Read it here. Really - what's the difference between saying "in 25 years I believe we'll have proof of God's existence" vs. "In 25 years I believe we'll have proof of ETs?" Nothing (although the latter might take *more* faith).
Science & Theology
Junk DNA and Evolution
Here's an interesting piece from Cornelius Hunter's blog (PhD in biophysics and computational biology; read: he ain't no hack). This "junk DNA" is a favorite point of appeal to people who want to see alien fiddling with the human genome (like Zecharia Sitchin). It's...
Turin Shroud Site from the BBC
There's a nice link within this article to a (sort of) interactive display of the shroud. Nicely done.
Paul Davies Annoying Me Again
Those of you who have perhaps heard one of my talks on why Christianity could indeed sustain an ET reality would have heard me comment on physicist Paul Davies' ideas about religion and ET. I've more or less said Paul should stay with physics and avoid talking about...
Junk DNA Not Really Junk
Thought I'd throw this up since it might speak to some out there who think our "junk" DNA is alien DNA (i.e., that's part of their faith).
Gene Editing on Demand (“Eugenics for Everyone”)
What could go wrong? Maybe Planned Parenthood will want in on this. Or not. It means babies being born. My bad. And another one: Progressive Eugenics Is Hardly History–the Science and Politics Have Just Evolved
The Portent Portending: Synthetic Genomes Are Just a Click Away
Readers of my fiction know that synthetic biology was a sub-plot element in The Portent. Well, we're moving down the road toward creating humans from scratch (or some sort of human derivative). This article describes a new process for creating a functioning gene. What...
This is What Encourages “Truth by Anomaly and Outlier” Thinking
I've blogged about the problem of how the peer review process in the sciences has been compromised by laziness and money. Here we go again: "Sting Operation Reveals Science's Insane Fake News Problem." As the article's author notes by way of explaining his title: This...
Has NASA Successfully Tested a Warp Drive?
That's the question raised in this article. And no, it's not from a hair-brained source. There appears to be something to it (presuming the report is accurate that some of the chat comes from NASA engineers), though the testing has not been verified. This possibility...
Non Sequitur Thinking in Science – It’s a Problem There, Too.
Mostly in popular science, but not exclusively. I thought I'd post here on this because I tend to go after this issue most of the time over at PaleoBabble. But it's an issue here. The most exotic context for this is, of course, the "That technology is beyond what we...
Element 115 “Discovered” (?)
For readers of The Facade, this recent story from Science Daily will sound very familiar. [Hat tip to Carl for alerting me to the link.] In my novel, the UFOs at AREA-51 were powered by Element 115, which was unknown to the outside world. That idea (also know to...
Helpful Summary of the “God Particle”
The UFO Trail (a blog I recommend following) posted a helpful summary of the Higgs-Boson particle ("God particle") discovery. It's brief and covers the salient points, including the regrettable hype.
Sorry, But I Just Can’t Get Excited About the “God Particle”
Okay, I'm not a physicist, so there's going to be an enthusiasm gap from the get-go. Still, I guess that the new "discovery" (if that's an accurate label; still seems to be some level of uncertainty there) of the Higgs-Boson "God particle" is truly important. But the...
Validating Signs of Intelligence (Where We Want to Anyway)
What if someday we detect a signal from outer space that turned out to be the Fibonacci sequence? Would that be proof of extraterrestrial intelligence? Be careful how you answer!
Extraterrestrial Life Comes from Earth?
The Uncommon Descent blog has some pull quotes from an article from the Technology Review/Physics Archive blog entitled, The Amazing Trajectories of Life-Bearing Meteorites from Earth that make that point. This is the idea that, when earth was struck by space objects...