Thanks, I'm sure he would appreciate the sentiment.
> Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children.
We're not descended from monkeys that are alive today, just like you're not descended from your other cousins. Modern monkeys like all creatures are at each generation adapting to their conditions so they may evolve into something else, but that something will be distinctly non-human. Either way, the process would take millions of years (i.e. a monkey isn't going to suddenly give birth to some future version of a monkey, just like you're not going to wake up one morning with a head full of grey hair).
> As of gravity, we still not sure what causes it and how it actually works.
We've been through a few iterations and I think we have a pretty good model for its behaviour at everything from human to interplanetary scales. As evidence of this, in the 70s we managed to shoot a robot across the solar system that we aimed to fly-by all of the major outer planets. It (Voyager 1) did a spectacular job, and is now the furthest man-made object from Earth, currently entering the interstellar space.
It would be hard for us to pull this off if our understanding of gravity (at the aforementioned scales) was flawed.
IMHO our understanding of gravity on an interstellar or intergalactic scale is still a work in progress, though there are a number of points in which astrophysicists have reached consensus.
> We can't re-create it, we just assume how it works.
This is true of all natural phenomenon in the beginning stages of research and discovery. In science the first stages are almost always 'stamp collecting', the part where we observe phenomenon, and only then can we start making assumptions about how they work. We create theories, test them against the evidence, and if we're lucky we can find ways to refine them to better predict results. If we can disprove a theory by experiment, then we have to throw it away.
Our understanding of gravitational force (and more recently evolution) has been refined over the past few hundred years to the point where we can start making accurate predictions about real-world phenomenon. Everything else (from my dad, from science teachers, from you and me) is idle chatter.
Unfortunately, people who have not experienced the joy of how well models work, have no clue how important they are. The GP may assume that "Advanced Technology" can get you to wherever you want. For Eg. he may look at a rocket engine and assume that you just need to start a powerful engine and keep steering your way to your destination as you would do in a car. He knows it is more complex that, but will probably never appreciate the fact that, if Newton's laws of motion or gravitation were off even by a small margin, we would never have achieved what we would have achieved. I hope more and more people realize that science and technology is more than just advanced or complicated.
Thanks, I'm sure he would appreciate the sentiment.
> Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children.
We're not descended from monkeys that are alive today, just like you're not descended from your other cousins. Modern monkeys like all creatures are at each generation adapting to their conditions so they may evolve into something else, but that something will be distinctly non-human. Either way, the process would take millions of years (i.e. a monkey isn't going to suddenly give birth to some future version of a monkey, just like you're not going to wake up one morning with a head full of grey hair).
> As of gravity, we still not sure what causes it and how it actually works.
We've been through a few iterations and I think we have a pretty good model for its behaviour at everything from human to interplanetary scales. As evidence of this, in the 70s we managed to shoot a robot across the solar system that we aimed to fly-by all of the major outer planets. It (Voyager 1) did a spectacular job, and is now the furthest man-made object from Earth, currently entering the interstellar space.
It would be hard for us to pull this off if our understanding of gravity (at the aforementioned scales) was flawed.
IMHO our understanding of gravity on an interstellar or intergalactic scale is still a work in progress, though there are a number of points in which astrophysicists have reached consensus.
> We can't re-create it, we just assume how it works.
This is true of all natural phenomenon in the beginning stages of research and discovery. In science the first stages are almost always 'stamp collecting', the part where we observe phenomenon, and only then can we start making assumptions about how they work. We create theories, test them against the evidence, and if we're lucky we can find ways to refine them to better predict results. If we can disprove a theory by experiment, then we have to throw it away.
Our understanding of gravitational force (and more recently evolution) has been refined over the past few hundred years to the point where we can start making accurate predictions about real-world phenomenon. Everything else (from my dad, from science teachers, from you and me) is idle chatter.