Philibuster

Read this at World of weird things.  It sums up how I feel about it perfectly. I could not have said it better myself. Really.

The years of neglect for teaching critical thinking and curiosity in favor of cramming for standardized tests and blatant anti-intellectualism from partisan pundits and post-modernists alike has come back to bite us and bite us hard. We seem to have jettisoned the idea of experts and authority and replaced it with manufactroversies for ratings and blowhards who generally have no qualifications other than a strong opinion on the matter. We started taking medical advice from Oprah and Jenny McCarthy instead of actual doctors. We see conspiracies everywhere we turn. And we have to be so nice and considerate towards everyone and everything that unless we want to be flooded with complaints about being mean and bitter, we have to give everyone a pass, from a creationist who wants to dismantle science education after having a chat with God, to homeopaths and faith healers who want to force insurance companies to pay for things that don’t work. And perhaps worst of all, the cranks are highly paid professionals in their con artistry while the skeptics and scientists who try to keep them in line can’t even hold a candle to their income.

Click here to read it all.