Superstition and ignorance: the ‘Mayan Apocalypse’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I heard reported on the news the other day that one in eight people are concerned about the Mayan Apocalypse on Friday, December 21, 2012. Just do a Google search for "Mayan Apocalypse" and you will be shocked at the level of superstition and ignorance that exists in the 21st Century around this subject. There is an entire cottage industry built around the Mayan Apocalypse (I hope that we never have to hear about it again after this weekend.)

It turns out that NASA has been working overtime this week to calm people's irrational fears. NASA rebuts the Mayan doomsday:

As you may be well-informed at this point, the Mayan calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012, leading to many predictions that the world will collapse just a few hours from now.

Not so fast, say scientists at NASA: The federal agency is so certain
that our world will not end that they have already released a video (below the fold), dated Dec. 22, explaining why the world did not end on the day prior. 

NASA’s John Carlson, who directs NASA’s Center for Archeoastronomy,
has been looking at the 2012 theory for about 34 years. He explains how
we misread the Mayan calendar, arguing that it did not actually end on
Dec. 21.

Relatedly, NASA scientists have huddled on the issue and found there
are “no known asteroids or comets on collision course with earth.”

For more from NASA, read this Answer Sheet post.