Drudge Report is one of the 10 busiest websites in the world with over 20 million hits a day. For those of you unfamiliar, it provides links to the most fascinating news of the week. All you do is click the headline that interests you and voila!
Two days ago Drudge had the headline “47 million year old missing link found” in red, which indicates a particularly important link. Dubbed by some as the “Mother of all Monkeys”, this fossil of a lemur-like creature was unveiled to the world along with the statement that the elusive link between man and ape may have been found.
Prior to this find a half skeleton of the famous ape “Lucy” dated 3 million years old was hailed as the closest evidence of Darwinian evolution for mankind. This new specimen however, is almost completely intact and displays markers such as fingernails, grasping hands and a bone in the foot that resembles anthropoids, leaving scientist frothing at the mouth.
Yesterday Google even put the fossil in their famous logo as they do to commemorate special occasions. This is an important find obviously and unfortunately the politics have already begun. Drudge is seen by many as a “right-wing” American website, which is to say influenced by gun totting Jesus lovers. Some links remain on the site for as long as 4 days...this one lasted only 8 hours.
American Broadcasts also handled this story with kid gloves and readily offered the contrarian view. After all, evolution in
For those of you unfamiliar, Creationism is the Religious origin story that believes our planet is between 6-10,000 years old and was created in 6 days as the Bible says. A document of faith is being taught alongside science and given equal credibility to the indefensible young.
Things have gotten so bad in the USA that Creationists even have museums depicting children riding on top of dinosaurs so they can reconcile those pesky dinosaur bones with their profoundly absurd timeline.
God is like a grape juice stain in the white cloth of science and it’s proving a tough bugger to get out.
Fortunately science trudges on regardless of religious beliefs (see Copernicus). For example, work has recently been completed on an underground super collider in Cern, Switzerland to conduct the most expensive scientific experiment ever. This 27 km mile loop is smashing particles together at light speed to see what holds them together.
Scientists are hoping this experiment with finally marry together Einstein’s theory of Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. One of the theories proffered is “string theory” which is to say a bond based on vibration. Sounds pocket protector geeky, but these nerds are big time excited about solving the riddle. Unfortunately, their efforts are being tainted by religious blinders when media outlets refer to the endeavour as a search for the “God Particle”.
Science seeks to prove or disprove theories through facts while religion has no such restrictions. In fact, the word “faith” is defined as; a belief that is not based on proof. Given this, I’m always struck when a person of faith is boastful and wears it like a badge of honour they’ve earned. It’s an odd thing to be proud of believing in something for which there is no proof.
Empirical evidence and judgement are too often casualties to faith and we lose much more than objectivity. The next version of a more deadly Swine Flu is not going to get prayed away and our cars aren’t going to run on bible verses when the oil runs out.
There will be some chest pounding and posturing over this latest scientific discovery, but one thing is clear, scientists will keep to the work. Odd opinions and feelings do not make for a substantive case in the world of science.
Only when enough evidence is in to either prove or disprove their theory, will Scientists rest. It’s not about hubris for them, it’s about facts and getting it right. With 6,800,000,000 people consuming and polluting, we need them to be right.
See ya next week top of the food chain!
-Life is complicated and far from perfect, but it's still great.
Bill Maher talking about the dinosaur with the saddle on his back at the Creationism Museum...
ReplyDelete"...because the world is only five thousand years old, so man and dinosaurs had to co-exist...and of course we RODE THEM. A theory I thought laughable at the age of eight when I saw it on the FLINTSTONES. The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them."
selah.
Science is not properly equipped to handle the supernatural realm, nor the realm of values, ethics, and morality. Science is not a process which attempts to prove things. The scientific method, when properly applied, actually attempts to disprove ideas (tentative explanations or hypotheses) through a process called "testing", or "challenging". If the idea survives testing, then it is stronger, and more likely an accurate explanation. Still, even these "strong" ideas can never be proven by science.Science is not a process which produces certainties, or absolute facts. Science is a process which can only produce "possible" to "highly probable" explanations for natural phenomena; these are never certainties. With new information, tools, or approaches, earlier findings (theories, or even "facts") are often disproved and replaced by new findings.-James Seamus"The Uncertainty of Science"
ReplyDeleteI dont believe that there will ever be any rest in the case of creation. Despite the fact that my opinions have a tendancy to coincide with that of science and the author, I have a tough time with any debate in which the argument is so one sided and belittles the opposition.
I think Bob Dylan put it aptly "Half the people can be part right all of the time, an'
Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all the people can't be all right all of the time."
can't we just choose to respect others opinions on the matter, believe what we will and be comfortable that within this lifetime we will likely not solve this debate.