The UFO cult

I do not believe that we have been visited by extra-terrestrials. However, I do think it is quite possible, even likely, that intelligent life has emerged in many places in the universe. The universe is an immensely large place with an estimated 1022 stars within the visible part and since we know that the probability of intelligent life, let alone any kind of life, emerging is not zero (since it has happened here), it is not hard to imagine that it also emerged elsewhere.

What I do not believe is that they visited here, simply because of the vast distances that they would have had to travel, even if they originated on a planet of the nearest star to the Sun. To be able to traverse such distances would require some spectacularly new science and technology that is unlike anything that we know, that is also able to circumvent the limits of the speed of light and the lifetimes of organisms that seem to be so firmly based.

Furthermore, the idea that they have arrived and are playing coy by giving us just hints of their visits, and that the government is covering up those visits, adds another layer of implausibility. Why go to all the trouble of interstellar travel just to take a peek and go away? To arrive here would require incredibly sophisticated technology. To think that they were able to do that only to have their craft crash in the desert in the US, not just once but several times, just compounds the unbelievability.
[Read more…]

The student loan problem

John Oliver explains why so many students in the US acquire such large college debts and have a hard time paying off their loans. It is a familiar story. A government program meant to serve a good end is handed over to the supposedly efficient private sector to manage, which then turns out to be both inefficient and corrupt and results is people making loan payments for decades while making hardly a dent in the principal.

Oliver says that Joe Biden, over the objections of Republicans and obstacles placed by the US Supreme Court, has actually managed to eliminate or reduce student debt for a considerable number of people.

The Havana syndrome is still a mystery

The strange symptoms reported by US diplomatic personnel at various locations around the globe got the name ‘Havana Syndrome’ because it first surfaced in Havana in 2016. They complained of headaches, dizziness, nausea, hearing sounds, and difficulties with thinking and sleep;.

But repeated efforts to try and identify any kind of systematic pattern that might lead to a diagnosis of the cause have come up short, with various alternative theories being postulated ranging from the benign (that the sounds were caused by crickets) to sinister (that the diplomats were being targeted as part of some kind of technological warfare). But none of the theories covered all the cases.
[Read more…]

17 unanswered scientific questions

This article lists what it calls 17 ‘outstanding’ scientific mysteries that have currently eluded researchers’ ability to solve. Any such list is always subject to criticism about its choices and one could quibble with what is included and what has been left out. But it is useful as a discussion starter. I question the use of the word ‘mysteries’ for most of them because that implies questions that we have little or no idea how to address. These questions are what I would call ‘puzzles’, in that we do know how to tackle them even if we have not achieved success as yet.
.
But the questions are undoubtedly interesting and of those, two in particular caught my attention because I wrote about them in my book The Great Paradox of Science. They are: What is the universe made of? Was there an advanced civilization on Earth before humans?

What is the universe made out of?

This one is about how the search for dark matter is proving to be so elusive. In chapter 17 of my book I suggested that we may be in the midst of a crisis that precedes a paradigm shift (using the model proposed by Thomas Kuhn), similar to what happened with the ether back at the dawn of the twentieth century. At that time, the existence of the ether was strongly believed even though it had not been directly detected. Various explanations were given to explain away the negative results but they became increasingly strained and it would be fair to call the situation a crisis. The time was ripe for a change and when Einstein proposes his special theory of relativity, although it did not disprove the existence of ether (something I argue cannot be done), it did make it redundant. Since it was no longer needed as an explanatory concept, and special relativity proved to be a fruitful source of new research it was possible to deem the ether to be non-existent and embrace relativity, which is what happened.

Something similar is happening with dark matter. In my book, I wrote:
[Read more…]

This royal photoshopping thing is getting ridiculous

After all the hyperventilating over the photoshopped photograph of Kate Middleton and her three children, the media have unearthed another photograph that she had purportedly taken earlier of the late Queen and her great grandchildren that apparently was also altered in 19 different places.

What I do not get is that, as far as I know, it is not being alleged that entire people were inserted into the photo or removed, so that the photograph is no longer a reasonably accurate historical record of an event. The changes are so tiny that I cannot see them even after they have been pointed out. Why would anyone bother to make such minute changes? Even though the changes are infinitesimally small, it would seem to me that it would take a lot of skill and effort to make them. I know that I would not have the ability to do it. So what would be the point of doing this?

It is possible , I suppose, that entire people were inserted into the photograph and these almost invisible discrepancies are evidence of that. But the discrepancies are all over the photo. So was the entire photograph a photoshopped construction? Again, why bother? It is only a family photograph, after all, not a photograph of a political gathering that analysts pore over to see who who is in or out as an indicator of their political fortunes.

Even for those like me who tend to give news about the British royal family a miss, this particular puzzle intrigues me. not so much because of who it is about (though that is undoubtedly why is has created such a media frenzy), but because of the sheer pointlessness of it. I just cannot fathom any plausible motive for the alterations.

Revolting evidence of people’s capacity for brutality

I am old enough and have read enough history to know that people can act in incredibly cruel ways towards other people. The current conflicts in Gaza, Haiti, Yemen, Sudan, and other places provide enough testimony as to how people can be so lacking in empathy that they can subject their fellow human beings to such awful treatment. And yet, I still feel disgusted and shocked when I read news stories that take place outside of conflict zones that describe awful behavior.

Take the case of how six white police officers in the town of Rankin, Mississippi treated two black men in their own home.

The group of six burst into a Rankin County home without a warrant and assaulted Jenkins and Parker with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing in a “mock execution” that went awry.

Once inside, they handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns.

After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, they devised a coverup that included planting drugs and a gun. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
…

“I am hurt. I am broken,” Jenkins wrote in his statement. “They tried to take my manhood from me. They did some unimaginable things to me, and the effects will linger for the rest of my life.”

[Read more…]

Judicial body calls a halt to judge shopping

Big legal news occurred recently that did not receive the widespread coverage that I thought it deserved. One of the quirks of the legal system in the US is that it is possible for a federal judge in one local jurisdiction to make rulings that apply nationwide. Furthermore, in some instances, a case can be filed in a any jurisdiction. This has resulted in what has come to be known as ‘judge shopping’, where people look around to see if they can find a judge who will be sympathetic to their case and file their case in that jurisdiction.

One safeguard against abuse of the system is that there are 94 federal districts in the country with multiple judges in each and when a case is filed in them, it is assigned randomly to a judge in that district, so you are not guaranteed to get the judge you want. But in the case of Texas (of course!), each district is split up into smaller divisions and in some divisions there is only one judge, so that any case filed in that division will be sure to be heard by that judge.

Enter Matthew Kacsmaryk. He is is the only federal trial judge in Amarillo, Texas. Any case filed in Amarillo automatically goes before him. He is a Trump appointee who is an advocate of the Christian right and makes no bones about ruling in the most extreme way in favor of his ideology. He has been the go-to judge for anti-abortion advocates and other rightwing zealots.
[Read more…]

John Oliver takes on Boeing

His show Last Week Tonight looked at the decline in quality of aircraft produced by the company after the merger with McDonnell Douglas, when the focus shifted from producing high quality planes to worshipping at the shrine of the holy capitalist trinity of increased profits, share prices, and executive compensation.

Much of the factual information he presented had been covered in more depth in the 2022 documentary Downfall that I reviewed two months ago, but this was shorter, is more accessible to the general public, and Oliver adds his usual humorous touch.

Vitamin D and calcium supplements don’t help much

Over-the-counter dietary supplements are a huge business in the US, aggressively marketed. Many people take them even if they have not been diagnosed with any particular deficiency but because they have the vague belief that if something is good for you, then more must be better.

But the benefit of taking such supplements in the absence of a specific need is doubtful. The results of a new study adds to the list of dietary supplements that do not seem to provide any benefit, in this case vitamin D and calcium.
[Read more…]