CapnG
Devil's Advocate
Well... that was an interesting episode. First off I'm going to suggest that having english-as-a-second-language guests may not be advisable in future. Eric apparently did his best but clearly he was having some difficulty vocalising his thoughts in terms that made sense. Not that his ideas MADE sense but still, his gibberish could have been clearer. I thought David was going to have a stroke at one point...
As an aside, I'm not quite sure what is gained by mocking a frenchman by employing a bad german accent. Coming from someone who's hackles go up at the mere mention of WW2's principle villains, it seemed somewhat surreal.
Adams was particularily difficult to listen to but for an entirely different reason. There's a difference between being confident in ones own theories and being a pompous jerk. I got more of the latter vibe, particularily with his habit of telling both sides of the story and always making himself the hero.
I also noticed his theories seem to be all about him. "I think", "I feel", "I believe". Where are the facts? He seems to be drawing conclusions based on what he percieves to be errors, omissions or blunders in other areas of science but isn't doing much actual science to support his theories. Basically, cherry-picking from different disciplines as he sees fit. I have no problem with the earth being less massive in the past. Certainly we know X tons of meteoric dust settles on earth each day, multiply that by millions of years, that's a lot of matter. I'm just uncertain the gains are as big as he suggests. His plasmic core theory holds no weight for me.
As an aside, I'm not quite sure what is gained by mocking a frenchman by employing a bad german accent. Coming from someone who's hackles go up at the mere mention of WW2's principle villains, it seemed somewhat surreal.
Adams was particularily difficult to listen to but for an entirely different reason. There's a difference between being confident in ones own theories and being a pompous jerk. I got more of the latter vibe, particularily with his habit of telling both sides of the story and always making himself the hero.
I also noticed his theories seem to be all about him. "I think", "I feel", "I believe". Where are the facts? He seems to be drawing conclusions based on what he percieves to be errors, omissions or blunders in other areas of science but isn't doing much actual science to support his theories. Basically, cherry-picking from different disciplines as he sees fit. I have no problem with the earth being less massive in the past. Certainly we know X tons of meteoric dust settles on earth each day, multiply that by millions of years, that's a lot of matter. I'm just uncertain the gains are as big as he suggests. His plasmic core theory holds no weight for me.