The Science I Love

    I have one specific beef where the term “science” is concerned, its in the way the word is used. If it deals in facts, cold hard facts, fine apply the term science to it. If it cant be put in a lab and scrutinized, it isn’t a science. Economics isn’t a science, nor is politics, social behaviour or even the military studies I love.

    They are all just learned and practiced "opinions". Its primarily the reason why I don’t normally get very excited by “diplomas” in sciences that are more opinion than real factual reality.

   Sure its easy for me to say it, but I have several decades observing those same “sciences” in action. If Political science or Economic science had any factual basis, well then they would work now wouldn’t they. I am an expert in the field of Military science and I know it is more wisdom than fact. And I have been fairly close to the world of Psychology, and I KNOW it isn’t a science

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   The sciences I love are primarily the Natural Sciences and the study of Space. It is a shame that people spend all there efforts wondering about job security and the pursuit of material wealth while the planet dies around them. If the planet goes folks, your job won’t be all that secure anymore. You cant take your money with you, but you can at least make the world a better place to enjoy for your offspring.

    People often claim that the study of space is a waste of money. If I told you tomorrow, conclusively, that we are not about to find another habitable planet on which we can live, how would you feel? If we found this from the study of the heavens, it would be worth the money spent. Additionally if I told you tomorrow we had found life on another planet, that DEFINITELY would be important. We learn a great deal about ourselves from the study of outer space. Or at least some of us do. It is clear, that a great majority of the mass of humanity, will be quite shocked when they begin to reap the rewards of our civilizations exploitative behaviour.

   Recycling, what a dumb placebo. We need to adjust our way of thinking. We should ensure that what we make doesn’t need to be replaced in the first place. Yeah I know jobs will be lost. So what. Just where is the evidence that mindless human expansion has any real worth. Its no wonder I have such a dim view of “economic science”. Jobs are just what they are, nothing more. It may be your “right” to breed senselessly, but we will all have to deal with it soon enough. The planet is only so big, its time we accepted that reality.

   We make a big fuss over our technology as if we truly our the masters of creation. Last time I checked mother nature was just waking up. When next that hurricane passes through, just remember how little our technology did to stop it coming. Telling us a hurricane is “coming” is of no real use to preventing it. By mindlessly altering our environment with our wonderful little toys, we are likely ensuring that our stay on this one and only livable place in the known cosmos decides to kill us off sooner than later. It takes only a small amount of heat globally to starve us back into the middle ages or beyond. Our technology will not reverse the onset of desertification once it begins, regardless of how “neat” it is. It takes very little excess rainfall to ruin crops as well. A funny kind of situation eh, to much water or to little does the same thing.

   I personally get tired of the refrain “there is no conclusive proof yet of Global Warming”. Well Sherlock once there IS conclusive “proof” it will be to late to fix it. I would much rather be miserable about funds employed to protect me, than watch civilization as we know it end (believe me it can happen). Currently the only ones telling you “not to worry” are the ones making money off of saying just that. That’s like having a known felon advise you on home security.
   When you consider all the very real things happening around the world, it is amazing that anyone is buying into the “don’t worry” line of argument. We are wiping out the planet like a dedicated serial killer.
    And of course along with all I have read, by persons a great deal smarter than the bulk of us, are the revelations of all that we had assumed to be fact, and are most definitely not the case. Two men that I enjoy reading are David Suzuki and the late Carl Sagan. I would be thrilled to know just 10% of what they know.
   It should be your stated objective to get a copy of Demon Haunted World and Billions and Billions (yes I know that's the 3rd time I have plugged them), both by Carl Sagan. Both books have such incredible insight into the REAL world (and not the world we seem to think really is there). It is quite amazing how we can be so capable as a race and yet still so completely, so utterly stupid. The things we are prepared to believe in as “fact”, it just boggles the imagination. His two books do a lot of useful damage to the utter nonsense that is our way of thinking. Dogma, our world will die from dogma.
   If you believe in alien visitations, astrology, psychic powers, faith healing, ghosts, and mythology exactly as commonly presented to you through the media… Well you might as well believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, that the check is in the mail, that the first time doesn’t hurt, that politicians have your interests in mind, that size doesn’t count, because there is as much fact in all this, as there is in all of the pseudo science I mentioned above.
   Remember, at one time the world was flat. Everyone knew it was true. Alas everyone says something is a fact and it magically becomes true. Reality just doesn’t work that way. Today people think if it's printed down it must be real.

    We have been on this planet as a species an incredibly long time (at least in our opinions). From the perspective of an individual that will live and die within 100 years, thousands might seem like a long time. The planet has been around a great deal longer time though. Not hundreds, nor thousands, nor millions even. We see our planet as being more than 4.5 billion years old if the evidence is to be believed. Now consider the vast magnitude of space. The closest star is not hundreds or thousands of miles, not millions of miles or billions of miles away. We are talking distances measured with the speed of light here, trillions of miles.
    And I refer to the nearest star only. It would sure be nice if the nearest star would do. But why assume anyone has ever come from that one. The nearest star with a life form capable of even sentient behaviour could be millions of light years away. Now then move along. We as a sentient species have been on this rock the puniest fraction of the planets existence at best. So now we need a space faring species that would have had to start their journey a great deal of time ago to even reach us. And they would have had to have timed it so they got here in the briefest of spans of time to see us while we are here. It becomes evident to anyone with two useful brain cells, that the chances of alien visitation at any time in our species past suck greatly. You have a better chance of getting lucky with a horny moose.
    Now math can easily demonstrate the stupidity of alien visitation (hell if I can understand it why can't everyone else). But to debunk astrology, psychic powers, and faith healing all you have to do is make them perform in a decent laboratory under the watchful eyes of a skilled scientist. About the only reality with regards to psychics, is its a good way to earn a living without really being forced to work. Fools and their money are soon parted.
    I have read a wonderful book by the author Terry Goodkind. The opening novel says it best, “people are stupid” it's known as Wizards First Rule. The author has a great insight into the flaws of humanity obviously. His second rule is equally profound “even good can do harm”. Alas there are a lot of people out there professing to do good, and all they are doing is making themselves feel good. This is mainly due to the first rule. I can kill you with kindness fairly easily. People need to ask more questions. People need to start to stop believing what they are told on faith alone.
    Soon our technology will achieve a capacity to cause harm way out of proportion than anything previously in our past. If we don’t start to wake up soon, we might not get to enjoy that shiny future everyone is always talking about. Just because we can do a thing doesn’t mean it will be always in our best interests. Until we as a species gain sufficient maturity, we, with our technology, will be nothing better than children playing with loaded guns.