Written by Lee Schneider
I say there are two factors that contribute to a good blog. First, good writing; second, you have to annoy somebody. I promise to do at least one of those things today. Let’s start with homeopathy.
Recently, I wrote about a group in the UK called 10:23. Their goal was to swallow as many homeopathic pills as they could and see if they could overdose. They didn’t. But they did piss off a lot of people, especially those who are firm believers in sugar pills. I believe sugar pills can fix you, in some cases, because of the power of the placebo effect. But if you don’t believe, they might give you a tummy ache.
Something else might bring on an ache: Those who call America a Christian nation. For some years now, nice folks in Texas have been altering school textbooks to trumpet America’s roots in Christianity. The Rev. Peter Marshall, for one, believes in America’s “Bible-based foundations” and “Christian heritage,” as it says on his website. This sort of thing gets good traction with guys like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Fundamentalists will tell you that the Founding Fathers were Christians, and important documents like the Mayflower Compact supposedly back that up. In the words of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the state was founded “to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.”
Um, give me a minute to find my passport. Canada’s looking good. They have health care there and the Olympics, too.
It’s true that you can’t discuss Pilgrims or Puritans without talking religion. There was also a religious foundation to the American Revolution. Historians cite the Great Awakening, a movement of the 1700s. Pushed along by evangelicals, the Great Awakening provided a foundation for rebellion.
Fair enough. But Thomas Jefferson was against the idea of establishment churches. He’s the one who came up with the phrase “wall of separation” between church and state. Roger Williams, the theologian who got Rhode Island going, believed in religious tolerance.
The New York Times Magazine quotes conservative Richard Brookhiser about the Founding Fathers’ faith: “What they said was ‘the laws of nature and nature’s God.’ They didn’t say, “We put our faith in Jesus Christ.”
Other historians concur: George Washington wrote about God but there isn’t one biblical reference in all his work. Washington was a Mason, remember, and made reference to the Grand Architect of the Universe, a pointedly non-Christian terminology. (“Oh, Grand Architect, will your plan for the new kitchen include some Italian marble?”)
These facts about the Founders don’t stop Newt Gingrich and others from talking about a Christian America. But then fundamentalists also believe earth was created 10,000 years ago and Jesus had a pet Stegosaurus. 
Roger Williams was more on the mark. He said, “God is too large to be housed under one roof.” I can work with that, because if you think all the answers are in one book, you haven’t read enough books.
At Facebook they analyzed everyone’s status updates and arrived at the conclusion that there is one day all year when Facebookers are happiest. Christmas.
Data crunchers in other labs have revealed that if you live in Vermont you will live longer than if you live in New York.
Science interprets stuff like that and makes it really useful. (“Honey, call the movers – we’re going to Burlington on Christmas.”)
Okay, so what if a doctor told you that getting a vaccination against swine flu would be good? Would you get the shot?
Guess what — according to a University of Michigan poll, 60 percent of parents surveyed said they do not plan to vaccinate their children against H1N1. Many were worried about the vaccine’s side effects. People believe that getting the shot might make you more likely to get sick. Bill Maher told his 60,000 Twitter followers, “If u get a swine flu shot ur an idiot.” Even the popular Dr. Mercola is against the shots.
The news is bad for flu vaccinations and it’s even worse for others. Some parents, including Jenny McCarthy, believe that having your children vaccinated against measles might make it more likely that they’ll be diagnosed with autism. Fewer people, therefore, will take the good advice of their doctors and get a vaccination that might help their children and society at large.
People don’t trust science like they used to. A Pew Research Center poll says that only 27 percent of Americans think our greatest achievements are in science – down from 47 percent a decade ago. One explanation is that the days of Big Science – landing on the Moon, inventing the transistor – seem far away. Science is routine now. We expect our smart phones to do the laundry and make photocopies.
Even the innocuous Bill Nye the Science Guy is making people mad. A story appeared on Rainn Wilson’s website about the time Nye was giving a science talk in Waco, Texas:
He cited Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.” Nye stated that the lesser light in the aforementioned quote was not technically a light, but a reflector, as in it reflects the sun’s light. The God-fearing folks of Waco were furious. One woman shouted, “We believe in God,” and proceeded to usher out her three children.
Just because your doctor says get a flu shot doesn’t mean you have to get one. (I’m not getting one.) Just because NASA says we should go to Mars doesn’t make it a good idea. (There are a few old bosses I’d like to send to Mars, believe me, but I’d rather we spend the money on solar power and electric cars.) It’s good to question science and medicine.
In the void brought about by all that questioning, however, sometimes you get ignorance. Not good. My fear of getting a flu shot comes mostly from ignorance – I admit it, and by not trusting science we could be creating an epidemic of ignorance worse than the flu.
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