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So apparently do a lot of physicists. It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this (not that I'll understand it anyway) but as long as the planets stay in their orbits and we still fall down if we step on a banana peel it's all good.

"they are in a holding pattern sort of waiting Obama out" The next Reagan or Bush (do they really expect better from Republicans?) will complete the job of turning America into a third-world country that will never have the prosperity to support a space program. Obama's not as bad as that, but...

I was trying to contrast the cases 1) where the universe was created by some intelligent agent that arranged the basic properties of the universe for its own purposes (I called the agent "God" since that's what we were discussing, but it could I suppose be a scientist from a culture with very...

A sufficiently intelligent, powerful God could presumably create a universe that naturally produces the results that suit His purposes. From within that universe nature would appear blind and amoral, in no way different from what it would be in a universe not created by such a God. Since the two...

From what little I've read on it, there's a widespread (and I think true) perception in the Muslim world that Islam's historical contributions to Western civilization aren't generally recognized. That's what Bolden was referencing. 'Feel good' was an unfortunate choice of words, but it at least...

An interesting (if sometimes murky post-modernist) take on Oswald as Fortean Man. This has been published elsewhere in a different format, but I think the originals are best: diary 17 diary 17

Let me say up front that I accept the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald killed JFK. So you can weigh what I say in context. The thing that bothers me about the film of Oswald is how cool he is about the whole thing. If you or I were going about our lives, and then were suddenly...

The (say) death of a child strikes me as a far more powerful and devastating argument against a loving God than any scientific theory could possibly be, yet the deaths of children are taken for granted while believers and secularists argue about evolution. Evolution is a scientific theory. At...

Looking at the picture, it seems like there's something a little odd about the way the power/telephone line crosses the UFO.

I'd like to think that AIDS and guinea worms are a product of blind amoral processes and not part of Somebody's plan, whether you call it Creationism or Intelligent Design or Directed Evolution or whatever. If Somebody designed the world we live in, so much the worse for Him/Her/Them/It. Too...

"...when more than one person agrees with you it must be a fact!" So what is it when everyone DISagrees with you? Complete bullshit, maybe?

It would be interesting (I'll have to hunt around) to read a history of the scientific reaction to previously anomalous phenomena that are now accepted, like rocks from the sky or rogue waves. As has been pointed out here, there was solid evidence for these. Actual meteorites, ships that...

"...with these phenomena like UFOs and the paranormal, the human race is being asked to completely alter conventional ways of thinking..." Not necessarily. If (say) Bigfoot was found and it turned out to be a previously unknown species of animal, that wouldn't require a great revision in our...

Maybe more sci-fi than paranormal, but: The Man Who Fell To Earth.

"Distance. They can not imagine that a race of beings can get from their to here because of the vast and overwhelming distances involved." This certainly was the general view when the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) projects were getting started in the 1960s and 70s...

"...it will loose a significant portion of it's charm by being solved." It might, if its 'charm' came largely from it being unsolved. I'm not convinced that's always the case.

There's a difference between 'explain' and 'explain away'. It may well be that science can explain why people fall in love or like sunsets. After that we would still fall in love and like sunsets. But when it comes to 'paranormal' or other strange experiences, the idea seems to be that if...

True, but I've never been concerned enough to try and trace anyone's IP address either.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. In reading blogs I judge the poster based on the posts, not on the name he/she uses (except maybe in the case of an obscene or ridiculous one). In fact it's jarring when a poster uses what looks like a full real name, even though I have no way of...

I agree that it's intellectually dishonest to try and reason away unwelcome scientific evidence, if in fact it's well-founded. It's not dishonest to decide that there are other considerations that trump the scientific evidence. This is especially true if the scientific evidence is being used...