Giving back

The recent turbulent changes in my life have paradoxically caused me to have both less and more time. It's hard to explain - call it a radical shift in priorities when it comes to time management. I've decided to fill that tiny sliver of an hour or two per week that's freed up with reading.

Over the past few years, I've been lax in my technical reading. Other than what was required for coursework, I've mostly read fiction and usually not good fiction at that. When I was in my teens, I was a voracious reader of both technical pieces and classic literary works. I've decided to bias more towards the former in my current reading goals. I need to feed my mind healthier facts, not the junk food of fiction.

One of the things that's popped up repeatedly over the last few weeks in my readings have been the rapid erosion of science by our political climate. I am fortunate and proud to be a Canadian living in Canada; the interference has been nowhere near as bad as in another country.

I consider myself a scientist. A computer scientist by education, an astrophysicist by aspiration and an amateur astronomer by interest. Science is under siege again as history repeats itself. Way back when, Galileo was forced by the church on pain of torture and death to adhere to a geocentric model of the solar system; these days, the findings of global climate change are being suppressed, ignored or just plain twisted to suit political gains. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Let me state one thing very clear here: insofar as I see it, science and religion do not have to be at war with each other. Many scientists believe in God; many religious scholars practice science. I personally believe in God (or gods) but that does not exclude my belief in evolution, the Big Bang or any other scientific theory. Faith is a personal thing; to me, it should never be used as a club to change other people's beliefs. Scientific fact, however, can and should be used to align other people's beliefs with reality because it is provable and repeatable. Case in point: if you don't believe the overwhelming evidence that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease and you are a carrier, you will put everyone you share your bed with at extreme medical risk. Faith, however, is personal because the very idea of faith is to have a belief in something in the absence of facts. I believe there is a God. I have no way to prove that to anyone, so it is an unproven, personal belief. As long as I don't let the unproven beliefs tamper with the facts of life, I'm fine.

I can sit and complain, or I can do something about it. I don't have a lot of time. I work. I have my Condition to deal with. I have my separation to manage, my kids and my sis to love, nurture and cherish. That's just the top few items on a list longer than my arm. Furthermore, I am only one woman. If large well-funded, respectable organizations are losing the war on science, the sad bitter fact is that I won't make much of a difference at the national or international level. Regardless, I've joined the Union of Concerned Scientists and I hope there will be an opportunity for me to contribute further in a non-monetary way (money is scarce these days).

However, I *can* make a difference on the local level. To that end, I am volunteering my services to the Calgary Science Network to serve in whatever capacity that is needed (hopefully the "Scientist-in-the-classroom" - that looks fun). The only caveat is that my kids and my sis come first; family is still the top priority and will never change.

Educating the younger generation is something I can do right now...and if I can encourage even just one young person to think critically and spark an interest in solving the mysteries of our physical world, then it will all have been worth it. I am not crusading for science. I am not an activist. I am merely acting as my conscience dictates. In the end, all I am is simply a parent wanting her kids to live in a world illuminated by the light of knowledge, not cowering in fear in the darkness of ignorance. Remember, the last time science was successfully suppressed (in Europe), they called it the Dark Ages.