Atheists and god believers often debate whether any gods exist. God believers actually mostly agree with atheists without realizing it. Most god believers reject 99.9% of gods as being fictitious. They only believe in their god or gods. Atheists just take it to 100%. But I think there is a more interesting debate: If there […]
Today was an interesting news day. The Supreme Court just ruled that “bump stocks” cannot be banned. Even though these devices effectively turn legal guns into machine guns. And even though the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 banned civilians from owning any machine guns manufactured after that date. The bump stock ban was a […]
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I recently had lunch with a former coworker friend. He doesn’t like talking politics, but I had to know if he was still a Republican after Trump. He agreed with most of my positions on most issues. And he agreed that Trump was not a good president. But he could not ever imagine voting for […]
Star Trek is my religion. I grew up imagining a future of contact with alien beings who we could learn from. Back in 1950 physicist Enrico Fermi asked, “But where is everybody?” If our galaxy is teeming with planets and our planet is nothing special, why haven’t we encountered any evidence of aliens? We have […]
Campuses are in turmoil across the U.S. with protests. I won’t discuss the substantive issues they are protesting. But I will raise this Big Question: How does an issue become a protest issue? I claim that it is not based on what is most important or on what is most urgent. Clearly, some issues are […]
Merlie and I have just returned from three weeks in Japan. Very fortunate to catch the cherry blossoms. It is risky to offer impressions after such brief exposure, but I will try. Many things are exactly as you would expect. Things are orderly. There is no trash or graffiti. People are extremely polite. But guess […]
My wife and I came out of a party recently just in time to catch a rocket launch in the sky. I took some photos of the beautiful colors and patterns and posted them on Facebook. A Facebook childhood friend “Bill” replied, “The rockets that go nowhere under the firmament.” Was he pushing the bizarre […]
Jerry Lettvin was one of several treasured mentors in my life. He was an MD and an electrical engineer, holding positions in biology and electrical engineering at MIT. I was a student in a most unique program he ran at MIT called “Concourse.” We did the usual classes, but we were in a smaller group, […]
My recent article on slavery, abortion and states’ rights promised a follow-up. This is it. My college lady friend was volunteering at a community medical clinic in 1981 for her pre-med program. The clinic was in a very poor minority neighborhood. They educated the volunteers and patients about the history of oppression as part of […]
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Geoengineering is the controversial idea of altering the earth in some way to offset human harms to the climate. Some fear it could make us complacent about the real solution: Reducing fossil fuel use. “Can $500 Million Save This Glacier” was the title of a recent New York Times article. British glaciologist John Moore attended […]
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked by a voter in Berlin, New Hampshire, “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” She treated it as some kind of trick question. After three rounds back and forth, she never mentioned the word “slavery.” Obviously, she did not want to alienate racists in her base. […]
Happy New Year! Traditionally, a new year is seen as a time for a fresh start. Even if there is no physical significance to this time, it is an opportunity to reflect on where we have been and where we want to go. Many people make resolutions for the new year and, sadly, few last […]
I recently attended an international Skeptics Society conference. One of the highlights was an interactive demonstration and experience of “Street Epistemology” by philosophy professor Peter Boghossian. Our current times are famously tense, with people choosing sides on a wide range of issues and digging in to defend their side. In many cases, the actual issues […]
People are surprised that I don’t own any Apple products and don’t plan to. I developed an aversion to Apple as a grad student, designing scientific instruments based on the newly emerging personal computers. Apple kept their hardware “closed” to outside connections. The IBM PC had its own problems, using the horrible Intel processor of […]