In 1633 Galileo was tried and convicted by the political and religious leaders of his day—convicted of heresy for publicly stating what he believed to be true—a belief he arrived at by use of evidence and reason. Just shy of 150 and some 385 years later respectively, one country was founded by men of reason and an expat from that land pondered it all while looking through a telescope at 5:30 a.m. from his little backyard on the Izu Peninsula of Japan. Spoiler alert, the guy is me and the pondering is as follows:
Morning of day two of the New Year holidays here. I knew there was no getting back to sleep when I woke just after 5 a.m. Don’t even try it, get up there’s a day to be lived! I entered the frigid living room only to find the kerosene tank empty, so outside to the shed to fill it and WHOA! There’s Jupiter and Mars pretty as ever in the predawn sky. With tank filled I recalled just happen to having the boys Discovery Kids telescope set up in the room upstairs so hauled it outside for a better look. It’s a kids telescope but a good one, powerful enough yet sturdily built with big kid-friendly knobs and such. I can’t spy through it without thinking “Dang, this thing’s more powerful than the one Galileo used”. And so my morning thoughts went down that path a ways…
Galileo nailed it. He had the courage to question the beliefs of his day, he had the courage to question the authorities who insisted everyone else believe as they believed. And so the authorities acted accordingly. They used their power to try to shut him up. Looking back it’s clear to see how stubborn, ignorant, stupid, and unjust they truly were. Nowadays only the fringiest of the fringe doesn’t accept the truth that the earth orbits the sun, yet willful ignorance still keeps rearing it’s ugly head elsewhere just the same.
And so while peering through the telescope in the predawn hour I couldn’t help but recall seeing news yesterday that the idiot in the White House of the USofA put his ignorance on display for the whole word to see yesterday by tweeting that climate change is fake because it’s cold somewhere. Because, you know, it’s easy to see the sun come and go so obviously the earth is the center of the universe. There’s a defense to be made for the leaders of Galileo’s day at least—at least they believed as everyone else did and there was little scientific evidence to show otherwise. But now? For the love of God every logically thinking person including every first world leader and damn near 100% of global climate scientists agrees that climate change is here, that humans are fueling it, and the dire effects on future generations will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. But there’s ol president stupid “duh har har oh it’s bigly cold there’s no climate change”. Whatever.
So the guy’s an idiot. It’s willful ignorance fueled by greed and short term monetary gain and my kids will be hurt by the decisions he’s making. But on a positive note we’ve definitely come a long way. Not he nor any other idiotic so-called leader who comes along can lock up all the worlds’ scientists and stifle the truth for long. Thus future generations—my kids and theirs and theirs and theirs—will look back on all of this and see him for the selfish idiot that he was. By looking at how far we’ve come as a species it’s apt to conclude that truth and reason and justice triumph in the end with this too. I think we can take some comfort in that.
No comments:
Post a Comment