Comments on: The long bomb

By: JO'N

JO'N — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 05:13:11 +0000

Let’s remember that Easterbrook not only seems to be a ID creationist:

Intelligent design is a sophisticated theory now being argued out in the nation’s top universities….today’s evolutionary fundamentalism is not so much about the theory but about sustaining a new status quo in which people are not supposed to question scientists.

…but he also has a quibble with modern physics:

Speculation about other dimensions is interesting, but there isn’t the slightest evidenceâ€”not a scintilla, as lawyers sayâ€”that other dimensions are genuine…. Yet if…you proposed that there exists just one unobservable dimensionâ€”the plane of the spiritâ€”and that it is real despite our inability to sense it directly, you’d be laughed out of the room.

Combined these with a few other interesting perspectives, and I guess I’m not entirely surprised that’s he thinks Star Wars was a documentary.

By: KenL

KenL — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 14:19:14 +0000

Heh.

Considering that he always shoe-horns in something about Star Trek or (this year) Battlestar Galactica or Stargate, I figured this was just tongue-in-cheek musings on a SciFi vein…

Of course, it’s not terribly original. I remember stories from the sixties with the concept of “dying stars as a sign of (hostile) intelligent life”.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 02:42:17 +0000

I heard that they have already found S. Hawking’s initials in the CMB. But basically I think that the Creator had a bad case of astigmatism, hence the lack of quadrupole power in WMAP…or maybe he just has a really lousy TV.

By: Astronomy Grad Student

Astronomy Grad Student — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:06:40 +0000

quote: Well at least the ID community hasn’t leaped forward to claim that these are the visual clues of the intelligent designer’s kitsch creating behavior.

yup, and i hope they don’t see this http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510102 and make some claims along those lines too…

By: spyder

spyder — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:41:23 +0000

Thor pounding his Mjolnir?? Zeus tantrums? Mangog throwing Thoth between galaxies? The Silver Surfer portalling between dimensions???

Well at least the ID community hasn’t leaped forward to claim that these are the visual clues of the intelligent designer’s kitsch creating behavior.

By: hack

hack — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:08:05 +0000

This is great! Now we have an airtight rationale to invade any country in possession of a telescope!

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:47:15 +0000

Clearly, it’s Galactus, devourer of worlds . . . well, the post-prandial flatulence of Galactus, devourer of worlds. Ask Giblets, he’ll confirm.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:41:30 +0000

Sean, don’t forget the baseball/physics crossovers. (Not that I know the first thing about baseball.)

Cheers,

-cvj

By: Clifford

Clifford — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:35:48 +0000

Hmmm, methinks maybe both Greg Easterbrook and astrophysicists might be right. Has anyone considered this possibility? Maybe the advanced civilzations use neutron star collisions as weapons of mass destruction!….

-cvj

P.S. Oh, and Greg Bear’s excellent novel “Forge of God” for smaller scale, but still astrophysical, means of destroying planets.

By: Steinn Sigurdsson

Steinn Sigurdsson — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:17:15 +0000

Pah, this was of course on the “300 best theoretical models for GRBs” list that was assembled 15 years ago before CGRO flew. (All the models were essentially incorrect, btw, although 2-3 of them were conceptually on the right track).

We know better now of course.

But, it is still distinctly possible that the rapid x-ray burster is actually a Klingon warbird in “rapid fire” mode. Or not.