We live in ostrich-time. As Martin Luther King said, "We have guided missiles and misguided men."

H. L. Mencken once said, "Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops." Once upon a time scientific progress was dedicated to the search for the secret interactions that stood between humans and the unknowable. Gaining leverage from the foothold of known-knowns, it strained to find some new purchase in its attempts to penetrate the secrets of the known-unknowns. But always science's goal was to use each new insight into reality as a bootstrap to catch a glimpse into the cloud of unknown-unknowns that may or may not contain Mencken's unknowable.

Now though we live in a different time, a time when the word scientific progress is usually misunderstood to be interchangeable with technologic progress. Where once scientists were likened to philosophers, now they are more often akin to engineers who cleverly manipulate the known-knowns into novel arrangements in service of the corporate or governmental masters they serve. As Albert Einstein said when commenting on science and technology having become a servant of material and political gain, "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

We, the clever monkeys, are accomplished in technology, in short term gains achieved by avoiding long term costs. Good at convincing ourselves that our chemists know how to overcome nature's balance, that our biologists know how to grow healthy food from poisoned land with GMO seed, that our physicists know how to cope with the unknowns.  As Martin Luther King said, "We have guided missiles and misguided men."

Undermining this mis-placed confidence in our engineering capabilities are the 700 lbs gorillas - known-unknowns of modern science: Like what is gravity, the most basic force in our lives? Like what is the 'dark matter'-'dark energy'  that constitutes 70% of the universe? Or what is every tiny bit that we do know [as it constantly flits in/out of existence] made of - an energy wave or a material particle? Beyond them are the unknown-unknowns where Mencken's unknowable still sits, as always, "calmly licking its chops".

We live in a time when the uncertainty that surrounds and supports us is ignored in favor of what our fear of the unknown dictates, the security of an impossible certainty. We live in ostrich-time. One group relies on their religious leaders' revelations of an imaginary being's pronouncements to sooth their fears. Another relies on the myth of more spun by the bishops of Mammon that endless technological progress guarantees endless growth. Another group, including mr. mud, strains to pull its heads momentarily from the sand and in doing so avoid despair by living and frolicking with their cousins - the flora, fauna, minerals, microbes, forces and faeries - all immersed together in the wonder of the unknown.