Michael Flynn's Blog, page 91

Commander Correy and Cader Happy

Space Patrol

The special effects are without equal.  So is the Wheat Chex commercial. 


And what kind of guy has a name like Happy? 

Shut up, he explained

Further Deponent Saith Not

Jesus is Coming Tomorrow. No, wait. Next week,

Science Marches On!

If the truth of a scientific theory, or even its usefulness, is to be judged by its predictive abilities, what are we to make of the predictions made by Hansen before Congress some 20 years ago, when we compare them with the actual measurements of the past twenty years?

[image error]
Actuals are below even the lowball prediction and lack the sort of trendiness that models always seem to produce.  Instead, we seem to get a series of step-jumps punctuated by El Nino events. 

Rob Reiss repor...

You Can't Argue with SCIENCE

This is SCIENCE, Man!

From CBS: Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/21/cbsnews_investigates/main5404829.shtml

With most cases diagnosed solely on symptoms and risk factors, the H1N1 flu epidemic may seem worse than it is. For example, on Sept. 22, this alarming headline came from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.: "H1N1 Flu Infects Over 250 Georgetown Students."

H1N1 flu can be deadly and an outbreak of 250 students would be an especially troubling cluster...

Ardi the Ape-Girl

Facts and Theories

While noodlng around on Ardi, the latest Ape Man that will cause us to Rethink All of Human Evolution, I came across the following on a web site called "Darwin Catholic."  As Chesterton observed back when he was writing about the Scopes Trial, there is no contradiction between the two, at least insofar as "Darwin" stands in for a scientific theory and not for a social pose. 

I have no idea who the blogger is, but he had a very nice summary of Ardi -- why she is important, wh...

Airborne Leads the Way

Now, There's a Headline You Don't See Every Day, Vern

This morning's front page headline in the local paper reads:

Man Struck by Airborne Deer

This is not your ordinary, everyday headline; that's for sure, and I feel sorry for the fellow now in the ECU; but I cannot shake the image of a deer with the Screaming Eagle on his shoulder leaping from a plane and shouting "Geronimo" as he opens his 'chute. 

This being Pennsylvania, of course, the story made sure to mention that it was a six-point buck....

Age of Unreason, redux

Double Pfui 

Readers of yesterday's Curmudgeonly rant will recall that Mr. Walker, intellectual giant of the age and someone who actually thinks for free, wailed about how those "theists" were blocking Really Truly Science by, among so many other sins, opposing stem cell research. 

Now, the fascinating thing is that it is not true. 

1. Non-embryonic stem cell research was not restricted in any way, so when he says "stem cell research" we know he means only a certain kind of stem cell research...

The Age of Unreason

Pfui.

My usual noodling around in re medieval science led me to an astonishing web-essay by someone calling himself Jim Walker on a religious belief site called NoBeliefs.com for Freethinkers. 

Now my first reaction to "freethinker" is "well, you get what you pay for," and nothing in the essay caused me to alter that opinion.  Like everyone in the herd of independent minds, the author simply repeats myths and legends, cites no sources, makes vague appeals to authority, falls into confirmation ...

A Thousand Years in which "nothing happened"

Those Terrible Middle Ages

A Faithful, if anonymous Correspondent asks regarding the Capclave presentation:
Subject: "Those Terrible Middle Ages!"
Outstanding presentation! Even better than your panels on alternate history and Darwin's bicentennial.

Please post a list of the books you cited so everyone can find them. Also please turn your presentation into a book or, at the very least, a slide show posted here.

+ + +
Okay, Anonymous, you got it.  The following are from my personal library, savin...

On the Road

Capclave

Spending the weekend at Capclave in Rockville MD, with is within three standard deviations of Washington.  There is a meeting the following week in DC regarding asteroid deflection, which readers of FIRESTAR will recall as an interest of mine.  But the first day is classified and Capclave is pushing my finances to the edge.  Still...  Sigh.  

Anyhow, Harry Turtledove is GoH at Capclave, so I could not stay away.  Yesterday I was on a panel with him regarding alternate history [gasps of...