An opinion on the Gulf...refreshing

I'm not sure which is more frightening, the dire situation in the Gulf, or some of the spelling in the comments that followed that article (I mean, "artical", LOL).  All kidding aside, well, almost all, the following quote made me wonder whether (I mean, "weather", haaaahahaha) I should be comforted or wary,

"There’s a lot of press out there in regards to this event that is just inaccurate. We’ve got some of the best scientists in the world here, and we’re not concerned about that scenario at all."

There's something about that kind of determined certitude that makes me shudder, "considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong" (Bill Maher quote from the movie Religulous).  I am half kidding and half serious here.  Bill Maher was attacking religion, and for good reason in many cases, but he is also subtly raising the flag of science in that movie, as if science has gotten it right, and we all know all too well that that is simply not the case.

The scientific community of past times in human history has adopted some pretty squirrelly nonsense that we laugh at today, but going against it at the time could have cost you your life in some cases.  That is what human history shows us, that science and religion are, to a large degree, two sides of the same arrogant and misdirected coin.

I mean what a cocktail!  Egotistical human arrogance and vanity mixed with the phenomenal sensory information of the 5 senses that tell us so little about what all of this actually is, and yet we take so much of it for granted without even considering the possibility of how very distorted that sensory data actually is.

I have gone off on a rant here, and derailed a bit from the intended purpose of this forum post, but there is a connection, a common denominator, and that is the strong tendency to unwittingly make determinations from illusory and/or incomplete data that can make science, at times, seem just as religious as the religious crowd they look down their nose at.  Science and religion can get so caught up in what they are so sure of that they can get as stuck as were those who once believed in sea monsters, a flat earth, an earth that does not spin, a sun that revolves around the earth, etc... etc... etc...

What are we missing today?  What do we have so wrong today that future generations will be looking back at us like we look back at those from the days of certainty about a flat earth?  I am hopeful that all is not as dire as some of those outrageous stories have alluded to, but you can see why it makes me go hmmmm when that religious certitude comes (in the form of that quote) from the scientific community.

Here is the last part of that excellent quote from Religulous,

"If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism (or Corporate-influenced profit-based science), let's remember what the real problem was, that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up or die."

Anyway, something outside the box to think about....