I am not a monkey cause I don't eat bananas.

The other day, Courtney sent me this link to hilarious science fair experiments. There's some quality stuff in there; I especially love "Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe?" I think I've discussed this on here before, but meth is just the one drug I cannot wrap my head around. Pretty much every other drug I've heard of has at least some good points to it. Heroin makes you completely useless in life, but I'm pretty sure it feels good at the time. Cocaine has a tendency to turn otherwise mild-mannered people into obnoxious, aggressive assholes, but on the upside, the kitchen counters are sparkling by the end of the high.

But meth is just the one drug I do not get. What is its upside? I suppose it does make you lose weight, but even I think that most guys would hesitate on banging some size 0 chick if she's covered in OPEN SORES. Not to mention that the jacked-up meth teeth add an unhealthy dose of danger to Ol' Faithful, the beej. And it tastes (I hear) and smells like slightly warmed over ass. Seriously, meth heads! What is the point?

However, that link led me to another link, which is sadder and scarier than the idea of our children schlubbing their way through the public school system. And that's the idea of children not setting one foot in a public school. And by "public school," I mean "school outside of the confines of one's own home."

Behold, The Creationists' Science Fair.

See, the name in itself is ridiculous, because Creationists cannot be scientists. I'm sorry, they can't. Science is anathema to the very idea of Creation, and vice versa. One cannot claim to legitimately believe that all of life was created within six days (and don't trot out that tired, "well, we didn't say how long a day WAS" argument that they tried to use on me in grade school) and also that life, the existence and maintenance of, is a mystery only to be explained through dedicated study, the answers to which we may never know, which is science in a nutshell. You can't do it! It's impossible! Or it is until someone can come up with a theory which argues that such impossibility is not truly impossible, backed up with reams of data and maybe some theoretical math thrown in!

And see, despite being a scientist, and an anthropologist at that, I take no issue with Creationists. Really. Believe what you want to believe, I say. However, THAT SAID, if you are a Creationist, quit calling yourself a scientist. You're not one! And that's okay! That's fine! But stop borrowing our language in an attempt to make your beliefs come across as less crazy!

The point of science fairs, besides the embarrassment and run on posterboard, which are merely bonuses, is to teach children the Scientific Method. That's it; nothing more, nothing less. Science fairs aren't meant to change the world or discover the cure for the common cold; their entire purpose is to teach children the difference between a Hypothesis and a Theory, studies and data. The goal is merely to make the student understand the process by which scientists study the world around them. So, "my uncle is not a monkey because he declined to eat a banana" is not actually a scientific statement. Hell, remove science altoghether, the entire idea is a fallacy. Is this what we want to teach kids? That just by saying something, it makes it so?

All that said, I find "Rocks can't evolve, Where did they come from, Mr. Darwin?" to be just shirty enough to warrent further investigation.