"Mike the Elder" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Public and media reactions strike me as being reminiscent of the days when

> is it such a shock when we are reminded for the umpteenth time that the MODELS
> that we build in accordance with our various theories apply to a specific range
> of observed phenomena and that the greater universe as a whole is under no
> obligation to constrain its existence within those parameters?

Probably because most people don't understand what science is all about.

No small part of that may be that people who come from religious backgrounds and
are used to having The Truth handed to them don't realize that science doesn't
operate that way.  There is also the human craving for answers (which is a major
impetus for both religion and science), which leads to the media giving their
customers what they want (i.e., answers), even when the scientists haven't
published an answer.  This confirms people's mistaken impression that science
dispenses answers the way religious leaders do.

So when science learns something radical, it shakes up people's worlds.  For
people who never knowingly trusted science in the first place, it "confirms"
their belief that scientists are bumbling idiots.  (I say "knowingly" because
they certainly do trust their planes, trains, automobiles, bridges, computers,
electricity, inclined planes, GPS systems, modern medicine, radios, skyscrapers,
telephones, television sets, and smoke detectors--that last of which would not
work if radioactive decay rates were not constant.)

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