Skip to main content

Hold My Beer....



Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I somehow managed to graduate from a small, private college with a bachelor's in Biology.  Now, I don't necessarily use my degree much in my current profession but I still carry an interest in the subject.  It's an excellent thought that in spite of what any individual person might believe, science continues to be true.  Nowadays, I try to keep a passing glance on new theories and discoveries in the field.  Although science-based books aren’t always the most riveting ever written, I occasionally enjoy a good read.  While you’re here, I’m going to go ahead and recommend Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World and How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies. I even manage to continue a small level of activism through protests and outreach websites like Citizen Science (Give it a try sometime).  In this meager way, I can prolong my involvement and aid my fellow man. The real conflict I have is my incredible sadness at the insufficient level of scientific literacy present in America.  I hope that by bringing up topics like this I can help you begin conversations and in doing so, encourage others to read and research for themselves. 

As a former Biology major, one of the biggest issues I personally find myself up against is the two distinct uses of the word ‘prove’.  The average person assumes when a fact or idea is proven it is true beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Can that truly be the case? There happens to be a bit of a miscommunication in modern society about what proving a scientific discovery actually entails.   The scientific disciplines treat the word differently than other academic divisions.  According to Merriam-Webster, prove is a transitive verb defined as putting forth some sort of meaningful effort to establish truth, validity, quality, worth, etc.  Fairly early on in my scientific career, we were told to strike this word from our very vocabulary.  Why?  It’s simple.  You never prove anything in science.  All you can do form a plausible hypothesis and accumulate data to support or invalidate it.  Our current body of knowledge has been collected from centuries of observation, diligent research, and trial and error.  Evidence gathered to support the most likely hypotheses.     

There are two overarching categories into which hypotheses with the most gathered support fall: Theories and Laws.  A Scientific Theory is a hypothesis that has been tested over and over with a large pool of positive results supporting its conclusions. Examples of this include Gravity, Evolution, Atomic, Climate Change, and Relativity.  For some reason, certain individuals tend to perceive theories as somehow less truthful than Laws.  One common complaint I’ve often heard lodged against evolution is they don’t need to give it credit because it's just a theory.  Well so is gravity and it has a bigger pool of evidence backing it up then God.  A Scientific Law is an observation that describes a part of our universe gathered through repetitive experimentation. A few examples of this are Motion, Thermodynamic, and Universal Gravitation.  Laws tend to be less tangible but no less important to scientific canon.

Is science infallible?  No.  Can a theory or law be debunked, revised, or replaced? Yes, of course! Countless hypotheses have been investigated over the centuries.  If a better interpretation comes along, an old theory can be discarded for a new, better fitting one.  Plenty of hypotheses have been abandoned by the wayside in humanities search for knowledge.  Preformationism, or the belief that humans start out as tiny fully formed humonculi in sperm or eggs, was a popularly held belief for centuries.  It was discarded in favor of epigenetics, the current theory of reproduction, in the 20th century.  Science is constantly searching for better explanations of what we experience in our world.  The fact that such a large portion of our population ignore its findings whether willfully or unintended is one of the great tragedies of our time.  So dear Reader, if you have a question, any question, don’t be afraid to go out and discover the answer for yourself.   

Thanks For Reading,
A Southern Atheist
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'll Fly Away, Oh Glory

Today, in the United States and in primarily Christian nations around the world, we celebrate a major Christian holiday: Easter Sunday.  According to the “good” book, on this prearranged day on the calendar, we celebrate the rise of Zombie Jesus three days after he was publicly crucified on a hill with other criminals by those damn, dirty Romans.  My information claims he did this so that the human race, hateful sinners that we are, could be saved from what his father, Capitol “G” god, would do to us if we weren’t.  That’s way more interesting than some silly fertility festival that we obviously borrow quite heavily from.  Although the Catholic church doesn’t openly support the practice, willing participants kick off Easter weekend on Good Friday by reenacting the gruesome details of the crucifixion in communities all over the world.    Here in the American Southeast, Good Friday is a bank holiday and plenty of businesses take the day off. ...
2 comments
Read more

I Ain't Seen You In A Month A Sundays

In an area where religion is often considered the default state of being, what is it like to make one's way through life without it?  How do you decide who and who not to tell? How do you break the news to Family? Friends? Random Strangers on the Street?  Are the reactions more often than not positive or negative?  How does it feel to be in the minority? What are the repercussions socially? Financially?  Do you face open prejudice? I hope to answer these urgent questions and many more by imparting my own personal experiences on the matter to you. Hello and Welcome to the Seersucker Social!  A lovely location where we get together to drink sweet tea and sip mint juleps while discussin’ the latest gossip and blessin’ everybody’s heart.   Yeah, not really.  I hope you didn't have your heart set on that. In fact, I'm here because I’ve decided to give you an idea of what atheism is like day to day. In the Bible Belt. Where I was ...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Think You're Getting Too Big For Your Britches

    For those of you that don’t know, I moonlight as a 1-3-year-old teacher at a Christian daycare when not blogging.  As you can imagine, working with a large group of small children leads to some pretty interesting discoveries about the human race.  I’ve known some of my kids since they were six weeks old, and every day I have the opportunity to watch them grow and learn. That said, this line of work has many ups and downs.  Money for things like paychecks and supplies are hard to come by. Staff turnover and burnout are extremely high. I’ve been trying to think of a way to share the nitty, gritty behind the scenes view of the childcare industry with you.  I finally came to the conclusion to borrow from Christian imagery so let’s discuss the seven levels of daycare hell. Surrounded by Snotty Children Who Want to Love You     The first thing I tell people who want to put their children in childcare is to prepare because...
Post a Comment
Read more