Peter Leschak writes in the Star Tribune about his conversion from creationist to rational human being. He used to be a smug, condescending, young earth creationist idiot, but he got better. Good for him! He still has a few things to learn, though.
Why is it that despite convincing scientific evidence so many Americans are creationists? For me, at least, the answer was clear: I had never seriously studied evolution and the facts supporting it. I’d graduated high school and college with honors and continued to read widely, and yet was not adequately exposed to a key concept of science. The chief fault lies with the scientific establishment.
Oh? Well, FUCK YOU TOO, Peter. Go read some Michael Ruse, you’ll find a fellow ass with a similar attitude.
Scientists and science journalists have been writing books and essays for decades on the subject of evolution and getting past the barriers erected by the creationists that you once happily represented, Peter; I suggest you go to the library or local bookstore and look for the names Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Sean Carroll, Jared Diamond, Niles Eldredge, Jay Hosler, Donald Johansson, Steve Jones, Ken Miller, Donald Prothero, Matt Ridley, Carl Sagan, Neil Shubin, Jonathan Weiner, or Carl Zimmer, just to mention a few. They all wrote approachable, gentle books about the science of evolution that don’t slap creationists upside the head, no matter how much they deserve it. You had not read widely. You had intentionally overlooked readable popular texts on a subject you disliked, and now you blame the authors for not trying hard enough. They don’t say “Fuck you, Peter,” but I do. Fuck you, Peter.
Now go look at organizations like the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network. They’ve been fighting hard for decades against those people with whom you once found common cause, the creationists; these organizations have been struggling against an insidious nationwide crusade by dogmatic Christians to suppress the teaching of evolution in the schools. I was a public school graduate who never once heard the word “evolution” mentioned in my classes because any teacher who said it would be descended upon by a horde of screeching fanatics. Your screaming fanatics. Even now, teachers know that they face suppression with little support from uncaring administrations if they try to do a good job teaching biology in their science classes…and you blame the pro-science organizations for not trying hard enough, and the teachers who were cowed by your pals. They’re too nice to say, “Fuck you, Peter,” but I’m not. Fuck you, Peter.
I grew up poor with no expectation that I’d even be able to go to college; my father had me all lined up for a nice union blue collar job when I lucked into a full scholarship (doing extraordinarily well on those standardized tests paid off). I went to a public school with an, as I now know in hindsight, awful science program (with one or two bright spots, thank you Mr Thompson), and got negligible exposure to science. But I loved the stuff myself; I followed the space program zealously, I dissected road kill, I hiked the woods and hills around my home, and I read like a maniac — I lived in the local library and read Scientific American and Natural History and Smithsonian and National Geographic, and I finished all the science books in the children’s section before I was 11 and pestered the librarians to let me check out adult books. I cared enough about how the world worked to struggle to understand it; I didn’t blame the scientists of the world for failing to look me up and spoon feed it to me. The “scientific establishment” built the deep reservoir of information your church tried to hide, and that you couldn’t be bothered to seek out on your own. I fought for my knowledge, which tends to make me the kind of rude, aggressive guy who would tell you, “Fuck you, Peter,” and I’m not about to change. Fuck you, Peter.
Hey, how about if, instead of blaming the people who have been struggling to bring information to you and straining to improve education, you instead blamed the ignorant dogmatists and truth-hating cowards who lied to you for years, who’ve been compromising science education, who elect dim-witted church-for-brains scum to high office, who frighten children away from the glorious joys of science with threats of hell, who bilk the public of money that they then use to create propaganda for creationism, who trained you from an early age to avoid challenging your beliefs? Once you do that, maybe I’ll be able to say a civil word to you.
Until then, though…fuck you, Peter Leschak.
(via Like a blog, but for humans)
How about blaming the fundies who have infiltrated boards of education across America and actively work to remove all mention of evolution from science text books. And even to remove science from the curriculum altogether.
Some really beautiful writing on that list.
I’d also add David Quammen.
Gee, I wonder how anyone ever came to accept the evidence for evolution–since they’d hardly been taught the concept in school prior to Darwin’s “long argument.”
Oh, that’s right, they actually troubled to read the damn book that Darwin wrote. Even now it’s tolerably good, while rather better books are out there now.
I was taught creationism in religious school and wasn’t supposed to read about evolution. Did anyway, you incurious loser.
Your excuse, Peter? Pathetic.
Glen Davidson
It’s true that high school education fails students by not teaching them about evolution, a simple idea so dominant in its explanation of life and biology that the whole of creationism is engaged in, not the development of an alternative theory, but in desperate and futile attempts to refute evolution. But as PZ points out, creationists are responsible for blocking efforts to teach evolution. “Teach the controversy”? I would welcome such efforts if it meant that students would learn about evolution. But as it is, I have to agree with PZ’s anger – many people have worked hard to try to teach the truth here and been shouted down. It’s a shame that students don’t learn the basics of biology in grade school, the way they learn math and reading. It’s a failure of our educational system, but don’t blame the scientists who have worked so hard to get the truth out.
I didn’t realise the scientific establishment had so much political influence as to be able to dictate education standards to the point of being a scientifically-literate person without any sort of political interference or limitations. I didn’t realise the scientific establishment didn’t have any backlash in terms of an apathetic and sometimes anti-scientific population who seek scientific knowledge only in terms of its direct benefit, or that would take pride in being scientifically-illiterate…
If fault lies with the scientific establishment, then why is it that it is only the scientific establishment that recognizes and is trying to rectify the problem, even while creationists pour millions upon millions of dollars to both churn out anti-science propaganda, and to bribe their political cronies to create anti-science and anti-education legislation to zombify children into bigoted, anti-science Idiots For Jesus?
Man, if only there was a network of scientists and other rational people devoted to getting the science of Evolution out there. Hmm…
On the other side of the aisle, all I hear from creationists is, “Why is Evolution everywhere? Why is Evolution so popular? Why does it matter this much to you people?” etc. etc.
This is the kind of post that makes me want to stand up and cheer for it.
And fuck you, Peter.
Jesus Christ. Give the guy credit for coming to this realization so late in life. Actually laying the two books side by side and actually examining the facts, instead of some creationist “dumb-play”? What dyed-in-wool creationist adult can honestly challenge and overturn their central tenets? Maybe 1 in 100. Yes, his critical reasoning skills aren’t yet running on all cylinders. He’s obviously got some residual damage. Something so off-the-wall as “too … many scientists [are] arrogant materialists” should be immediately seen as part of his creationist inculcation.
No need to F-Bomb the dude.
“DUDE! How could you have let me stick my dick into that blender!? Don’t you know how stupid that made you look!?”
Ah yes we should recognize his creationist inculcation…and never ever ever challenge it.
You don’t seem to recognize how criticism works do you?
If you paint a wonderful portrait but the person’s chin looks like a pair of testicles I’d hope you’d want someone to say “that’s very good…but it looks like balls in some places”
Fuck you too
It reminds me of Republicans doing everything they can do prevent Democrats from accomplishing anything and then blaming the Democrats for not accomplishing anything.
I didn’t turn from being a devout Southern Baptist to an atheist until I was in my mid-30s. I don’t see how it taking so long is any reason to get credit rather than a stern “Why the hell did it take you so long?” Also, I never blamed scientists for all the creationists who got decent teaching banned from schools. Funny, that.
And fuck you, Peter.
Give the guy credit?
Dude, he sat down to read the two books side-by-side only to reinforce his prior beliefs, expecting no other result. The fact that he actually took the truth out of that situation is all he gets credit for. He did not set out to seek truth, to compare rationally, or even to see what the other side had of value. He still sees the science community as the group in the wrong—they may have their facts straight, but they are failures as human beings.
Leschak clearly did not “read widely”. He blinkered himself and avoided resources that would have allowed him to educate himself. He sure as hell doesn’t deserve credit for trying to blame science for his own determination to avoid science education.
I got as far as him calling scientists arrogant materialists, and had to stop. And we’re “cognitive elites”.
Peter finally determines that he’d believed a lie for his entire life and who does he blame for inculcating the lie? Not the folks who lied to him. No, he blames the people refuting the lie for not refuting it hard enough for him not to notice sooner.
Fuck you Peter and redgreen.
Hey-fucking-suess, PZ.
I don’t often call you out, but I do here: this is fucking beautiful. Partly because it reflects my own education, checking out books on particle physics from the library when I was 12 and learning about evolution from Scientific American and Discover. And partly because, fuck everyone who has helped the anti-knowledge of America.
I have nothing else. Just that.
redgreen:
Which bomb is that? The fusion bomb? You’re worried about the world being turned into a parking lot of glass? Really?
Oh! You mean “fuck.” Like that’s a bomb.
It’s not.
So fuck you. OK?
Tishim, No, fuck you and fuck your mother.
You faggots never cease to amaze me.
The FtB echo chamber is just incredible. I mean, I know how the comments are going to go before they’re even in. I just take the patterns I see on Fox News and I turn the dial to “FtB.” I shouldn’t be surprised.
Sure, he should get some credit. But honestly, he’s blaming the very people that he ignored and sneered at for not getting through to him? How, by using force, brainwashing, propaganda, sensory deprivation? It’s time he take full credit for his previous blithering ignorance.
Or maybe as continuing arrogance–regardless of its source. Anyway, it’s more than just that, he’s comparing his own pig ignorance to what scientists do as “materialists.” One suspects that he may be a theist who still can’t reconcile himself to cold hard facts. He says:
Any evidence for this? He doesn’t even claim to have evidence to back up such an invidious comparison.
And why might that be? Could it be that they’re actually ignorant rubes? He gives us the familiar reasons why creationists cling to stupidity, but we’re not unaware of those. We just know that we oughtn’t to allow mindless pseudoscience to escape the judgment of stupidity and mendacity just because it’s very enticing to maintain such idiocy. That is, we call other pseudoscience stupid, creationism is at least as dumb.
I actually think it would be well to give him some credit that he’s not generally getting here, but his arrogant projection of creationist ignorance/arrogance onto scientists simply continues. The cause of continuing creationism lies primarily with creationists, even though it’s true that many are so insulated from decent thought that they’d never understand how the “blame” falls upon them.
Not that arrogance doesn’t exist in science, but “arrogant materialists” simply aren’t the cause of creationist ignorance for the most part. Arrogantly ignorant creationists are the cause, and there’s no excuse to pretend otherwise.
Glen Davidson
Oh what a surprise.
More slime.
If it comes to a time when small dogs begin to burst into flame in Central Park, you can bet that the right will blame everybody else for not warning them about global warming.
redgreen #20
You’re a homophobe. Why am I not surprised?
Aw, did the mean Pharyngula horde tell you that you were full of shit? How mean of us. Just because you’re full of shit is no reason for people to comment on the fact. We should take your injured fee-fees into consideration. It’s a real shame nobody cares about your fee-fees.
Oh yes, before I forget, fuck you asswipe.
Jesus Hernandez! If I could fit this post on a picture of you I’d slap it on Pinterest. Believe it or not, that’s high praise from me.
And yes, F-bombing the dude is completely called for. I started out as recently as a year ago trying to be accomodating of the fee-fees of Christians, but no more. Fundamentalists are passing legislation based on their religious beliefs, and that’s where I draw the line. Fuck all of them, and Peter, too.
Thank you, redgreen
You get upset about the f-bomb, then call everyone on FtB “faggots”, thereby insulting everyone in the FtB AND the LGBT community, by using a debasing smear word.
Honestly, these people think they are standing on the higher moral ground when they climb to the top of a 6 foot ladder at the bottom of a 20 foot hole……
(And I hope you didn’t steal that name from the Red Green Show, because that would offend me. Red Green was GOOD!)
We prefer the term “bundles-of-wood Americans”, thanks.
The echo chamber is all in your head.
—
My experience is that folks who convert to Christianity do not change their personality type—wild drug addicts become wild Jesus addicts, still sportin’ the tats and ridin’ the Harley. This guy has converted out, but he is still smug, condescending, and possibly an idiot.
He’s probably from slime and thus was intending to be an idiot and get a reason to go off on a hate spat so he can get banned…cause that’s a badge of honor. On the plus side good to know no one is actually that fucking stupid.
First, that’s fucking hilarious.
Second, some faggots aren’t American.
Oh I know, how ’bout a venom contest,
See who can use “fuck you” the most times in a 60 word paragraph. Not less than 60 words, nor more than 60 words. I think redgreen is on to something.
Commenters here do sound like Fox News sometimes or that PBS show where the old guy and 4 or 5 other people sit around yelling at one another. Of course they can’t have a “fuck you” contest.
This article really highlights the real problems of science ignorance in schools and generally. Too bad a discussion of the problem can’t happen. Hell I might learn something. Well, I might learn something anyway.
Redgreen: you are now confined to TZT. Do not post anywhere else on this site or you will be banned. Do you even recognize the irony of complaining about “fuck” when you so blithely throw out the word “faggot”?
I read the essay and thought it strange. Apparently, Leschak blames “arrogant” scientists for dismissing creationism without being sympathetic and understanding of why people cling to creationism: “Because it is emotionally comforting and anthropomorphic — the creation myth of our tribe — and therefore naturally attractive to humans.” He then quotes EO Wilson making this point.
He could have quoted Richard Dawkins making that point, or Jerry Coyne, or PZ Myers for that matter. Daniel Dennett wrote a book making that point, as have many others. Yes, people are religious because they have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize and they find it emotionally comforting. That’s not a big news flash. And the quotation by EO Wilson — with its reference to “Stone Age emotions (and) medieval institutions” — doesn’t sound like liberal theology to me. It sounds like atheism. Leschak seems to be reading in an implied “you poor sweet religious babies” into the text.
When the worst thing someone can think of happening to them is becoming an atheist, reassuring people that no, no, don’t worry — that doesn’t have to happen to them — is probably a poor strategy in the long run. Time for meeting these fears with some honest reassurance that atheism is FINE and we are not ashamed to say so.
Sheesh, PZ:
Don’t be such a fucking tone troll.
I’ve been trying to imagine a hypothetical counterpart to Leschak’s article: someone who used to believe in evolution coming to believe in creationism by reading on his own … and then blaming the churches and theologians for not being sympathetic enough to people’s emotional needs. That’s why it took him so long. Would that make sense?
In a sense, it would make sense. No, I don’t mean the scenario is plausible (it isn’t.) I mean that the complaint would be considered a valid one in the religious world. The facts and evidence for faith-based beliefs are only secondary to trying to change people’s “hearts.” If someone would have believed in creationism or accepted Jesus or wakened spiritually if the other side had just been Nice enough, then their not-niceness is a serious accusation. The community was not welcoming. The propaganda was not seductive. It failed to push buttons and appeal to human needs. It didn’t win souls.
I think Leschak’s “conversion” to science is still pretty heavily influenced by what he knows about conversions in religion. Science doesn’t “convert.” It convinces. There’s less hand-holding in that. There has to be.
*hands Redgreen their merit badge*
Redgreen had a brief glimpse of the banhammer. Bye.
If it’s not too late…
TZT
Oh,
fuckf-bomb.Yeah, blame Creationists. I definitely agree. I had to growl down some gangly degenerate on my university campus one time for giving me some BS-ass Creation Science pamphlet.
The scientific establishment is doing plenty.
They can’t do much more at this point without school boards actually starting to care about science education.
Well, I suppose it’s possible they could do more. But where are his specific ideas? What could scientists have done to reach him sooner? What could they do to reach others in his situation sooner and more effectively? I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of scientists would be ecstatic if this guy had some brilliant new idea on how to improve popular understanding and acceptance of science.
He doesn’t seem to present any ideas, he just blasts the scientists for failing, as if they weren’t even trying. They are trying. Maybe they can be more effective, but they are trying.
The insulting tone I think is the worst. It’s one thing to argue that scientists are not being as effective in popularizing science as they could be. It’s another thing entirely to suggest that they don’t care and simply aren’t trying, which he seems to be doing.
Ummm. OK.
Nick Lane has also made recent and wonderful contributions to evolit.
List is missing Daniel Loxton.
Peter, dude, seriously: I know you’re a little late to the party, but it’s really bad form to roll up, look at the trashed furniture and passed-out drunkards everywhere and immediately blame the people who invited you. If you had a closer look, you’d know to blame the party-crashing thick-neck douchebags from your former frat-house who rolled up unannounced and did their best to ruin it for everyone!
You’d also notice that those who invited you are trying to clean up while the remaining drunken fuckwits are holding them back by throwing trash around.
So, do the nice people a fucking favour and pick up a garbage bag instead of hurling empty beer cups. M’kay?
Only one of those authors PZ mentions is available at my county library, and that one requires a ten dollar deposit to check out. (I’m disregarding fiction here.) You can probably all guess who doesn’t want them there.
Sastra, I used to get a small-town weekly paper whose editor was always ragging on intellectuals. He never said what the opposite of “intellectual” was, but I got the strong impression it was “emotional”.
Those folks who bring up Spock are also accusing us of being emotionless. They have apparently never heard of the thrill of scientific discovery—running naked down the street screaming “Eureka!”—let alone the everyday atheistic feelings of freedom, lack of fear and pleasure in being right (and of course the love and other human emotions we all have).
It’s too bad Peter didn’t know about Asimov’s New Guide to Science. I literally read that book to pieces back in the 1980’s. I still have all the pieces neatly tucked between the book covers.
@a3kron
Didn’t you fuck off to much delight of village children?
I had a poem, but really, it sucked.
Just let it be known that I fuckin’ love all y’all.
Not to be pesty, but another book I found understandable, and stoked my interest in Biology was The Design of Life by Dr. Renato Dulbecco 1990. I must have checked that out of the library a half dozen times.
Not to be confused with the creationist The Design of Life by Demski and Wells!
You kind of get the idea of the omnipotence of the “evolution conspiracy” behind Leschak’s accusation that the chief fault is with the scientific establishment. It’s supposed by arrogant pig-ignorant creationists (most of them) to be able to simply force a diabolical, anti-science agenda upon the nation, crushing true science and Jeebus with equal impunity (sort of calls into question Jeebus’s power, but they’re not the best thinkers).
Leschak appears not to have given up that nonsense. He knows that he, like other creationists, were very resistant to science, that there are books out there that most creationists avoid like those books are diseased sewer rats, and yet the chief fault is with the omnipotent science establishment that could snap its fingers and disabuse anti-science bigots (no matter how sincere) of their appalling ignorance and bigotry.
How? Just by being the science establishment. Isn’t it obvious? Everyone from his former side knows that they command the main organs of government (listen to the lies in Expelled), so why the hell not?
Glen Davidson
It’s not much of a prediction when you’re the one providing the bigoted idiocy expected at Fox News.
“We speak for God, Lord Creator of the Universe. We, and only we, are able to interpret His wishes correctly and only we have the moral authority to lay down the definitive law on what is right, true and moral for mankind.”
“But you’re factually incorrect here.”
“WHY ARE YOU SCIENTISTS ALWAYS SUCH ARROGANT ELITISTS?!?!?!??!?”
I became literate in 1954. That is, I could speak, read, and to a scrawling degree, write my native language, English. I immediately began devouring a twenty six volume encyclopedia that my parents had magically placed on a low shelf of the bookcase in the living room.
Soon thereafter my mother subscribed, for my benefit, to a series of books called All About Books. These I devoured at bed time. Yes, I had a half hour to read after going to bed at eight o’clock; eight thirty was lights out.
All this reading showed me that the world was infinitely more complex than I would have known just by poking at anthills all by myself. More importantly the books that passed through my hands and eyes and found permanent homes inside my skull taught me that all around the world were legions of people exploring, experimenting and discovering the most wonderful things. Somewhere around fourth or fifth grade I became aware that all of these discoveries were tested by checking on how well they fit in with previous ones. What a fabulous revelation that was!
By that time I had discovered science fiction. All I had to do was look on the book racks at the drugstore. I read stories that talked about science and motivated me go to the library and learn some more.
This process has continued up until the present day. Why, if I could remember everything I’d learned by reading the books that were widely and cheaply available for as long as I have been able to read them, I’d dethrone Irwin Corey*.
I’ll not list all the authors and books here, the list PZ gives in the OP gives a good general idea. What I will say is simply this. There is no justification to hold others responsible for one’s own ignorance unless one has been raised in a barrel and fed through the bung.
Grand revelation in the form of vetted and reliable information is available to everyone for the mere cost of curiosity and a handful of coin. Knowledge and understanding are as easily gotten as sixpacks and junk food.
I can only assume, correct me, Peter Leschak , if I assume too freely, that you were raised in a barrel. At some point the top was knocked off but you chose to stay inside and to view the world through the narrow prospect of the bung. Now, having mustered the courage to stand up and peer over the rim and see what you have been missing you deny that your ignorance is the result of your unwillingness to just go look at books. Whether at the drugstore or the library or at a university or through a subscription book club. You clung to your ignorance like Linus to his blanket. At least you finally read one.
Try reading some (lots) more and do take a moment to look at the copyright dates and at the bibliographies. I know it will be humiliating to some small degree but just think how much more understanding you will have. You will be happier and more confident and if you give credit where it’s due you will find that fewer and fewer people will say “fuck you”. Admitting your own reticence to learn will also help as will acknowledging proudly wearing the albatross that religion so lovingly placed around your neck when you were but an innocent so long ago.
Peace, man. Read voraciously and prosper.
Oops. In my zeal I forgot the footnote. Silly me. He was on TeeVee a lot when I was devouring books as a boy and was one of my most favorite authorities. Right up there with Red Skelton.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin_Corey
That is so fucking absurd. It’s trivial to get banned on a blog by being an asshole. How can anyone regard it as an accomplishment?
If the slimepit is so eager to pick up what PZ throws away, then I know a cracker with their name on it.
So, in other words, “science education was asking for it. I mean, did you see what it was wearing?”
You don’t have to understand evolution to be an atheist – up until a few hundred years ago nobody had ever heard of evolution and there were still atheists.
`
I’ve been an atheist all my life and I still don’t know how evolution works, but so what? I don’t know how my refrigerator works either. We don’t have to know everything.
`
Consider some of the things that creationists hold to be true:
* Talking donkeys
* Aaron turned a stick into a snake
* A virgin became pregnant
* Jesus walked on water
* Demons were chased out of people and into pigs
* Blindness was cured by spit
* Lazarus was raised from the dead
Does the fault lie (as Leschak suggests) with the scientific establishment or with the gullibility of creationists.
@watry:
Ugh. Well, when all else fails, you can check out online archives/libraries; there are more than a few out there that include entire books :)
Caveat: er, well, alright… some also violate more copyright laws than others. Do try to use the legitimate ones!
Or a group could get together to buy the books and start a privately-run mini-library? Actually, that’s not a bad idea… how does library funding work in the US? Can you apply for funding from somewhere to get started? Hm… (wanders off to look up copyright laws and library certifications and government grants and stuff…)
The fault lies with those like Leschak who finally pull their head from the sand, only to blame everyone else for not dragging on their backsides hard enough to pull them out forcibly.
The scientific case for evolution has been out there since the publication of Darwin’s original work in the 19th century, and has only been added to since. Evolution has been publicized in books, magazines, Television productions and even movies. How you could possibly have missed it is an even greater mystery than Abiogenesis.
Crudely Wrott
I ♥ you.
58 years of literacy, Yay!
(I’m at about 53 years.)
@watry:
If there is a local college library near you with a more comprehensive selection, you could try and get a library card through them (all of the colleges I’ve been at have had such an arrangement for residents of the city or even the state that they are in).
If not, interlibrary loan is a wonderful thing for those items that cannot be legally and/or conveniently accessed online. There may be charges associated with that, but 10 dollars per item per borrowing seems implausibly high (I recall ~30 dollars for a half-dozen books two years ago).
And at least some works of many of the authors PZ lists are freely available online. For example, a few essays by Sagan are available here: http://www.csicop.org/specialcollections/show/carl_sagan_collection/ . I’m not sure, but I think that some of Sagan’s scientific papers are also available freely. For example, here’s one that he wrote with my thesis advisor: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v368/n6471/abs/368501a0.html
Crudely Wrott
As someone who grew up reading science fiction by Heinlein, I like your play on his raising young boys quote. Perhaps in the case of Peter Leschak, the decision was a near thing.
My guess is the $10 deposit was required because certain people were taking copies out and never returning it (probably because they disapproved of it) and never paying the fine.
I’ll note that under 18s can be severely limited in what they can access outside of school especially in rural areas if their parents so choose. Even inside school their access to knowledge can be limited so state standards on what must be taught are important. To a lesser degree the standards of the state university system on what they require for incoming students also drives what is taught. Scientists and other academics determine only the last and only if the state allows it (see California which fairly recently had to deal with a private school that wanted its inadequate biology, English, and history classes to be considered acceptable by the state university admissions [the private school lost]). The state standards are more vulnerable to anti-scholarly influences, often they are vague or do not include good important science (or history) concepts that are politically controversial or sufficient guidance for the teachers. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/2012/02/01/u-s-state-science-standards-are-mediocre-to-awful/
Thanks for that, PZ. One of your best.
Peter makes some fair points, but then he goes a bit wild when he starts talking about cognitive elites and arrogant materialists.
“Elite” can just mean “the best”, which could be argued, but I’m more bothered by that that word has come to connote “elitism”, which I sternly disagree with.
Also, I’m not sure how is classed as an “arrogant” materialist. You can be a materialist or not, you can also be arrogant and not. That latter is a undesirable personality trait, I’m not sure how that bolsters any argument. I’m also confused as to how one is classed as an arrogant materialist.
Adamatkins, #65, i guess i’m an arrogant materialist. I’ll keep criticizing supernaturalism as wishful thinking, until i get to see some evidence for it. In some people’s eyes, that makes me an arrogant materialist.
Yes! Standing and cheering! Place the blame where it belongs, with the ignorant and downright malicious fuckwits who spout lies and bullshit to support their pre-conceived religious ideology and political motives.
The damage they wreak on destroying young minds, relationships, and the science foundation of your country is incalculable. It amazes me that the status of the U.S. as a technology, space, and military superpower is built on science and yet igorant Sunday-go-to-meeting dumbwits don’t realize that or think it is all fucking magic or something.
Fuck you Peter. If you really want to make a difference, start fighting against the fuckwits who fed you bullshit all your life. Get others to sit down and actually read Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”; read Dawkins “The Greatest Show on Earth”, “The Selfish Gene”, “The BlindWatchmaker”, “Climbing Mount Improbable”. Read Hitchens. Get others to pull their heads out of their asses…get them to start to *think* critically and skeptically. On this last point, read the book by Robert Todd Carroll, “Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Science Exposed!” This book is chock-full of “head-pulling-out-of-ass” information, and many exposes of the bullshit lying that’s going on.
A whole new world of evidence-base truth, freedom, and enlightenment awaits!
Dick, I guess I’m an arrogant materialist too then!
“Arrogant” is seeming more and more like a work people use when they’re upset with what someone has done or said.
Great rant.
Although creationism seems to be making a resurgence in the UK (Christian and Muslim), it never seemed to be particularly prevalent when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. I have to admit that I never studied it at school and didn’t like biology, but we had pretty good popular natural history TV and only a limited number of networks. In fact, I have a feeling that David Attenborough and his peers have a lot to do with generations of kids growing up with some vague knowledge of how nature doesn’t do the magic thing.
* I’ve noticed that some people have an exaggerated tendency to fit the evidence to conform with their beliefs, rather than the other way around. It’s the impetus for confabulation, so, rather than calling them cowards, how about calling them confabulationists?
“Get others to sit down and actually read Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”
The beauty of that book* is that it is written for “ordinary” readers. You don’t need a college education to understand the terms.
(*Apart from its conclusions, which two other Brits arrived to independently. Darwin stands out as an educator)
Don’t get the argument here – so on one side there are (According to the commenter’s and PZ above) a bunch of dumb as a bag of hammers young earth creationists who cannot argue their way out of a paper bag… Vs. Darwin and greats such as Sagan, Dawkins et al and a self evident truth that anyone can understand and observe in the real world, namely evolution.
Hmmm I wouldn’t want to bet on who wins that fight eh!
Wait a minute…. 43% of US’ians believe in YEC! Well pardon me but yes I’d say there have been some pretty fecking massive failures in the ‘scientific establishment’ if that covers government, teachers, scientists and anyone involved in promoting the teaching of evolution.
It might make everyone including PZ happier to just swear at this fella. But given his ‘conversion’ is so news worthy that alone supports his premise of a failure. So suck it up and stop blaming the YECs as that gets you no where – they are not listening and they do not care.
oolon:
?
Upon what basis do you make this disbelieving cry?
A book that really interested me was ABC of Relativity, Bertrand Russell, but before that I recall the Golden Book Encyclopedia. That I started reading about age 8.
What the heck held Peter back?
@ machineintelligence
Mark Twain said it first, I believe.
@John… Let me make my thinking clearer – I did not look up the exact percentage from any given survey – I know you like to be a pedant but that is pretty obvious no? I personally think there have been massive failures if x percent of those in the US believe in YEC if x is anywhere over a few percent.
Just checked – I remembered the article linked to from PZ incorrectly… “According to a recent Gallup poll, 46 percent of Americans believe “that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.”
So John… I await with bated breath… What amazing semantic trap have you set up that I am about to fall into?
[meta]
oolon, you are a good’un, but this is Pharyngula!
That down, I can be not unhelpful.
Here: <a href=”URL” title=”hover-text”>visible-text</a>
(Citations required, dammit! :) )
@John… I know I’ve called you a nit-picking troll before but I do think I may be wrong about that. Having said that nit-picking about how many creationists to the nearest 0.1% can dance upon the surface of the United States seems a bit pointless. So thanks for the help but if you have no point to make then in true Pharyngula style you can fuck right off with your collection of anal Porcupines and Google it yourself. If you are denying there are a large percentage of YECs in the US then… Well… You may be nuttier than porcupine poo in an almond forest.
oolon, get real.
Again: Upon what specific basis do you base your contention?
For saying “The chief fault lies with the scientific establishment,” Mr. Leschak deserves a “fuck you” or two. He has accepted the caricature of scientists created by creationists, and then blamed the scientists for being that way.
But the main thrust of the article is that creationism is wrong and that we all need to get on the same page about evolution. Most of Mr. Leschak’s article is deserving of our approbation.
I especially appreciate his honesty when he admits that he harbored “a self-righteous contempt for the scientific community,” which he explains in this way:
This is well put, and it’s impressive when a person can detect and seek to correct something like that about himself. Also, the conclusion of the piece is right on target.
My own reaction to the article is maybe 10% “fuck you” and 90% “YAY for you! Welcome to the club! Glad you’re on board.”
An inspiring story of self-improvement and hard work there. As Myers says, people who are badly off should blame themselves and not the establishment for not spoon-feeding them.
oolon — you seem to have managed to forget what you are actually arguing. Your hypothesis was not that there is a large percentage of YECs in the US, but rather that IF the percentage of YECs is greater than a few percent, THEN there has been a massive failure [by the scientific establishment]
This is the claim you have been unable to support (your only attempt was to lump in a whole bunch of things that are not necessarily, or even mostly, part of the scientific establishment: like, for example, government, which outside of the courts has been mostly on the side of the religious.)
#81: you missed most of the story. Yes, doing the work yourself is important, but also…this is not esoteric knowledge that scientists have been keeping hidden from the common people. They’ve been working hard to make the information available, in forms the lay public can read.
I didn’t do it myself. I had all these resources at libraries and in college that I could tap. Leschak wants to pretend that scientists weren’t reaching out to him, when they were standing at his shoulder, yelling in his ear the whole time.
@ibbica and michaelbusch,
Thanks to the wonders of the university system, I do have access. I was really thinking about everyone else, or me about five years ago.
@erp
You are correct, although the problem was less with disappearances and more with defacing the books. Hell, doing a paper on the Salem trials cost me 30 dollars.
oolon,
I leave John to check you on the quality of your thinking. He’s better at that than I.
I prefer to fault you on your difficulty with grasping which facts are worth arguing about. Precisely what proportion of the US population believes the creationist nonsense becomes steadily less relevant. Why? Because as an industrialised, i.e. science-based, economy the soi-disant Top Nation Ever is in direct competition with 20 or 30 other countries and increasingly at a disadvantage.
Why? Because, excepting possibly Turkey, every competitor has its science curriculum written by scientists! Simple enough idea, no? Of course anything which happens in the public domain is subject to a bit of jostling for position, a bit of politics, but there is no immediate danger that it can be over-ridden by or its writing outsourced to some semi-literate village pastor.
As evidence I offer you the new draft science curriculum for 5 to 11-year-olds in England and Wales
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/a00210036/sosletter – (then scroll down to the PDF link)
and would draw your attention, in particular, to its use of the biographies of scientists as a help to getting across both scientific concepts and the scientific method. And whom do they recommend as an exemplar for 5-year-olds? Why that nice Mr Charles Darwin, late of Downe in Kent!
Vide!
Science Programme of Study: Key Stage 1 The teaching of science in Key Stage 1 should introduce pupils to a variety of plants and animals (including humans), materials and physical phenomena.
Pupils should study (by working scientifically, working practically, and using a variety of research methods including using books and ICT): Basic structures and simple classification of common plants and animals Life processes, including growth, reproduction and feeding, and growing plants Habitats, including food chains
Simple physical properties of everyday materials in relation to their uses Sources of light Night and day, and the movement of the Sun across the sky Forces that make things move, speed up and slow down, and change shape.
Science biographies, for example, Charles Darwin.
‘Working scientifically’ is to be delivered through the teaching of substantive subject content, and is not to be taught separately as content in its own right. In Year 1 and Year 2, ‘working scientifically’ includes aspects of:
Observing closely using simple equipment Performing simple tests Identifying and classifying Recording findings in various formats.
Ensure pupils read and write scientific vocabulary, consistent with their phonic knowledge at Key Stage 1.
Availability of those books: the older ones were all in my library as a kid. I had no problem finding decent science books and magazines.
One catch: my library was strangely protective of kids. There was the children’s section and the adult section, and kids like me who wandered into the adult section were actually shooed away and told they couldn’t look at the books there. It was extremely frustrating. I finally had to grab a librarian and tell her I WANT A BOOK ABOUT EVOLUTION before they’d let me go in there, escorted, and they were really dubious when I tried to check them out. I got the impression that they thought I was going to find books about sex or something.
But then, this library also had a subscription to Playboy, and put the issues out right there on the magazine racks. So I don’t know what all that was about.
[OT + meta]
PZ,
The way it reads to me, you had reasonable people doing what they could for you under an unreasonable policy.
(You lucked-out, thanks to them)
I had to face a smiliar argument, when I discussed feminism last week. The guy I argued with acknowledged, that women are discriminated against in society, but that feminism was a bad/silly thing. I told him, that all of his preconceptions he had (probably still has) about the feminist movement are wrong, that the stereotypical ballbusting shriek is not, where it´s at. He then continued to argue that he was right, because a majority of society has this preconceptions, therefore it is a bad term and should not be used. Also the feminist movement is at fault, because they don´t correct this view and do not reach out enough, because as a student he is more aware of non mainstream news and information and if they would have just tryed hard enough, they would have reached him allready.
@PZ — same here. I had to beg librarians to let me check out history books from the adult section.
oolon, #72, the problem is that the creationists & other religious nut-jobs can argue quite well, if only in an eristic sense. They aren’t convincing to rationalists, but they are convincing to people who want to cling to their pre-conceived, supernatural beliefs.
These people have enormous political power in the USA, & even considerable power in the UK. They are not ashamed to indoctrinate innocent children.
And therein is the problem. Peter didn’t find the books in his local Christian bookstore, so natch he couldn’t study them.
PZ,
I’ll have you know that there were serious articles in Playboy, or so i’m told.
Wrong. They most definitely should blame those who have been actively working to undermine science education in their country. They should blame those who lied to them and/or tried to keep them ignorant of the evidence, thereby denying them a proper education.
So, yeah. Not the scientists. But also not (necessarily) themselves.
I was nearly 30 when I finally shed the last vestiges of my former religionist identity, and learned enough about evolution to accept it as the best explanation available. Did I blame scientists for this? Fuck no. I blame the people who fucking lied to me about what the science actually said and how strong the case for religion was. Those are the ones who deserve our scorn.
@Aleph squared — I thought John was was asking me for citations for evidence that there are x% YECs in the US. You interpret his comments to mean I have not provided any proof that x% of YECs = scientific establishment failure. Absolutely! I just pointed out that it *seemed to me* that in such a one-sided fight that scientists should (imo) be doing a better job of winning this argument – there are not many flat earthers about these days so what went wrong with creationism? That is my opinion – so sorry for the lack of cited references for my opinion :-)
More anecdotal evidence filtered through my own prejudices and with no citations -> @PZ ->
Maybe he doesn’t like people shouting at him as a way of getting an argument across? Sarcasm there and I know tone trolls are not liked in Pharyngula but the phenomenon of tone is relevant in the wider world. Maybe scientists have not found the best way of communicating evolution and science in general?
I must also say that the general theme of – I fought to read lots of books when I was young and devoured information readily – therefore he should have – to be pretty daft. Expanding to the wider population who often rarely read books at all then there is no hope. If you want to get over the wonder of evolution to kids and your solution is telling them to read Darwins on the Origin of the Species…. Then I think you have your head up your arse if you are pissed the general populace has a poor appreciation of the concept. I’ve bought Richard Dawkins The Magic of Reality for my 3yr old (Bit early but I wanted to read it!) – its a step in the right direction and I think that Dawkins felt there needed to be a book that lays out science and evolution in simple terms is an acknowledgement that this is something that is lacking. (imo again!)
Exactly.
The answer to your question is in the history of science education and the pushback against it. Start by reading about the Scopes trial. What we are fighting today is scientific ignorance that is a direct result of that case.
PZM is right and Peter Leschak is a dork, but that doesn’t mean this is a brilliant article. It isn’t. It is an overlong rambling of an old man, spiced up with some equally old and tired rhetorics. This would have been enough:
“To all those who, like Peter Leschak, blame their ignorance on others: fuck you.”
Now all zealous fans of PZM can fuck me as long as they like.
You’re welcome.
No. The problem is not blaming it on others. The problem is blaming it on the wrong people.
Blaming your faulty science education on the people responsible for fucking up science education in your country is, indeed, the right thing to do.
Oolon,
Opinions aren’t based on nothing. Examine your opinions. If they aren’t based on evidence, but whims or aesthetics, or some emotional appeal, you can just admit that. It’s nbd, just honest.
I like kittens because they look cute and feel fluffy.
Scientists aren’t doing a good job communicating evolution because…?
More slime pit trying to get banned
BEHOLD MY AAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAZING clairvoyance
When I first saw this last night before work I thought PZ was being just a wee bit rough. Not abusive, but maybe a little harsher than necesary. Didn’t have too much time at work to read all the responses but I read enough to realize PZ was wrong. He wasn’t anywhere near harsh enough. This dipshit has the gall to buy into creationist bullshit for FSM knows how long, and once he begins to grasp that the religiturds have been lying their christer asses off to him for all that time, this asswipe wants to blame the scientists! An old navy buddy of mine tried that with me back in the ’80’s, he’d been to a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran private school, got all the fundie bullshit through high school. After the scales had fallen from his eyes he said something to the effect that the scientists hadn’t been vocal enough. I kinda shot back at him, “For fuck’s sake, you’d fucking READ Isaac Asimov’s stuff. What the fuck did you want him to do, rip off your head and puke science down your goddamned windpipe? Blame the christurds who lied to you for all those years, not the scientists whose work you either ignored or blew off!” And so to Peter Leschak I say, “You stupid, pigheaded dumbfuck, all you had to do was fucking pick up a goddamned science book but you were too religious, weren’t you. Don’t blame the scientists who busted their asses to gain the knowledge you disdained for so long. Blame the religious shitheads who lied to you and blame yourself for being too lazy for too long to bleeding LOOK, but do not blame the people whose work work you ignored!” Or is this too strident?
When I first saw this last night before work I thought PZ was being just a wee bit rough. Not abusive, but maybe a little harsher than necesary. Didn’t have too much time at work to read all the responses but I read enough to realize PZ was wrong. He wasn’t anywhere near harsh enough. This dipshit has the gall to buy into creationist bullshit for FSM knows how long, and once he begins to grasp that the religiturds have been lying their christer asses off to him for all that time, this asswipe wants to blame the scientists! An old navy buddy of mine tried that with me back in the ’80’s, he’d been to a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran private school, got all the fundie bullshit through high school. After the scales had fallen from his eyes he said something to the effect that the scientists hadn’t been vocal enough. I kinda shot back at him, “For fuck’s sake, you’d fucking READ Isaac Asimov’s stuff. What the fuck did you want him to do, rip off your head and puke science down your goddamned windpipe? Blame the christurds who lied to you for all those years, not the scientists whose work you either ignored or blew off!” And so to Peter Leschak I say, “You stupid, pigheaded dumbfuck, all you had to do was fucking pick up a goddamned science book but you were too religious, weren’t you. Don’t blame the scientists who busted their asses to gain the knowledge you disdained for so long. Blame the religious shitheads who lied to you and blame yourself for being too lazy for too long to bleeding LOOK, but do not blame the people whose work you ignored!” Or is this too strident? BTW, my navy buddy got the point, and we’re still good friends.
This behavior isn’t uncommon though. I don’t know if there’s a direct term in psychology but I’ve been calling it the “restoration of Honor” it’s the “i was wrong but…” and then trying to find a way to mitigate wrongness. Either it was an honest mistake, someone else fault blah blah blah. It’s a reflex to the bad feeling of feeling wrong and rather than suck it up people spin.
Shit, cyber-deficient today. Tried to edit post AFTER hitting submit. Apologies to all who had to read my rant twice.
mnbo:
Right. Because it’s not important at all to explain how they are wrong. No sir. They’ll figure it out for themselves, as will everyone reading.
I’m glad we had you to point that out to us, mnbo. You must be formidable in debate.
Great post, but I wish this list….
weren’t so uniformly white and male.
Kurt1:
When social-justice issues began receiving widespread attention in various fandom communities, it was observed that the people who had been saying “RTFM, n00b” for years were now whining about not being spoonfed everything on feminism, anti-racism, and so forth.
Ing: “Saving face.”
@Ms Daisy
It took me a few readings to get one fo your point so I hope you don’t mind if I parrot it back
“Fandom communities that were unaccommodating to new comers telling them to do their own research on back story are demanding to be spoon fed information now”
Priceless, and Ing’s version too.
Leschak graduated high school in about 1970, college around 1974, and had his conversion moment at the age of 40ish in 1993 (he’s 60, +/- 1, now). I’m actually heartened by his tale: there are so many more educational options available now than back then I can’t imagine similar ignorance going unchecked for so long. Okay, yes I can. But look at PZ’s list- so many of those authors didn’t start until after Leschak’s conversion. I’m not quite old enough to know pop science from the 60s, but it seems like we’re in something of a golden age for evolution in mass media.
True, but of course Origins was first published in 1859, so that would have been available!
Asimov was writing about biology and evolution in the 1950s.
And I have several popular science books on evolution dating back to the 60s that belonged to my father. OK, the science has changed somewhat, mostly relating the genetics, but the basics of natural selection remain the same.
oolon:
1. I got the iPad version for my kid. It’s a really nice tool, and I think some of Dawkins pedagogy is novel. But,
2. There have been many excellent books on evolution aimed at children for a long time. My childhood interest in evolution was sparked by a series that the AMNH published in the 80s*. These books were so influential on me that I became fairly obsessed with reading about evolution (I had just about everything by Gould, and I still have Milner’s “Encyclopedia of Evolution” on my bookshelf). In fact, one of my teen hobbies was writing screeds against creationism and sending them to Duane Gish, whom I regarded at the time as my greatest foe**. My daughter (5 years) must have 15 books on evolution that are full of engaging text, excellent artwork, and are both fun and teachable. I don’t remember expending any effort at all to find these.
*I wish I still had those.
**Frustratingly, Gish didn’t regard me as anything. The only reply I ever received from him was a signed picture. Yet every friday evening, you could find me in the Jolly Pirate Donut Shop hopped up on caffeine and nicotine, angrily scribbling away at my newest rant. Good times.
I agreed with the crowd that it is the ones doing the lying that deserve the blame, but, I’ll slightly defend the idea of the science community not doing enough. Religion is highly organized and well-funded and has little to do but try to cram its views down everyone’s throat. In short, it’s a little bit like Citizens United and superPacs in the political arena. Well when the bad guys are yelling at the top of their lungs it doesn’t entirely work to just be quietly reasonably.
Now this group here at FtB certainly gets heard, but what about more broadly? How much noise does the average member of scientific, or even rational community make? The xtians win those school board elections because they spend their time organizing and going to boring meetings. When their danger became better known, rational people in Kansas, for instance, also organized and took back the school boards. So the point is it takes a lot of work to match the assault by the religious groups and most of the scientific community already has its hands full doing its job, i.e. science and/or teaching, and thus may not be putting in enough effort fighting ignorance and bigotry.
But the only way to fight a mob is to have a bigger (or louder) mob. So is it at least fair to say that pushing the YEC agenda has certainly be done, on average, more aggressively than pushing the scientific/rational agenda. So perhaps FtB needs to motivate the “silent majority” of the scientific community to get more involved, because in fact they do have a stake in this fight.
While I do agree with P.Z.’s “Fuck you!”; I do think the scientific ESTABLISHMENT bears some of the responsibility.
When NASA was all the craze in the 50s and 60s the scientific establishment should have done more to inject better science into our public schools. Instead it seems they did a great deal of work with our universities and left the K-12 system up to the local apes. There was a time when science and technology were “cool” and the scientific establishment missed that opportunity to expand it’s influence.
I don’t think there is any particular group or person to blame for this, it was just a missed opportunity by us all, and unfortunately we will all miss out on so much more because of it.
Antiochus Epiphanes
re: signed picture of Duane Gish
sell it on eBay?
Look up the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. This was launched right after Sputnik as part of a renewed focus on better science teaching in K-12, and it actually spawned a brief flowering of good evolutionary biology teaching in the schools. It also was one of the triggers of a backlash from the creationists. BSCS in 1958, The Genesis Flood in 1961, Epperson & McLean v. Arkansas in 1968.
So there was a solid, enthusiastic response from the scientific establishment in the 1960s that focused on K-12, that was immediately countered by furious creationists all around the country. Again, DON’T BLAME SCIENCE.
chigau: I, ummmm, kind of recklessly destroyed it, as like, an effigy. It angered me to be ignored.
Also, I never imagined 1) that it would be valuable, or 2) the internet.
If I could go back and do it all over again, I sure as shit wouldn’t have melted every Star Wars figurine I* ever owned in my sister’s minibake oven, or crushed their heads in my father’s table vice. Or blown up all of my matchbox cars with Black Cats, either.
I pretty much emerged from adolescence without a possession intact.
*My brother’s too, come to think of it.
@AE
Come now, phantom menace wasn’t THAT bad
Antiochus Epiphanes
Ah, the good old days!
When any small child could go to the corner store and by explosives.
Didn’t hurt me, I have all my fingers.
@PZ,
Aaaand just when I was starting to worry that you were mellowing in your old age, you eat Peter Leschaks whinefest with fava beans and a Chianti. Good to see.
@36PZ,
Im not clear, did you actually drop the hammer, or is redgreen still on TZT?
Ing: Now your just being disingenuous ;)
chigau: Hee hee. I remember getting sent to buy smokes for my uncle, when I was like, seven. And making “land mines” from foil, gasoline, and 9-volt batteries.
And I don’t let my kid ride her tricycle without a helmet.
I got that at a used bookstore for $10. Then I loaned it to someone and never got it back. :(
Yes it was.
As for Leschak: he does deserve some credit for dropping his fundamentalism (how many manage to do that, after all?) But his choice of a villain is preposterous. So, to put it more nicely: the real villain here is staring you in the face, Mr. Leschak; just look and you’ll see.
Dungeon occupancy list.
Ing: yeah, that works. I was conflating, a bit, IT geeks with fans, because there’s a fair amount of overlap. But geeks do pride themselves on being able to research all sorts of arcane information.
As for science in the schools… NASA was the “craze” in the 1950s and ’60s, as Thegoodman puts it, in part because the U.S. was trying to “keep up with the Commies.” Certainly, the fundie attack on everything intellectual is the main obstacle to good science education in the U.S., but the fall of the Berlin Wall made it a lot less important to our politicians. I don’t see that the War on Terrah has had the same silver lining.
carlie:
You can borrow mine!
(serious…I’ll scan any entry you like….or mail it to you for a while)
you are fascists?
The chief fault dos not lie with the scientific establishment, it lies with the educational system. They need to stop shying away from evolution because of the supposed ‘controversy’. Tell parents who don’t want their kid to learn about evolution tough shit. Not wanting your kid to learn about evolution is like not wanting them to know that 2+2=4.
I am angered by the fact that my son will probably not learn anything about evolution in school thanks to these assholes and their manufactured controversy.
Neither government nor teachers are part of the “scientific establishment”. Why would you think they were?
ChasCPeterson #129, that made me loll.
Heh, I couldn’t help thinking of this…