Vaccines and Tylenol

I got my annual shots yesterday morning (Covid booster, and an 'elder American bonus' flu shot).  

This morning, my shoulder was a bit sore at the injection site, and I had just a touch of the post-vaccination blues, so I popped a couple of Daddy's-little-helper acetaminophen tablets (Tylenol, if acetaminophen is too hard for you).  

I don't generally consider myself to be a Devil-may-care chance taker, but today I take a bow.  

Now, to go find my water colors, in case these adventures have made me artistic.  

Child: Mummy There’s going to be a fire.

A moment of comic relief from Francois Truffaut's movie adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 came when a mother was walking her son across an overpass, as 'fire trucks' zipped by below, with sirens wailing.  The boy tugged at his mother's sleeve and shouted, 

"Mummy, look there! Firemen!  There’s GOING TO BE a fire!" (IYKYK)

I think we have a similar moment now, except in real-life, as Federal forces pour into otherwise peaceful cities ... "Look Mummy! Federal police forces!  There's going to be civil unrest!"

Science Doesn't Negotiate with Folklore

Science exists in the realm of verifiable reality.

It is not the responsibility of science to negotiate with folklore, or cultural norms, in pursuit of compromise.  

The best science indicates the Earth, and our Solar system as being about 4.5 billion years old, with the most rudimentary life emerging only after a sterile half a billion, give or take a hundred million years.  

Traditional beliefs generally date the beginning of life to a much more recent time - in some cases, less than 100 thousand years - or even less.  

It is ridiculous to look for a middle ground ... say, maybe two billion years.  This would be unsatisfying to both science and folklore.  Let each of them exist in its own lane, untroubled by the difference.