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Saturday, May 09, 2015

The purest Christians burn blue

Elbert Guillory presented a lecture on the history of science this week.
According to the Friendly Atheist, State Senator Elbert Guillory (R) was attempting to make the case for teaching “both sides” in the evolution/creationism debate  when he provided a convoluted version of the history of scientific controversies.

“There was a time, sir, when scientists thought that the world was flat. And if you get to the end of it, you’d fall off. There was another time when scientists thought that the sun revolved around the world,” Guillory explained. “And they always thought to ensure that anyone who disagreed with their science was a heretic. People were burned for not believing that the world was flat. People were really badly treated.”
Turn in your books to page 666 where you'll find terrible story of how scientific flat-Earth inquisitors purged recalcitrant clergy by throwing them onto their terrifying Bunsen pyres.  This was, actually, somewhat helpful during the religious wars of the Reformation when it was often difficult to tell an Anabaptist from a Janesenist  without finding out what color flame they produced.

Luckily this practice began to slow down after the invention of the spectrograph although some folks in these parts still rely on even older methods of sorting out what's what.
Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could "lock the door on being able to view ideas from many places, concepts from many cultures."

"Yet if I closed my mind when I saw this man -- in the dust, throwing some bones on the ground, semi-clothed -- if I had closed him off and just said, 'That's not science. I'm not going to see this doctor,' I would have shut off a very good experience for myself," Guillory said.
Senator Guillory is a candidate for Lieutenant Governor this fall. 

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