Dear editor:
Consider this: take a sheet of paper the size of a football field which symbolizes the cosmos. Now take a pin and poke a pin prick somewhere on this sheet of paper. This pin prick represents Earth. Now go up in the stands around this football field-sized paper and try to locate that pin prick. Is it evident that this pin prick is not the purpose or center of the universe?
When we are born, we have to learn and adapt to what we are given. We need to learn to walk and talk. We need to learn to think. We inherit the world that the brightest and best have worked to make sense of and understand.
With the knowledge we have acquired, we have been able to put people on the moon. The idea of natural selection has allowed us to move forward in our understanding of how life has moved forward. DNA has given us the underlying structure of all life on earth.
Moving back to the stands looking down on that piece of paper that represents the cosmos: on how much of that piece of paper are there pin pricks which are able to sustain life? As far as we know, we are the only one that exists, although it seems highly likely that there are others out there.
We have learned that floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters are not the consequences of a god who is upset with people and their not following his wishes. Natural disasters are just that. Natural. We have accumulated existential reasons which explain these occurrences.
The insight Carl Sagan has given us, shows us that mankind is a very late development in the 13.8 billion-year process that we have been able to fathom about our cosmos. In his cosmic calendar, all of recorded history takes place in the last 10 seconds of its existence. Humans should be humbled by this understanding. Kids are learning about this cosmic calendar and about how accumulated knowledge represents our best hopes in continuing our movement forward.
The biggest threat to the world is man's ignorance.
Bill Wiedmann
Hot Springs
Editorial on 09/20/2017