For a cover for the new book, I have always pictured it like a poster for a cheesy ’50s Scifi movie, with multiple simultaneous disasters afflicting the Earth, and people running in terror.

And think about confirmation bias. Don’t pile up ideas because you want them to pile up that way.

Are those beautiful photos from NASA public domain?

I think that a book full of amazing photos with your clear consise explainations would be awesome. You wouldn’t just be telling what the photo is “Hey look! It’s a nebula!” But you’d be writing about why this picture is so cool. The photo of a star (I think it was Mira) with the tail of gas trailing behind and the bow wave in front of it was amazing. Imagine a book of that kind of stuff. It could really build an appreciate of just how cool and amazing astronomy is.

Just a few photo ideas.

The moon of Saturn (or was it Jupiter) that has the ridge that makes it look like a walnut.

Frames from the time lapse photography of the rings of Saturn. There was one where you could see a large chunk in one of the gaps. There’s a perfect example of a large piece of rock clearing out a gap in the rings. I could imagine it happening but that was the first time I could really SEE it happening.

How about the false color image that mapped dark matter? I remember that the dark matter wasn’t where we thought it would be. That’s a great lead in to discussing what dark matter is. But it’s also a great lead in to how science can change when the evidence shows that we weren’t exactly right. That can lead into a discussion of “intellectual honesty” when dealing with a world view. You don’t have to specifically point to religion as an example of intelledtual dishonesty, but you can simply show how science tends towards truth without making judgment calls and leave the rest as an excercise for the reader.

A book like that would appeal to the astronomy fan. But it would also work as a coffee table book (Do people still have coffee tables? Is there such a thing as a Starbucks cup holder book?)

I’d buy it.

BA, I write as both a successful self-publisher, also a published-by-others author, and someone who knows a lot of writers, I offer a comment.

Unless you are very lucky your publisher will probably not put a huge amount of effort into promoting your book. If this book is important to you, as author you can, to some extent, take over this function. It is a real pain in the neck, but if fame and fortune are what you seek you probbaly need to do it. Basically if you go on the internet you will find there are publications for authors that are not expensive that give lists of all the radio stations and review programs that need authors to fill airt-time. You have to call them all up and arrange interviews. 90 percent of the time the person interviewing you will not have read your book and have no idea what it is about. But you have some dramatic content there, and I think could wake people up and get them listening. Good luck whatever you do!

And you can’t have it both ways, either he is being serious or he is not. Either what he says in the blog can be accepted or it can’t. You use his claim that he is not a creationist as evidence that he is not a creationist, then turn around and say that the post can’t be trusted. Which is it? He may have tongue-in-cheek aspects to his blog, but so far posts in this subject seem entirely serious. And this is not the only one, he has posted on this repeatedly (although the older ones are no longer stored on the blog it seems).

(profanities in the following link)
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/03/fossils_are_bul.html

I’ve been trying for years to reconcile my usually-excellent bull*&%$ filter with the idea that evolution is considered a scientific fact. Why does a well-established scientific fact set off my usually-excellent bull*&%$ filter like a five-alarm fire? It’s the fossil record that has been bugging me the most. It looks like bull*&%$. Smells like bull*&%$. Tastes like bull*&%$. Why isn’t it bull*&%$? All those scientists can’t be wrong.

(profanities edited)

No matter how many times he may claim he is not a creationist he has the exact same beliefs and uses the exact same flawed arguments.