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Apr. 11, 2007 I’m addicted to The History Channel. I’m also addicted to The Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel. Due to the vagaries of my cable system, I pay about four times the basic cable rate for the privilege of having these three available and for that money I expect to learn something, dammit! I thought I had, but yesterday Space.com ran a story saying that a planet outside our solar system has water. More, one astronomer is quoted as saying there is good reason to believe many other extrasolar planets contain water vapor. So what makes this news silly? Just this: my recent education, by way of cable TV, tells me that many scientists now believe that, in the beginning, Earth had no water. After the original fires of creation died down, water was delivered here in the form of comets. Yep, comets. Dirty snowballs that wheel around in space – until they found Earth and then – ZAP! But if all these extrasolar planets have water, where did they get it? More comets? Seems like a tall order and one heck of a coincidence. And what about those scientists who insist Earth had no local water, that it had to be imported from outer space? Will they now change their minds or will they tell us that billions and billions of comets are watering billions and billions of planets? While we’re on the subject, just where in hell did those pesky comets come from? Must have been water there, right? Can’t make a dirty snowball without dirty water. Of course, science never tells us it was wrong. Instead, they borrow a ploy from magicians and make one theory disappear while another takes its place. Houdini called this “Metamorphosis”. Case in point: Where’s the soup? When I attended school many years ago we were taught life evolved out of a Primordial Soup. This concoction contained a whole bunch of minerals and other elements suspended in a broth consisting of water and other liquids. Then something happened – usually portrayed as a horrendous lightning strike – and the soup came alive, turning that concoction into one-celled organisms that evolved until they became – us. Nice enough theory and, if you don’t believe in the Biblical Creation, it’ll do. Except that it no longer does do – anything. Maybe because it depended in part on water. Somewhere along the way science metamorphasized us, pulling the Primordial Soup theory (perhaps because it didn’t hold water – no pun intended) and substituting the current belief (I think it’s called Panspermia): that we are all aliens because life did not originate on Earth. Instead, it was carried here by – you guessed it – COMETS! Forty years ago, who knew comets would prove to be so useful? Forty years ago, we only knew that Halley’s Comet appeared once in a while and whenever it was mentioned we’d nod and go back to eating our Cheerios and reading our comic books. But now, comets explain everything. Listen: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but a passing comet caused one of his bullets to go crazy and inflict half a dozen wounds instead of the expected two. The Roswell UFO was really a small, saucer-shaped comet and the debris was simply junk the comet picked up while traveling through space. Global warming? No problem. Just wait for the next dirty snowball to hit us and cool things off. All right, History Channel. The ball is in your court. Explain away the water on all those extrasolar planets and I’ll remain a loyal viewer. Otherwise, I can rot my mind faster and more completely by watching MTV and VH1. ------------ About the author: Erv Bobo is a freelance writer with delusions of being a humorist He is the author of THE CHEYENNE BRAND, currently available at Lulu.com. Email: Dasher1945@aol.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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