f you weren’t already sick of the race to the White House, you’re going to hate the next 4 years of your life, as the media can’t help but trip over themselves trying to predict the possible candidates for 2016. One prospect for Republicans is a Hispanic Florida Senator by the name of Marco Rubio. He’s made the new recently for saying some profoundly dumb shit:

I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

It’s a great mystery how in the age of science someone could still be so profoundly ignorant about the age of the Earth. Maybe a few decades ago, before everyone had the Library of Alexandria in their fucking pocket, it would have been understandable not to know. Hell, we’ve only really known about the age of the universe for a few generations, and it can take time for something to really be known. But by now, not knowing is really an active choice one has to make. That ignorance must be embraced, since I doubt Rubio has never been confronted with the factual age of the Cosmos at some point in his life.

Sure, there are multiple ‘theories’ of how old the earth is, but only one of them is actually a scientific theory and not the dumb invention of ignorant sheep herders (keep in mind both definitions are entirely different as well). As for whether or not economies depend on knowing the age of the Earth, I would argue that a man who sits on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee should know by now you can’t actually have an economy without science, or its baby sister, technology. Knowing how old the Earth is should be a requirement if you’re on a committee with the fucking word ‘science’ in it, don’t you think?

Either two things are at play here: either Rubio is trying to a appeal to his science hating base, or he’s a fucking moron. And while all of this science denial is a part of the modern electoral strategy one has to employ, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rubio didn’t actually believe the evidence that the Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. That’s because this concept alone is terrifying to the provincialism of religious myths. How insignificant are humans if we represent but a blip in the history of Earth and the Cosmos, and what does it say about their unimpressive dead Jew?