The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth

Today, the White House is hosting a science fair, inviting competition winners in math, science, engineering and technology from schools around America. While this of course makes for excellent press at a time when Democrats sorely need this, it also underscores a commitment to putting his ideals into practice. It is not enough to say [...]

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Where Is Everybody?

The physicist Enrico Fermi once said “Where is everybody?” – specifically asking why, if the universe is filled with civilizations, we have yet to confirm or even detect their presence in any reliable fashion. I’ve given the ‘Fermi Paradox’ a lot of thought over the last few years, and ironically the best answer I can [...]

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From Plus To Minus: The Purpose Of God

Since the dawn of time, humankind has felt that, despite a lack of incontrovertible, tangible evidence, there is a higher power at work in the world. Whether we name it God or Gaia or the collective unconscious or any of countless other names, most of us believe in something greater than ourselves. For the purposes [...]

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Of science, magic and miracle

(Inspired by questions posed by Catastrophe Jones in her LiveJournal, and adapted from my subsequent comments.) We live in a world very much a victim of its own societal norms, often ostracizing or punishing those who deviate from the same. And yet, we understand so little about the brain hardware and psyche software that surely [...]

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A prayer for science?

Ask someone to picture a famous scientist and they will probably conjure up the wild-haired mental image of Albert Einstein. Perhaps second only to him, and no less iconic, would be this man: In 1963, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – and given two or three years to [...]

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Evolution vs. Creation

I’m just about sick of this evolution vs. creation debate that seems to pop up every few decades when the writers of educational policy have nothing better to do (or want to divert attention from their continued inability to stop fucking things up). There is room for both in the world, and in the textbook. [...]

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