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Visiting the Big Bang
DarkKnightRadick writes "An article at the NYTimes.com (Free reg) is reporting that researchers in Long Island, NY are attempting to create the quark-gluon plasma that existed a trillionth of a second after the big bang, when the universe was just the size of a marble or grapefruit. "Sam Aronson was perched a few stories up on a metal catwalk, surrounded by tons of Russian steel and Japanese electronics, and enough wires to impress even Con Ed, when he paused to say what really interested him about the $600 million machine. Time, he said. More precisely, the beginning of time, just after the Big Bang, some 14 billion years ago.""
That a majority of my people seem to think creationism should be taught in schools, tells me too few of my countrymen take advantage of it.
Alright, that was likely flamebait, but I'm gonna put my two cents in here anyhow. I've seen a high number of slashdotter's who seem to believe that this majority consists of scientifically ignorant, close minded religous fanatics. I don't believe this majority consists of people who want creationism to be taught in science classes. I think the bigger part of this majority is people against the theory of common descent darwinian evolution being taught as fact in the classroom. An objective observer can easily note that a vast number of special cases, and secondary supporting theories are required for the full single cell to man evolution theory to fit the evidence. Yes, I realize that often the details of a theory follow the initial more general theory(newtonian\relativity\quantom theories for example). But the full theory of common descent from single celled life is still fraught with an immense field of unknowns and conflicting theories on just what might or could have happened. It is hardly irrational for people to want the theory of common descent to be taught as a theory and not a scientific fact. Other, completely unthought of theories could, suddenly become necassary as new discoveries are made. Molecular phylogenies are already frequently at odds with phenotype based phylogenies. With the number of things we simply don't know about our distant origins being so large, it could well be prudent not to educate our youth as though current thinking is absolute fact. Remember that once 'most' scientific evidence suggested a flat earth, but that evidence is now understood to simply be a misinterpretation of the bigger picture. Our current evidence for common descent evolution may be better explained by another theory as we make new discoveries. I'm willing to bet molecular studies of DNA will reveal a great deal of what is and is not probable to happen through evolution. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should not be so quick to push the entirety of current evolutionary thinking on students as though it were fact. It will only lead to closed minded scientists down the road who might miss the next big breakthrough because their 'facts' were wrong.