While waiting for the Galapagos film that introduces the Darwin Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History I heard the following exchange between a family of four behind me:
Young Daughter to Mother: Who is Darwin?
Mother: He was this guy who had some kind of theory about evolution.
Younger Son to Father: Is he gay?
Father, matter-of-factly: Yep.
First of all, even here at home, I'm shocked by how many people don't know who Charles Darwin was (or King Tutankhamen for that matter). The mother, by the sounds of it, had no real clue about how to answer her daughter's question. Second, the father's obvious equation of Evolution=Gay=Against God=Wrong was shocking. And this is while at an exhibition specifically trying to educate the public of the opposite! I feel sorry for kids all the time when their education is retarded (in the true sense of the word) by the adults around them. Talk about holding back the next generation, I can only hope those kids learn somewhere to ask their own questions and seek out the answers beyond the scope of their parent's shortsightedness. Of course, while mostly unrelated to the above story, this only leads me to my disdain for the current state of the media and their failure to do exactly that. It really is their job to inform the public about things that they should know about, not just regurgitating press releases and being a puppet for those who have power. I simply don't have the time to unearth all of the truths that people should know, that's a full-time job and then some, which is exactly my point. It's a desperate plea I know, but how much more erosion of society and loss of awareness can we endure?
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