Much like Marco Rubio, I’m not a scientist. Unlike Marco Rubio, though, I didn’t sit on the House Spaceport & Technology Committee from 2005-2009. Nor have I ever sat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (nor the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, and the Subcommittee on Science and Space). I do, however, know (roughly) how old the Earth is. I not only know, but I’m willing to say so publicly: it’s about 4.5 billion years old.
Since I’m not a scientist, I figured I should look that up (yet another distinction between Marco and I is that if I don’t know or am unsure of something, I’ll look it up.), just to be sure (because the older I get, the more I find that a lot of the things I think I know with absolute certainty turn out to actually be something I dreamed up or hallucinated or something).
For instance, I remember – with absolute clarity – playing in my sand box in my back yard one sunny summer afternoon when I was about 4 years old, looking up at the sky, and seeing the Gemini 4 space capsule with Ed White floating around tethered to it. I mean, I can see it – the blue sky, the capsule, him in his space suit….
Of course, there’s no way I could actually have seen that (nor could Marco Rubio have, because he wasn’t born yet). Even if it was visible to the naked eye (on a sunny day, no less), it wouldn’t be more than a dot traveling across the southern sky.
But I remember it anyway (and in looking it up, his space walk started at 3:45 PM EDT and he was over the Gulf of Mexico at about 4:00, so I could have seen him, except in my memory he’s more or less directly above me, and my view to the south would have been blocked by our maple tree, so I guess not).
Anyhow, back to the Earth. Turns out, the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. So I rounded down a bit. Close enough. And, far from being “one of the great mysteries” of the universe, the age of the earth seems to be pretty well established (like gravity, climate change, and evolution).
Now, I don’t so much care whether Marco knows how old the Earth is (I’m sure lots of people don’t know), but I think maybe he should be taken off any committee with “Science” in its name, and maybe be put on the “Jesus Rode on a Dinosaur” Committee instead.
He’ll have more fun, and we’ll all be better off.
It’s interesting that only the bible is a source of scientific theory. Surely other religions have ideas as do comic books and science fiction. Actually there is some science fiction that makes a lot more sense than the bible on issues such as evolution and the age of this planet. I say teach them all and then we can gnash our teach and blame those damned teachers when our kids fail tests of science literacy.