Jones Alley
we are screwed
After a segment on Doctor Nancy whoever-the-fuck-she-is's MSNBC show discussing the use of medical marijuana by teenagers, which made the unsupported assertion that it was too dangerous to even test the deadly plant to determine if it actually did have beneficial effects for some conditions, the show broke for commercial with teaser for the next segment asking "do copper bracelets cure arthritis?"
You know, the simple fact that they ask this imbecilic question to an American audience shows just how well the Luddite religious right has destroyed objective fact in this country. That enough people don't know the answer to that question that they choose to insert it in a news program shows that we are a nation dominated by superstitious rubes who deny objective evidence developed by rigorous observation and testing. That our government-protected free press caters to this willful ignorance demonstrates a callous disregard for truth on the part of the very media that is supposed to safeguard it on behalf of the populace.
It only took forty years to make the most scientifically advanced nation in the world into a place where the average person can't spell or do simple mathematics and thinks that scientific evidence is just a matter of opinion.
We should be very ashamed.
Oh, and the answer is "NO." Magic doesn't cure arthritis.
You know, the simple fact that they ask this imbecilic question to an American audience shows just how well the Luddite religious right has destroyed objective fact in this country. That enough people don't know the answer to that question that they choose to insert it in a news program shows that we are a nation dominated by superstitious rubes who deny objective evidence developed by rigorous observation and testing. That our government-protected free press caters to this willful ignorance demonstrates a callous disregard for truth on the part of the very media that is supposed to safeguard it on behalf of the populace.
It only took forty years to make the most scientifically advanced nation in the world into a place where the average person can't spell or do simple mathematics and thinks that scientific evidence is just a matter of opinion.
We should be very ashamed.
Oh, and the answer is "NO." Magic doesn't cure arthritis.
posted by Milo Johnson at 11:42 AM
3 Comments:
I wish I hadn't missed the golden point in history before our objective fact was destroyed, back when our nation's wise and patriotic masses laughed off folk cures and pseudomedicine across the board with a hearty scoff, and quacks and charlatans could only go begging.
Say, when was that, precisely? ;-) Forty years, you say...the late sixties, then?
See, I'd have guessed the fifties: when progress was the new religion, science was its golden rule, and the people lined up to complain: "There are not enough chemicals in my dinner. More, please?"
Weird, isn't it? I smoked marijuana daily for nigh on twenty years, while holding down a managerial position, and bringing up a child single-handed. There must be something wrong with me. Perhaps I should bequeath my cadaver to Doctor Nancy for research?
You know, at least back then religion and superstition were not widely accepted as the equal of rational thought and the scientific method.
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