ch-ch-ch-changes
So they've finally got a study out that places the blame for climate change (almost) squarely on the heads of humans. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6321351.stm) Many of us roll our eyes and say "duh" -- but then there's my dad who, several years ago, put me in my place on such nonsense as climate change and dwindling natural resources.
I made the mistake of saying the world was overpopulated (the least important of my reasons not to crank out babies) and my dad, in all sincerity, got up and went into the bathroom to retrieve proof that there was nothing for me to worry about. He came back with his toilet-side copy of Reader's Digest and pointed me to an article. It was called something like "Debunking the Top Ten Myths of Our Time" -- climate change, overpopulation, ozone hole, you name it, it was in there. Each potential disaster had it's own, brief paragraph in which the author, citing no scientific sources or sources of any kind, basically said "hogwash" and "phooey" to each one.
Uh, thanks dad. That was enlightening. After I'd read over it, he looked at me with calm eyes and a hint of a frown. "Well?" I mentioned the lack of citation of sources and said I wasn't convinced, but I said it in an "I'm-not-trying-to-argue-I'm-just-sayin..." kind of way and he dropped it but with a kind of icy look. A look that said "infidel."
There's something really frightening to me about a person who doesn't believe in science. I write all this because I think it's amusing and obviously disturbing that my dad actually thought a terse, poorly written Reader's Digest article could set me straight on all the pressing issues of the day.
I also write this because I find it so hard to confront him on his fundamentalism. His fundamentalism puts us on separate continents and gives us different languages. I have no idea how to talk to him because it's clear that rationality isn't common currency among us. How do you talk to someone who doesn't believe in science, but who does believe in the literal truth of every word in the Bible? And how did I come from that person? And how do I keep going back to him?
I made the mistake of saying the world was overpopulated (the least important of my reasons not to crank out babies) and my dad, in all sincerity, got up and went into the bathroom to retrieve proof that there was nothing for me to worry about. He came back with his toilet-side copy of Reader's Digest and pointed me to an article. It was called something like "Debunking the Top Ten Myths of Our Time" -- climate change, overpopulation, ozone hole, you name it, it was in there. Each potential disaster had it's own, brief paragraph in which the author, citing no scientific sources or sources of any kind, basically said "hogwash" and "phooey" to each one.
Uh, thanks dad. That was enlightening. After I'd read over it, he looked at me with calm eyes and a hint of a frown. "Well?" I mentioned the lack of citation of sources and said I wasn't convinced, but I said it in an "I'm-not-trying-to-argue-I'm-just-sayin..." kind of way and he dropped it but with a kind of icy look. A look that said "infidel."
There's something really frightening to me about a person who doesn't believe in science. I write all this because I think it's amusing and obviously disturbing that my dad actually thought a terse, poorly written Reader's Digest article could set me straight on all the pressing issues of the day.
I also write this because I find it so hard to confront him on his fundamentalism. His fundamentalism puts us on separate continents and gives us different languages. I have no idea how to talk to him because it's clear that rationality isn't common currency among us. How do you talk to someone who doesn't believe in science, but who does believe in the literal truth of every word in the Bible? And how did I come from that person? And how do I keep going back to him?
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
just wrote my own version in reaction to this news...
yeah
well
we live in interesting times
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