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Reflections on Dinosaurs, Galaxies, and God
Kenneth H. Olson
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It is intimidating to consider that so much of earth’s history has gone on before we arrived. After all, we are accustomed to thinking and acting as if everything revolved around us. It used to be said of Frederick the Great that he loved music, but that this was not so much music as it was the flute, and not so much the flute as his flute. The story of the Garden of Eden is about the egocentricity of human nature. The Greek myth of Icarus, in pride flying too close to the sun, is concerned with it also. Bertrand Russell once said, “Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.”
One of the main principles of geology, the science of the earth, is that the forces of nature operate (with the exception of the occasional catastrophe) in a uniform manner, i.e., that the forces operating today are the same as the ones that have done so throughout earth’s history. Therefore, the landscape we see about us is mostly the result of the accumulated effects of small increments of change over time. A bit of rock falls off a cliff. The tiny amount of acid in rainwater eats away at the rock. Raindrops act as miniature bombs that blast small craters in soil, loosening bits to be carried away by every little rivulet to join creeks and rivers, carrying more and more and finally emptying into the oceans. And the key is the immensity of time.
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