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"The Eagle Has Landed"
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"The Eagle Has Landed"
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Thirty years ago, I stood before a small black and white TV screen in the company of several prominent science-fiction writers, and watched a grainy image of Neil Armstrong as he descended from the bottom step of the first lunar module onto the surface of the Moon. Today, I find myself in the company of a generation that can never experience the thrill of that unique moment. It's past history, along with Columbus "discovering" America, and the arrival of the Beatles in New York.
Those writers and I celebrated the Moon landing by emptying a $160 bottle of rare champagne and philosophising on the future of science from that point onward. The consensus was that the public would now be generally more sophisticated in regard to science, and that some of the nonsense we were being assailed with--spirit photographs and seances were very popular that year--was doomed to vanish from the scene. How wrong we were! Three decades later, the public is far, far, deeper into irrational beliefs than ever before, and the situation is essentially out of control.
"The Eagle has landed." With those words, Armstrong notified us that we had reached out a quarter of a million miles into space and deposited a living human being on the surface of another planet. An ages-old dream had become a reality, not through charms or prayers, but as the result of hard, dedicated work on the part of highly trained men and women, members of our remarkable species, homo sapiens. Science, not incantations, had accomplished this wonder for us. Our future had been irrevocably changed, and we had the opportunity to forward to a new way of life, one unfettered by superstition and mythology. But along the way, somehow, we fumbled.
Can this present generation in any way understand how important those words were, and how much we have since betrayed the scientific spirit that gave rise to that fantastic adventure? Now, instead of accepting and amplifying the wonders of science and what it has done for us, we are denying its truths and embracing mythology and quackery in its place. No, not all of us are guilty, but I fear that most of us are. Sometimes I feel that Armstrong and his companions, all those brave astronauts, risked their lives just to give us a thrill, and not an example.
We are a unique species, no question about that. We have the means to destroy ourselves--and all the other life on this planet, and others--if we so desire. But we can also move on beyond the Moon to Mars and the stars, if we can get straightened out again in time. Our present preoccupation with pseudoscience, quackery, science bashing, and magical thinking, can completely quench our progress. We cannot allow this to happen.
Folks, we have been to the Moon, and we must not forget this great accomplishment. We have to get our act together, as they say in showbiz, and get onstage.
I appeal to you, dear reader, if you have not yet become a member of the James Randi Educational Foundation, please consider doing so. We want to know that when we speak, we speak with the voices of many more members and affiliates around the world. Your participation in the Foundation, and your support of the JREF, will, I'm sure, be not only satisfying to you, but it will bring you the knowledge that you stand with us against the tide of irrationality that is so obviously a threat to our continued progress as a species. I do not think that this is any sort of an exaggeration.
Yes, I am astride a soap box at the moment, and I ask you to forgive me for delivering a lecture, but this anniversary of the first step on the Lunar surface, has given me much to think about, and I am sharing it with you. If we went to the Moon, we can certainly correct our lapsed intentions and ambitions, because we have the intellect, the spirit, and the will to do so. And it is something that we simply must do. We have no choice.
Please consider joining JREF, and encourage your colleagues and friends to do so, too. We need you aboard.
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