My New Year's resolution: To favor science and fact

Because apparently I don't. So says Tom Gregory in his
New Year's Huff-Po piece.

Religion, it seems, is the answer to the timeless question of why we, as humans, are so violent. It's the cause of it all.

And you thought there was some long, complicated answer to that question for the ages. Stop making things so hard.

As Tom points out, "Humanity's habit of violence is counterintuitive to progress. Now more than ever we need a choice to leave the religion behind in favor of science and fact. Perhaps then humankind can see its way clear of the bloodshed that has plagued man since written history."

Clearly, religion is the cause for the bloodshed that has plagued man since written history, though all of the violence prior to that point was caused by eating undercooked meat and sleeping in stuffy, smoke-filled caves.

Yes, when people leave science and fact behind in favor of "the religion," they become violent. And then they become even more violent. And, eventually, they do violence. Got that? I hope so. There'll be a test.

This answers a lot of questions for me. Because, for as long as I can remember, I've been opposed to facts and science, especially scientific facts. Not to mention the very fact of science. Why must science exist, I used to yell out loud to no one in particular? Why? Why?

Now I know where I was coming from in those days. My religiousness made it impossible for me to respect, let alone embrace, science and fact.

Tom continues: "Violence such as Bhutto's death and the Iraq war, jar change on a political scale, but science can stir truthful, meaningful change."

And precisely how can science do that? By showing us images of Earth--how else? (You were probably thinking along the lines of creating a drug that calms human aggression, or concocting some way to accelerate the evolution of the human brain, a la The Outer Limits. Get with it.) Nope, with faraway images of our planet. "The space program's most arresting image proves just how far science, not superstition, can take mankind."

Gregory is referring to an image taken of the Earth by "Voyager one (sic)" in 1990 after it passed Saturn--an image in which our planet registers as nothing but a tiny spot of light. "Humanity's most poetic image," he calls this. This is supposed to get us to thinking about how tiny we are in the scheme of things, and how, therefore, there can be no God. Because, prior to that 1990 image, no one--especially religious people--ever considered our tininess in the vastness of space. Not to mention our tinniness. (Can you imagine sound waves from Earth getting even so far as Mars?) Once you realize that, God just sort of fades away.

"Change your perspective and alter our world." Okey-dokey! I'll do that. And Tom's advice is not only free, he didn't even get paid for dispensing it. So, it's free in two senses.

Like so many drop-religion-and-save-the-world types, Gregory has trouble with elementary punctuation and meaningful word choice. Which makes it a good thing he's not suggesting we trust in his wisdom, but rather in the wisdom of fact and science. That way, it's O.K. that he types things like "Now more than ever we need a choice...." Which must mean, "Now, more than ever, we must make the choice between...." I'm just guessing. My Huff-Po-to-English software recently crashed, so I'm at the mercy of my best shots in the dark.

Then there's the lost comma at the start of "Violence such as Bhutto's death and the Iraq war, jar change on a political scale." (Jar change? Is that any different from coinage kept in a sock?)

Now, what an interesting concept in punctuation--a comma following a clause but not preceding it ("Such as Bhutto's death and the Iraq war"). Amazing. And Tom definitely makes his point that science is not the same thing as the Iraq war or the assassination of Bhutto. Wow. And here we were, thinking it was. Damn, we people of faith are dumb.

That's one of the reasons I was so opposed to science. Not just because I was religious, but because I didn't realize science was different from the Iraq war or the assassination of Bhutto. How could I have known? We're all raised to think these are the same things, and so we never think to question the connection. Until something jars change. And I think I spotted a device along those lines in a Harriet Carter catalog, next to a "World's Greatest Source of Natural Gas" ballcap.

"Humanity needs its own a New Year's resolution." Exactly. I've been saying this for years.

"Faint Light for the New Year," Tom's essay is called. I think I might have changed that title if I knew that my photo and byline would be appearing above it.