According to Yahoo! News, a man was recently spotted on Mars. This of course was made possible only through the highly technological advancements of satellite camera. The headlines of this real life ”My Favorite Maritan” chilling on the red terrain, made my pulse quicken and my imagination run wild. How’d he get there? Are there more of them? And, more importantly, does he love or hate President Bush?

So you can imagine the let down once I discovered that, in this special case, it turned out to be nothing more than a rock formation that just so happened to look like a man. Yes, this lame fact had been confirmed by ”scientists.” As the imaginations of my Martian-crazed mind lay dashed to pieces on the rigid red rocks of Science, a new, and perhaps more mysterious set of questions presented themselves: who are these so-called “scientists” referred to in nearly every serious news article?

In order to get to the bottom of this, I decided, on the spot, to conduct a make-believe study involving billions of imaginary tax dollars. I lounged back in my desk chair, threw ball with my very persistant 9lb dog, and turned my brain loose on getting the inside scoop on this slippery tribe of brainiacs. This of course required little to zero research on my part, seeing I really hate research.

Scientists - the term sounds so vague, yet so profound. At the thought, I am immediately wisked away to the picture of lab-coated men in spectacles and clipboards, huddled around a tall cylinder glass casing. Inside is Einstein’s brain, suspended in a preserving liquid of sorts, kept alive through, you guessed it, Science. A network of tubes hooked to the famous brain feeds directly into a massive mainframe that burps out only the purest forms of intelligence in regular intervals, such as the devastating ripple effect that would certainly transpire if Burger King really did stop selling the Whopper.    

The weird thing is, any latest news article about the discovery of an unusual back molar found in a remote field somewhere overseas that further proves -”according to scientists” -that man evolved from kangaroos, or the like, sends me nodding hypnotically along, powerless against the scientists’ rule of my mind. Unusual teeth equals evidence of evolution - check. Well then, I thought, if that’s the case, I know how the scientists could cut travel costs. If it’s unusual teeth they’re after, they need look no further than the closest county fair.  

Anyway, in my head, I decided to do a little experiment of my own, to see if these scientific claims wielded the same power on the minds of others. I went around making outlandish claims to all sorts of people. For example, I’d confidently state something like,”Bananas are really cocunuts in disguise.” If challenged, I’d simply say, “according to scientists.” 

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Case closed. “I mean, if ’scientists’ said it…”

I tried the same experiment using God, who made the scientists, in place of ”scientists”. “You know, according to God, the first man was fashioned from dirt,” I’d say. Surprisingly, this didn’t convince anyone. Instead, I was met with a fusillade of questions.

“Which god? you’re god? how do you know your god is the right god? And you can’t tell me the words of the Bible have remained unchanged, untampered with all these years, what with human error, not to mention corruption.”

“I’m just kidding,” I’d respond, “I meant to say, ‘according to scientists’.”

“Well, in that case…”      

On another occasion, I noticed that the scientists can be real pranksters.  Why, just the other morning, I checked the news and was briefly paralyzed with horror as the headlines read something to the effect of ASTROID HEADS FOR EARTH, and below that, “scientists say”. It will arrive next Tuesday, and, if you’ve seen the movies Deep Impact and Armaggedon, you know what that means. The fact that the death asteroid would miss earth by millions of miles (which, apparantly, is quite close when you’re dealing with space), was cleverly hidden in the middle of the story - after I’d called off work and put in several calls to Ben Afleck about what to do. “False alarm,” I called to my wife. 

Billions of asteroids fire through space everyday. Why bring it up, unless to frighten the pajama pants off the reader? Practically speaking, if you’re going to talk killer, earthbound astroids, the least the scientists could do is rattle off the vastly unlikey odds that it might nip a polar ice cap or something. And start by saying, “Earth’s okay. Everyone will live.” No, the scientists have a different agenda: devilish pranks.    

And which scientists? All scientists? Every single one? It seems they always all agree. This is amazing. We should pattern world peace after these guys. You’d think there’d be at least one renegade, lounged in back, cooly blowing smoke rings, who’d occasionally object to a theory or something. (ex. “I don’t believe Barium is an element.”) 

Anyway, after all the hard thinking about scientists, my head started to ache. I’d learned some very interesting things about scientists today. And they are very smart, indeed. There’s no arguing that. But I thought of something the scientists probably never even considered: what if the Martians are made of rock?  

Categories: Mystery, Science