Leonard Pitts, Jr. The Miami Herald

February 2, 2011

Leonard Pitts, Jr.
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693

RE: “Losing the Intelligence Race” – Your column in today’s Miami Herald about how “Trousered Apes” seem to be ascendant and why it is my duty to point out – how to say it gracefully? – some fallacies in your presentation.

Mr. Pitts,

Do you remember when the sun revolved around the earth?
Do you remember when tomatoes were thought to be poisonous?
Do you remember when the edge of maps said “Terra Incognita”?
Do you remember all the journalistic brouhaha about Global Cooling? [Actually there were two of them. The first was in the early 1920s. The big one, the one perpetuated by that fraud Paul Ehrlich was in 1970. He was/is/shall be to science what Bernie Madoff was to investing. You’ll doubtless be surprised to know that, both times, The New York Times was the most prominent drum beater for the “we will all freeze to death school” of reasoned discourse]

Experts agree that when a scientific claim begins with “Experts agree” it would be prudent to bet the other side.

My father was born before man flew. He lived to see men walking on the moon, picking up some souvenirs, and flying home. That didn’t come about because everyone agreed on everything. It came about because many men didn’t agree. It came about because someone said “What if” or “I don’t believe that” or “I’ll try this” or, best of all, “What do you mean I can’t do that?”

Incidentally, I know why Oedipus went to Colonus. I know the difference between Chiaroscuro and Caravaggio. I know what Hamlet meant when he told Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery”. I know a lot about the 5 Emperors. I am conversant with the Burke/Fox debates, the Webster/Calhoun debates, and the Lincoln/Douglas debates. I still read the works written by people who had Pound as an editor. Although I have never seen “The Jersey Shore” I looove the Jersey Shore. If you live north of the Raritan River you don’t go “to the Jersey Shore”. You go “down the Jersey Shore”.

Don’t you think that “The Jersey Shore” with its Guidos and Guidettes is the poor White trash equivalent of feral urban Black youths screaming incomprehensible lyrics about “hos” and “pigs”?



And I know of no other theory, said theory being more than 150 years old that is treated as it came fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. Of course, I speak of evolution. I have a particular animus against evolution as posited by the followers of Darwin. I would prefer to be descended from bears as opposed to apes.

The facts, at least the ones that I believe in and until proved otherwise, would support that interpretation. Wasn’t that last sentence a pistol? For last 12 years the “Don’t vaccinate your children because they’ll get Autism” school of Lud/Lysenko used it.

As to the teaching of “creationism” – wink, wink – I am reminded of the eminently qualified scholar who couldn’t get a teaching job. After two futile years he finally gets an interview. When asked his opinion on whether the world is round or flat he says he is open minded on the question but is prepared to teach it either way.

The New York State Regents 11th year American History exam in 1989 was partially predicated on a newly discovered “fact”. Claims were made that the 5 Nations influenced the writing of the American Constitution. I did some pre-Google investigation. I could find no evidence of any meeting of Madison, Magua, and Mason. Since the Mohawk culture is light on the written word I know that there was no communication. Further, there is no contemporaneous record of any rain dances. I mention that because it was a brutally hot and humid summer in Philadelphia in 1787. In a quest for a surcease of that century’s Global Warming moment – Wait a minute! There were no internal combustion engines. There could be no carbon footprints. The only carbon dioxide was from photosynthesis and respiration. Where the Hell did that come from? - delegates would have gladly invoked any handy deity. Had I been an exam taker then I would have said that the document was dedicated to Manitou. Further, my essay would tell of vengeful White men excising the part specifically permitting scalping.

My original Sputnik moment was when – Surprise! – Sputnik was launched. It took about 3 days, Sputnik being launched on a Friday, for the chorus of Jeremiads to begin bewailing the lack of math skills, the lack of engineering skills, the lack of chemical skills, and the lack of a national purpose to overcome same. 12 years later, before the onset of micro-processors, before the age of calculators not requiring wheels to move them let alone personal computers, this country bitch slapped gravity, went to the moon, walked around, picked up some tsatchkes, and came home.

If there are bad biology teachers fire them.

Don’t blame Snookie and Nunzio.



Kevin Smith