a note on the ungrateful

Many thanks to the fabulous Girl With Curious Hair for the call to arms on this issue...

So, science is inherently evil is it? You know what? Fine. I give up. There's no point arguing with a statement like that. I could cite advancements that have been life saving, revolutionary. I could point to dear friends who are currently in the care of the medical profession, people the world would be a worse place without. I could start talking about engineering allowing international travel and reliable water supplies, architecture providing us with shelter from the elements, maths and physics explaining the world around us. I could talk about space travel, genetics, communication, crops being farmed with improved yields, AIDS medication, water purification, computers, printing presses, heart bypasses, bionic limbs, cameras, telescopes, video games, sunscreen, decongestents, cars, clock-radios, MRI machines, cinema, electric lights, mass produced clothing, canned food, electric shavers, CAT scans, pencils, the notion of gravity, post-it notes, life as we know it. But I won't. Instead I'm going to say this:

All scientific discoveries are the work of Satan and we'd be much better off crawling around in the muck and dying from poisoning brought around by eating foraged food. Same goes for animal testing, that's bad and totally unnecessary. Yep. Absolutely. While we're on the subject of things that are important to me being crap I'm also totally going to admit that all feminists are evil too. That entire political movement was a pointless waste of time and should never have happened.

Just a couple of points:

re: Feminism. I'd like everyone holding the above view to raise their hands. OK, Ladies would you kindly stop voting, driving, owning property, wearing trousers, having any control over your medical care, getting an education, working, earning money, enjoying a life without violence as standard, going into pubs and bars, eating alone in restaurants and having orgasms. Gents, you're going to need to head right back out the door to work because, guess what? You have seven kids to feed (contraceptives, what? Never heard of em) and a mortgage to pay. Alone.

re: Animal testing. Please stop taking aspirin, paracetamol, morphine, vicodin... oh screw it, you know what "medicine", yeah stop taking that. Oh and could you also stop having surgery. Of any kind. Although especially heart surgery. Anything life saving. Although you can probably still have your appendix taken out. You just can't be anaesthetised while we do it. It's cool though, here's a rag to bite down on. Hope you don't get a post surgical infection cause we really can't help you with that.

re: Science. Well, if you managed to survive this far without medical care, heating, electricity, transport, living in a building, eating processed food, eating organic food, hell - eating cooked food, defending yourself or you know, having fire to provide light and warmth could you please move it out to the mountainside, possibly into a cave, you're going to have to walk there though. Barefoot. And wearing some sort garment fashioned from leaves and bits of twine that you've hand woven from tree bark. Actually "weaving" that's a bit advanced, maybe you could just sort of hold them on or something. You also might want to stay in the shade, I hear skin cancer's a bitch without access to treatment. Don't bother packing either, we all know that suitcases are the work of the devil. You won't need that laptop you write your charming anti evolutionary screeds on either, and leave that bible where it is. The printed word really isn't for folks like you. OK, now could you just sort of sit still for a while. Don't move. You might discover something. That would be bad. Sit very, very, very still.

Oh yes, and get the fuck off our internet you ignorant, anti-intellectual, narrow minded, Luddite wanker.