elainegrey

Once upon a time i was blissfully unaware of the intelligent design movement and thought that those who believed in a literal Biblical creation story simply were quaint little old men and women, like the extremely elderly emeritus physics faculty at my undergraduate institution who didn't believe in the concept of how elements were made in successive generations of stars, becoming heavier and heavier. Clearly, mortality would slowly reduce such beliefs.

It was in such blissful ignorance that i noted on my calendar, that today was once considered the anniversary of the Creation. "According to Bishop James Ussher (1581-1656), God created the universe on October 23, 4004 BC. That would make the universe 6000 years old in 1997 AD. James Ussher was an Irish Archbishop whose chronology of Biblical history was widely accepted throughout Christianity."

I'm note that the source recognized there was no year zero in it's calculation of the age, but missed the fact that, as wikipedia notes, the date was according to the "according to the proleptic Julian calendar."

For me though, i noted it because, while the event occurred at an incalculable moment* and thus there was no reason to bother with translating between Julian & Gregorian calendars, it was still nice to have a reminder to reflect on creation, cosmology.

I don't open my "observation" notes that often, though, and i realize that my awareness of folks attacking the practice of science with sophisticated rhetoric has completely changed my sense of whimsy at reading the note.



* what does time mean without space; the precision of the measurement of the cosmic infrared background gets better with our new sensors, but really; even then there are detractors from the big bang theory who do so from within the practice of astrophysics and cosmology, although that might be changed by mortality)