Oh Wow: An Exercise in Certainty

Key:
* = Pretty darn sure
** = Scientists are making some educated guesses here

Hundreds of millions of years ago during the Ordovician period, someone blorped and wiggled around in the shallow waters off Gondwana.*

This someone didn’t have jaws or fins,** nor did they have utility bills or shoelaces.* Their name—as assigned by strangers who never even met them—was Sacabambapsis. They had a big ol’ head, front-facing eyes, and a triangular mouth that never shut.** They looked, in short, like an incredibly goofy cartoon,** at least in this model that resides in the Finnish Museum of History.*

I love this someone, partly because I, too, look a bit like a cartoon, but also because they remind me how little true certainty there is in this world, even—or especially—when it comes to science. There’s a reason this blog isn’t called The Last Word on Everything.

Some things (anthropogenic climate change, the benefits of vaccines and pasteurization, the earth being round, bats being awesome) are pretty damn solid. But so many others are educated guesses, our sense-seeking minds drawing shapes in the dark. And man oh man, some of those shapes are hilarious.

*

Watercolor painting by me.