. We are not talking about Sandy or Katrina, which have already been papered over: we are talking about, say, the inundation of the entire South of New Jersey, Eastern Maryland, and Delaware by rising ocean levels which will be unstoppable; the loss of fresh drinking water and potable water for agriculture in great areas of the country due to pollution caused by fracking and spillage of toxic waste. Those of us who lived through Three Mile Island here in Pennsylvania might recall the fact that millions of acres of dairyland were threatened and exposed to radiation which was never acknowledged, but occurred without question, despite the utiities' and Governments' insistence that it had not. The final results will never be known but many clinicians ascribe certain pathologies and incidences thereof to the Event. These are formally denied...with a wink.
It doesn't matter what any of us believe or do not believe if society does not slow its pace to a different version of Armageddon. The Truth, the higher order Truth will someday prevail, despite what someone such as Senator Sessions claims he believes.
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