I rarely agree with Cynthia Tucker on anything, She is about as liberal one one can get and a racsits to boot. But today she wtoe an article that gives me hope that she may not be a lost cause.
Click here for the full article: Link Here are some excerpts:
"Wisconsin authorities are preparing to prosecute a couple who allegedly allowed their young daughter to die from a treatable illness -- juvenile diabetes -- because their religion forbids modern medicine. It's a tragic case that raises thorny and uncomfortable questions about First Amendment religious freedoms, but police had no choice but to charge the parents. In 21st-century America, the law should intervene when antediluvian religious dogma causes harm to children."
"While the former president's refusal to expand stem cell research cannot be proven to have caused any deaths, his narrowmindedness impeded scientific efforts that may have made inroads toward a cure for just the illness that killed young Kara. Bush's administration routinely hid, impeded or contradicted scientific data on subjects ranging from contraception to climate change. "
"Among other changes, Obama is expected to reverse Bush's stance on expanding stem cell research. Like so much else about this new beginning, Obama's embrace of science is cause for hope."
" Unfortunately, the nation's newfound respect for scientific inquiry didn't last. In a 2007 GOP primary debate, three Republican presidential candidates raised their hands to reject evolution. Currently, the state of Texas is gearing up for another all-out battle over the teaching of creationism in public school classrooms.
Americans stand in stark contrast to the rest of the modern West in their rejection of evolution, since only 40 percent of Americans accept Darwin's theory, just ahead of Turkey. By contrast, more than 70 percent of the citizens of most other industrialized countries, from Norway to Spain to Japan, accept evolution as the foundation of modern biology.
"Just as contempt for science threatened America's survival in the days of the Cold War, so it does today. On a host of fronts -- from ending our dependence on foreign oil to finding new industries to shore up our economy -- the country needs to invest its resources in research. But it will be difficult for Obama to wrest away scarce funds for science if citizens don't understand its importance."
At least we have a president who'll lead us in the right direction, a man who believes in facts, data, evidence. But the rest of us have to follow. It's hard to head to the moon if you're leading a pack of flat-earthers.
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