An Ode to Science

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-06-20 04:01am

I know a place where the Sun never sets.

It's a mountain, and it's on the Moon. It sticks up so high that even as the Moon spins, it's in perpetual daylight. Radiation from the Sun pours down on there day and night, 24 hours a day — well, the Moon's day is actually about 4 weeks long, so the sunlight pours down there 708 hours a day.

I know a place where the Sun never shines. It's at the bottom of the ocean. A crack in the crust there exudes nasty chemicals and heats the water to the boiling point. This would kill a human instantly, but there are creatures there, bacteria, that thrive. They eat the sulfur from the vent, and excrete sulfuric acid.

I know a place where the temperature is 15 million degrees, and the pressure would crush you to a microscopic dot. That place is the core of the Sun.

I know a place where the magnetic fields would rip you apart, atom by atom: the surface of a neutron star, a magnetar.

I know a place where life began billions of years ago. That place is here, the Earth.

I know these places because I'm a scientist.

Science is a way of finding things out. It's a way of testing what's real. It's what Richard Feynman called "A way of not fooling ourselves."

No astrologer ever predicted the existence of Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. No modern astrologer had a clue about Sedna, a ball of ice half the size of Pluto that orbits even farther out. No astrologer predicted the more than 150 planets now known to orbit other suns.

But scientists did.

No psychic, despite their claims, has ever helped the police solve a crime. But forensic scientists have, all the time.

It wasn't someone who practices homeopathy who found a cure for smallpox, or polio. Scientists did, medical scientists.

No creationist ever cracked the genetic code. Chemists did. Molecular biologists did.

They used physics. They used math. They used chemistry, biology, astronomy, engineering.

They used science.

These are all the things you discovered doing your projects. All the things that brought you here today.

Computers? Cell phones? Rockets to Saturn, probes to the ocean floor, PSP, gamecubes, gameboys, X-boxes?

All by scientists.

Those places I talked about before — you can get to know them too. You can experience the wonder of seeing them for the first time, the thrill of discovery, the incredible, visceral feeling of doing something no one has ever done before, seen things no one has seen before, know something no one else has ever known.

No crystal balls, no tarot cards, no horoscopes. Just you, your brain, and your ability to think.

Welcome to science. You're gonna like it here.

Phil Plait

Damn, that brings tears to my eyes.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2005-06-20 04:27am

how can people hate something so utilitarian?

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-06-20 04:28am

Because it disagrees with what their old myth says, and their old myth is their only sense of self-worth, and their only hope of a life beyond this one. Sad, in many ways...

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2005-06-20 04:55am

Wow. That's the best description of the joys of science I've heard.

Max · Post by **Max** » 2005-06-20 09:17am

Aren't Astologers scientists in a way?

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2005-06-20 09:18am

Got a link to where you found it?

Guy N. Cognito · Post by **Guy N. Cognito** » 2005-06-20 09:55am

It's nice that they pointed out that without science we would have none of the lucuries that we take fro granted.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-06-20 09:55am

http://www.randi.org/jr/061705like.html

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2005-06-20 10:19am

That was beautiful... I'm sorry... I've got something in my eye, excuse me... *sniff*

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2005-06-20 10:48am

mplsjocc wrote:Aren't Astologers scientists in a way?

Certainly not by the standards of science in the past few centuries.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2005-06-20 11:36am

Aren't Astologers scientists in a way?

No.Astrology lacks predictive ability,it can't be falsified and it's sterile - it leads nowhere,teached nothing.
Really,the most important thing about science is that it works;astrology
does not.Someone once called science "The magic that works",and I think that says it all.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2005-06-20 11:37am

I mean "teaches nothing".

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-06-20 12:13pm

mplsjocc wrote:Aren't Astologers scientists in a way?

No. Astrology bears about as much relation to science as the following do:

Intelligent design
Creationism
UFOs
Government conspiracy theories
I Ching
Homeopathy
Tarot
Numerology
Dowsing
Touch Healing
Faith Healing
Auras
Perpetual energy devices
Free energy devices
Energy Field Therapy
Bio-energy Healing
The Flat Earth Society
Religious miracles
Astral projection
Psychic healing
Psychics in general
Kabbala
Witchcraft
'Magick' spells

Astronomy is a legitimate scientific pursuit.
Astrology is delusional quackery and pseudoscientific mystical bullshit.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2005-06-20 12:52pm

Government conspiracy theories

Actually Government conspiracy theories are in another catagory,unless you want to claim they would violate physical law(Senator,we CAN'T set up secret conentration camps! The Law of Conservation of Energy won't allow it !".
The rest of the stuff you mentioned is either impossible or would invoke new laws;conspiraces are merely unlikely - except when they are true.

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-06-20 12:56pm

Lord of the Abyss wrote: Actually Government conspiracy theories are in another catagory,unless you want to claim they would violate physical law

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:No. Astrology bears about as much relation to science as the following do:

He's saying that government conspiracy theories have as much to do with science as everything else on the list. In other words, jack shit.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2005-06-20 01:02pm

The USA. Leading forerunner of science........ for how much longer?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-06-20 01:31pm

PainRack wrote:The USA. Leading forerunner of science........ for how much longer?

As long as it takes to move headquarters to South Korea and anywhere else were silly little Fundie ethics laws won't get in the way.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-20 02:07pm

I approve of this thread.

A very concise and clear way of putting what has somehow escaped or been ignored by fundies for a long, long time.

Faqa · Post by **Faqa** » 2005-06-20 03:20pm

May I suggest Mike post that on his "Science vs. Creationism" page?

Seriously.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2005-06-20 03:32pm

May I suggest Mike post that on his "Science vs. Creationism" page?

Seriously.

Seconded.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2005-06-20 03:44pm

Faqa wrote:May I suggest Mike post that on his "Science vs. Creationism" page?

Seriously.

Thirded.

I think I'm going to print the ode and frame it and put it on the wall.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2005-06-20 03:45pm

Lord of the Abyss wrote:
May I suggest Mike post that on his "Science vs. Creationism" page?

Seriously.
Seconded.

Fourthed.

And : Amen.

That's really what makes me so fond of science, all the wonders of the Universe, unravelling before our very eyes

Somewhere, I feel, scientific curiosity is closer to the true religious feeling of transcendence than any of the narrow-viewed dogmas of the big sky pixie cultists, all the fundamentalists that see nothing but their fairy tales, and discard anything that contradicts it.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-06-20 03:52pm

It seems a bit one-sided to me. They seem to have conveniently left out how if you're an evil bastard, you can use science's fruits and methods to inflict mass casualties, multiply suffering, and exterminate a target population in a more smooth, clean way than otherwise.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2005-06-20 04:37pm

The Nomad wrote:That's really what makes me so fond of science, all the wonders of the Universe, unravelling before our very eyes
Somewhere, I feel, scientific curiosity is closer to the true religious feeling of transcendence than any of the narrow-viewed dogmas of the big sky pixie cultists, all the fundamentalists that see nothing but their fairy tales, and discard anything that contradicts it.

Anecdote: last night, I was stargazing, wondering at the fact that primates from this obscure planet had reduced everything governing universe to a series of symbols able to be written on a single page.

Rye wrote:
It seems a bit one-sided to me. They seem to have conveniently left out how if you're an evil bastard, you can use science's fruits and methods to inflict mass casualties, multiply suffering, and exterminate a target population in a more smooth, clean way than otherwise.

That may be so, but I think the original intent of the ode is to convey the wonder and subtle beauty of science, and the pursuit of knowledge, rather than the dark underbelly of modern knowledge. I like it just fine without it being fair and balanced. That said, of course, there needs to be a counterpoint ode which warns. Maybe I shall write it...

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2005-06-20 05:57pm

Rye wrote:It seems a bit one-sided to me. They seem to have conveniently left out how if you're an evil bastard, you can use science's fruits and methods to inflict mass casualties, multiply suffering,

As opposed to having mass casualties and suffering be The Way Things Are. Remember when the average life expectancy was really low, superstition and power politics came together in horrendously unpleasant ways (witch trials, various drawn-out, bloody wars, etc.), and "sanitation" meant bathing fairly regularly? That was before the Enlightenment made people's worldviews and governmental systems more scientific, and before science came along with the knowledge necessary to come up with all sorts of life-improving (and often life-saving) technology.

Do you know how many mass casualties and how much suffering came from Smallpox alone, partly through primitive biological warfare? Through science, we damn near eradicated it. Now biological warfare is harder, not easier, since we have so much medical science.

and exterminate a target population in a more smooth, clean way than otherwise.

If it is done, I would prefer it to be done cleanly. And modern technology allows quicker, more powerful international responses to such genocides.

The net impact of science has been overwhelmingly positive.