A Life of Snippets

I often wonder about wondering. Little snippets of information that challenge the idea, take from me the idea, of our world being explainable to the certainty that it cannot be. The best conclusion I have come to distrust anyone or anything that is provided to me as definitive, conclusive or unassailable.

The earth to our current knowledge is one of a kind in our Universe; life may exist in ways we do not readily understand in other parts of our Universe, but life like we know it? It was once stated as follows: Molecules capable of self-reproduction developed from a chance combination of compounds. Based on mathematical calculations, this is highly unlikely. Some organic compounds, such as sugars and amino acids, are fairly easy to create in laboratory conditions. But the question is, how easily could these compounds reproduce themselves? Even one RNA molecule would need to have hundreds of amino acids. The possibility of this occurring is extremely tiny. It is the equivalent of a hurricane passing through a collection of spare parts and creating a Boeing 767. Ok, is this proof of God’s hand? It is sometimes referred to in statistics as the Black Swan Problem first put forward by the Scottish Philosopher David Hume. The idea is basically put that if one has only ever seen white swans it cannot be concluded that black swans do not exist. The only way to prove that there are only white swans is to have seen all swans and how does one know when that is the case?

One cannot know the unknowable. We put faith in science that we disallow in religion because it provides us comfort and a sense of control. Did not God create us in his own image? In doing so did he not mean for us to use the intellect created to challenge, discover and understand? Then we get back to one of those pesky snippets, water is the only liquid that expands when it freezes due to the reorganization of its molecules to crystalline form as it reaches the freezing point. If water did not expand upon freezing it would be denser, sink to the bottom of oceans or lakes, which would freeze from the bottom up and make life on earth impossible as we know it. So the one thing, unique and most abundant and so necessary to life behaves differently than any other liquid. We are now exiting our hurricane made 767 with everyone in alphabetical order, possible yes, probable well…….

As we advance in our understanding of science and medicine we further understand the complex nature or the world we live in. We will also continue to pick the lowest hanging fruit as we work our way around the tree of knowledge and avoid those things that stymie us, for above all else we are human. We will skip around unable to cure the common cold but making an artificial heart or avoiding the question of why man evolved past existence and subsistence in contravention to every other organism we understand but tell you that early man liked bark and berries for breakfast.


So you can choose to see God in science or science as God but do so with little arrogance. I can’t prove to you the existence of the metaphorical black swan but neither can it be proven that the black swan does not exist. So snippets be damned, I will continue to collect them with the knowledge that the more of them that I put in my pocket the bigger my pocket will become.