An Exercise in Alternative Science

There seems to be some sort of detente between religion and science at this point in Western Civilization, largely brought on by the arrival of Pope Francis on the scene, with his high-impact humanism, one that borders on the secular. In particular, he urges us not to take certain biblical passages literally, e.g., the story of creation as laid out in the Book of Genesis. The entire Christian world was shocked when the Pope pointed out recently that the theory of evolution is not inconsistent with creation, speaking as follows: “When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so.”

That was certainly the way most people had conceptualized the Judeo-Christian God.  What else is one to imagine from the concepts of omniscience and omnipotence?  But, as one might expect, not all Christians are willing to buy this, and many push back hard on any elements of science that appear to contradict the word of God as presented in the bible.

A particularly touchy situation arises with paleontology and the study of dinosaurs, which suggests that different sorts of animals were present on Earth in a period of at least tens of millions of years, as evolution did its thing.

Needless to say, this gets into some fairly heated discussions, like this one, where the speaker presents an alternative science and claims that fossils are fabricated by those who study them. She’s totally serious, and presents her case very clearly.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a park ranger in the Sierra Nevada mountains as a prelude to a backpacking trip I was taking with my son and some friends. She was talking about she and her team use carbon dating to establish the age of trees, and how they can use this technology to look back tens of thousands of years. I asked her how she responds when someone challenges her on the basis that, according to the bible, the Earth is 6000 years old. She replied, “I change the subject. Immediately.”

I urge readers to check out the video linked above, and ask themselves, “Wouldn’t she be a great candidate for Trump’s cabinet in the forestry service?”  This woman is paleontology’s equivalent to the climate change denier, and our president has shown his penchant for people who can bring as much alternative science to the table as possible.  She obviously has most of the qualifications for the job right there.  If she’s a billionaire and contributes huge sums of money to the Trump campaign, I’d say that she has every single one.