Dismay erupts in Britain as the country's "Truth Tsar" is sacked by a government outraged by his insistence on facts.
Dubbed the "Superstition Tsar," professor Trevor Galileo was until his abrupt dismissal yesterday forenoon, the head of the venerable Committee for Furthering and Advancing Knowledge and Ending Superstition (FAKES), the government’s so-called "Truth Task Force."
The task force was originally born four years previously under the aegis of the Ministry of PR and Right Noises to combat the "plague of superstition, witchcraft and bigotrie" that has laid waste a generation of skilled and learned gentlefolk and robbed beloved Britannia of great multitudes of her most perspicacious minds - as well as afflicting Parliament and the Civil Service.
FAKES’ first director, known in the parlance of the common folk and the popular tabloid circulars as the "Superstition Tsar," was the learned Brian Darwin esquire, a Doctor of Economie, who ran FAKES for its inaugural year until the eruption of a most unseemly quarrel with his governmental overlords over his controversial claims that the Earth was not - contrary to beliefs most popularly held, at least in Westminster - in fact sitting on the back of a giant turtle.
His replacement, the most venerable Professor Trevor Galileo, is considered in circles numerous and broad to have been a highly effective director during his ensuing three year tenure. He is accredited with the elimination of witch burning in Shropshire, for which he contended there existed "no evidence in all the annals of science to justify the claims of efficacy asserted in its favour," and a precipitate decline in human sacrifice statistics in the great conurbation of Greater Manchester.
He also invented the telescope.
It was widely considered at the time of the successes aforementioned that his bold stance on such matters and the zeal with which he pursued his mandate foretold an inevitable collision with the Department of Prevarications and Equivocations (DPE), whose role is to provide the certitude that no official or emissary of government will do anything that might engender that most dread of all socio-political consequences: change.
The collision fortuitously never materialized and in some circles this was considered attributable to professor Galileo’s unwavering fortitude of purpose, while detractors, most particularly the grass roots movement, the Fellowship of the Unimpressed (F.U.) have argued the impressive statistics were derived by virtue of a typically governmental slight of hand involving a sly redefinition of applicable terms: a witch was redefined as a woman with warts and human sacrifice did not count as a sacrifice if the "sacrificee" was considered to have deserved it.
Such technicalities aside, professor Galileo was highly regarded in academic circles as well as by advocacy and support groups such as the National Alliance of the Ignorant, Necromancers Anonymous and End Sacrificial Evisceration, for the industry of his group in "sweeping up ancient and outmoded beliefs in the vacuum cleaner of verity," as Quentin Backhander, Votebuyer MP for Darkages-in-Perpetuity, Devon so aptly put it in an address to the Inquisition Select Committee last Michaelmas Eve.
A most regrettable yet inevitable collision with his governmental overlords came this week with Professor Galileo’s forthright contention that there was "no scientific evidence to support the assertion that the Earth is the centre of the universe and, in truth, all the evidence suggests that the Earth, along with the other planets, orbits the sun."
In a scientific paper released on Wednesday, he said, "I have examined the scientific evidence and can find no support for the notion that, astronomically speaking, the Earth is more important vis a vis the sun or indeed the rest of the cosmos than, say, Mars or Venus. Indeed, Earth is just one of many celestial bodies revolving around the sun, which makes the sun, so far as our cosmic neighbourhood is concerned, much more important."
Professor Galileo was immediately rebuked and admonished from all quarters of government for his controversial assertions. Scoffed one spokesman from the most senior echelons: "Obviously, you can use scientific evidence to prove anything." While another accused the professor of "Overstepping his bounds: the committee for Furthering and Advancing Knowledge and Ending Superstition has no business entering…..er, facts into the debate."
Said ashen-faced Director General of the DPE, Wantme Hedexamind, "Everyone in Whitehall is profoundly shocked and ashen-faced over professor Galileo’s pusillanimous remarks. Everybody knows the sun goes around the Earth and no amount of looking at the universe through those telescope thingies or evidence to the contrary is going to change that fact. We’re all for science here in Her Britannic Majesty’s government but not at the cost of undermining the way we think about things."
Professor Galileo refused, even under tremendous pressure from his employers, to retract his remarks and announce that he had forgotten to take the lens cap off his telescope when observing the planets. He maintained that he "can’t help the scientific evidence and if the government doesn’t like it they will just have to sack me."
He was then sacked and now may face the traditional heresy trial.
Ten thousand heretics are burned every year for asserting the Earth is not the centre of the universe. Every burning is subject to the Heretic Immolation Tax (HET) earning the government millions in revenue annually.
The Fellowship for the Unimpressed claims it is "those tax revenues that bring government into conflict with its own expert in this matter. Should it ever be conclusively proven that the heretics were right all along, the burning would have to stop and the HET revenue would dry up. And a lot of families of dead heretics would sue the government."
The government countered through its own spokesperson: "One of the dangers in setting up a Truth Task Force is that its officials, arduous in pursuit of their objectives, begin to take their work seriously and, with truth being tossed hither and thither in a flagrant and irresponsible manner such as employed by Professor Galileo, we wind up with too much truth for comfort. They completely forget that the purpose of such committees is to make the government look effective and truth tends to hamper that effort. Of course truth should be practiced – but only where practicable and always with economy."
In Tomorrow’s Edition: Does the Inland Revenue really have the power to grant wishes and make dreams come true? Shocking new evidence suggests the government’s primary inducement for paying taxes on time may be bogus.
The task force was originally born four years previously under the aegis of the Ministry of PR and Right Noises to combat the "plague of superstition, witchcraft and bigotrie" that has laid waste a generation of skilled and learned gentlefolk and robbed beloved Britannia of great multitudes of her most perspicacious minds - as well as afflicting Parliament and the Civil Service.
FAKES’ first director, known in the parlance of the common folk and the popular tabloid circulars as the "Superstition Tsar," was the learned Brian Darwin esquire, a Doctor of Economie, who ran FAKES for its inaugural year until the eruption of a most unseemly quarrel with his governmental overlords over his controversial claims that the Earth was not - contrary to beliefs most popularly held, at least in Westminster - in fact sitting on the back of a giant turtle.
His replacement, the most venerable Professor Trevor Galileo, is considered in circles numerous and broad to have been a highly effective director during his ensuing three year tenure. He is accredited with the elimination of witch burning in Shropshire, for which he contended there existed "no evidence in all the annals of science to justify the claims of efficacy asserted in its favour," and a precipitate decline in human sacrifice statistics in the great conurbation of Greater Manchester.
He also invented the telescope.
It was widely considered at the time of the successes aforementioned that his bold stance on such matters and the zeal with which he pursued his mandate foretold an inevitable collision with the Department of Prevarications and Equivocations (DPE), whose role is to provide the certitude that no official or emissary of government will do anything that might engender that most dread of all socio-political consequences: change.
The collision fortuitously never materialized and in some circles this was considered attributable to professor Galileo’s unwavering fortitude of purpose, while detractors, most particularly the grass roots movement, the Fellowship of the Unimpressed (F.U.) have argued the impressive statistics were derived by virtue of a typically governmental slight of hand involving a sly redefinition of applicable terms: a witch was redefined as a woman with warts and human sacrifice did not count as a sacrifice if the "sacrificee" was considered to have deserved it.
Such technicalities aside, professor Galileo was highly regarded in academic circles as well as by advocacy and support groups such as the National Alliance of the Ignorant, Necromancers Anonymous and End Sacrificial Evisceration, for the industry of his group in "sweeping up ancient and outmoded beliefs in the vacuum cleaner of verity," as Quentin Backhander, Votebuyer MP for Darkages-in-Perpetuity, Devon so aptly put it in an address to the Inquisition Select Committee last Michaelmas Eve.
A most regrettable yet inevitable collision with his governmental overlords came this week with Professor Galileo’s forthright contention that there was "no scientific evidence to support the assertion that the Earth is the centre of the universe and, in truth, all the evidence suggests that the Earth, along with the other planets, orbits the sun."
In a scientific paper released on Wednesday, he said, "I have examined the scientific evidence and can find no support for the notion that, astronomically speaking, the Earth is more important vis a vis the sun or indeed the rest of the cosmos than, say, Mars or Venus. Indeed, Earth is just one of many celestial bodies revolving around the sun, which makes the sun, so far as our cosmic neighbourhood is concerned, much more important."
Professor Galileo was immediately rebuked and admonished from all quarters of government for his controversial assertions. Scoffed one spokesman from the most senior echelons: "Obviously, you can use scientific evidence to prove anything." While another accused the professor of "Overstepping his bounds: the committee for Furthering and Advancing Knowledge and Ending Superstition has no business entering…..er, facts into the debate."
Said ashen-faced Director General of the DPE, Wantme Hedexamind, "Everyone in Whitehall is profoundly shocked and ashen-faced over professor Galileo’s pusillanimous remarks. Everybody knows the sun goes around the Earth and no amount of looking at the universe through those telescope thingies or evidence to the contrary is going to change that fact. We’re all for science here in Her Britannic Majesty’s government but not at the cost of undermining the way we think about things."
Professor Galileo refused, even under tremendous pressure from his employers, to retract his remarks and announce that he had forgotten to take the lens cap off his telescope when observing the planets. He maintained that he "can’t help the scientific evidence and if the government doesn’t like it they will just have to sack me."
He was then sacked and now may face the traditional heresy trial.
Ten thousand heretics are burned every year for asserting the Earth is not the centre of the universe. Every burning is subject to the Heretic Immolation Tax (HET) earning the government millions in revenue annually.
The Fellowship for the Unimpressed claims it is "those tax revenues that bring government into conflict with its own expert in this matter. Should it ever be conclusively proven that the heretics were right all along, the burning would have to stop and the HET revenue would dry up. And a lot of families of dead heretics would sue the government."
The government countered through its own spokesperson: "One of the dangers in setting up a Truth Task Force is that its officials, arduous in pursuit of their objectives, begin to take their work seriously and, with truth being tossed hither and thither in a flagrant and irresponsible manner such as employed by Professor Galileo, we wind up with too much truth for comfort. They completely forget that the purpose of such committees is to make the government look effective and truth tends to hamper that effort. Of course truth should be practiced – but only where practicable and always with economy."
In Tomorrow’s Edition: Does the Inland Revenue really have the power to grant wishes and make dreams come true? Shocking new evidence suggests the government’s primary inducement for paying taxes on time may be bogus.
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