By BAD ASTRONOMY - PHIL PLAIT
Added: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:00:00 UTC

Reposted from:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/06/25/god-hates-mars/

God hates Mars

I sometimes wonder just how messed up some people's logic can be.

The answer, in many cases, is none. None more messed up.

I present to you one Rob Hood, commentator on The Conservative Voice. He has written a remarkably logic-free screed saying that the Mars Phoenix Lander is a waste of taxpayer's money. Why?

Because searching for conditions supporting life on Mars is silly. We already know where life came from. Can you guess? Bueller? Bueller?

Mars is a desert planet and perhaps there is ice and maybe even water there. So what? Who cares? It's water! That doesn't mean a thing. Life originated on Earth when God spoke it into existence and there is no need in wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money searching for an answer that is based upon faulty evolutionary ideas.

Ignoring the fact that we've known about water ice on Mars for decades, and that Phoenix didn't cost billions, and that lots of people care about exploring the real universe around us, and that evolution is a fact, there is still a pretty big hole in his logic.

Applying his (heh) reasoning, I guess there's no reason for, say, research into malaria. If God created it, why cure it? It's part of God's plan. Same goes with cancer, smallpox, lupus, Down's syndrome, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, glaucoma, pertussis, and oh, say, one million other ailments. After all, as he points out in the case of astrobiology, all our medical research — all of it — is based on "faulty evolutionary ideas".

Not to mention trying to predict earthquakes, or tornadoes, or floods, or hurricanes, or meteor impacts, or solar flares, or heat waves, or ice storms, and thus potentially saving millions of lives. After all, this science is based on the same principles that show that the Earth is older than 6000 years, and that clearly can't be correct, right?

What's funny is that he actually contradicts himself here in his own essay:

The same billions of dollars that goes into these hopeless projects to look for water on Mars or other places could be better spent. We people of Earth need new bridges, new highways, new dams. We could use the money to feed people, fight disease, rebuild our infrastructure, research cancer (ethically, of course), and to help those who have little or no clothing, shelter, food, etc.

Ignoring this same tired false dichotomy trotted out by everyone who doesn't understand anything about space exploration, I find it very funny that he uses God to deny funding to us understanding the Universe, but then invokes God to fund what is essentially the very same thing.

Sorry, dude. You don't get to pick and choose what aspects of science you're willing to believe in and what you're not. Reality is a package deal. If we can use science to develop the engineering to build dams, to develop the medical knowledge to cure cancer, and to develop the agricultural methods necessary to feed the hungry, then we also have to acknowledge that science works.

It does. So you may wail and rant about reality-based scientists exploring Mars all you want, but you'll be wrong. And while Phoenix buries its scoop into the Martian sand, you keep right on burying your own head in the sand here on Earth. I myself, and millions of others, prefer to look upward and outward.

Tip o' the Phoenix TEGA to BABloggee dehbeaver0.

TAGGED: -, EVOLUTION, RELIGION

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