It strikes me as weird that people can get so angry about science. For centuries, truth was that the universe was a small sphere, the Earth sat at the center, and the sun and moon were tiny orbs that flew around us. Beyond that was gods and demons or some such, but the main thing is that you were a gibbering idiot if you thought otherwise. Why, any fool can see that the sun flies up in the sky every morning, stars come out at night to watch over us, and the moon gets eaten by the darkness only to put itself together again. Duh.

It took a fair amount of labor and observation to realize that damn, the sun is actually quite big--maybe VERY big--and that, amazingly, stars are still there during the day, and miracle of miracles, the universe itself is SUPER BIG. Why, we've had it all wrong, very wrong, for most of our history. Huh. Well, that's science for you. Amazing what research can do to expand our knowledge and understanding.

That's quite a leap in knowledge, from the geocentric worldview to the humbling knowledge that we are, in Calvin's words, "Subatomic particles on a grain of sand on an infinite beach." (One of my own theories regarding why this viewpoint was highly resisted is that it revealed prayers had much farther to travel than previously estimated, and that a prayer uttered would have a significantly reduced chance of being answered in one's lifetime, but that's another story).

But of course, there's likely still some people out there who don't trust that high-falutin' science talkin' about quasars and light years and all that other gobbledy-gook. I ain't seen no orbits or tachyons in MY day, they's just makin' that up to test God-fearin' people.

So given that we can look back on history's fools who, for lack of curiousity or the means to understand, believed wholeheartedly in "truths" that have since been revealed to be something else entirely, shouldn't it stand that there are other possibilities as yet undiscovered, or only partially understood?

Take evolution, for example. In our lifetime, it has little day to day application, if any at all, in the same way that it doesn't truly make a big difference whether or not the Earth sits at the center of the universe. The sun will "rise", as it were, regardless of whether or not we know why it rises or if it indeed rises at all. Seasons will change, rain will come, and if a quadrillion species evolved and changed and bred and lived and died and ended up with me existing in the present, that doesn't change the fact that I'll get up and go to work and live my life the same way i did before i considered the idea of my ancestors having a tail at some point. At least, it doesn't change it any more than the fact that I started life as a small cluster of cells that eventually manifested into a sentient being.

But still, some people take great umbrage at the idea that we "came from monkeys". Seriously? I have no idea where I came from more than several generations ago, much less a few million years. Who does that insult? If you "came from a monkey" (a statement which itself betrays the most dismissive and cursory of biological understanding) that doesn't make you any less human today, does it? Would accepting that fact suddenly undo your whole existence? I'm just blue-skying here, but I'm willing to bet that somewhere in my ancestry was a dirty, swarthy man who never bathed, killed animals with simple tools, worshipped a pile of crudely-carved fertility gods, and bedded the only female he could catch and subdue by force. Eons later, there's me, suddenly ashamed of my heritage. But what real effect does that have? NONE.

If there is a God, he/she/it is not suddenly undone by the fact. If an artist makes a beautiful painting, does it really matter what technique he used to paint it? Sure, it's more impressive if he just waved his brush and BAM! A few seconds later is this immaculate portrait. But even if it took forever to do, it's still a beautiful painting. And besides, you weren't there to watch him paint it, so whether it took seven seconds or seven billion years, all you see is the end result.

I heard a clever quote the other day regarding science and religion from a clergyman's perspective, to paraphrase: "Our job is to teach how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go." (A statement rendered slightly ironic by history, given the Church's initial resistance to the idea of a heliocentric solar system, but whatever, it's still a good quote.)

Anyway, this is crap I think of when I lack sufficient daily distractions.

back to work.

ja, mata