This continues a rather long-winded essay on my part. In Part One, I talked about the idea of extra-terrestrial life from the standpoint of cosmology, the planetary conditions that might be needed to produce it. In that post, I went out on a speculative limb, always a dangerous thing from
Category: Reference
Are We Alone? (Part One)
I’m warning you ahead of time, this is going to be long, as evidenced by the “Part One” bit above, but hopefully it’ll be interesting as well. I’ll do my best.
One of the staple topics of all-night bull sessions, and not just in college dorm rooms, is the concept of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, or to keep it simpler, elsewhere merely in our own Milky Way
On composition
If there’s one thing that I emphasize above all else in photography, it’s composition. Don’t just take a photo, but put the elements together within it to your satisfaction. This, to me, holds up far more than what kind of equipment you’re using and how technically proficient you are with it. And it’s not an easy thing to teach – I’m still at the point where,
On Belief, Part Three
Yeah, yeah, I’ll be back to nature photography or something really cool in the woods or water shortly – I’m just hashing some thoughts out. You won’t be failed for skipping this assignment. And while it can stand alone, it’s an extension of Parts One and Two.
One of the foremost arguments from a great many people, both religious and non (believe it or not,) is the social
On Belief, Part Two
Okay, I suspect I’ve given enough to support my point that very few people seem to believe (that was Part One). To be honest, I think it’s not a dividing line, but a gradient – levels of belief ranging from “Not at all” to “Established fact,” with most people falling
On Belief, Part One
There has been a bunch of thoughts along these lines kicking around in my head for a while now, and since Pharyngula and Weird Things both referenced a new study along similar lines, I finally started putting some of them down. This has to do entirely with religious belief and the effect it has, so those into nature photography and observations can skip this one if they like. Those, however, who
Happy Darwin Day
Today is the 201st anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and now considered an unofficial holiday. It is intended to recognize the contributions Darwin made to science, most especially the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Most people simply refer to this as “evolution,” but that technically falls a little short of the mark – evolution can refer to anything that
What’s the harm?
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a skeptical account of a ghost story, and believe me, this wasn’t the first conversation I’ve gotten into about what I’ll simply call, “questionable phenomena.” And, both from my own personal experience and from numerous public discussions, I can say that a common response to this is, “Yeah, but what’s the harm?” Who
Too cool, part three
Actually, this one was not part of my original Too Cool™ lineup, but it deserves to jump in line.
Courtesy of National Geographic posted by icheesman found through Cracked.com via Mental Floss (link addiction can be cured – please contribute today!) comes a video clip of an utterly fascinating natural phenomenon that I talked about previously: bioluminescence.
There’s a part in there
She blinded me with “Science!”
No apologies for putting that song in your head.
Others have approached this subject, but I felt the need to post about it because a) no one has covered all the details that I think need to be covered, and b) I don’t think, in our culture right now, another voice chiming in is too many.
In the United States at this time, there is this strange perception of science. It’s as if there’s