Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for October 07, 2013
Transcript:
I know a place where the sun never shines. It's at the bottom of the ocean. A crack in the crust there exudes chemicals and heats the water to boiling point. This would kill a human instantly. But there are creatures there, bacteria, that thrive. They eat the sulfer from the vent, and excrete sulfuric acid. I know a place where the temperature is fifteen million degrees, and the pressure would crush you to a microscopic dot. That place is the core of the sun. I know a place where the magnetic fields would rip you apart, atom by atom. The surface of a neutron star, a magnetar. I know a place where life began, billions of years ago. That place is here, the earth. I know these places because I'm a scientist. Science is a way of finding things out. It's a way of testing what's real. It's what Richard Feyman called: A way of not foolishing ourselves. No psychic, despite their chaims, has ever helped the police solve a crime. But forensic scientists have, all the time. It wasn't someone who practices homeopathy who found a cure for smallpox, or polio. Scientists did medical scientists. No creationist ever cracked the genetic code. Chemists did. Molecular biologists did. They used physics. They used math. They used chemistry, biology, astronomy, engineering. They used science. You can experience the thrill of discovery, the incredible, visceral feeling of doing something no one has ever done before, seen things no one has seen before. Know something no one else has ever known. No crystal balls, no tarot cards, no horoscopes. Just you, your brain, and your ability to think. Welcome to science. You're gonna like it here. -Phil Plait.
Ida No about 11 years ago
Great sentiments. One little comment – Sears-level tube telescopes are shaky, which is why few people use them after a few days, because of the headaches, or the inability to stay steady on one spot in the sky for a few seconds. If you really want to introduce a child to astronomy, spend the extra money to get a good scope from a company like Celestron. And be prepared to stay outside with your child to share the experience, because otherwise it’s going to feel like you’re using it as an excuse to get them out of the house so you can watch more TV.
billcor about 11 years ago
15 million degrees? good thing you’re a scientist.
gorbag about 11 years ago
@alananda: don’t forget veterinarians.
Dave Thompson Premium Member about 11 years ago
Great job, Gavin!
aerilim about 11 years ago
The cure for the big pandemics will never be reveal as long as the pharmaceuticals have the control of the scientists. It is more profitable to relieve a pain than to cure it….
j2p2 about 11 years ago
Fantastic piece!! And a truly wonderful quote!
jay_dallas about 11 years ago
A wonderful comic – It should be shown at school board meetings all over America.
Ironhold about 11 years ago
Similarly, the statement presumes that science and the supernatural cannot coexist. []In reality, many legitimate scientists the world over are openly religious; they have learned how to be professional, and so do not let religion and science intrude into each other. (For example, in addition to being a geologist and geology professor, James Talmage was also a high-level clergyman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Talmage famously took part in a three-way debate during the 1930s concerning whether or not evolution should be considered a part of the church’s theology; in contrast, a lot of other denominations at this time were still considering the concept of evolution to be Satanic.)[]Furthermore, the “Kirk Cameron” model of creationism isn’t the only concept of creation out there. Rather, you also have various groups of Old-Earth Creationists who argue that God set the creation process in motion. These views range from the “Watchmaker” hypothesis (God assembled the mechanism and set it in motion) to a hypothesis which holds that God has periodically nudged and fudged things as needed to get certain results.
dirgis3 about 11 years ago
My son is a vet, and he has to undersatnd the client and the patient. Sometimes the client holds the clue to what’s wrong with the patient.
Vet Premium Member about 11 years ago
It was our drive to understand the order in the universe that separated us from the rest of the animals that inhabit this planet.We were the only ones to look about our world and askourselves “Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why”.We earned the responsibility to care for it all.
1MadHat Premium Member about 11 years ago
All of the scientists I know (and know of) would do science for free if they didn’t have commitments to their families.
wstar about 11 years ago
Homeopathy is a science, and it works. It doesn’t belong with being a psychic or a creationist.
vldazzle about 11 years ago
All of the things mentioned have their place (and their relative importance depending on where you are in life). Lovely cartoon, however, just to get people thinking and talking.
ColonelClaus about 11 years ago
Just a bit of FYI… Newton was first and foremost a theologian. Check his biography.I believe the same was rue for CopernicusGalileo was well versed in Theology, as was Descartes.
Ironhold about 11 years ago
Either way, though, I’m getting tired of seeing people on both sides of the issue stereotype each other. They do a big disservice to their own respective causes when this happens.
Banjo Evans about 11 years ago
so lovely
gary1693 about 11 years ago
We are still “evolutionizing” aren’t we? Gary
lbatik about 11 years ago
So what you do when you don’t understand something is call names. Fab’lous.
MissionLDB about 11 years ago
I am impressed Mr. Plait, and many of the rest of you judging by your comments, are aware of the faith held by all those working on the human genome project, Newton, Einstein or any other scientist.
MissionLDB about 11 years ago
Apologies for the improper verb usage in my comment. Noticed this after posting. I will attempt to be more thorough in my proof-reading
MissionLDB about 11 years ago
Love the way Creationism/ID is dismissed as unscientific out of hand. Evolution and the "old earth " theology surrounding it have enough holes in then to drive a Peterbilt through…with much room to spare. Scientific inquiry should be free to seek out and understand but it must also be free from all preconceptions, including those of the evolutionists. If one enters the search determined to find conclusions supporting his hypothesis the results will be skewed no matter what.
An example being the inability of many to consider a cataclysmic flood on a planet mostly covered with water but insisting on one on a planet covered in sand and rock.
gsi08284 about 11 years ago
@MissionLDB – creationism and ID are NOT scientific because, at least in the versions I’ve seen, they don’t make predictions that can be tested. Instead, most ID people point to the Bible and say “well, it says so, so I’m going with that.” If you have to take it on faith that something happened, then it isn’t science.
Regarding the “holes” to which you refer, there’s a difference between a theory not being complete and it being wrong. The “holes” are just places where we don’t yet have all of the information we need to fill in those gaps. But, that is part of science: searching for the answers to those lingering questions. Evolution might not be complete, but no one has yet to prove it false. If you can, feel free to start writing your Nobel Prize speech.
As for your flood comment, I’m not sure what you’re getting at… there are geologists that are looking for indications of massive floods during human history and trying to determine when, where, and why they happened. And when they present their results, other scientists can go out and test the original work and see if it holds up. If not, back to the drawing board where they collect more data and test new ideas. That’s called science.
What we think we know changes and evolves as we explore the world around us. That’s the beauty of science: there is always something new to learn.
delcecchi about 11 years ago
too bad. There is no cure for smallpox, nor polio. There are vaccines to prevent these but no cure if you get it. A scientist would know that.
IDLibrarian about 11 years ago
Wow! all these years of being a Creationist, and I never realized that we don’t believe in dinosaurs! Nor did I realize that we’re on the rational lever of psychics. Here I thought we had a perfectly legitimate, if unpopular view, on a scientific theory which is no more provable than anything else in science. I’m so glad this strip opened my eyes!
Molyhat about 11 years ago
I would be impressed with religion if one of the holy books, that wrote down God’s pronouncements, had stated that we should tremble at his creation of this one universe because he made hundreds of billions of galaxies made up of billions of solar systems that we would eventually find using polished glass and the scientific method.
tornadomaster almost 10 years ago
So many lies and yet it’s full also of truth. The researcher shouldn’t have dismissed the Spiritual side so easily. I am also a scientist of the highest grade (Doctor of Research in Geochemistry) but more important a friend of Jesus!