“Massive new energy source discovered hiding under Earth’s surface.”

BBC Science Focus Magazine
December 13, 2024

New? Is it new because we never saw it before? Was it always there?

Dumb question. Scientists don’t know. They never saw it before, so it’s “new”, because, you know, they decide these things.

Of course, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the reporter or editor chose the word “new”, because, you know, stupid.

They haven’t seen me before, so by their thinking (if you can call it that), I’m new.

Hi.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/geologic-hydrogen-reserves

Spoiler: It’s a “new” discovery.

One could argue “discovery” implies something that is “new” as in something we didn’t know about, and now do. It was always there, but only now “discovered”.

In my mind, that shows a combination of human presumptuousness and an admission of stupidity.

Maybe we need a new word as there doesn’t seem to be one that says “it’s always been there, but we were ignorant of it”.

“Newly discovered” is probably best, but the press needs to embrace it. Usually, they are too arrogant to acknowledge they don’t know something. The closest they come is “Oooh, isn’t this cool?” . . . even though it’s existed for a very long time.

Secret Agent Man, out.

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