"Orville, Wilbur, what am
I holding in my hand?"
"A butter knife,
Ma."
"Right. Now, watch what happens when I drop
it....Clang!...Did
you see what happened when I dropped the butter knife, the heavier-than-air
butter knife?
Did it fly? Did it
go flying around the room singing, 'Fly Me To The Moon?'
No! It didn't fly because it's heavier than air. And
if something is heavier than air it can't fly. Everybody knows that, everybody
except you two. Couple of damn...deniers!"
***
And, before the Wright
brothers, there was the 'denier' Copernicus who knew that it was the Earth that
revolved around the sun.
And Lister showed that
the almost 50% surgical mortality of the day was due to preventable infections
while the surgeons kept sharpening their scalpels on their boots because they
weren't going to listen to that upstart 'denier,' Lister.
And schizophrenia is
caused by 'poor parenting.' (It isn't.)
And stomach ulcers are
caused by 'stress.' (Uh-uh, a bacteria, H. Pylori.)
And, until 1973,
homosexuality was a 'mental illness' caused by a domineering
mother,
"Oh, doctor, my poor
little Ru Paul. And it's all my fault."
"Yes it is, Mrs. Cohen.
But cheer up. At least you'll have someone to give your old clothes to. You know what your
husband's things look like by the time he's ready to get rid of them.
Men!"
And now it's climate
change...or is that global warming or global cooling or global drying or global
wetting? Whatever...It's bad
and it's our fault. All the experts agree. So don't be a damn...'denier.' Please, just shut
up!!!
Well, science doesn't
advance by getting the 'deniers' to 'just shut up'.
Science advances by asking
questions. Questions, questions, and more questions. And it's the 'deniers' who
are the ones
asking the questions....and
making the butter knives fly.
"The case is never
closed." - Albert Einstein
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