What We Still Don't Know

It's been said that the path to wisdom is to admit you don't know everything.

That's hard to do… especially if you're a scientist and it's your job to answer the mysteries of life.

But the truth is there's a lot of stuff we just don't know. We don't know why the climate changes. We don't know why the dinosaurs died or how stars work. We just don't. We have theories; and some of those theories will turn out to be true. But a lot of them won't. It is amusing to see scientists and other folks who are supposed to have answers, (refuse to) admit that they don't know. For example:

• An AP story this week claimed that Obama had little time left to curb global warming. It turns out that's not the case, rather it's hysterical propaganda. More here.
• The sun's effects on the Earth's atmosphere are still mysterious and relatively unknown. But from the same source, check out the close-minded dogmatism that the sun cannot possibly cause global warming.
• For thirty years, we've been told that an asteroid, six-miles across, hit the Yucatan peninsula and killed the dinosaurs. Maybe not. Perhaps it was volcanoes. We don't know.