In season 6, episode 4 of The Sopranos, Tony's in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound and the resulting surgery. He's been reading a kid's book on dinosaurs, the only reading material around, when he turns to his nephew Christopher, and says, "Get this. It says here if the history of the planet was represented by the empire state building, the time that human beings have been on earth would only be a postage stamp at the very top. You realize how insignificant that makes us."
Christopher replies matter of factly, "I don't feel that way" gets up and walks away.
What a humorous lesson on how to elegantly deal with the tendency of some scientists and scholars to overinterpret the facts. Beautiful.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Sopranos: Science & the Meaning of Life
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It is always interesting to note how easy people reject the Word, yet easily beleive (without qualification) the words of some scientists. As a scientist myself, I realise that whatever is accepted now, is likely to be overturned in 20 years from now. As per Chesterton - I don't have the original quote handy - the rejection of Faith leads to superstition etc. Actually in Afrikaans it is quite nice: Faith - 'geloof', supersition - 'bygeloof' - literally translated 'side-faith'.
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