On Friday, my wife and I visited Boston's Museum of Science. It's a magnificent testament to humanity's curiosity, cooperation, courage, and dogged determination to acquire knowledge.  I think of the countless scientists and adventurers who toiled largely anonymously so we could have some rudimentary sense of the natural world.

And I think of the goddamn fools that Andi just wrote about. Their  righteous certitude alarms me, as does their banding together to push such a twisted agenda. They have a blinkered, cowardly, and dangerous view of the world, such a contrast with those of us who look to science for many of life's most important answers.  

Additionally, the IMAX film we watched was Deep Sky, which details the planning, construction, and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope. The images displayed hit me in what I can only describe as a spiritual way, not a supernatural one, but with a visceral sense of awe and wonder that has always eluded me. As Hitchens once said, "it's a lot more impressive than a burning bush. "  

Our species can rise to unbelievably noble heights, but all too often, it traffics in sick, homicidal tribalism, clinging to the most life-destroying dogmas, ideologies,  and theologies.

Peter T.