Apocalypse routine - and overdue
If it were a movie, it would be called "Apocalypse Now (& Then)."
Berkeley physicists say they have undeniable proof that every 62 million years there is a"mass extinction," a big die-off of the prevailing life on Earth.
That didn't seem to bother the San Francisco Chronicle reporter, who ignored the basic math of the story: The last mass extinction occurred 65 million years ago! Math may not be our long suit but even we can handle the occasional negative number. If the 62 million year flame-out is a regular event, then we're slightly overdue for the next!
With surprising and mysterious regularity, life on Earth has flourished and vanished in cycles of mass extinction every 62 million years, say two UC Berkeley scientists who discovered the pattern after a painstaking computer study of fossil records going back for more than 500 million years.
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The Berkeley researchers are physicists, not biologists or geologists or paleontologists, but they have analyzed the most exhaustive compendium of fossil records that exists -- data that cover the first and last known appearances of no fewer than 36,380 separate marine genera, including millions of species that once thrived in the world's seas, later virtually disappeared, and in many cases returned.*
Robert Muller, who is somewhat known for his "Nemesis" hypothesis, the idea that a small brown dwarf star circles around the galaxy and wreaks havoc periodically, says he's given up on that idea (and several others).
Muller and Rohde conceded that they have puzzled through every conceivable phenomenon in nature in search of an explanation: "We've had to think about solar system dynamics, about the causes of comet showers, about how the galaxy works, and how volcanoes work, but nothing explains what we've discovered," Muller said.
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"We've tried everything we can think of to find an explanation for these weird cycles of biodiversity and extinction," Muller said, "and so far, we've failed."
We would suggest that the existence of God, if admitted as at least a possibility, might cover a multitude of strange historical events in the fossil record, but somehow we doubt if that answer would please Muller at all.
It might explain, too, why the timetable has changed. A God who is both transcendant AND personal could be protecting a creature He has a loving interest in: namely us.
posted by Dave the Oklahomilist @ 4:15 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
You are kidding aren't you? Admit the possibility of god and use that act of faith as a tool in science??
There is no more truth in the existence of the Christian god as there is in the existence of Athena or Mercury.
The very notion of bringing Myth into the discussion of science boggles the mind.
Thanks for commenting.
No, Tom, I am not kidding, and I'm truly sorry if your mind is boggled because of it.
Science would not necessarily have to claim an "act of faith" in order to at least consider the "God possibility" as a workable hypothesis. (Good scientists keep an open mind, right?)
I think your second paragraph would have been better stated (more scientific) had you written, "There is no more PROOF in the existence of the Christian god as there is in the existence of Athena or Mercury."
Proof, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder, and we all have different standards. Having had several encounters with the power of God (and He is is the God of all, not just Christians) that have taken me beyond mere faith to a certainty of His existence and immanence, I can only say that Science, while it is a good tool in the search for certain aspects of Truth, is not in itself a god, and it is a very poor religion. It is neither moral nor immoral, merely a tool.
Men of science are responsible for a great number of good things (medicines, communications, improved crop yields, etc.) and a fair number of not so wonderful inventions: hydrogen bombs, bio-weapons, non-alcoholic beer ... but men of science are traditionally "a bit fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing." It is up to us, individually and collectively, to determine whether a scientific product or idea should be advanced, and we make these decisions based on moral codes. I am unfamiliar with any serious or useful moral codes promulgated by atheists or even hard-core agnostics.
By the way, did you know that Myth derives from the Greek word for "sacred stories"?
Finally, I'll let Darth Vader have a last cautionary word for those who would elevate Science into their religion:
"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
God bless!
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