Okay, that title may be an exaggeration. But consider the following:

Once upon a time I learned the names of the planets. All nine of them. But then Pluto was downgraded from planet to dwarf-planet status. I’d be okay with that decision if it meant Pluto was now populated with Gimli, Nikabrik, and other dwarfs of literary fame. But it doesn’t. It just means Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.

I miss Pluto. After all, I learned my planets with the mnemonic “My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.” But now that Pluto’s not a planet, the sentence is left hanging: she “served us nine.” But nine what? Nine what?!?!? I have to know!

When I grew up, I was taught that there was a dinosaur called “triceratops.” But now, if some scientists get their way, triceratops may join brontosaurus on the list of dinosaurs that never were. It was, they say, just a baby other dinosaur – an immature “torosaurus.” I disagree. Here’s why: the name “torosaurus” – and pay attention here as this point is rather technical – is just not as cool as the name “triceratops.”

Even if the existence of triceratops is vindicated in the end (which, it appears, will be the case), chances are it didn’t look quite the way I learned anyhow. Try imagining it with feathers. Now do the same with your other favourite dinosaurs (like T-Rex). Yes, the feathered look is apparently more accurate than the old lizard skin I grew up seeing in textbooks, books, and movies. Instead of “thunder lizards,” think more along the lines of Big Bird.

But even while my school-age science education continues to be dismantled, at least one thing I learned as a kid seems to be true – though, admittedly, I learned it from a Star Trek movie and not science class. NASA’s Voyager program really does leave our Solar System to continue its merry way into interstellar space; Voyager 1 is expected to pass through the heliosphere any day (or year) now. Still, no word yet on whether it will be intercepted by aliens, achieve consciousness, and come back our way in a V’Ger-seeking-the-Creator story line with catastrophic results for earth.

But if it does, I promise to write about it. I might not write about science on this blog all that much (since I’m only an amateur science-geek). But science fiction meeting theology? That’s definitely my domain.

 

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