We know, we simply know , that the earth is old; billions of years old. It isn't a question. Not any more. We have known that ever since Darwin, or ever since what Darwin learned has had a chance to soak in. We know that life on earth is--roughly speaking--almost as old as earth itself. Given a billion years, or so, to settle down, life appeared. All the evidence, and it is evidence, show that life has been on earth for at least three-and-a-half billion years. As for other places in the universe, we do not yet know. Not for certain. It is quite likely, but it is a very large and old haystack we are noodling around in. Logic is waiting for evidence. We are the evidence on earth. The evidence is in the rocks. Bacteria is evidence. Trilobytes. Dinosaurs. Millions of years of human evidence. The point is this: It is worse than ignorance to deny what we know to be true. It is perverse. ...
Social commentary, political opinion, personal anecdotes, generally centered around values, how we form them, delude ourselves about them, and use them.