Why do scientists worry about the future of science?
Scientists in general don't, but scientists in some western industrialized nations, like the U.S. and U.K., do. This results because these countries are not graduating sufficient advanced degree scientists to fill projected needs for maintaing their nation's leads in scientific advancements. The emerging nations, like China and India, are putting relatively more students through the sciences; so they are keeping up with the demands for new technologies. As these emerging nations take over the scientific community, they will lead the way to better technologies and grab the lion's share of the global economy, while the U.S. and U.K. lose their shares. The basic issue is that we, mankind, are depleting Earth's resources. As we do, we need to find replacements so that we can continue to grow and thrive as a species on this planet. Without the advances in technology through scientific breakthroughs to off set the depletion of resources, the future of mankind looks extremely bleak. Look at what our kids and grandkids have to face in the near and distant future. Global warming exacerbated by mankind's pollution, so that even now coastal nations are being continually flooded by the rising oceans. Shrinking energy supplies so that the major industrialized nations (e.g., U.S. and U.K.) will lose their abilities to produce goods and services at competitive prices. Famine caused by over population where the food industry cannot keep up with demand. Impact by a killer comet similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
How do the magnet stripe patterns provide evidence for seafloor spreading?
When the magma cools ferrous compounds within the magma orientate themselves with the Earth's magnetic field. The Earth's magnetic field is not however a constant, occasionally it reverses. This means that North becomes South and South becomes North. Although the reversal does not occur on a regular basis it does occur between 1 and 5 times every million years. If the Earth's field changes orientation then the ferrous compunds line up in a different direction. Check out wiki...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic...
Can anyone believe in a God and still accept science?
Ultimately, if you want to be true to both - science and religion - I think the answer is NO, you can't.The problem is, that religious institutions - the church - employ the practice of cherry-picking from the scripture those sections, that largely align with the current general world view of the public and change as we go.For example, most religious institutions do not aggressively promote that earth is few thousands of years old, that it is flat and that people who can explain or perform “magic” (as in manipulate natural world in a non-obvious way) are witches who shall burn on the stake. Not anymore. They have moved away from these previously strongly held views under pressure. In few hundred years church will no doubt accept evolution and claim that it was the method God used to create man. Just like some claim now, that the Big Bang was the method how God created the universe.By understanding this constant development in relationship between church and science, you must reject the notion that religion and science are a non-overlapping magisteria (the NOMA hypothesis). They are trying to answer the same questions, they are competing methods to try and explain the universe and our place in it. If they produce conflicting answers (and oh God they do, ups, sorry ;)) answer to your question is NO.—Modern science is way too complicated for normal people to understand. Really understand. People say there is no spirituality and deeper meaning in science. I don't think that's true. Just like lightning used to have magical meaning before it was explained as simply >weather<, many notions of science have deeply poetic meaning - the fact that such a vast part of our genome is the same for all humans makes us all brothers, united in the same quest for survival. The fact that there is no obvious meaning of our existence, gives deep meaning to our attempts to understand the natural processes around us and pass the hunger for knowledge onto the future generations. The realization of how little we really know about the universe is humbling - just like you might feel humble before an omnipotent God. It should drive you to understand it, not to worship it and search answers in a simplistic book wrote by ordinary people long long time ago.
Do any planets in our solar system besides Earth have magnetic fields?
It occurred to me that a magnetic field around a planet might be essential for the development of life. What do you think? Does Mars, in particular, have a magnetic field?