Friday, October 01, 2004
Weird
According to Nature (a real science journal, not some Scientific Creationism rag), we're all descended from one person in East Asia who lived roughly 1500 BC.
This raises more questions than it answers for me. I though Mitochondrial Eve lived 200,000 years ago in Africa. I thought Abraham, from whom the Jews are descended, lived 2000 BC. I thought Indians crossed the land bridge 10,000 years ago.
I don't get this at all. I hope Christians don't pounce on this article as "proof" of something.
Update: Well, it turns out that secular journalists pounced instead. Note the dogmatic and detailed headline: "We are all related to man who lived in Asia in 1,415BC". Yessirree, no "probably" or "evidence suggests" or "scientists theorize". Nope. This is a Scientific Fact.
Now when Bishop Ussher told us the creation of the world could be dated to October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 in the morning, this was later derided as an example of the hubris of the human intellect brought low. But nobody derides this incredibly confident headline as hubris. Nope. We know for a fact that this theoretical man lived in 1415 BC. Not 1414 or 1416. 1415.
"Hypothesis… establishes itself by a cumulative process, or, to use proper language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact." - Mr. Enlightenment, in The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis
Somebody should write a book chronicling the theories which were presented as Scientific Fact in the press and how they remained Scientific Fact in the popular imagination long after they'd been abandoned by the scientific community.
This raises more questions than it answers for me. I though Mitochondrial Eve lived 200,000 years ago in Africa. I thought Abraham, from whom the Jews are descended, lived 2000 BC. I thought Indians crossed the land bridge 10,000 years ago.
I don't get this at all. I hope Christians don't pounce on this article as "proof" of something.
Update: Well, it turns out that secular journalists pounced instead. Note the dogmatic and detailed headline: "We are all related to man who lived in Asia in 1,415BC". Yessirree, no "probably" or "evidence suggests" or "scientists theorize". Nope. This is a Scientific Fact.
Now when Bishop Ussher told us the creation of the world could be dated to October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 in the morning, this was later derided as an example of the hubris of the human intellect brought low. But nobody derides this incredibly confident headline as hubris. Nope. We know for a fact that this theoretical man lived in 1415 BC. Not 1414 or 1416. 1415.
"Hypothesis… establishes itself by a cumulative process, or, to use proper language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact." - Mr. Enlightenment, in The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis
Somebody should write a book chronicling the theories which were presented as Scientific Fact in the press and how they remained Scientific Fact in the popular imagination long after they'd been abandoned by the scientific community.
