Thursday, April 28, 2011

Returning To Shamanism

So, I'm watching Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News (I know, I know...that was my first mistake), and he's talking about the terrible tornado outbreak down South. For part of the report he brings in a meteorologist from the Weather Channel (I think it was Greg Forbes) to discuss the matter from, I presumed, a scientific point of view. Williams begins by asking the good doctor "What have we done to cause all of this?"

To the scientist's credit he attempted to remind Mr. Williams about what happens whenever cool dry air slams into warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico (you know, what we generally call here in the United States spring.) But really the question didn't seem to be seeking a scientific explanation of this rare but certainly not unprecedented outbreak. Williams' question seemed to be in search of an intermediary that could inform us of the best ways to appease the proud and angry god who had decided to smote us for our folly.

Simply put, it wasn't the sort of question an intelligent person asks of a scientist. It is the sort of beseeching with which one would expect a befuddled villager to confront a shaman.

Maybe we are entering a new dark age after all.

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