Stuff Happens?

Stuff Happens?

It seems that the Governor General of Canada and some of my students at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Kentucky have a thing in common: They seem to be of the opinion—the bad opinion—the wrong opinion—that stuff just happens. This past semester that bad opinion appeared in the essay tests of a number of my Astronomy 101 students, and it appeared frequently enough to trigger my “bothered scientist” reflex. The exam was on the Big Bang. I had asked the students to discuss, among other things, whether they thought the Big Bang appealed to most people more than older ideas about the formation of the universe, or less. A fair number of students said they thought most people would find the Big Bang theory more appealing, because (in their take on this) in the Big Bang theory the universe just happens: space and time emerge from essentially nothing, and the idea that stuff just happens makes sense. The universe … Continue reading →

The post Stuff Happens? appeared first on The Catholic Astronomer.

Feed: 
Canonical link: Stuff Happens?