Scientific understanding

There has been news this week in Britain about whether political parties with extreme views should be given a platform in the popular media. This is a very difficult issue and this is not the place to explore it fully. It can be argued that as a democratic nation, and supporters of free speech, suppression may go against these values; but many people feel justifiably concerned. Whatever happens, I hope that people will see through parties who champion a supposedly better future for Britain to the sinister values underneath. However, this has inspired me to think how scientific education can really benefit mankind; to undermine some views which I feel are misplaced and dangerous. Evolutionary theory, geological history and cosmology has helped us piece together the wonderful past of our solar system, the Earth itself and that of a peculiar species of beings who now dominate the surface. I really believe that a thorough scientific understanding of the world, and our place in it, will benefit the future of our children. To that end I wrote the small piece that follows.

Every animal on this planet shares a common ancestor; every human shares the same ancestor - we are all related to each other. The Earth itself is over 4.5 billion years (think about it - 4.5 BILLION years) it has a history and the continents as we now see them are not as they have always been. The maps we see of our planet are just snapshots taken from a dynamic and ever-changing landscape. The Earth doesn't belong to us - it is shared by all organisms who live upon it; we should all act as stewards of our wonderful planet. Countries do not belong to anybody in that sense; they have been shaped by geological processes and changing seas and some time in the future each country boundary will change.

Every human being belongs to only one species amongst millions which live on the only habitable planet in our solar system. Armed with all this knowledge the national boundaries, identifiable races and cultural differences should all fade in to the background. This is the only true view of our world and if we acknowledge it then it can render extremism, racism and violent uprisings a thing of the past. There should be no conflict - we are all derived from the same ancestor and we all share the same beautiful planet. Let's make sure we preserve some element of this remarkable existence for our descendants, and stop making huge issues of matters which are insignificant when viewed against the grand view of life over its impressive history.

As always, thanks for reading. Dominic