The Occasional Solipsist

I saw a crazy news clip tonight whilst trying to massage my pregnant wife's calves in a rather inspired attempt to lull those same calves (and the rest of her) to sleep.

Leg cramps now.

Man, nothing to make a guy feel thankful that he's a guy than to watch a woman going through pregnancy every day. End result is great for me, but holy shit what a drag for my wife. Pregnancy apparently agrees with her though; she looks awesome and because of that, she's at least smiling through most of it. I'm starting to think she actually really likes being pregnant.

Oh crap.

Does she like it too much perhaps?

I'm getting worried that the whole 'Let's just have one baby ever' agreement we had just went out the fucking window.

What was I on?

Oh yeah, the news.

So the news clip in question was about a find (didn't catch where) of a large leg bone of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Not that strange you say? They've been digging up bones of this guy for years?

Well, this particular bone from an animal who is believed to have been walking around and playing bully over 70 million years ago had to be split in half for transport, and what was found inside made me turn the news up. Apparently, there is a small amount of organic material left inside the fossil.

I shit you not.

Scientists believe it likely that they will be able to process a complete DNA profile of the animal from this sample. Now, the last thing I want to do is suggest that this dinosaur has been in the ground for only the 7000 or so years that the Creationists will claim the Earth's age to be. But, I mean how the fuck can DNA be preserved for 70 million years? Seriously. How is that even possible?

And maybe I'm ignorant of the processes mother earth is involved in whilst fossilizing a bone (and quite frankly, I am), but that just doesn't seem right to me. So if it's not, what then? Throw the whole scientific community on its ass and go back to the church telling us the earth is flat?

Think I'm over-reacting? Ok, maybe a little. But, this could really be a coup for the Thumpers of the world. They can say that if we were wrong about something as 'big' as the dinosaurs, what else have we been wrong about? I say we because I'm a rational human being and have happily (maybe a little militantly) rejected any kind of spiritual answer to our creation and subsequent omnipotent observation and occasional interference, and instead embraced a scientific stance.

Not that I'm saying that it isn't at least possible that some entity or energy or whatever had something to do with the creation of the universe, or the big bang or whatever. I can't know that for sure. No one can. What I'm saying is that if there was something before the universe existed, then perhaps that something did create the universe. But I think that any assistance we received in development ended with that big bang. I think we've been on our own ever since. I know, sounds agnostic, but believe me I am not. I am an atheist in every sense, but I'm just allowing that I could be wrong. Just like I wish that Christians could admit that they could be wrong. Just could be. And then when they admit that they could be wrong, I could tell them that once they understand why they do not believe in other religion's gods, they'll understand why I don't believe in theirs.

Ha.

Half the time I subscribe to the Minbari philosophy that because we are all made up of the same basic elements (people, animals, this planet, this star system, this cosmos) each of us may be in a very small way a tiny part of the universe that has divided in an effort to explain itself. Sounds cool anyway.

Of course, the other half of the time I think it's very likely that we're all in some kind of Matrix-ian virtual environment and maybe nothing we know is real at all. Maybe not even ourselves. Read 'Are We Living in The Matrix' by Nick Bostrom in a book called 'Taking the Red Pill' if you get the chance. He gives a very convincing argument that we are in fact living in a simulation. I just took a few minutes out of blogging to re-read it. What a mind fucker.

But maybe I'm just ranting about some old bones.

Maybe, if given the chance, Arthur Dent would just tell me that when the Magratheans were putting the skeletons in the earth's crust just to fuck with us, they decided to throw in some DNA just to up the ante.

Or, maybe I should stop watching the news when I'm high.

Either way, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this one.

Labels: atheism, philosophy