The Ames Tribune commentary published March 6, 2011, by ISU professor Hector Avalos with words such as “relish not knowing much,” and “no degree or certified expertise” raises some interesting questions. Having borrowed some of the words from the 2009 Charles Pierce book, “Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free,” doesn’t seem to enhance the commentary. And why would anyone attack “academics as being elitist and detrimental to our society?” Those in the hard sciences, in my opinion, are doing a very good job.

Avalos writes, “…our earth is billions of years old [and that] is among the best established scientific facts we have.” Dictionaries variously describe science as “knowledge of the physical world and its behavior that is based on experiments and facts that can be proved.”

What would the Japanese say about tsunamis and “billions of years?” Americans know that rains can force well-rooted soil down a hill in real time and huge barriers to erosion get moved, soil washes into rivers and then into the ocean. We also know that it is the universal and absolute laws of creation’s nature that enabled engineers to design a rocket that traveled to the moon. Professor Avalos’ proclamation that Earth is “billions of years old” does very little to distinguish academic credibility or to separate true science from wild speculation.

The article by professor Avalos is definitely worth reading. Perhaps his concern that many “came to view funding higher education as a liability” is because of what some professors in the soft sciences allege to be facts and then force, as if reliable, upon new generations.