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Thought for the Day: Science is Just Fine; Please Be an Educated Consumer of Information

Here is a real pet peeve of mine.  When people ask: Was is suppose to rain today?  My usual answer is along the lines of, "Given that it is raining, I am going to go with -- yes."  Their question is really "did my weather app predict this rain?"  If the answer is no, it is a question on the app, *not* on the rain.  (Yes, I am fully cognizant that this is the reason I don't have many friends.  Your point?)

 What prompted this little mini-rant was a link to an article sent to me the other day.
Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
People with a religious bent are wont to complain about how science is wrong about Creation and evolution.  I respectfully -- albeit vehemently -- disagree; see here for a more correct approach.  Or here for an explanation that evolution is bad science... it's relationship to religion is therefore irrelevant.

Bad journalism doesn't help my crusade.  A recent online article had this eye catching title: "Universe Should Not Actually Exist: Big Bang Produced Equal Amounts Of Matter And Antimatter".  This article is sensationalist and truly bad science... I wish I were shocked.  I won't dignify this trash with a link (but you know how to Google as well as I do).  But here's a rule: any publication -- I can't think of a singe exception, except maybe the Hogwarts newspaper -- that has the word "Times" or "Tribune" in its name is not a good source of accurate information on science.  It is of some level of entertainment value.

The point here, analogously to the rain conversation recorded above, is:  Yes, all current scientific models of how the universe came into being predict that matter and antimatter should exist in equal measure.  We observe something different than that.  Which means either the models are wrong or the observations are incomplete.  It does not mean that the universe should not exist.

I hate this kind of article because it misrepresents science.  Most high school and many university teachers/professors are also guilty of repeating their own ignorant and nonsense ideas in the name of science.  An article Science (yes; that's a good one) decried the way interesting experiments -- such as the famous black/white moth experiment that demonstrates natural selection -- are unfortunately used by high school and many university teachers/professors as proof of evolution.  There are many experiments to demonstrate natural selection; there are none that demonstrate evolution.  (Before you react: they certainly do demonstrate the possibility of evolution; that is worlds away from proving evolution.)  The article concluded: We owe our students better than that.

I agree.

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