In learning about Central Valley Cafe Scientifique, we stumbled upon a startling incident that may or may not reflect on the scientific climate in the Valley.
The cafe’s next speaker, Fresno State professor Dr. Ryan Earley, found his car tire punctured this week and with a nasty note on his windshield saying: “Fuck you Darwinist. Take your car to heaven.”
(Editors’ Note: Please excuse the profanity, but we thought it was a necessary evil in this case.)
Earley, who displays a bumper sticker of a Darwin fish chasing a Jesus fish on his car, says its not the first time he’s received this sort of reaction to the sticker he meant lightheartedly. “I’ve gotten a bunch of notes on my car, especially when I lived in Georgia and Kentucky.” This is the second note he’s received in less than two years working in Fresno. A similar, but less profane note was left on his car while he was shopping at Borders, he says.
Earley, an expert on behavioral ecology, appears to be shrugging the incident off. He didn’t report it to authorities, but simply took it to the dealership since his car was still under warranty. (We heard about it in passing from another Fresno State professor, while learning more about Cafe Scientifique and other science projects). Earley says he found the incident humorous, only in that it reflects what he thinks is a larger issue of science illiteracy and a misunderstanding that religion and science are at odds.
“Honestly, my whole take on the issue is: It’s not just the Central Valley, it’s everywhere.”
Earley says, “If you went to Europe, you’d never ever see this sort of thing…Certainly, it’s symptomatic of a greater problem. The biggest problem is education. People are not educated to be open-minded and to think and to be able to recognize that when something is opposing your beliefs–[that] that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
