Wednesday, June 13, 2007

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.

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18 comments:

Anonymous said...

"evolution taught in the schools, school shootings, graffiti, and carnivorous wolves."

lol

Kyle E. Moore said...

I had hoped that this was a joke, maybe the whole thing was just tongue in cheek, a bad joke at a bad time when we should be honoring this man, not defaming him. But nope, it's the real deal, how else can you explain away comparing Paris Hilton to Sparticus?

Even as I pound this out, I'm looking for the punchline, or glaring at my calendar waiting for it to show April 1st and not June 13th. But I keep coming up empty.

Is this really the core of the hard Christian Right? Is it really this extreme and ugly? The world in which Jon Swift imagines is one of blatant ignorance and bigotry, encouraging mediocrity and stifling intellectual dissent. It is the kind of world in which we as a people can only aspire to failure, though we do so ignorantly for the Lord will make everything right. He attacks Harry Potter, while so many education professionals love the book if for no other reason than it has been instrumental in helping young people learn how to read.


What an ugly post. I truly hope some day you become acquainted with shame, and that it renders you null.

Doodle Bean said...

Mr. Swift,

I love reading the comments to your posts!

Mr. M almost distracted me from my question to you, however, which is as follows: We all know now that Mr. Wizard was a truly horrible, godless corrupter of children. But what about Dr. Science?

Thank you,

Anonymous said...

Mr. Swift - Mr. Wizard was on the tv when I was a child, but that era has passed, as you have pointed out. At his official website, which you linked to, the family expresses their sorrow at his loss as well as their relief that his suffering is over.

They didn't say "his earthly suffering", or mention any religious faith at all, however misguided.

May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on his soul, if any.

mistah charley, ph.d.
imissfaf.blogspot.com

Kyle E. Moore said...

Alright, so as your many readers have taught me, you are indeed a satirist, and for this I humbly apologize, and an apology on my own site will be coming forthwith.

Doodle Bean said...

Mr. Swift,

To my horror, I realized my previous missive made it sound as if I only enjoy reading the comments on your blog.

In fact, I enjoy your writing very much also.

Thank you,

Anonymous said...

RIP to the man that made me hate Bill Nye the Science Rip-off guy.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Swift,

The Creation Museum is not in Lexington, Kentucky. Lexington, as any god-fearing rural Kentuckian knows, is a hotbed of sinful gambling and Godless liberalism. By Kentucky standards, anyway.

The Creation Museum is actually located in Petersburg, Kentucky which is actually pretty much just a part of of Cincinatti, Ohio where real estate is cheaper.

Hutch said...

Mr. Swift,

This was you best piece yet. May Mr. Wizard Rest in Peace.

jonathan said...

Embarassing really. Your pitiful attmepts to render the Creation museum as void of reason are full of slander and not a lot of facts. After all, who would actually want to illustrate the facts behind Creation.

Jaesoreal said...

I'm more of a Bill Nye the Science Guy myself! I'M BACK TO CONRIBUTE TO THE BLOG WORLD!

Anonymous said...

It isn't surprising that in the article denigrating public schools while lauding the virtues of the private schools, there would be no mention about the validity of comparing the two types? Definitely Apples and Oranges.

IF a private/charter school does better, they are completely free to discriminate and select only those students that they want.

Wow, is it any surprise that those students will score higher? Advocates of private/charter and vouchers refuse to address this and THAT is the dirty little secret!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Swift,

I'm a German foreign exchange student currently living in Southern California (but not much longer)and you just made my day! I love your blog. Because everything you say is so true. I discovered your website a while ago when doing some research about the Conservapedia. I'm living with a very conservative, fundamental christian hostfamily, who, like you, knows that evolution and global warming are a lie, that homeschooling is the only true form of education, and that the media are biased and corrupt little children's minds. That's also the reason why they won't let me watch TV. At all. But your blog and the hilarious comments you receive make mora than up for my otherwise lack of entertainment. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Not enough people on the Yahoo finance message boards are getting your Republican message. Therefore I've decided to go into the liberal trenches-the Yahoo Stock Message boards to get your message across. (all true conservative fans of Jon Swift should take note).

Your last post is already getting comments since I posted it there.

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_R/threadview?m=te&bn=15119&tid=264387&mid=264403&tof=3&frt=2#264403

I urge other Jon Swift fans to do the same. All of these cultural messages affect the companies that do business on the stock exchanges and we must take our message to these liberal rich elites. There is already one liberal complaining at the Rite-Aid board (the pharmacies have too much science in them so your post is "on point".)

Come on fellow conservatives. Go to the liberal elite trenches and educate them. Visit the Yahoo stock message boards to get the conservative message across. It's the Christian thing to do - proselytize.

Anonymous said...

Jon Swift, great post, as always.

Mr. M, yikes, that's embarrassing.

That having been said... Jonathon,

I took a look at your Ambassadors blog, to see whether your comment here was parody outrage, or sincere. Your blog screams sincerity, so I will go on that assumption. (Also, your internet handle isn't the name of a famous Irish satirist best known for suggesting the eating of 1 year olds)

Anyway, assuming I am not making the same mistake as Mr. M, my sincere hope for you is that when you get out of your homeschooling and into the real world, where you can begin to think for yourself, you will be open to the idea that you do not know as much as you think. You have your whole life ahead of you to educate yourself and read up on philosophy and science.

Re: your discussion of evolution in your post the "Impossible Coexistence" (http://ambassadorsofchrist.blogspot.com/2007/06/impossible-coexistence.html), let me just point out that you will not find the answers in Genesis, nor in a website of the same name.

If you are truly interested in the topic, I would recommend taking a look at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html, an index of answers, with citations, to the anti-evolution claims found on your site (and at the Creation Museum, and the Answers in Genesis site), and repeated ad nauseaum by people who never bother to actually read the literature on evolution, relying instead on what some no-nothing sophist with a website and a few quotes from the Bible.

Once again, that address is http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Anonymous said...

darren,

Recent studies have shown that charter school students do NO BETTER than public school students, despite being able to pick and choose.

Religious private schools also tend not to do better, and do worse in some subjects (science and math, as I recall).

Private schools of the type not frequented by the vapid rich (Paris and Jonah) do better, but that is because they get to pick and choose their students, and they are often much better funded than public schools. Also, they don't have to waste time on NCLB.

dr. luba

P.S. Is Popeye God?

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