Science or Science Fiction?

"Follow the science" is a phrase we often hear these days. All too often it means "listen to anything coming from the scientific community that supports my position, but ignore anything which does not." During my lifetime, I have seen a number of changes in many things that were once "known" to be true. For instance, when I was in grade school, it was a commonly believed "fact" that lemmings committed suicide periodically by jumping off a cliff into the ocean. Likewise, everybody knew that ostriches, when confronted with danger, stuck their heads in the sand to hide. More recently, it was believed that the best way to deal with runoff from storms in urban areas was to get the water offsite as quickly as possible, collect it in large detention basins, and then release it slowly into receiving stream channels. The best way to deal with air pollutants, it was thought, was to send it high into the sky to disperse over a large area. Science has since proved that all of these concepts are not true. In this book, I look at some commonly accepted ideas about the origins of the universe and mankind as well as the account of the great flood of Noah. I have attempted to point out where the line between science and science fiction has been blurred, both by the scientific community and the Christian community. If we can learn to distinguish between fact and fiction, perhaps we can come closer to mutual acceptance.

-- Darl Rosenquest