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To: oped@nytimes.com |
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The deletion of ". . . to
understand and protect our home planet . . . "
from NASA's mission statement, and the way in
which it was done (i.e. imposed from above without
consultation), should send a shiver of fear and
dread down everyone's spine.
If I had the skills of a cartoonist, I would depict a man reaching for the stars (symbolising not just NASA scientists and engineers, of course, but 10's of thousands of well-meaning and dedicated men and women working on basic science around the world). So focused is he on them that he fails to notice that his feet have left the terra firma of Planet Earth and are inadvertently kicking over and destroying the things on which ultimately he depends. The message to NASA's employees is plain: don't worry about the planet; just get on with the job of putting men back on the Moon and on to Mars, and glorifying (a misguided and misgoverned) America. There is no need to compare our DNA with that of Chimps and the Neanderthaler to discover what we have in common, when it is all too evident in our dumb-animal behaviour! Homo sapiens, indeed! It should be Homo stupidus economicus! The most important thing mankind is failing to understand and face up to is his own stupidity and blindness to reality. But how does Earth's Greatest Ape do that, convinced of his own superiority and preoccupied with the struggle for survival and advantage, no longer in the natural environment, for which he evolved, but in the artificial socio-economic environment of modern civilisation, including an economy developed and honed to exploit his dumb-animal nature, with all the associated "insanities of normality", which, because of their familiarity (normality) and his short-sighted dependency on them, he finds so very difficult to recognise and face up to? I'm not suggesting that it contains all (or even any of) the answers, but he could try taking a look at my homepage at www.spaceship-earth.org. NYT editorial: "Not Your Father’s Neanderthal"
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