Vote Down the Junk Science movement

Little incites my jaw-gape reflex faster than the junk-science-as-proof phenomenon. Ironically enough, it's what certain sectors accuse Darwin of doing: arriving at a conclusion and then going back and finding the evidence--any evidence-- to bolster the foredrawn conclusion. I've read it this year on mothering dot com, in frustrating discussions on everything from epidemiology to psychology to atopy to nutrition to social sciences.

Today's example went from one junk science assertion to the next, and totally caught me off guard. In a refreshingly reasonable and respectful discussion of the relative merits (and shortcomings) of Sally Fallon's interpretion of Weston A. Price's work, and her resulting tome , Nourishing Traditions, the discussion of salt mining in the paleolithic came up.

OK, so I don't give a Turtle's butt in Galapogos about paleolithic salt mining, but there it was.

Then someone dropped the junk-science bomb of stating:

Sorry to go off on a tangent....but there is also no real evidence that "Paleolithic" peoples or even life at all existed more than 10,000 years ago...it is all theory.

What
the

FUCK???????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I have heard that there are people "out there" who think stuff like that. Being a homeschooler, I have seen little online enclaves of happy homeschoolers who actually teach this stuff to their kids. I happen in, skeedaddle on out of there, and leave them to their business. I know they exist. I guess even now, I am actually running into people who quite calmly drive Mazdas, eat their greens, sing in the choir, walk the dog and fold the laundry, all the while thinking Mt. Rainier is a brand-spanking new pimple on the pearly, sculpted face of the Cascades.

It's people like this that make Americans, American Christians in particular, look like Fidjits. There is a certain amount of defensiveness that I have about my life right now, not because we are homeschoolers, but because we are (ok, admittedly laid-back, Lutheran) Christians who homeschool. It's very easy for other people to jump to the conclusion that I, too, think radiocarbon dating is someone's idea of smoking dope, and that exposing the fossil record is an elaborate hoax. (Perpetuated by whom, hey, I haven't gotten that far, but I am sure they'll educate me. ) Those people, the ones who take you in the back room and swear you into the secret "real Christian" society. If you don't shut off your BRAIN and filter all curiosity and information through Brother Fletcher's skewed dogma, based in turn on his own flawed perceptions of the Bible, then you and your entire faith are destined to rot, certainly never good enough to be true believers.

I don't mind if somone disagrees with me. Do you want to use grey sea salt instead of Morton's because you believe it's healthier? Go right ahead. Should I eschew processed sugar in favor of honey and maple syrup? Possibly. Do you feed your kids McNuggets and lunchables every day? That's on you. Do you think my chicken stock is inferior to yours, because my chicken wasn't free range? Rock on! Won't drink my hormone-free, pastured-cow milk because it's been pasteurized? That saves me some dairy. Women who refuse to nurse their infants and demand vanity c-sections to preserve the integrity of their vajayjay piss me off, but I also fully believe they're entitled to their decisions and I am not going to attempt to legislate them. Any of them.

But don't dare tell me I need to ban books, or insist that I "acknowledge the possibility" that our planet is indeed a "young earth." I really don't need to have that as a blip on my radar, and it is bad dogma disguised as JUNK SCIENCE. I have always objected to the legislation of religion, and this is a none-too-subtle way to sneak it in.

Freedom of religion goes hand in hand with freedom from religion.

It's dangerous and yes, here's that word again, crazy, to try to bust us all back to the literal dark ages because it was easier to manipulate the ignorant Mob. The dumbing-down of America started with us resting on our laurels, but it's going to be perpetuated by our grown children squabbling over who invented the lightbulb, Edison or St. Peter. When one can't discuss a diet, without some random person acting on the compulsion to insert dismissive inanities about religious-based scientific theory, then it's not too large of a leap to imagining stalled legislative discussions. Coal reserves? Why bother with conservation techniques? Didn't God give us all we need? Wait! Coal can't exist, anyway right? That would mean we had compressed fossils turning into energy sources.....ummmm........Let's move on to that statue in the Smithsonian.... I think that bronze David needs a new grape leaf, for sure.

Please, please, please vote. Because these people have the same power you do to shape our society, our government and our future. You may be raising intelligent, reasoning, sound future citizens, but they have peers who weren't given the same opportunities. The best thing you can do for the future of children you love is to ensure that they inherit a free America.