DOOMSDAY RETURNS

“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.” – Dr Carl Sagan

Dr Sagan’s apprehensions about modern gullibility continue to resonate in the present millennium as well. A latest disaster film makes specious claims interlaced with purportedly scientific message to suggest that the world would end in 2012. A fictitious website (set up by the producers of the film) lists the Nibiru collision, a galactic alignment and increased solar activity among its possible doomsday scenarios.

David Morrison of NASA received over 1000 inquiries from people who thought the website was genuine. He has condemned it, saying "I've even had cases of teenagers writing to me saying they are contemplating suicide because they don't want to see the world end. I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck that is ethically wrong."

It is necessary to put the current hype about Mayan calendars and doomsday predictions in context. Though most prophecies of doom come from a religious perspective, the secular crowd has caused its share of scares as well. But it is pertinent to note that the one thing the doomsday scenarios tend to share in common is that ‘they don't come to pass!’

Yet the gullible continue to accept the incredulous. And yet, we do not pay heed to real imminent problems like global warming, pollution pressure, growing economic disparity and skewed developmental policies. It would be better if we trash doomsday predictions and instead set right our own irresponsible actions that may spell doomsday for the future generations.

In our real world there is much to be done; there is much to fear…
It will BE BETTER if we let go of the worry of a fake-doomsday year!

- Pravin K. Sabnis