Modesto, California, January, 2078, Monday…
Denise Putnam held her pen poised above her computer tablet, waiting for the key words and ideas that might appear on the final exam. Professor Brown was just getting into the main subject of his lecture that day. His class on the origins of 21st century subcultures was not that popular, though it was generally well attended as far as history courses go. At least he had a pleasant voice, used audiovisuals liberally, and kept most of his students awake.
"In this last part of this course we are taking up fundamentalism, specifically religious fundamentalism. Essentially we must see it as a way to fight back at modern secularism, a mode of thinking that has its best expression in the sciences, especially the physical sciences. Modern secularism focuses on change and progress, empirical evidence rather than truth handed down by a Supreme Being or priest caste. Ever since the Renaissance this mode of thinking has been wildly successful, so much so that some began to feel threatened by it. The attacks against Darwinism in England and the US were early cases where those threatened began to fight back. At the end of the last century secular society discovered that religion not only had ways to fight back but could spawn a radical new way of looking at the world that often perverted the lessons the religion would teach."
"Here in the US we tend to think of fundamentalists as evangelical Christians. At the turn of the century only about a quarter of Americans were evangelicals, yet their ideas carried much weight in politics and education. But we must include conservative Catholics and those of other faiths among the US fundamentalists. For example, something more than thirty-five per cent of Americans in 2004, fewer than half of them evangelicals, wanted creationism instead of evolution taught in schools. At the beginning of the century, five per cent of scientists held creationist views, compared to about forty-five in the general public."
Brown paused to take a sip of water, looking around the room to see if he still had their attention. UC Modesto was not an easy place to teach, especially in his department. The kids just weren't that interested in history anymore. He noticed one student staring fixedly at him, a look of anger on his face.
