In the giant 'Europeans are far more anti-science than Americans' file, we can now add another section on racism.
Science can use genetic testing to understand risk factors - some groups have a greater risk than others - but that means interested groups can also do other things with the results. Europe is terrifically racist, you will never hear a racial slur, much less a stadium-wide chant, at an American sporting event but you are guaranteed to have them at the EURO CUP 2012 tournament. Western Europe is at least trying to drive it out and all those 'end racism' banners are a puzzle to western football viewers but at least they care.
Yet now racists have a new weapon; genetics.
So a young earth creationist museum put some dinosaurs in its advertising. Ho-hum.
While the atheist panic machine lumbers into action once again - after all, kids like dinosaurs, what if they go and learn not to steal and stuff while they are there? - there really isn't much to worry about if you are not in the panic business.
I just wrote an article talking about how
limiting choice is framed as 'leading the way' when it comes to a pet belief - and anti-science Californians who insist any genetically optimized food is dangerous are making my point while making some inroads into turning their non-reality-based beliefs into law for everyone in the state.
Do you want to ban cigarettes and legalize marijuana? Did you cheer when a judge in one state broke the law regarding the Ten Commandments and hissed when a judge in another state broke the law regarding gay marriage?
Freedom is a moving target, as is social authoritarianism, and how people seem to come down on one issue often shows how they think on a whole raft of other ones.
Sometimes natural is not good. Actually, a lot of the time natural is bad but we live in in era where anti-science types have a 'natural' fetish, believing anything natural is good.
But not always. Weeds are natural yet if you leave them alone your vegetables will die. And that goes for plenty of other invasive species. Even wild salmon.
There's long been precautionary principle hysteria that farm-raised salmon - created so we could all benefit from the health effects of eating fish without risking overfishing - would cause disease among the wild population. Who knew that they were so delicate after millions of years of evolution?
Biology is tricky and evolutionary biology even trickier - in the modern age, with insights into epigenetics, that trickiness and general complexity means virtually any stance you want to adopt on any issue can claim to be 'biological' if you just say something pithy like 'It's a combination of nature and nurture', which is the biology equivalent of amateur political scientists who say 'If only people would talk to each other we could all get along' about foreign relations.
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