One of the many things I missed commenting on during my latest hiatus from the web, was the passage of the so-called "Monkey Bill" in Tennessee. This bill grants teachers in the state the right to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories like, climate change, human cloning, and evolution, with little fear of repercussion. The idea of allowing individual teachers to promote their own personal agenda under the guise of teaching any subject is so obviously flawed a concept, it seems utterly insane that anyone would even suggest it. That is, of course, unless personal agendas, not academic freedom or even truth,  are what you actually care about, as is the case with the supporters of this bills, and others like it. Then it starts making sense.

The "strength and weaknesses" argument, or the idea that teachers should be allowed to "teach the controversy" of certain scientific theories -specifically, evolution- is a tired, but growingly successful tactic employed by religious creationists. The group adopted the strategy as part of a pseudo-scientific makeover the organization underwent, following their defeat at the hands of a1987 supreme court ruling, which rightly deemed the teaching of their religiously based fiction in public schools to be a violation of church and state. In response to this defeat, Creationists manufactured a completely non-existent scientific controversy (more on that in a minute), relabeled their efforts a struggle for academic freedom, adopted the, extra sciency-sounding moniker: "Intelligent Design", and went back to lobbying for their cause: Undermining the teaching of science and circumventing the separation of church and state, in order to infect public education with religion.

But just for fun, let's pretend the creationist agenda really is about education (which it isn't) and not about promoting a religious agenda through pseudo-science (which it is). So what about the scientific controversy surrounding the validity of Darwinian Evolution? I mean, if science isn't even sure evolution is real, isn't that something children should know about?

It certainly would be, if it were true. But it isn't.

There is NO scientific controversy as to weather or not evolution is true, NONE.  To science, evolution is as much a fact of reality, as gravity; which is also absolutely true, and also "just a theory". Yes, there's an ongoing effort to fully understand the specific mechanisms which drive the phenomena of evolution, and to complete the paths it has taken to drive all species on the planet to their current states; because that's how science works. But there is NO question as to weather or not evolution has taken place, or that it continues to take place today.

As for Creationism/Intelligent Design, on the other hand. The lack of scientific evidence supporting the handful of quantifiable claims they're willing to make, is equally definitive. IN other words, there isn't any. Which is the problem with trying to label your religious fantasy a testable, provable science; people will try and test it, and then end up disproving it.

The simple fact is, the "theory" that we live in a universe that's 6,000 to 12,000 years old; that all the organisms on the planet were either designed as they exist today, or, after escaping extinction by taking refuge from a world-wide flood on the deck of mythical boat, underwent some ridiculous, made up, hyperactive version of evolution in order to diverge into all of the species on the planet today- simply does not fit with reality.  Evolution on the other hand, like climate change (sorry, it's real too. But we'll deal with that another day), does. And the only place any controversy about evolution exits, is in the mind of creationists.

-CAINE-



 

-CAINE-

 Earlier this week Planetary Resources Inc announced it's intent to become the first asteroid mining company in history. While details on the company's plan were pretty vague, their list of financial backers, was much easier to find, as they were the focus of most of the articles on the subject. Which isn't terribly surprising given it's a list which includes Google's Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, as well as James Cameron, who's also apparently famous for some stuff, but I'm not sure what.[/sarcasm]

Though Planetary Resource's goal is both a fairly straight forward and plausible one: Identify near Earth asteroids worth mining for water and or precious metals, and then do it. Actually achieving this feat, will require the company to first launch it's own telescopes in order to locate said NEA, find a way to bring them into orbit around the moon, and then develop all of the technology necessary to actually mine them. All of which the company hopes to achieve within the next ten years. It's a lofty goal, and given that it's one based largely on technologies that don't yet exist, I won't be holding my breath in anticipation.But I do think could very well be an achievable goal for a company ultimately motivated by profit, as founders estimate their new industry could potentially mean the influx of trillions of dollars into the world economy.

The idea of commercial interests in space is undoubtedly one that will make the ardently anti-capitalist amongst you uncomfortable, and to be honest, I share your apprehension. But if successful, Planetary Enterprises endeavor could also be a potential stepping stone towards the goal of  interplanetary explorations, as one of the proposed goals of the project is to develop ways of manufacturing and distributing fuel as well as water to ships and crews in space; not to mention its potential for easing the drain on Earth's own natural resources. Also, at this point it seems all but impossible to me that any government will ever allocate the necessary resources to fund the level of scientific development or space exploration, I so desperately want to see become reality. So even if we never hear from Panetary Resources again. Like it or not, I think the future of space (much like everything else) is largely a commercial one.



-CAINE-

VIA: Gizmodo