According to Rebecca Boyle of The Atlantic, geologists admit that the scientific community is very quick to criticize those who operate on faith but that’s exactly what they do. Mark Harrison, a geologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, confessed: “We as a scientific community created an origin myth that has no more intellectual value than Genesis.” Boyle writes:
Humanity’s trips to the moon revolutionized our view of this planet. As seen from another celestial body, Earth seemed more fragile and more precious; the iconic Apollo 8 image of Earth rising above the lunar surface helped launch the modern environmental movement. The moon landings made people want to take charge of Earth’s future. They also changed our view of its past.
Earth is constantly remaking itself, and over the eons it has systematically erased its origin story, subsuming and cannibalizing its earliest rocks. Much of what we think we know about the earliest days of Earth therefore comes from the geologically inactive moon, which scientists use like a time capsule.
