If I
were a terrorist
An
explanation for the existence of this document that’s going to be posted over
the next few months, chapter by chapter, on this blog.
John
Janovy, Jr.
About
ten years ago I started working on a book entitled “If I Were a Terrorist”
(IIWAT). At the time, it seemed like my country was working overtime to destroy
itself from within, using a combination of right-wing nonsense, dumbed-down
“news,” scientific illiteracy, and a willingness to be talked into military
adventures by a President who was not very smart and not well educated. My
agent declined to pursue this project with me, which I thought was not a very
wise decision on her part, but at the time, a number of other projects and
obligations—next edition of “Foundations of Parasitology,” my last two
finishing doctoral students, preparations for retirement, etc.—started to
interfere with “Terror.” Nothing that has happened in the past decade, however,
has convinced me that IIWAT was a bad idea; indeed, if anything, national and
international events have convinced me that this book has become increasingly
relevant, especially with the nomination of Donald Trump by the Republican
Party, and eight years of a Republican congress working overtime, but in the
end unsuccessfully, to ensure that Barack Obama fails in his job. As an aside
that decade was also the second decade of the GOP smear and fear campaign
against Hillary Clinton, a person imminently qualified for high office.
As
you might suspect, pretty much every day of that past decade I’ve also asked
myself: what can a single individual do to make this world a better place, a
more rational and humane place, in which we can all live? In general, the
correct answer is “nothing,” but that answer doesn’t prevent people,
individuals, from trying. We all have our tools and resources to apply to this
task. Some of us run for public office, others write letters to the editor, a
bunch of us take to social media, a few contribute to our favorite candidates
and/or charities, and some just pray. My own choice is to write, using my
words, given that my profession for the past fifty years—a biological scientist
at a large public university—demanded daily use of words to express ideas,
convince people to give me money, and convey whatever wisdom a typical
biologist has to thousands of undergraduates, some of whom will end up as
physicians treating members of their former teachers’ families. So words and
the underlying ideas are all that I, as an individual, have to apply to this
monumental job of making this world a better place for all to live.
For
those who might read the next few posts on this blog,
including some of my Oklahoma friends and relatives who hate Hillary Clinton
with an unbridled passion, you should know that I am a registered Republican
and a fairly conservative person. I chose to fulfill my military obligations at
the time (1958-1966) through advanced ROTC, field artillery officer’s school,
jump school, and years of reserve meetings. I voted for Richard Nixon, twice,
and Barry Goldwater, once. I have no problem with responsible gun ownership,
although in my mind, “responsible” does not include leaving loaded pistols
lying around in a house occupied by toddlers. However, I also believe that a
society, e.g., the city in which I live, needs adequate support for police,
fire and rescue department, adequate sewer and water systems, decent schools,
decent libraries, nice parks, and safe streets. So I don’t mind paying my fair
share of taxes to provide all citizens with those basic requirements. But I also try to be a rational person. When I vote for a
school board candidate, for example, I will NOT mark my ballot for a
scientifically illiterate creationist or someone who home schools their own
children while professing to work for the benefit of children in public
schools.
I’m
also a professional biologist with a long record of hard science publication
and award-winning instruction. The fact that I’m a biologist makes me view
certain social issues through a scientist’s eyes. A big part of that view is
quantitative. As a result, I do not believe for one second that gay marriage
will damage this country in any way, especially compared to a growing earnings
gap between the top and bottom segments of society. I do not believe anyone
should be allowed to discriminate against another citizen of this nation, be
that citizen gay, straight, bi- or trans, or of any ethnic background, gender, age,
or national origin. On the other hand, I believe it’s important to ensure that
law enforcement has the tools to find dangerous individuals, whatever their
motivations, and capture them before they wreak havoc on innocent people. I
understand that this law enforcement job can be in conflict with a
non-discrimination ideal, and I simply do not know how to resolve that
conflict. I believe, however, that it’s very easy to convince large numbers of
people to give up their personal freedoms in the name of security.
As a
biologist, I also believe that easy, affordable, access to all kinds of birth
control, even when “affordable” means free to low-income women, is a necessary obligation
of our government. Half of the members of our species are not free, in the
American Dream sense of the word, when the result of sex, the burden of
pregnancy, is so unevenly distributed without such access. I agree completely
with Hillary Clinton’s comment a few years ago that abortion should be safe,
legal, and rare; it’s the “rare” part that is achievable with easy access to
affordable birth control. I do not shop at Hobby Lobby unless I convince myself
that whatever I need, usually picture frames, cannot be found elsewhere.
Needless to say, I do not believe that the moral posturing of Mike Pence, vice
presidential candidate, is of benefit to this country; like many men in power,
he’s simply using whatever power he has to allay his personal fear of women who
are as free as he is, biologically, professionally, and socially. The GOP
posturing with respect to Planned Parenthood is, in my view, seriously
misplaced and damaging to a large segment, actually half, of the American
population, and that includes the babes hanging around Donald Trump whether
they realize it or not.
A
generation ago, the litmus test for basic scientific literacy was evolution.
The Genesis story is superb mythology, and like other important myths, tells us
a lesson about behavior, attitudes, and approaches to life, whether you accept
that lesson or not. The creation story in Genesis is, however, just a myth, on
a par with a long list of other creation myths from various cultures. Those
myths together reveal a long struggle of humans to explain why they are on
Earth, and virtually all of them antedate science by millennia. There is a
staggering amount of evidence that Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and
that a long parade of life forms have occupied this planet for at least 3
billion years. Nowadays, even though there are plenty of Biblical literalists
among us, climate change has taken over as the litmus test for scientific
literacy. There is a massive amount of evidence that Earth’s climate is warming
steadily and by the time a child born today reaches retirement age, that
warming will likely cause major ecological issues in agriculture. The causes of
this warming may be open to discussion, but the fact of warming is undeniable.
Climate change deniers, and there are plenty in public office, are scientifically
illiterate. If candidate Trump’s alleged comments on climate change reflect his
true educational level in this area, he is too scientifically illiterate to
hold public office in the United States, a nation heavily dependent on science
and technology. Remember: scientific illiteracy in public officials is a public
health hazard. Write it a hundred times on the chalk board. Elected officials
do not need to be scientists; they need to be literate enough not to surround
themselves with similarly illiterate people for whom scientific data and
discoveries are always subject to whim, belief, and desire. Scientific
observations and discoveries tend to be true whether you believe them or not,
and climate change is one of those discoveries. Like an acquaintance of mine
once remarked about global warming: “The Canadians don’t believe it’s
happening; the Americans think they can do something about it; and, both are
wrong.” My advice: don’t buy any coastal real estate.
The
manuscript for If I Were a Terrorist is
somewhat dated, partly because so much of it was written ten or twelve years
ago, but mainly because I’ve been occupied with other writing projects. In
addition, and perhaps more importantly, the right-wing craziness has started
flowing with such force that it’s almost impossible for a single writer to keep
up with it, especially given the reliability of various “news” sources. So I
started keeping a file of “you can’t make this stuff up” sayings by various prominent
people, especially Republicans, but didn’t put an item in that file unless the
source seemed trustworthy: The New York
Times, The New Yorker, Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The
Atlantic, etc. When I get to the end of the first draft of this whole book,
I’ll try to go back and update it, unless, of course, by that time we’ve
elected a pathologically insecure, under-educated, scientifically-illiterate, narcissistic
bully and allowed him to put his middle finger on the nuclear trigger. Trust
me: academia is filled with these kinds of people and based on my personal
experience with them, you never, ever, put them in charge of anything, even a
committee responsible for some inconsequential task. Why not? Because they’ll screw
up the job. These kinds of people simply cannot see beyond their own desires,
and their own security, in order to deal with the mission.
If I
can post these chapters at the rate of once a week, great; if not, I’ll keep
posting them as they get to the first draft stages. Feel free to copy these
postings and send to your friends, but I also expect to be credited (copyright,
© John Janovy, Jr., 2016). See below for a table of contents.
Cheers.
JJ
IF I WERE A TERRORIST
John
Janovy, Jr.
Foreword
1. Why I Wrote This Book
2. Evolution: The Most Effective Weapon
3. Women: The Most Feared of All Natural Disasters
4. Energy: The Achilles Heel
5. The Human Factor: The Individual vs. The Mob
6. Hero Worship: Stupidity in High Places
7. Fear: The Mother of Fundamentalism
8. Distractions
9. American Vulnerability
10. The Ultimate Fate of the United States of America
11. Solutions and Options
Appendix:
I. Evolutionary Principles Summarized
II. How to study evolution
III. Sources and Resources
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