there is no alternative to facts

Today was a day of protest - first the Pedal on Parliament (see extra) to demand better active travel support and then the March for Science. Really glad we went for both protests. There was a certain overlap of people but not entirely.

It is a crazy world - on the one hand we totally rely on the marvels of high tech, smart phones everywhere, modern medicine, energy, food, all discovered and created by experts; on the other hand experts are not trusted when they have to say something that is not comfortable such as anthropogenic climate change is happening or MMR vaccine has nothing to do with autism. You cannot pick and choose. Science and technology can provide a wonderful world (this is not to say that art has no place in that world, far from it) if we wholeheartedly embrace it and don't only choose the bits that fit into our world view and make us lots of money. I am reading a rather good biography of Alexander von Humboldt and it occurred to me that not many things have fundamentally changed in the last few century apart from the fact that we have bigger clubs to hit each other over the head with.

Anyway, it was good to be out on the streets today and see that we are not alone.