In what appears to be another nail in the coffin of science and rationality, the HBCU * St. Philip’s College (11,000 students) has fired a biology professor for teaching biology. ** Yep! The world keeps getting more bizarre. Time, famous for its cover announcing “God Is Dead,” should publish an issue announcing “Science Is Dead.” Or maybe one announcing “Mind Is Very Much Alive.”
It seems that Professor Varkey had just gone too far by noting the relationship between the X and Y chromosomes and sex. Seems he even had the audacity to say those chromosomes determined sex when every 21st-century kid knows that biology is a matter of mind. What the heck was this Varkey guy thinking? I mean, what’s next? Some physicist saying that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction? Everyone knows nowadays that jets stay aloft because pilots merely will them to stay aloft. All is Mind. Anaxagoras has been vindicated. Aristotle, too. Nous all around. Nous is the noose from which science now hangs. Things are just what we say they are, nothing else. After 2,500 years of philosophy and science, modern humans have returned to their intellectual roots in ancient Greece, and who better to lead that return than four college students who walked out of Dr. Varkey’s class, initiating that firing at St. Philip’s.
But then, aren’t we all like those students when we choose opinion over reality? Certainly, we sometimes ignore realities for belief’s sake. Take politics as an example, specifically the politics of the recent past. Some 80 million Americans accepted the hoax of "Russian Collusion" as reality.
I suppose the real problem I’m addressing is the one that’s been building up for years in American society, and that problem might best be expressed in the sentence, “It’s my opinion.” So, apparently, it was the opinion of four students at St. Philip’s College that counted more than a couple of centuries of biological research. Nous over reality.
I don’t know which St. Philip is the eponym for the college. There was that original Apostle guy about whom we know little from the Gospels. And then there was a later St. Philip with whom he is conflated. The original Episcopalian founder of the school for Blacks probably had the former in mind. The Apostle Philip seems to have played the role of messenger, telling Jesus that some Greeks wanted to see him. He’s also known for asking Jesus to “reveal the Father.” And he was also there to distribute those fishes and loves of bread to the hungry crowd. ***
In that incident when Philip asks Jesus to reveal the Father, he elicits a rebuke from Jesus who says something like, “How can you have sat through all these classes I’ve taught during the semester and still not understand the subject?” ****
Saints go in and out of popularity with the times. No one seems to hang a St. Christopher’s medal on his car’s rearview mirror today, and I have no doubt that most of St. Philip’s current students have no idea why the school bears the saint’s name. I can surmise that in asking Jesus about the Father, Philip served as a model of inquisitiveness. It’s in persistent questioning—repeated questioning if that’s what it takes—that we become educated. I guess I can also surmise that Philip might have suffered from ADD since he seemed to have missed one the main points Jesus made during his three-year matriculation at Apostle University.
In missing a main point Philip foreshadowed the four college students and the administrators at St. Philip’s College who would rather follow their opinions than ask for a scientific explanation. X and Y chromosomes? “Not if they contradict my opinion,” they say.
So, this is where we are in America in 2023. Things are what we say they are. Chromosomes have no real function and are, like the appendix, things that we can do without. Those little bags that men conceal in their underwear are meaningless appendages that have no relation to those mythically important Xs and Ys that Dr. Varkey tried to explain in his lecture.
But speaking of those bags, I might ask whether any self-identifying male administrators at St. Philip’s College even have them. Just curious like St. Philip. Maybe I missed an important lesson. I need a revelation.
*HBCU is the official designation by the Department of Education for “Historically Black College or University.”
**http://tn.buffalo.wi.gov/veteran-biology-professor-who-has-been-teaching-sex-is-determined-by-chromosomes-x-and-y-is-fired-clarotvmais/
*** Who knows, maybe there’s some truth about him in the fourth century apocryphal Acts of St. Philip.
****When Philip asks Jesus to reveal the Father, Christ replies: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14: 8-9)
It seems that Professor Varkey had just gone too far by noting the relationship between the X and Y chromosomes and sex. Seems he even had the audacity to say those chromosomes determined sex when every 21st-century kid knows that biology is a matter of mind. What the heck was this Varkey guy thinking? I mean, what’s next? Some physicist saying that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction? Everyone knows nowadays that jets stay aloft because pilots merely will them to stay aloft. All is Mind. Anaxagoras has been vindicated. Aristotle, too. Nous all around. Nous is the noose from which science now hangs. Things are just what we say they are, nothing else. After 2,500 years of philosophy and science, modern humans have returned to their intellectual roots in ancient Greece, and who better to lead that return than four college students who walked out of Dr. Varkey’s class, initiating that firing at St. Philip’s.
But then, aren’t we all like those students when we choose opinion over reality? Certainly, we sometimes ignore realities for belief’s sake. Take politics as an example, specifically the politics of the recent past. Some 80 million Americans accepted the hoax of "Russian Collusion" as reality.
I suppose the real problem I’m addressing is the one that’s been building up for years in American society, and that problem might best be expressed in the sentence, “It’s my opinion.” So, apparently, it was the opinion of four students at St. Philip’s College that counted more than a couple of centuries of biological research. Nous over reality.
I don’t know which St. Philip is the eponym for the college. There was that original Apostle guy about whom we know little from the Gospels. And then there was a later St. Philip with whom he is conflated. The original Episcopalian founder of the school for Blacks probably had the former in mind. The Apostle Philip seems to have played the role of messenger, telling Jesus that some Greeks wanted to see him. He’s also known for asking Jesus to “reveal the Father.” And he was also there to distribute those fishes and loves of bread to the hungry crowd. ***
In that incident when Philip asks Jesus to reveal the Father, he elicits a rebuke from Jesus who says something like, “How can you have sat through all these classes I’ve taught during the semester and still not understand the subject?” ****
Saints go in and out of popularity with the times. No one seems to hang a St. Christopher’s medal on his car’s rearview mirror today, and I have no doubt that most of St. Philip’s current students have no idea why the school bears the saint’s name. I can surmise that in asking Jesus about the Father, Philip served as a model of inquisitiveness. It’s in persistent questioning—repeated questioning if that’s what it takes—that we become educated. I guess I can also surmise that Philip might have suffered from ADD since he seemed to have missed one the main points Jesus made during his three-year matriculation at Apostle University.
In missing a main point Philip foreshadowed the four college students and the administrators at St. Philip’s College who would rather follow their opinions than ask for a scientific explanation. X and Y chromosomes? “Not if they contradict my opinion,” they say.
So, this is where we are in America in 2023. Things are what we say they are. Chromosomes have no real function and are, like the appendix, things that we can do without. Those little bags that men conceal in their underwear are meaningless appendages that have no relation to those mythically important Xs and Ys that Dr. Varkey tried to explain in his lecture.
But speaking of those bags, I might ask whether any self-identifying male administrators at St. Philip’s College even have them. Just curious like St. Philip. Maybe I missed an important lesson. I need a revelation.
*HBCU is the official designation by the Department of Education for “Historically Black College or University.”
**http://tn.buffalo.wi.gov/veteran-biology-professor-who-has-been-teaching-sex-is-determined-by-chromosomes-x-and-y-is-fired-clarotvmais/
*** Who knows, maybe there’s some truth about him in the fourth century apocryphal Acts of St. Philip.
****When Philip asks Jesus to reveal the Father, Christ replies: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14: 8-9)
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