#thedress Is Only Cool Because You Didn't Pay Attention In High School Science Class
To those of us who have spent countless hours in the classroom fruitlessly trying to convey the fascinating marvels of the universe around us, attempting to share understanding of the fundamentals of phenomena, all the while competing for the attention of "smart" phones and boyfriends and drama and hey, where's the party this weekend? Grading written papers that seriously use terms like tots, whatevs, #prolly, lol (at least the ones where you can actually read the fucking handwriting!). To those of us who have struggled to communicate the very basics to the confused and deluded masses around us and been called condescending know-it-alls for our effort, to those of us who have spent years of our lives with our noses in text books, learning the basics, in the lab, writing papers, working on math skills, actually understanding what the word 'research' means, only to be told by some dumbass on the internet about chemtrails and how we need to "do some research". To those of us who have spent time trying to act as a conduit for the accumulated knowledge of the ages, only to be told that "science doesn't explain anything". To those of us who have spent years trying to explain the truth about the underlying phenomena; Your stupid dress is boring.
Do you remember these?
Prolly not huh? Its a color blind test taken in every high school science class since way back when the skies were still blue from not being covered with chemtrails. Do you see numbers? Some people do, some people don't. Big fuckin whoop, right?
Do you remember the bitter taste strips? The little piece of paper that you place on your tongue and some people taste bitter and some people don't? Big fuckin whoop, right? No? You mean you don't remember that one? Let alone the underlying phenomena? The Science Curmudgeon is totally shocked and astounded.
The fact is, there is some fascinating physiology going on in all of these cases and some people would look at this as a teachable moment. They'd see this as an opportunity to talk about perception and the differences between how we are capable of observing, and how our perception shapes our experience and the entire universe is filtered through our subjective senses and so on. Bullshit. They are far more optimistic than The Science Curmudgeon.
By now you've probably Googled up some story that explains why different people see different colors, and you remember something about rods and cones and the shapes (or was it sizes?) of the cones and ambient light and dark and somethin somethin somethin...I forget. Am I right? If someone asked you to explain it right now, could you? In one ear, out the other.
I guess if The Science Curmudgeon were an optimist, he would say "Hey, it's great that everyone's learning about science." This would be a great chance to get into some of the really interesting stuff, like have you ever heard of a tetrachromatic person who can see thousands of more colors than you or I? Or how about how the ancients never seemed to be able to see the color blue? No, The Science Curmudgeon has tried, and people only listen to cool science stuff if it comes up on their Facebook feed as the swanky new image of the day...and then they forget about it a minute later and move on to Kim Kardashians ass.
We have all of this fascinating information swirling around us, the collected knowledge of human history and so much more offered free of charge every day in public schools. But we don't give it a second thought until it's the trending meme of the day. Imagine how much more interesting the world would be if you'd actually paid attention in high school science class?
Shit this was prolly far too long for the average internet attention span. Sorry 'bout that, lolz. Hurry on back to Facepalm now!
Postscript:
What color did you see in the dress? I'm pretty sure Monica saw white on blue.
