“More apparent than real: Flowering plants appeared much earlier than Darwin thought”

A few very recent science-related items that have caught my notice:

“Want to enjoy a longer, happier life? Just keep on working: Life expectancy is rising but Britons are being encouraged to retire early. That’s both ridiculous and costly, says an expert”

Since I was a fairly young boy I’ve thought that early retirement — or retirement in general — was risky.  Not that people shouldn’t ever step away from work, but that they should continue to be occupied and involved in meaningful activity.  (One of the many things that I love about the Church and its teachings is the continued involvement and relevance of older people, in such things as temple service, family history, and senior missions, as well as in strong and consciously-cultivated extended-family ties.)

I’ve probably mentioned the story before, but I well remember Bill Johnson, from the corner of the street on which I grew up in San Gabriel, California.  I knew his wife, Alice, considerably better; she was a good friend of my mother’s.  (He, by contrast, seemed to my young eyes to be a rather anti-social curmudgeon.)  Bill had apparently been an exceptional athlete when young, a member of the Scottish national soccer team or some such thing.  But he retired fairly early from whatever job he held, and I remember him sitting in his undershirt out on his front porch, day after day, drinking beers and listening to sports on the radio.  I recall thinking, as I regularly walked or bicycled by the Johnson home, that his existence seemed entirely pointless and without social contacts.  And he died not long after his retirement.

Now, I don’t actually know the immediatecause of his death, but, fairly or not, I concluded very early on — from observing Bill — that a life without purpose or meaningful activity will tend to be a short one.  I’ve seen little or nothing since then to change my mind.

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And yet the study passed peer review before it was published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world:

“Climate Scientists Discover Error in Major Ocean-Warming Study”

Incidentally, I was pleased to see the accompany photograph, which shows a scene at the Furka Pass in Switzerland — a really spectacular place that relatively few tourists see.

Here’s a piece that uses the same serious error as an occasion for reflecting on the potentially dangerous clamor, in some circles, to suppress dissent on contentious issues:

“When the Scientific Consensus Is Corrected by a Skeptic”

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Interesting, this:

“Darwin’s ‘abominable mystery’ more apparent than real: Amber find adds to evidence flowering plants appeared much earlier than the great naturalist thought.”

Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia