more than a body of knowledge

At the limits of our knowledge, as we gaze into the unfathomable chasm of darkness before us, it would seem we have two choices.  To forge onward into the unknown, or to falter, turning back, invoking the name of god.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson so enthusiastically explains here, all too often, our fears have prevailed.  Even the most influential pioneers of scientific discovery have thrown their hands into the air, and exclaimed the chasm to be too dark, too deep, to ever be explored.  To be the dominion of god, where only a fool would endeavor to go.

Sometimes centuries have gone by, where humankind has collectively cowered at the precipice, before such a fool would come along.  To cast light where the light of human knowledge had never before been cast, doing what even the most brilliant among us had thought impossible, driving the very gods further into the darkness.

Those times of sporadic leaps and century long lulls appear to be a thing of the past, now.  As we stand at the frontiers of science and technology, even less than a decade of delay would be enough to fall behind those working alongside us, elsewhere in the world.  Not only that, despite governments doing what they can to stall the flow, we share our process of discovery like never before, and even such a setback could be recovered almost immediately.  As Tyson points out, it would cost our nation financially, but I don't think the worldwide march of scientific progress would even skip a beat.

With each leap in our ability to communicate, our rate of progress has increased exponentially.  From speech, to writing, to telephones, radio, television, and the internet.  We live in what may be the very beginning of the most amazing era, in all of human history to date.   To believe in the concept of intelligent design now, is not only like trying to build a house in the sand, but to do so amidst an ever mounting hurricane.