If I’m not otherwise engaged I often watch Jeopardy at 7:30 on weeknights. Tonight (though I’m pretty sure it was a rerun given that it’s midsummer) they did not one, but two things, sure to make the rightwing go ballistic. During the Double Jeopardy round there was a category called “Up North”, in which one of the clues suggested the cause of the ice caps melting, calling for the answer, “What is global warming?”. Later, the Final Jeopardy category was “British Scientists” and the clue suggested a scientist in 1859 positing that complex lifeforms evolved from simpler ones, of course calling for the answer, “Who is Charles Darwin?”. What makes all of this “worse” is that this was kids week wherein middle schoolers compete, so horror of horrors, THEY ARE INDOCTRINATING OUR CHILDREN!!!!
It occurs to me though, in contexts other than hot-button politics, evolution and climate change are assumed. Jeopardy is of course not a political show by any means, but their information is verified by mainstream sources and there is no controversy. How did we allow as a body politic these things to become controversial? Why have the media not circled the wagons and ignored the so-called “dissenting views” on issues that 99%+ of the scientific community believes has been settled beyond a reasonable doubt? How can we get anywhere when one of the two major parties, holding a significant share of state and federal offices, seems to think its OK to have these views and create policies around them? I certainly don’t advocate censorship, but the media should not be booking guests who say these things, or at least when they do, turn around and report how and why they are wrong. The best antidote to free speech is more free speech, but the speech from the correct side should be so overwhelming as to relegate people who hold such views to the same fringe occupied by the Flat Earth Society.
