Re: Who writes this stuff?

From: George (george_at_wtfiswrongwithyou.com)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:08:55 GMT

"Sean Patrick" <seankpat@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:ZM1Sd.7198$hd6.2293@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
> "Gerard Fryer" <gerard@hawaii.edu> wrote in message
> news:2005021911581127590%gerard@hawaiiedu...
>> In reading an article on CNN's web site about the Brazilian land
> crocodile,
>>
> http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/17/brazil.croc.fossil.ap/index.html
>> I came across this amazing paragraph
>>
>> > Scientists believe the continents then were joined in a huge land mass,
>> > which some call Gondwana. Fossils similar to Uberabasuchus have been
>> > found in Africa and in Antarctica, which possibly were linked to South
>> > America.
>>
>> I have heard of radical skepticism, but this is ridiculous. Pretty soon
>> they'll be saying things like "There is a country that some call the
>> United States of America, and George W. Bush is possibly its President."
>>
>
> This sort of phrasing strikes me as a politically correct attempt to appease
> the conservative religious camp, who no doubt find it offensive to see
> evolutionary and plate tectonic theory (or anything else that arose from
> "secular humanist" study, not from "Scripture") promulgated as fact in the
> mainstream press. Journalists can get away with writing something like the
> passage you quoted by emphasizing that no human was alive to actually see
> South America, Africa, and Antarctica conjoined, so as far anyone knows
> Gondwana is just a belief not a "fact" as such. It's beside the point to
> mention that this belief is derived from observation and logical analysis of
> geologic evidence and therefore suffices very well as a fact. So I don't
> believe that this type of writing is skepticism so much as a veiled
> rejection of established scientific endeavor. Get used to it- with the
> conservatives in power in the USA (remember that GWB is a born-again
> Fundamentalist X-tian) we're going to be seeing far more of this in the
> future. Cheers.
>
> -Sean
>
> P.S.- It's also quite possible that the author of that article may not
> believe PT or evolution themself.
>

Get used to it? Sounds like you are already resigned to let the
neo-evangelistic nut cases in this country have their way with everything in
this country. If everyone was resigned to this fate as you appear to be, then
we all might as well quit geology and become bar tenders in Key Largo.

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