By Rod Taylor, Deputy Leader of the CHP
With a nod to Joe Friday, the classic characterization of a police detective from the early radio and TV show, Dragnet, I’d like to approach a few modern mysteries with the line of questioning frequently attributed to him. (Apparently the oft-quoted phrase above was a truncated version of his original “All we want are the facts, ma’am”). It would be so refreshing if some of today’s news services (?) would remember that simple bit of advice. It seems everyone is pushing an agenda and when the “facts” can be used to support that agenda, they use them. When the facts seem to contradict the agenda’s premise, they ignore them. The really frustrating use of facts is when they are thrown in , “bait-and-switch” style to support conclusions for which they provide no real evidence.
There are many examples of this but I refer directly to the unproven theories (bandied about as facts) of the origins of life, the development of species and the periods of time during which certain deduced events are hypothetically surmised to have occurred. In a world where supposed journalistic high-achievers such as writers for the New York Times and other widely-read papers and magazines cannot seem to agree on the origin of an individual human life, (ignoring all the medical and scientific discoveries and high-tech imaging now available) these writers and pontificators seem bound by an inner compulsion they cannot disobey to declare unequivocally that they now know—beyond a reasonable doubt—how and when a dinosaur, which no living human has ever seen, nurtured its young.
I remember as a boy being fascinated by the depictions and deductions of scientist-writers in the prestigious National Geographic. The unearthing of a few stone artifacts and bits of bone were the backdrop for detailed discussions of stone-age life. Since no photographs were available of early villages and raids or of mastodon hunts and sabre-toothed tiger depredations, these were recreated by “artist’s rendition” for the pages of NG and mingled with other stories and real photos of real people and animals living today. The quality of the photos from around the world and the credentials of the contributors lent a credibility to the theories that invited a respectful confidence in the veracity of the conclusions.
In those early days, though, the articles often included the words “may have”, “might have”, “possibly”, “some scientists believe” and other caveats that at least hinted to the reader that the latest discoveries would be supplanted by others and the latest theories were still—at best—theories. Today’s pseudo-journalist feel no such compunction. After all, Believing is Seeing! Why introduce doubt when readers, young and old alike can be persuaded to conclude that theories are proven facts and prehistoric dates of millions of years can be verified simply by reading it in a journal of record.
Just this week, January 23, 2012 to be exact (as determined by the latest radioactive dating methods) CBC News, in its online version, published details of a recent fossil find and—in a stunning show of confidence for the conclusions of the scientists who made the discovery, spouted their theories as if proven in a court of law.
“A Canadian-led team of international researchers has unearthed the 190-million-year-old nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus — predating previously known nesting grounds by 100 million years — at an excavation site in South Africa.” This was the bold pronouncement of the CBC post. No reference to “some scientists say” or “according to some paleontologists”; the 190-million year date fixed for these particular eggs is stated as if it was recorded by a scribe whose job it was to preserve these “facts” for the benefit of 21st Century mankind. Every one knows (at least they used to know) that there are differences of opinion about the accuracy of various fossil-dating techniques. To make a categorical statement about an event presumed to have taken place 190 million years ago is to pretend that all scientists agree. That is to substitute theory for fact. It is unacceptable in a court of law and it is unacceptable in the pages of a supposed non-biased publication.
Now I want to give due credit to the amazing work of these bone-diggers. After seeing the photographic evidence I am absolutely convinced that they have made an interesting and an important find. Those are facts and I was happy to learn a little bit more about the amazing world in which we live and some of the amazing creatures that once walked upon it. But please! Every thinking reader knows that the intent of declaring unknowable and exceedingly large time frames to be facts is to try to make our universe more compatible to Darwin’s theories and our populace more willing to place its trust in unthinking evolution and random chance. To mix facts and fancy in a “scientific” story is to use propaganda tactics and to insult the intelligence of readers. It also insults the intelligence of the Intelligent Designer, the only One who knows when the mysterious Massospondylus actually laid its eggs.
People have strong feelings about the origins of the universe, the origins of life and the origins of man. The effort to induce people to subscribe to one’s pet theory by padding a few discoveries with a lot of speculation and calling it “science” is, at best , misguided and, at worst, devious. CBC, National Geographic, the New York Times, the Knowledge Network, etc. should know better than that. “All we want is the facts”.