Speaking of science, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time reading up on some practical genetics/genomics, and how it applies to health and genealogy and evolution and such.

As I look at how various companies’ products are being received by our society, from DTC genetic testing to medicine, it is really clear that we’ve got a long way to go for the general populace to be able to deal with all this information.

First up is the scaremongering, which is around every corner. There is a cottage industry out there that peddles that we should be afraid of anything “genetic”.

Secondly, genetics can easily unveil long held secrets, such as adoptions and the dreaded non-paternity event (i.e., where the biological father doesn’t claim paternity.) This scares people too.

Finding out one might have African American ancestors - I wonder what that does to the VDARE crowd?

Time is of the essence, and as I grow older I realize that time not invested in bettering myself (in whatever fashion) or others is time wasted. I think of the billions of hours Americans spend getting programed week by week sitting in pews (and yes, I fully realize that there is benefit in some moral teachings, at least in some religious communities.)

Every hour a kid sits in a pew being taught that the world is 6000 years old is an hour destroying that young person’s life to better understand the world. There’s a big difference in spending an hour being taught “don’t murder others” vs. spending an hour being taught “all the scientists in the world are lying to you.” The two types of teachings are not equivalent and I don’t mean to confuse the two types of indoctrination.

So yes, I am stating that there is a causal connection between our society’s inability to handle genetics in all its applications and the religious indoctrination in which so much of America participates.