Sunday, August 12, 2012
What do we know?
How often do you hear a politician say, "we were wrong." have you ever heard a member of the clergy say that? Religion and science both began when humans began to try to understand the world around them. What are those bright spots in the sky at night? Where does the sun go when darkness begins? Why is the moon less bright than the sun? Why do the spots in the sky change with the seasons? It must have been frightening to see the night sky and have no knowledge of what it was. (And in some ways we suppose it could be even more frightening to some when they know what they really are.) It must have been reassuring to early humans to be able to explain the sun as just another chariot driven across the sky by a god. When Copernicus postulated that the Earth was not the center of the universe in about 1516. (He did however incorrectly state that it was the sun.) He shook the foundations of religion. Most in his day refused to believe such heresy, that God would not place man at the center of all things. When Galileo went to Rome in 1616 to try to persuade the catholic church not to ban the writings of Copernicus. Pope Urban the VIII asked him to include arguments for and against the idea of the sun being the center of the universe. Unfortunately for Galileo, the arguments stating that the Earth were the center of the universe came across as foolish. And Pope Urban realized they were the same arguments he had been using. He had Galileo arrested, and one of the greatest thinkers of his time spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Later when Galileo died in 1642 he was buried in a small room next to a novices chapel at the end of a corridor from the southern transept of the basilica to the sacristy. In 1737 he was reburied in the main body of the basilica when a statue was erected there in his honor. During the move the middle finger of his right hand was removed and is currently on display at the Museo Gallileo in Florence Italy. (We here at The Crazy like to think he is flipping Pope Urban the bird.) Why did the church arrest Gallileo? Because the Bible told them in Chronicles 16:13 "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." And in Ecclesiastes 1:5 "And the sun rises and sets and returns to it's place." Galileo was a religious man. He believed that the Bible was simply being written from an Earthly point of view, and saw nothing to place doubt in his belief in God. But the Catholic church at the time feared anything that would could cause any doubt. The Church did finally change it's mind. Although they never said "we were wrong." And there lies the difference between Science and Religion. In Science an idea is postulated, and then experiments are performed to see if the idea holds merit. If the experiments prove the idea to be wrong. Science says "Whoops, we were wrong, let's try another tack." As for Politicians admitting they were wrong. Don't get us started on that. That's about it, Ciao for now.
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Just like scientists admitted with Global Cooling scare in the 70's and that we reached peak oil in the early 80s (or maybe it was the 70's too) and that we should have run out of oil by now! Don't believe me? Look in the archives of the major magazines and journals of the past decades and have a laugh at their predictions for the future (which would be now - our time). Yes they were predictions, but they were still based on the orthodoxy of pure unbiased science.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that mainstream science believed in global cooling is a myth. Read any SCIENCE magazine of the time. I used to subcribe to scientific american, and popular science. I don't know where you get your information about global cooling and science (probably a global warming denying website) but it's simply not true. Predictions about oil running out were first put forth by an economist, not a scientist. Many scientists now believe we will run out of oil. But predicting WHEN is an entirely different matter. As technologies for burning and drilling are allowing us to get more than originally thought possible. But we WILL eventually use up the supply. Remember when our country ran on whale oil? People believed it would never run out. But eventually had to concede that the whale population was dwindling. What saved the whales (at least temporarily) was a scientist named James Young (A scottish Chemist) who developed a way to distill kerosene from petroleum. It pretty much put the whale oil people out of business as the stuff was cheaper and burned cleaner. The constitution was probably written beneath a whale oil lamp.
ReplyDeleteScience News in May 1959 forecast a 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000, with a consequent warming trend.The actual increase in this period was 29%
ReplyDeleteSo carbon dioxide has increased,,,,,,,and??? Still living, along with 7 billion other people. Just more people, mainly scientists and politicians, trying to line their pockets with taxpayer funded grants and lobbying money for Solyndra like companies, windmills, etc.......
ReplyDeleteSure we're still living. But what about our kids. Or theirs. I have no problem with Solyndra. They failed, as businesses do now and then. (Many of them after recieving government grants or loans) But the more money we throw at alternative energy the better. Because anybody who thinks that fossil fuels will last forever is an idiot. When Fulton was building his steam engine they are the same type of people who told him it would never work. The same type of people who told the Wright Brothers (and a number of aviation pioneers before them) that it will never fly. We are on the edge of a great evolution in energy. Just my opinion. Take it or leave it.
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