Is This Science or Just Wishful Guessing?

   
    You’ll be excited to know that scientists have found three teeth, a pinky finger bone, and a bone fragment from either a leg or an arm in a cave in Siberia. 
    From this evidence they have deduced that this was a 13-year old girl, whose mother was a Neanderthal and whose father was a Denisovan. They have also deduced that the mother and father mated willingly, and created a thriving interspecies family, proving that there was peaceful coexistence between these two species. 
    These scientists were excited because this has been the first evidence of these two species coexisting. 
    Wow! And all from two bone fragments and a couple teeth. 
    My question is, in what other disciplines can participants get by with such leaps of conjecture and not be ridiculed into the outer reaches of society?

Would It Be That Hard to Fix? 

Second Installment 

    On our first installment we discussed the last-century communication systems used by fast-food restaurants for the use of the drive-up customers. The equipment is a trial to both customers and employees. However, I don’t want you to think the fast-food restaurants are the only ones using ancient equipment for their communications applications. 
    One other industry that I’m guessing is using Polish, World War Two reject communication equipment, is the airlines. Before I retired I spent a lot of time on planes flying hither and yon. One of the things that constantly amazed me was---well, let me explain like this. I would be sitting in my seat, working on my next appointment, reading a book, or trying to catch up on my sleep. When all of sudden the Captain or a flight attendant would pick up a mike and try to talk to us passengers. 
    It was obvious that a message was being communicated. Now either of two things would happen. If I was sitting under a speaker the volume was loud enough to distort the words so that the message, which could have been something like this, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to experience some severe turbulence, so please take your seats and make sure your seat belts are securely fastened. We are in no danger as long as the…” somebody in the background hisses at the speaker, “Don’t say that, how long’ve you been doing this?” 
    The sound quality resembles a person speaking around a mouth full of dirty socks. Like I said the volume is so great from the speaker over my seat that it further distorts the message so much that I have no idea what’s being said. The nearby passengers, who are not unlucky enough to be sitting directly under a speaker, can’t hear enough of the distorted message to understand what’s about to happen to us. Passengers would look at each other, shrug their shoulders and then react in their own individual way---copious perspiration, prayer, or a little moaning, revving up the vocal cords so they were ready to render some good screaming. Just to name a few. 
    Those passengers with little or no experience with flying wonder why the flight attendants are scurrying around putting the food service carts away, and buckling themselves into their seats. Those of us who have seen this before aren’t surprised when the plane suddenly starts lurching around the sky like a drunk bucking bronco. 
    The interesting thing is that the flight attendants and the pilots know that no one can understand what’s being said. They’re just employees and probably feel that if the airline owners want to save money with ancient communications gear that didn’t even work back then, (why do you think the Poles were surprised when the German Army showed up on their borders), why should they care.
    Early in my flying experience I used to wonder as I flew the friendly skies, when is something going to happen where my understanding their garbled message is going to make a difference between life and death. My life or death. 
    And why shouldn’t I worry. I was strapped to a seat in a tin tube at thirty-five thousand feet, flying through an oxygen-less atmosphere, my life depended on one hundred and thirty- seven thousand individual parts, any one of which if it stopped functioning, could plunge this ride of my mine out of the sky. 
    I found these thoughts somewhat worrisome for a while. I finally came to the realization that no matter what happened there was nothing I could do about it whether I could understand their garbled warnings or not. So, I quite worrying, and didn’t struggle to understand what the pilots and flight crew were trying to tell me. 
    But again, would that poor communications equipment problem be so hard to correct?

Would It Be That Hard to Fix? 

First Installment 

    Driving home from the wedding of our great nephew, Luke, and new great niece, Alivia, we had our radars tuned for handy Dairy Queens. We found one in Goldendale, Washington, and as we’d been driving all day we thought we deserved some health food. So, pulling in we drove up to the menu board and requisite communication system. 
   I ordered our usual, two medium cones, only this time we got really wild and made them swirl cones. [As my imaginary third cousin from Louisiana, Mary Lou Block, would say upon hearing my allusion to health food and while rolling her eyes, “Lord, help me over the fence!”] 
    I had to repeat my order three times because their communication system was the same as all other fast food ordering systems.  
    Let me insert a little rant here. We, that is the human race, can communicate with people in space, on the moon, or miles under the surface of the ocean, and make ourselves understood. It doesn’t seem to be a problem. I continually talk to people from India. I can hear them distinctly. I can’t understand their accent, nor do I want to give them control of my computer so they can fix some dire problem, but we do communicate. 
    Now at these fast food places, I cannot see the person I’m talking with, but I’m in close proximity. A stretched string and two tin cans would work pretty well. But no, they are using what sounds like pre-World War I equipment that has been through several bombings. 
    I repeated myself several times as did the order taker, and we both strained to understand what the other was trying to say. Most of the time, through the squeaks, squawks, hisses and clicks, it works, to a point. Not easily, but I guess they think the effort will make us hungrier. 
    Today, like I mentioned, I ordered two cones. I finally understood that I would have to pay, what sounded like $2.68 at the window. I was amazed, for this is a really good price for two medium cones at a Dairy Queen. 
    When I got to the window I handed the girl three dollars, and she handed me one cone and change. Then she started to close the window. She realized that I was watching her expectantly so she hesitantly opened the window and took a step back from her narrow counter but listened as I explained that I had ordered two cones. 
    She apologized, and went and got another cone. I got another three dollars ready to exchange for said cone. She came back, handed me my cone, but refused to take the three dollars, and apologized again for the mistake. 
    What went through my head as we drove away was, how many $2.68 mistakes do they make and how long would it take to pay off the investment to put in some half-way modern communication equipment. Just a thought. The cones were delicious and as it turned out the price was exceptional.