Protesting For Science

VERY CLOSE TO EARTH is a small, dim star with at least seven planets orbiting around it, all of them roughly the size of the Earth, all of them orbiting at a distance which should make liquid surface water possible. For all we know, they all have advanced intelligent life evolving upon their surfaces, on in their oceans, and the cool thing is, we are going to find out, soon. This is a recent discovery. It turns out that every star you will ever see in the night time sky has planets orbiting around it, which makes the probability of intelligent life in the universe very high. Such is the marvel of modern science, that we have only recently discovered these things. Perhaps someday soon the human species will send a spacecraft towards this close dim star to explore. Most likely you won't see much about this in the mainstream media, which, of course, is currently occupied in reacting to every tweet tweeted by our twitter tweeting president. This new planetary discovery is, or should be the most exciting and interesting current event, bar none, in the world right now. With that in mind, this coming Earth Day, April 22, thousands upon thousands of scientists will march boldly and scientifically down Pennsylvania Ave. in the U.S. capitol, attracting attention, hoping to convey the message that science deserve attention, support, and respect from the body politic and the American government. In doing that, they'll need all the help they can get. We live in an age when high school drop outs think they know more about climate change that folks who have doctorates in the field, an era of incredible narcissism, phony intellectualism and fake knowledge, and lack of respect for real expertise and science. Maybe a bit of scientific protesting in the streets, complete with slogans and hand painted signs, can turn this alarming trend around.