Reply #22

Your post reminded me of this one:

Science by decree

What fun those Republican legislators in the state House are providing us. I always thought that they wanted to take us back to the 19th century. Now I realize that their dream is to take us even further back, to the 11th century and the heady days of Cnut (or Canute), King of the English, who failed to hold back the waves by royal decree. Today, of course, they're so much more powerful: All they have to do is to pass legislation to prevent the ocean level from rising.

What’s next in store? Take the matter of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It’s approximately 3.14159, but that’s such an inconvenient number. Why not pass legislation making it 3.2, which is what the Indiana House of Representatives did in the late 19th century (the measure died in the Senate)? Better yet, make it equal to 3, for which there’s even biblical precedent (see 1 Kings 7:23).

Of course, such legislation would have as much effect on the value of pi as that other on rising ocean levels. The more thoughtful of our Republican legislators might do well to consider the observation of the great Victorian biologist, Thomas Henry Huxley: “The tragedies of science are the slaying of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts.”

David E. Crean, Ph.D.
Greenville

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/17/2139452/david-e-crean-science-by-decree.html