The Washington Post, in an article yesterday titled "Five Big Questions Still Stump Science," gets Life in the Boomer Lane's undivided attention from the get-go, by asking: "Are we nearing the end of science?" LBL has been patiently waiting for the demise of science ever since she realized that science was something that was made up of countless little weenie things that nobody could see because they were so small and yet they controlled vast areas of our lives. Sort of like the French felt about Napoleon. This is a really scary thought (science, not Napoleon) to LBL because she wonders why our lives should be controlled by things that are basically invisible. There is something dramatically wrong with that.
The Post article goes on to dash LBLs hopes by admitting that there are LOTS of things that science doesn't know. And science refuses to admit defeat and just go home and watch TV and be quiet. Instead, science gets all riled up about the stuff it doesn't know and creates ever more research projects and case studies. The result is that we all have to use three remotes to turn on the TV and we are all eating artificial food.
Science is also always creating scientists. These are people who stay up all night worrying about things that have no meaning for ordinary people. Then they go to their labs the next day and make celebrity images grown from armpit bacteria.
The Post article then adds insult to injury by stating, "The simplest questions are the hardest." LBL doesn't know about you, but she personally feels that simple questions should have simple answers. Otherwise they aren't simple questions. And scientific questions should all be answered with either "Yes" or "No."
But, as LBL is at her core, here to add enlightenment to the world, she will now tackle the five questions that science has been asking ever since the first man looked up into the vast heavens and asked, "Do you think the game will be rained out?"
1. Why does the universe exist?
This is an easy one. It doesn't. The universe is a figment of our imagination. It is made up of black holes and black gravity (the stuff in the universe, not the dirtmusic band) mixed up with other anti-matter. Even the figment probably doesn't exist.
2. What is matter made of?
Matter is made up of leptons, quarks, atoms, molecules, and compounds. The basic components of matter, leptons and quarks, can interact in four basic ways: gravity, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. Nobody knows what leptons and quarks are, although they sound very suspicious. Leptons sound like lepers and quarks sound like quacks (in this case, fake doctors, not duck sounds). Interacting with either lepers or quacks could prove fatal.
3. How did life originate?
The following are the three most credible answers, with resources, so that readers can do their own research:
Interplanetary dust particles that delivered water and organics to earth (Google)
Aliens (Ancient Aliens series, The History Channel)
Electrical energy was bouncing all over the place and in its frenzy, created life (Frankenstein, 1931)
4. How does consciousness emerge from the brain?
Most of the time, it doesn't. It is too busy texting and taking selfies.
5. Is there intelligent life on other worlds?
If one subscribes to the theory of physics that matter is neither created nor destroyed, then there would have to be intelligent life on other worlds to make up for the relentless loss of intelligent life on our own.
Now that we have covered the major questions, LBL will leave you to discuss amongst yourselves one of the "smaller questions" posed by the article, namely "What, exactly, caused the Permian mass extinction some 250 years ago (i.e.: Siberian volcanism)?" LBL has thought about this a lot over the last few years, specifically why the Permians left, where they went and if they should have changed their name to the Impermians.
If you come to any conclusions, don't send them to LBL. She will be deep in thought, considering whether to really write that post about the woman whose boobs light up.