Regular readers of this column know my general response to science is: I'm not buyin' it.
A bunch of "intelligent" people can tell me trees don't make wind, but I can create a website called TreesMakeWind.com and form a religion based solely on the mystical truth of tree-generated breezes.
Who's to say who's correct? They have their science, I have my website. Sounds like, at best, a draw.
I bring all this up because the knowledge nerds in the science community are mad that we finally have a president who doesn't read books and believes rising ocean levels mean greater opportunities to sell oceanfront property in Nebraska.
The scientists and their groupies will be taking to the streets today for protest marches in Washington, Chicago and other cities across the country and around the world. These March for Science events are similar to the Women's March early this year.
The movement has been organized by the Earth Day Network, which I assume is a loose affiliation of out-of-work vegans. Network President Kathleen Rogers told the Washington Post: "Hell hath no fury like a scientist scorned, and that's essentially where we are. People will be marching because their integrity and honesty has been called into question. This is a new and energized constituency--they just happen to be wearing lab coats."
I want to know who's paying for those fancy lab coats. Use a bathrobe, you elitist fact mongers!
So, rather than sitting back and allowing America to be made great again, the scientists are taking a stand--an unpatriotic stand that ignores America's inalienable right to deforest the earth and drill for oil in penguin butts and ignore the university zealots who insist that 2 + 2 = 4 even though it's not in the Bible.
Anyone who paid attention to last year's presidential campaign or to literally any word that has ever come out of President Donald Trump's mouth knows we now live in a post-fact society. Up is down, dumb is smart, clean water is overrated and the polar ice caps need to suck it up and take care of themselves. Nothing worse than needy sheets of ice.
Come to think of it, the best way to handle this March for Science business is to wait until the protests are over Saturday and then deny they ever happened.
A bunch of scientists on the National Mall? That's baloney. Next thing you're gonna tell me you saw Bigfoot at the Lincoln Memorial.
That's how we patriotic, unbound-by-science, straight-talking, believe-what-we-want-to-believe-because-it-makes-life-more-convenient Americans can fend off the scientific uprising. By closing our eyes and pretending it isn't there.
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Rex Huppke is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
Editorial on 04/22/2017