I met Brian Malow at LaunchPad last week. He’s The Science Comedian, making funny with the science. As it happens, he makes short videos for Time.com, and in his last one he makes the case for space.
Unfortunately, Time.com won’t let me embed the video (hey, Time! As one of your Top 25 Blogs of 2009, I’m askin’ here: allow embedding!), so click the link and enjoy.
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The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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 | Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. |
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July 24th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I’m glad he’s getting out there! He’s pretty darn good.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
He brings up a good point that we dont need any help from asteroids in pushing ourselves to extinction and that we should “perfect space travel, THEN soil home planet”.
~Ami
Chicago Web Design
July 24th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
His bit about ‘create interstellar travel, then trash the planet’ reminds me of an old joke about (Vikings/Barbarians): (family friendly version) “Pillage FIRST, THEN burn”
J/P=?
July 24th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Cool Hubble image of Jupiter impact site taken yesterday (7/23/09)
http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2009-23-b-full_jpg.jpg
July 24th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
He is very cool!
July 25th, 2009 at 4:48 am
“First perfect interstellar flight, then soil the home planet.”
Hopefully he was joking when he made that remark. Otherwise he’s just showing the typical human arrogance that the planet is ours to soil. So no; if you have any sense, you don’t soil the home planet at all.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Nice addition to the fear-peddling approach scoundrels everywhere use to move their warez. Interestingly, several of his threats were *enabled* by science. (Why do we do that?)
All the science I know says we’re not going anywhere for a long, long time. There’s a kind of cosmic justice in the idea that you can’t evolve space travel before you’re fit to leave your nest.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Well yes, it is.
As a skeptic I know there is no evidence for magical rights imposed by any cosmic justice system.
And observations of moral behaviors of populations tells us that this is what populations do, usually by way of evolution, affect their environment in the same way that the environment affects them.
The facts are that the largest environmental catastrophes observed were the product of such behavior. The prime example is the oxygenation of the atmosphere. Oxygen producers soiled the planet as nothing before or after them, killing most of themselves and their cousins in the process.
It really made life difficult for their descendants too. Many or all of todays main (I think) oxygen producers, cyanobacteria, has AFAIU to wrap themselves in three layers of cell membranes, their equivalent of an exoskeleton. This because their type of photosynthesis is very sensitive to oxygen. Think of dooming your descendants to wear two layers of space suits, for all eternity!
What would be arrogance is to think that humans are special in this respect.
That said, even if there are no magical or moral rights that says anything else than that you should soil your planet as everyone else, and the future generations have to modify accordingly, I don’t think it is a good idea in general.
And we do it so much faster than other species that it isn’t our kids that will have to change in unpredictable ways, it is us and our culture. I’m sufficiently egocentric to think that this is a bad idea, for us.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Science comedians cannot be too common. Perhaps they are even rarer than fashion historians.
July 26th, 2009 at 6:57 am
7. Tim G Says:
Science comedians cannot be too common. Perhaps they are even rarer than fashion historians.
Imagine how rare fashion history comedians are, then.
J/P=?
July 26th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Space travel, not funny?
Well, what about I Dream Of Jeannie?
Interesting to note that no sitcoms about astronauts came out until Project Gemini was in full swing, as Gemini’s two-man crews allowed for a wise-ass (Healy) and a straight man (Nelson).
Oh, and, did anyone else here old enough to remember Jeannie ever notice that seemingly every other episode opened with Nelson and Healy on a mission together? Never mind that that many Gemini missions, in reality, would’ve stretched the program clear into the ’70s; Nelson and Healy must’ve had a helluva lot of “pull” in Deke Slayton’s office to get that many flights.
July 26th, 2009 at 11:16 am
You only have to get dressed down a couple of times as a fashion history comedian and you’re history.
July 26th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
His “unite against a common challenge” rings sour in the face of a million screaming Muslims. And Christians.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Going to the bathroom during space flight is funny.
July 27th, 2009 at 7:24 am
If space travel isn’t funny, then my new site is doomed to failure.
July 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am
14. quantum cephalopod Says:
Going to the bathroom during space flight is funny.
The History Channel had a movie “Moonshot” (with Buzz Aldrin played by James [Spike in the Buffy TV series] Marsters), which included one scene where one of the astronauts took home an experimental ‘urine collector’ to test. He’s in the bathroom with it, his wife is outside reading off the instructions.. until they get to the step ‘urinate’.. there’s a bit of a pause….
J/P=?