By Mark Fisher
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Science marches
Lost in the Stars
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On April 22, Earth Day, there are going to be people marching for science around the country and beyond. People are going to be coming together to show their support for science, and believe it or not science does need our support.
Back in the 1920s, Lysenko, an agricultural scientist in the fairly new Soviet Union, developed a theory of “evolution” that conformed to the political ideology then in power. It involved the idea that you could change the descendants of a plant or animal by doing something to the ancestor. The first story I saw that mentioned this involved the cutting off the tails of mice to generate descendants with shorter or no tails.
This was popular in the Soviet Union because it agreed with the idea that changing people now would improve their children. Epigenetics (perhaps a topic for the future) not withstanding, this is not the way evolution works, but because it fit the political ideology so well at that place and time, biology was held back in the Soviet Union. Even after 1964 when Lysenkoism was finally rejected, biological science was stunted there, all because politics was in control of science.
And we’re in danger of that happening today here in this country. While science has made mistakes in the past, it works best when it polices itself. Science will self correct, because someone will find the best explanation given a reasonable chance, but as soon as any ideology controls science, then “political correctness” becomes more important than actually being correct.
So for this reason folks are planning to come out and show their support for science, even here in Tehachapi. Many people from here are planning to go to Los Angeles to take part in the Science March, but we don’t really have to go that far. We’re having one here in town. If you want to check it out, the Tehachapi March for Science will be April 22 in the downtown area. According to the Facebook page they will be meeting at 10 a.m. on the west side of Philip Marx (Central) Park and wind their way through downtown.
That sounds like a place I should be.
Send me an email at mathnerde+loop@gmail.com. Or you can comment on my blog at mathnerde.blogspot.com.
