Mysticism

Watched Home. The awesome hi-def aerial photography is ruined by the insipid narration. Why is it these people think that the only way they can get others on board for sustainability is to preach a bunch of mystical nature-worshiping gobbledygook?

But it ain't just hippie environmentalists doing it. Norman Borlaug died yesterday, and the technology-is-magic crowd were quick to praise him as one of their own. I've seen many links to this episode of Bullshit [extant link]. What is conveniently ignored is that Borlaug gave his research directly to the people of the third world, unlike modern agribusiness, which only sells to the starving, and does everything it can to prevent them from replanting their food intellectual property. Norman Borlaug never did no terminator gene!

This is the other side to what PZ Myers describes below. While traditional religions are seeking the credibility of science, people are inventing new religions of science to placate their anxiety and lack of control. Don't change your lifestyle. Don't plan for the future. The universe loves you and will provide. You must have faith in the progress of technology.

Borlaug didn't have faith. He was a chicken little who propped up the falling sky. He is being praised now for saving a billion people because if the developing nations had listened to free-market ideologues and libertarian mystics instead of him, that billion would not exist now.