Ignorance is definitely not bliss, especially for those around you

Like most of us, I will admit that I too am guilty of the tendency towards the, "I'll stop eating meat
when everyone else does" type of morality. However, I’ll call anyone to task regarding ostensible
"paranormal" experiences, and there I will leave them deliberately and in disgust, standing in the dust of
their ignorance. I agree with Penn Gillette that supernatural and paranormal are oxymoronic terms. If
something happens, it's "natural" and "normal", if didn't happen in a demonstrably repeatable way that can
be recorded, then it DIDN'T happen and, well, that's that. End of story, and don't bother me with your
delusions. Too many gullible people with no idea of how to rationally observe the world are convinced of the
most idiotic things. One of my best friends, a brilliant attorney with an intellect I mostly admire, is so
WOOWOO that I'm driven to incredulous tears ...often laughter. It's SO easy to have just enough knowledge
about science to be dangerous, a sad state typified by viewers of that terrible pseudo-documentary, "What
the Beep Do We Know". Obviously, the producers of that crap knew exactly the precise amount to be led
dreadfully astray and into serious illusion and fantasy.

As an educated, experienced scientist, I'm always amazed at the lengths ignorant people go to in
spreading these common and ridiculous misinterpretations rampant in a population so misinformed and mal-
educated by television and now by YouTube. I love Neal Tyson, Laurence Krauss (I've actually met them both)
and all those who honor the legacy of science popularization left by Sagan. However too many people think
that the shallow comprehension they achieve listening to their wonderful documentaries is even partially
equivalent to a comprehensive education in science. WRONGO BUCKAROO BONZAI! And if you righteously
ignore all the silly fallacious interpretations so prevalent in the media and decide to fall back on your own
personal subjective evidence as an argument I'll give you the respect that deserves and also tell you to get
lost. Not only is subjective experience inherently and almost totally unreliable and dependent on
interpenetration, which most us are woefully inadequate in credible knowledge to provide. of but if you are
aware of the psychology and functioning of the brain it is extremely clear t understanding. Any such
experience based on the limited human senses combined with the frailty of faulty mentality prone to illusion
and replete with built in distortions of reality almost guarantee failure.

Now, this writer knows what comes next. The incredibly dubious reader might prefer to willingly
accept his first “gut” response and “instinct” that this “feels’ right, or even worse, believing this makes me
“feel good”. After which the reader will undoubtedly respond by “exposing” me as one suffering from a
narrow or even closed mind, unwilling to look beyond the pale of “current” and “limited” scientific
knowledge. My response is Carl Sagan's brilliant and innocent plagiarizing of an unnamed NASA engineer,
"It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." If I sound harsh and
unyielding, well, I'm 64 years old and I've seen and already heard enough ignorance to last another 64 years.
In fact, so much, too much of willful ignorance to the point that I've been driven to real tears of both
exasperation and shame at my fellow human's condition of irrationality. Mostly by moronic believers of such
drivel as "The Secret". So, I'll express my exasperation, closing with this poem I once penned;
 ON THE "SECRET"
If the secret is out
and the public's still smitten
Why do author's now shout?
"A sequel is written"

From a box comes the cat

Misused Schrodinger allusion
But there's no science in that
just mistake and illusion

What else can they offer

In gullibility's reign
while true knowledge will suffer
the smear of greed's stain

T. A. Kiehl ©2012 emergeART™

T. A. Kiehl ©2018