I saw a documentary today dealing with the persecution of scientists. Although it sounds like a page out of the original miniseries “V” where aliens sought out scientists because they were afraid these scientists had the know how to create weapons against them, this persecution is being done by our own scientific community. And it comes from a fear that these scientists are saying things that are contrary to current ‘scientific fact’. What these persecuted scientists are talking about is the possibility of Intelligent Design.
Now, there are several parts to this which I intend to go over in the next couple of days rather than lay it all out here today. So, the end of this entry will have a ‘to be continued’ on it.
Originally, people accepted something similar to the version in the Bible when they thought of creation of the universe and creation of man. Basically, God created the universe and all the beings in it. Then along came Charles Darwin who created his theories of evolution. It took a long time for that to be accepted by the scientific community as fact. (Keep in mind that science believes this to be fact even though it is still just theories. Since no one was around back then, we can’t prove from eyewitness accounts that evolution happened like Darwin said.)
Darwin said that evolution occurred through the process of natural selection, the stronger winning over the weaker, thus creating the dominant version of the species. Intelligent Design suggests that something created our species, something with an intelligent plan. This could have been anything from God to space aliens (and today I’m not going to get into which). Now most scientists in the ‘community’ believe that Intelligent Design is the same as Creationism which says that God created everything. But Intelligent Design does not state that. It leaves it open as we truly do not know what this creator is.
But as the scientific community now accepts Darwin’s theories as what happened, it has created a huge controversy and verbal war. Understand that in places in the south, they teach Creationism and are very anti-Darwin. At the same time, the global scientific community accepts Darwin as fact. Scientists who believe, or even suggest otherwise have been fired from jobs, not been able to get jobs, and been looked at as outcasts among other scientists. Now although no place of business will state that this is the reason that these people were fired from their jobs, there seems to be a recurring theme where Intelligent Design is concerned. And these businesses go from highly notable universities such as Iowa State to the Smithsonian Institute.
The problem here as I see it is the so called scientific community. You see, science wants to prove everything. They want to have an explanation that shows fact upon fact thus proving theories where they can say that “this amino-acid mixed with that chemical and crested that reaction …”, and not rely on things like “God swooped from the heavens”. This is completely understandable. Scientific not mystical. Let’s face it, we’ve had enough mystical to last too many lifetimes.
To some people, computers are mystical. And it has been said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
It is real easy to look at the cells of a plant and see how sunlight is gathered affecting the chlorophyll creating energy for the plant to survive. But the problem is that for those things that we cannot dissect, we create theories. And if these theories are said long and loud enough, the scientific community accepts them as facts. But the problem is that they are still theories, and ones that may never be proven.
In working for a Star Trek convention years ago, something interesting happened when someone wrote a letter to the club newsletter. You see, this convention not only had guests from the media (in the form of TV stars), they also had guests from the group that operates the Hubble Telescope, the captain of the aircraft carrier Enterprise, and a psychic medium. This psychic gave talks about UFOs and notable people that had actually seen them as well as psychic abilities.
In this letter to the club newsletter, this person stated that we should get rid of these talks on psychic abilities and UFOs and stick with real science like that of the truth about black holes and such. Uhhh. While black holes exist, we do not know what they are. The scientific community accepts that they are (and science fiction writers follow their lead) places of such intense gravity that light does not escape. But is this fact? Hell no! It is accepted as fact. But did we actually go out there and touch one of them? Did we dissect it? Do we really know what makes it tick? No. Even when we talk about the creation of our universe, we call it the Big Bang Theory. All we have are theories, but theories are believed to be fact because it is accepted by the scientific community. But because these theories are accepted, no other theories are entertained.
Many years ago, a scientist on a TV interview show said that there is no way to move faster than light. Now was this person closed minded or what? I mean 200 years ago scientists said that there was no way for man to fly. The point is that our technology has not advanced to the state that we can travel faster than light. It is not that it is impossible (and it may turn out to be), but that it is currently beyond our technology. This scientist however closed his mind to the possibility completely.
Forty years ago the though thought of holding a computer in the palm of your hand that could get access to tons of information was only a dream of science fiction. How many of you surf the web on your iPhone or Droid? These became possible because scientists kept an open mind.
There was a scene in the beginning of the movie Stargate where scientist Daniel Jackson was trying to convince scientists that their beliefs about the pyramids were incorrect. He was laughed out of the place. In the case of the movie, he was correct while everyone else was wrong.
It is because of how the ‘scientific community’ operates that the energy work that I do is laughed at instead of studied. What does it take to get these people to open their minds and look at things that truly work?
The point is that science is about creating theories to explain things. After a theory is presented, there comes the trial and error part to prove or disprove what has been theorized. Obviously, when we talk about the creation of the universe, it is hard or currently impossible to prove our theories. But why come up with one theory that scientists think best explains things and then ignore all others?
Science should be open to new ideas, new thoughts. They should be encouraging students to think, not to accept what they are told unquestioningly. They should not be stating that unproven theories are fact and then ostracizing people that disagree. But we have seen it happen for ages. The king or the church would decide what is truth and then persecute those that disagree. That happened back in the middle ages. Wow, is today any different?
More tomorrow.