A long one, here. Sorry.
I’d like to revisit my recent post, Reason Not to Rest, in which I touched on the idea “We won and we can relax now.” I want to expand on that, to look at it from a slightly different angle, and basically reinforce my own conviction that now is definitely NOT the time to relax. So: Continue reading “Lifeboat of Knowledge, Dinghy of Power”
If your twin brother gets your wife pregnant … is it still your kid?
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I’m always one of the late adopters. Apparently eating people’s faces is all the rage in this week’s news, but I think I’m going to wait a few weeks. I’m trying to lose weight.
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Just saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets again and I’m wondering … what would happen if you stabbed a Bible with a basilisk fang? Continue reading “Short Stack # 14”
[ This is a reprint of an earlier post, to keep new readers happy while I work on some new ideas. ]
Say someone gave you $30,000, in cash, and the deal was, you had to live on it as long as you could. You couldn’t do any other income-producing work in that time, you just had to live on the 30 grand.
You’d have to pay all your bills on it, provide for all your daily needs. You’d have no additional money coming in, and all your entertainment needs, your health needs, your travel and leisure needs, all would have to come out of that one chunk of money.
How long could you live on it?
Continue reading “The 30,000”
[ I’m reviewing this book because I liked it, but also for a larger reason which will become evident here, and in the weeks ahead. ]
[ Also, in case you missed it: Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 ]
Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique by John Gribbin
What’s So Special About Us?
When you think about it, just our one solar system alone is evidence of the rarity of our type of life. Out of the presumed trillion or so objects orbiting the Sun (counting the planets, asteroids, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud), only one of those objects managed to produce living things (as far as we know). Lifelessness is the rule, life the extreme exception. Continue reading “Book Review — Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (Part 4)”
[ I’m reviewing this book because I liked it, but also for a larger reason which will become evident at the end of Part 3 of the review, and in the weeks ahead. ]
[ Also, in case you missed it: Part 1 — Part 2 ]
Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique by John Gribbin
What’s So Special About the Earth? Well, for one thing, it was once a great deal smaller, a solitary planet with no moon, until it served as a target for a Mars-sized object. Billiard balls might collide and rebound, but when solid objects the size of planets crash into each other, the effect is more of a molten splash. Earth ended up about 90 percent the size it is today (with more matter, including lots of water, to come in countless minor collisions later). It also ended up with the relatively rapid day-night rotation we enjoy today (although it was quite a bit faster originally), a molten iron heart that powers what amounts to a magnetic force field guarding us from the atmosphere-destroying blowtorch of the solar wind, and a sister-planet (the Moon) that simultaneously helps power active tides and serves as a gravitational stabilizer keeping the Earth’s slightly-tilted rotational axis (the bit that gives us our relatively mild, life-permitting seasons) from varying wildly. Continue reading “Book Review — Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (Part 3)”
[ I’m reviewing this book because I liked it, but also for a larger reason which will become evident at the end of Part 3 of the review, and in the weeks ahead. ]
[ Also, in case you missed it: Part 1 ]
Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique by John Gribbin
Asked about the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, or in the galaxy, or in the neighborhood (of a size for technologically-conceivable visits), most of us here would say it was possible. We wish it to be, want it to be, yearn for it to be. We might point to this or that argument from common sense, or common experience, or simply private hope, and proclaim even that it MUST be.
But in the same way we rein in our religious neighbors, drawing them away from all their wishes and wants and arguments from common sense, at some point we have to rein in ourselves, and look at, not just those factors that seem to make it likely, but those that seem to make it less than likely. Continue reading “Book Review: Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (Part 2)”
Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique by John Gribbin
From the dust cover:
John Gribbin is one of today’s greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books, including In Search of the Multiverse, In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, and Science: A History. He trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is now Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.
Regarding life in the universe, I some years back concluded on my own that life is not some rarity, but a natural state of matter, pretty much inevitable given certain minimal planetary conditions. I based the conclusion on an odd idea I have about entropy – that life “hitchhikes” on the flow of energy from greater to lesser concentrations, and in the process ratchets up the speed of that flow, accelerates entropy, which is something the universe “likes” very much. So there’s a natural condition that pushes things toward … life-iness. Continue reading “Book Review: Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (Part 1)”
I’ve got this thing I think about sometimes, an observation about religion and how it really is out in the real world. How it works in people’s heads. Not the way Christians think it is, but the way it really is.
I think I’ve mentioned it before — I call it “the 180-degrees thing.” (As in ‘180-degrees-opposite.’ Someday I’m going to come up with a cool name for it instead of this kludge.)
The basic idea is that, whatever Christians say, astonishingly often, there’s something REAL just about exactly opposite. Probably the reason I don’t have a good name for it is that I always find it hard to describe, or point out. You kind of have to look for it, keep it in mind as you watch the workings of Christianity and churches. Continue reading “World Ending! Again! This Time for Real! So Get Right With Jesus, Slacker!”
Memorial Day. The Internet is ablaze with it. All the proper things are being said, all the good, right sentiments are being expressed.
Yes, we – and I include myself – love our war heroes. My adopted Dad was a medic in the Navy, my two brothers were in Vietnam, and I have plenty of friends whom I truly respect for their service. I see the memorials and the fields of crosses – I made a point of visiting the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC two of the times I was there – and I feel genuinely sad and angry about it all.
But since junior high school, I’ve had this thing for pep rallies. Or against them, I guess I should say. Because it worries me when people are driven together by the spur of strong emotions. It worries me even more when I can’t see who’s wearing the spurs. Continue reading “Oh, Jeez. Memorial Day.”
Reading this article on Papal infallibility — Postponing Self-Destruction of the Catholic Church — I just now learned the real reason why the Catholic Church doesn’t update its outworn policies on things like contraceptives, marriage, or human morality.
Because, really, who hasn’t thought about how much good this huge worldwide organization could do if it reversed its stand on condoms and contraceptives? Rather than waiting for tardy governments to act, it could simply began distributing condoms and teaching how to best prevent the spread of HIV. It could give a kick in the head to overpopulation by telling Third World men and women that it’s okay to use contraceptives, okay NOT to have more and more and more children they can’t feed. Continue reading “Duh, Idiot Me — or: Why The Catholic Church Soldiers On”
