Dear Diary,
It’s not easy being a Science Ineffectual but my ancestors didn’t shed their blood at Crecy or Agincourt just so that I could be force-fed the Enlightenment.
I almost had to understand science today because visitors saw me checking on some plant seeds in my refrigerator. I was part way through explaining about vernalisation but then I remembered that I am sworn to disdain science and all its accoutrements. Under pressure, I couldn’t remember if this were a scientific discovery that had been formalised in the last 200 years.(a) So, at the last moment, I said that if the seeds are kept cold and dry, when you take a spoonful, they blossom in the heat, moisture and warmth of your body, and push out little shoots, soft as camel hairs, that absorb toxins and brush out your colon.
It it weren’t for the daily disinformation along these lines that HQ manages to plant in all the media, I’m not too sure they would have believed me.
Constant vigilance!
I long for the day when our glorious motto is adopted as the masthead of a newspaper or ident of a TV company. On that day there will be no further need for concealing our purpose (which is, even now, hidden to me).
Ignorantia ignorantiae gratia.
Notes
(a) Ben Goldacre.
My basic hypothesis is this: the people who run the media are humanities graduates with little understanding of science, who wear their ignorance as a badge of honour. Secretly, deep down, perhaps they resent the fact that they have denied themselves access to the most significant developments in the history of Western thought from the past two hundred years… [pp 207-8, Bad Science]
Tags: Bad Science, Ben Goldacre, Dear Diary, Ignorantia ignorantiae gratia
October 25, 2008 at 10:29 am
[...] have to say that scenarios like this are the downside of the success of Science Ineffectuals‘ successful viral disinformation campaigns, such as mobile phones ganging up and cooking [...]