Yes. Nation, We are dumb. You probably didn't hear it here first...Although Mike Lafferty of the Columbus Dispatch has a rather dry interview with George Fitzgerald Smoot, the Nobel Prize winner in physics who measured the oldest light in the universe, he eventually hits on an interesting point. Interesting because it's indicative of where we're heading as a nation, which seems to care more about Britney Spears' hair than our origins and our fate. Or math. Or biology. Or probably even spelling, for that matter...
Of course, thinking about Britney's hair is probably easier than grappling with gravitational lensing and quantum mechanics, but I doubt it's more rewarding...
"Q: You have five grad students in your lab and three are foreign nationals. What's that say about American interest in science?
A: That's why I have more of my retirement money in overseas funds. In general, quality is declining. ... The foreign kids come prepared."
Yes, the slow death of physics in America could be seen as a philosophical debate. If the foreign kids come prepared, do we not come at all? And why not? Is it celebritydom that's beginning to dominate our world, ripping away any substantive matter?
But I can see why some don't care about string theory, the cosmos or even God. We do seem to have lots of atheists and agnostics running around (not that I regularly tote or recite the Bible). It might be a shortsighted theory, but who cares to answer deep, unfathomable questions if you'll be confined in a small box for eternity?
One day -- and this will represent a true sea change in America, far surpassing the death of science -- we're going to have an atheist president.
Bill Maher would be so proud, provided we have already stopped intoxicating ourselves with death food, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment