God Takes Mr. Wizard: No Scientific Explanation Needed

God took Mr. Wizard this week. Scientists will tell you he died "after a long battle with multiple myeloma," whatever that is. But the only explanation you really need is that God decided it was time.

Don Herbert, who used science to try to "explain" the universe to millions of young people on television as "Mr. Wizard," was by all accounts a kind and genial man. But his gentle disposition masked a sinister and devious plan: To turn the young people of America away from God.

"Over the years, Don has been personally responsible for more people going into the sciences than any other single person in this country," George Tressel, a National Science Foundation official, is quoted as saying in an obituary.

It must have been a different world back in 1951 when his first show premiered. Can you imagine good Christian parents today allowing their children to be taught by someone who calls himself a "wizard" and tries to seduce children with the "magic" and "mystery" of science? Parents have enough problems these days trying to pry copies of the anti-Christian Harry Potter books out of their children's little hands. Yet this man was able to go on television every week and tell children there were easy "scientific" explanations for God's creation and that they should rely on their brains instead of the Bible.

"He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist," said Steve Jacobs, who worked with Herbert on a 1980s Nickelodeon revival of the show, which brainwashed another generation of innocent children.

The new Creation Museum, which opened May 28 in Lexington, Kentucky, is just one effort to reverse all the damage that Mr. Wizard has done. As you enter the museum, according to one visitor, there is a poster on the wall that explains the difference between how secular humanists and scientists view the world and how the world really is. On one side we see the words of a philosopher with the very effeminate name of Rene Descartes, who is, not surprisingly, French, over a picture of an ugly, unwieldy stack of moldering books: "I think, therefore I am." The caption reads, "Human Reason." In contrast, on the other side over the caption "God's Word," we see a pristine white scroll and the words "God said: "I am that I am."

As parents and their children stroll through the 60,000 sq. ft. museum, designed by a former Universal Studios exhibit director, they can see the terrible cost wrought by Mr. Wizard and other advocates of human reason: nuclear war, drug addiction, gay marriage, abortion, evolution taught in the schools, school shootings, graffiti, and carnivorous wolves. Before Eve gave Adam a bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, they lived peaceably with all of the animals, including dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus Rexes munched contentedly on grass and leaves, while children played with their pet velociraptors. One bite of the apple sent these loving dinosaurs into a murderous rage.

And so how could parents sit idly by as week after week Mr. Wizard went on television to distribute poison apples from the Tree of Knowledge to innocent baby boomer children? Sadly, no one apparently realized at the time that his actions would unleash the turmoil of the 1960s.

In another diorama in the Creation Museum a white paleontologist consults a Bible to learn all he needs to know about the bones of a dinosaur, while a Godless Asian paleontologist strains to think about the origins of the fossil he is looking at using scientific instruments. Considering how many Asians there are in the world and how well they do in school, it is a warning about what the future may bring if we are not vigilant.

But there is some hope. Despite all of the young minds Mr. Wizard warped with his scientific experiments using mayonnaise jars and other simple items you can find around the house, many of his viewers have already rejected his blasphemous teachings. A recent poll shows that 68% of Republicans do not believe in Evolution and only 57% of Democrats do. So the forces against human reason are making headway, especially in the Republican party.

Conservatives, of course, are leading the charge against the ravages of thinking too much and there is perhaps no greater opponent of reason and thought than the National Review's Jonah Goldberg. He has an ingenious idea for reversing the damage that education is doing to our children: Close all public schools. "Here’s a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?" he writes. "OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government’s interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can’t leave any child behind. The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run 90% of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run 90% of the schools — particularly when it gets terrible results?" It certainly wasn't school that helped Goldberg become one of conservatism's leading lights.

The liberal elites will still send their kids to private schools but many more children will be educated in parochial schools, where they will spend as much time learning about the Bible as Muslim kids spend learning about the Quran in madrassas. Still more children will be home-schooled by parents who will teach them only the important things they haven't forgotten yet. And some parents will not have the money or time to educate their children at all, which is at least better than the alternative. This plan would also have the effect of emptying our universities, giving the Marxist professors that dominate them fewer young minds to pervert. And closing public schools will go a long way to erasing the advantages our enemies in the Middle East have from educating so few of their kids.

Of course, it's sad when anyone dies, even someone as misguided as Mr. Wizard. He probably didn't realize that his little television program would lead to so much destruction in the second half of the 20th century. And in a way his death was probably a blessing because the future does not look too bright for people like him who believe in reason and science. In the end science couldn't save Mr. Wizard. Let that be a lesson to all of us.

Share This Post



Jon Swift,Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert, Creation Museum, Evolution, Jonah Goldberg, Religion, Education, Politics, Television, Science