Like it or not, knuckle-draggers: Science is back IN.
Mary Lyon, On The Left -- World News Trust
March 9, 2009 -- Like it or not, knuckle-draggers: Science is back IN.
As a life-long Catholic, I couldn’t be more delighted. I’m sure the
airwaves and the cable channels will soon be wall-to-wall with
conservatives and Republicans and other assorted 133h-century thinkers
whining and moaning and ringing their hands -- probably gnashing their
teeth and rending their garments, too, according to the Old Testament
model.
The gas giants certainly will weigh in (there! How ‘bout that
for blurring the lines between science and “morals”?). For the sake of
decency and morality I will not name them here especially since one in
particular got WAY too much undeserved attention last week and doesn’t
need any more help from little me. Instead, I will step up, myself.
I am utterly thrilled that the White House has now moved out of the
Dark Ages. For the last eight years I have watched the national debate
with growing sadness as the volume and temperature turned up, and
fact-based reality gave way to the faith-based mindset. The sins were
legion.
Government-issued “scientific” reports were cherry-picked clean
of evidence supporting global warming. Anti-choice red tape strangled
federal funding to women’s health programs throughout the country and
across the globe. Realistic sex education was deemphasized or even
banned from schools (hey, Governor Palin, how did abstinence-only
education work out for that still-unmarried, high-school-aged new-mom
daughter of yours?).
And then there was the narrow-minded religious
extremist nominee Dr. David Hager who was tapped to head the FDA’s
Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. This darling man was best
known for recommending that women struggling with PMS look for a cure by reading the Bible. Why did he even bother with medical
school, I wonder? I dreaded the “brain drain” prompted by the Bush
tourniquet choking off federal funding for scientific research. No
wonder some of our finest scientific minds were leaving the country.
Way to lead the world, America!
Finally, we have climate change in the Oval Office. Thank God!
Overturning the Bush administration’s backward dictates on stem cell
research by President Obama is hopefully the beginning of the end of
the bullying from that particular pulpit. I’ve been known to excuse
myself from church when the homily is given over to politicking on
behalf of denying the women of the parish full access to the free will
that God Himself gave them when it comes to their own bodies and the
privacy of their own gynecologist’s offices. Unless they’re patients of
Dr. Hager, I presume.
I’m going to be watching the coverage of this welcome White House shift
with great interest. I’ll bet we’ll hear far more from the
religiously-slanted than we will from the scientific community. I
suspect the talking heads will be lopsidedly conservative in the days
ahead. Already, with Obama’s signature just barely dried, CNN’s daytime
anchors offered their own quickie rephrasing of a Democratic
supporter’s stem cell support bill, while indulging a Republican
opponent with his own leisurely personal face time. Can’t we get
reaction from both sides equally, if we’re going to have reaction at
all? The reactionary side of the spectrum always gets first dibs at the
mics and cameras anymore.
Rest assured, although I won’t be granted such a powerful podium, I
won’t be silent. I’ll continue to be the one at the parent-teachers
meetings in the fall semester, cornering the biology teacher about the
year’s curriculum. Our kids both went to Catholic school and our one
remaining high schooler has one more fall semester to go. Nevertheless,
I have not hesitated to confront any efforts to fudge the facts or
findings or blur the boundary lines between science and religion in
science class and to guard against any such encroachment.
There’s
plenty of room for discussion of medical morality and even creation
“science” in the many available philosophy, theology, and sociology
classes on the schedule. Science itself should be sacrosanct. CNN, ABC,
NBC, CBS, and Fox Noise may not bother to listen to my side, but my
kids’ teachers absolutely will have to.
The bottom line for those of you who object to embryonic stem cell
research on religious or moral grounds -- NO ONE is forcing you to take
advantage of the benefits such research is considered likely to
provide. NO ONE will be holding a gun to your head to make you take
such treatments or demand them for some stricken relative of yours. You
would, and will, still have a choice about that, unlike the flat-out
restrictions you would eagerly force upon the rest of us. And if you
object about your tax money being spent on such things -- please
reexamine your own willingness to send your tax dollars to kill other
people’s innocents in Iraq (oh, THAT’s okay).
This is the 21st century, not the 13th, nor the first, or even the
19th. Let’s live into that, fully, for a change -- for our health, our
longevity, our economy, and certainly our sanity. Reason has returned
to the White House and not a moment too soon, because in these times
clear-headedness, logic, and a lot less knee-jerk political ideology
are what's needed more urgently than ever. If there’s a way to turn on
the light, why should we insist on staying in the dark?
Mary Lyon
is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who
has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio
Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations
including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional
media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal
activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and
helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18," to win the right
to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes,
responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and
support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to
World News Trust, Mary writes for Huffington Post, OpEdNews, Democrats.us, WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting
expert, having written and llustrated the book "The Frazzled Working
Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood.