Speaking up
I fear now for my children growing up into a world where the leaders turn their backs on the spirit of reason and inquiry. Where the new cardinals of the church deny evolution not on any grounds of empirical reason or evidence, but rather like children having a temper tantrum because they want it not to be so. Where the leaders of this country try to take Terry Shiavo's husband to court not because of any evidence, but because they are angry to have been proven wrong by science. Where cowardly murderers kill innocent men, women, and children and claim to do it in the name of a religion, meaning something that no one can possibly argue with from a rational point of view. Where the education board of Kansas makes the state a mockery by demanding that irrationality be held to be as valid as science. Where 1.2 billion people consider it acceptable for some man with a vision to utter a Fatwa ordering some person killed simply because he doesn't like what the other person chooses to believe in or even just disapproves of his line of inquiry. Where political correctness means that if some lines of inquiry are pursued, others feel free to harass and abuse and even threaten the people trying to find out the facts. Where people believe that they have the right to tell others what to believe, what to wear, what to eat, what to say, and what to think.[...]
It is time to speak up. It is time to say that facts are what matter, not faith, that human progress is accomplished through unfettered use of reason and inquiry and tolerance and discussion and debate, not through intolerant and irrational acts of terror or edicts. For all of our children and for the future, speak up against this wave of intolerance and irrationalism washing over the world.
Adam Bosworth, Speaking up.
