The lesson today got me thinking about paradigm shifts. I've always been interested in the way scientific discoveries effect the way we think but recently I've come to realize that it's more important to look at how the way we think effects the discoveries we make.
As a religious studies major and someone very interested in biological evolution I've given a lot of thought to how the difficulty in accepting a non-human centric world has effected our sciences. It seems that no matter how much evidence we receive we still see ourselves as somehow different and above other species. We are constantly learning that other species have attributes we once thought where exclusive to humans which just seems to make us hold on tighter to few attributes that remain. This line of thought is present in most of the language used by environmentalists; we cannot "save the earth" because we're really not on the path to destroying it, we are simply on the path to making it uninhabitable for us.
This concept can be seen on a larger scale with the so called "anthropic principle" which as I understand it, states that the universe must work in such a way that life can exist since life does exist. This seems to me flawed thinking since life is really no more special than stars, space dust or radio waves. We simply believe it's special because we are it.
This has very little to do specifically with astronomy I suppose but it got me thinking about how much time and energy we lose by holding onto ideas we are comfortable with. In fact it seems that humankind is so unwilling to let go of previously held ideas "comfortable" isn't even the right word. These are ideas we are in love with.
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