Another of Dean Larson’s pearls came after he had told the students that when they were born, we thought the stuff in the universe was star dust.  Today, we think that less than 5% of the the universe is star dust; what constitutes the remaining 95+% is mysterious (the physicists, who can get away with such things, call it ‘Dark’).

 

The lesson the Dean drew:  “Humility in the face of persistent great unknowns is the true philosophy that modern physics has to offer”  — Joseph Silk, Cosmologist.

So while biologists were decoding genomes and building new life forms, the astronomers and cosmologists were discovering ignorance on a vast scale. Physicists have been ahead of the curve so far, so there is probably a lesson in this for those of us with more earthly concerns.