Sometimes people on the Conservative Right are just all to conveniently naive and ignorant. The other day I posted the meme below from the Tysonism page on FaceBook…
Two conservative friends of friends wandered in to add their comments and it was the second one in particular that struck me as being so conveniently scientifically naive and ignorant.
Rxxx Bxxxxxxx – What is the embryo doing in the petri Dish?
Jxxx Ixxxx – Not a difficult choice at all. If an embryo is in a petri dish, it is dead.
No, no its not. Actually on that count he would be scientifically very wrong. As another friend of mine then said…
Pxxxxx Hxxxxxxxxxx – IVF [In Vitro Fertilization] with ICSI [intracytoplasmic sperm injection] takes place in a petri dish. The resulting embryo is by no means dead.
Jxxx Gxxxxxxxxx – Science, those pesky facts
Given the dead air I am pretty confident none of that sunk in and had any effect.
Scientists double life expectancy for embryos in petri dishes, raising ethical concerns
When scientists grow human embryos for lab research, they end their experiments at the 14-day mark. Until now, these internationally accepted guidelines ( and the laws formed around them) have been largely self-regulating: The record for in-vitro gestation was just nine days, and most labs struggled to keep embryos alive longer then a week.
Tyson is perhaps the sloppiest, most inaccurate pop science celebrity that’s ever lived. That so many put him on a pedestal is good evidence we’re going downhill when it comes to competence in math and science.
Tyson and Trump are flip sides of the same coin: A clueless populace that values celebrity and entertainment over truth and accuracy.