What's Wrong with Learning About Science

     I first wrote about people knowing more about pseudo-science than real science back in 1986.

     I think, back then, I figured it was some sort of temporary phenomenon. But no.

     Creationism is back with a vengeance. You would have thought that ended in the 1920s. But even today people want it taught in schools, right next to evolution as an acceptable "theory." Evolution is a scientific-backed theory. Creationism is a myth with variations in every major religion.

     Then there are the anti-vaxxers. Sure, it's smart to consult with your pediatrician about vaccines. It's smart to talk to your pediatrician about everything. What is not smart is believing a former model and a discredited medical study rather than many studies that have not been discredited.

     And the folks who -- even as they are being blown away by a super hurricane -- claim climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a clandestine green conspiracy. Trust me on this, the Bolshevik Tree Huggers aren't organized enough to form a conspiracy of this magnitude. Or any magnitude.

     When I was a kid, science was cool. Mostly because of the space program. Where I grew up we were surrounded by space. The Naval Air Research Testing Station at Lake Denmark was where the early titan rockets were developed. Aircraft Radio Corporation was site of the first instruments-only airplane flight. Reaction Motors was where the adventurous employees used prototype Jet Packs to jump over the perimeter fence.

     Sure, the space program lost its glamor as it lost its funding, but what about other exciting aspects of science?

     Medicine? Medical science can now determine the predisposition for devastating diseases like Tay-Sachs or Huntington's. Long-term survival rates for cancers that not long ago were a death sentence. Yet I hear people claim Big Pharma is withholding cures for cancer.

     The Cosmos? I'm forever seeing Facebook posts about Mercury being in retrograde and that somehow causing bad luck. But what about the actual wonder of a star-studded sky? Oh, right, the paranoid among us want to put lights everywhere so we can't see the sky.

     It makes me want to start a campaign to have People magazine name Neil DeGrasse Tyson 2016 Sexiest Man Alive.

      Brains are sexy.