simon-sinek-laggards.pngIn his entertaining TED presentation Simon Sinek1 explains what it means to be a laggard (they're the late late-adopters): "The only reason these people buy touch tone phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore."

A curious phenomenon is occurring. And it is extraordinarily fascinating to be in the middle of it, observing it live, as we speak! What's so fascinating is that the great bulk of scientific theory is now lagging well behind the advances in quantum fact.2 But for those who are lagging none of this is at all fascinating. Not in the least. Indeed, it's something else entirely.

Recently I had the chance yet again to observe this phenomenon up front and personal. I was chatting with someone who subscribes to Darwinian Evolution theory.

The flow of the conversation went something like this, in response to his belief in Evolution (the Darwinian variant):

"Sure Darwinian Theory has some valid ideas, but why not come up to speed with the facts, and enlarge your world-view to fit those facts", I asked.

"What do you mean?" he replied.

"Well, does Evolution theory enable one to account for the experimental data from Harvard Medical School3 that shows we can change our genetic structure through 'focused meditation", and that genetic changes acquired in one's life can be passed on to our children, as has been confirmed by Prof. Ted Steele with the benefit of around 25 years of research?"

"Lamarck was more on the money, than Darwin." I added.

As you might imagine the conversation pretty much stopped after that.

But it got me thinking. We have so many scientists and non-scientists promoting ideas that simply don't fit the facts, and yet, when that disparity is pointed out, there's a curious avoidance of asking or inquiring more deeply.

My sense tells me that Dee Hock, and Prof. Amit Goswami (and others) are on the money with their historical sense of where we're at:

We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born -- a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.4

and

four hundred years ago, with Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and others, we started the separatist sail and we went on a separate journey of separateness, but that's only the first part of the hero's journey. Then the hero discovers and the hero returns. It is the hero's return that we are now witnessing through this new paradigm.5

It would seem obvious that there's a pay-off for avoiding the facts. In Galileo's time, the priests who refused to look through the telescope well understood their pay-off by not looking -- continued dogma, and control of their followers, and thus continued privilege for them. In other words, short-term selfish expediency.

As I've explained before, I think this short-term, selfish expediency is the root-cause of the avoidance of the facts. Which in part is due to immaturity, but that's still no excuse, is it.

and btw, for those who think I'm some sort of Creationist, this post by me should put the kibosh on any such notions - as explained, religion and science are sister-belief systems. Both are as out-of-step with the facts as each other.