Cold fusion?

GREENSBORO, NC -- Let me just say up front, I know it sounds far out. But let us also acknowledge that the history of human kind is of one far out discovery after another, so we shouldn't be surprised by something mind blowing coming along that challenges our understanding of the world. It happens. Just imagine how impossible these discoveries must have seen to their contemporaries:

• That the earth is not the center of the universe.
• That unseen microbes cause disease.
• That a motor can be powered by electric current.
• That matter is made of unseen particles.
• That unseen signals can be transmitted over vast distances through the air.
• That atoms can be split to release huge amounts of energy.

All of these surely seemed crazy or at least hard to believe at the time. Put yourself in the time of those discoveries and it's not hard to imagine a reaction of "Impossible!"

So it will be for us and the next mind-blowing discovery. Which isn't to say that just because something seems crazy or hard to believe it just might be legitimate. Logic doesn't get turned on its head. Things that seem crazy and hard to believe mostly end up being fantasies and hoaxes at their worst or otherwise explainable with current knowledge upon closer inspection. On the other hand, our conventional wisdom is bound to be challenged, really challenged, uncomfortably challenged, sooner or later: Such will be keeping with our story.

So is this seemingly independent verification of what appears to be successful cold fusion—a promise of an energy source beyond anything we have ever known—crazy because it's crazy or crazy because it's a mind-blowing discovery?

It's called human progress; you'd think a doctor would appreciate it

In an absurd, although now predictable, justification for his prejudices against gay and lesbian people, Dr. Joe Guarino once again makes an appeal to tradition over rational thought. He tires to argue that Jews should support the bigotry of North Carolina's Amendment 1 because of their traditions. His mind blowing observations:

How could millenia of Jewish ancestors have been so terribly wrong; and why are you so right? How did they misunderstand your faith and religious tradition for thousands of years in such an awful manner...?

To make the same mistake for thousands of years would have been a stunning level of failure.

Human history is replete with examples of people making the same mistake for thousands of years. Then someone has a new thought and things change. It's called human progress and you'd think a doctor, of all people, would appreciate it.

Religions change
The history of Judeo-Christian religions is one of change starting with the Christian borrowing from the Judeo. Since then, there have been awakenings, realignments, reformations and religious people can now get divorced, they can eat shrimp and they don't have to stone their daughters for having unmarried sexual relations. Indeed, Guarino's own Baptist religion evolved from older Christian religions whom the Baptists thought were "getting it wrong." People thought about things, rejected old ways and progress was made.

Science changes
We no longer rub mercury on our wounds, drain blood to balance our humors, or drill holes in our skulls for headache relief. People thought about things, rejected old ways and progress was made.

Hopefully Dr. Guarino does not practice medicine with the same blind devotion to tradition as he would have us adhere to in other matters.

Law changes
In the comparatively short time since our country's founding, our understanding of its legal tenets has progressed. Black people are no longer property, women can vote and the government cannot tell you not to wear a condom unless you are married. People thought about things, rejected old ways and progress was made.

Would Dr. Guarino prefer that we go back to the literal and initial understanding of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness too; that we abandon the progress we've made in favor of a strict interpretation of the unamended U.S. Constitution?

Whether you believe it to be the consequence of God, space aliens or the simple evolution of a fortuitous amalgam of amino acids, we humans have brains for Pete's sake. It is incumbent upon us to use them and not give precedence to ancient notions just because. That's ludicrous. We think new things and progress ensues. That's humanity.

Dr. Guarino would have us shut down our minds and defer to the superstitions and prejudices of the less informed generations of thousands of years ago. Can you imagine a world where that was the way? Heck, we would have never even made it to the dark ages. We'd all the the Taliban.

No thanks. I'll think instead.