Erik Max Francis wrote:


In my opinion, things like string theory aren't helping. How many
popularizations and media coverage of string theory talk about it like
it's a fact, and revel in how weird it makes the universe seem? The
problem is it's still uncorroborated theory that we have essentially
no practical way to test at the moment.


And it's now obsolete- Membrane Theory is the hot new thing in physics.
"Professor Einstein...this is the exact same physics test you gave us
last year!?"
"Jah...but this year all the answers are different." :-)



A lack of understand of basic scientific concepts means that you care
about the labels rather than the underlying science. Articles about
newly discovered bodies busy themselves about what the object will be
named, and less so its physical properties and its scientific
significance. And then there's the unending nonsense of what defines
a planet and what doesn't. The vast majority of astronomers don't
care, since it doesn't take long even for an interested observer to
realize that these labels are ones that we give and do not connote any
deep significance to the bodies in question, that there should be a
relatively smooth distribution between large bodies and small ones,
and the IAU, which is the organization responsible for providing such
labels, does not and never has had an objective definition of _planet_
or _comet_ or _asteroid_ in the first place.


Or for that matter what differentiates a _Bigfoot_ from a _Sasquatch_
from a _Skunk Ape_.
Still, it's nice to know that prehistoric flying reptiles really did get
as big as the Nazgul's Fell Beasts in LOTR:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4223658.stm
And you know why they got that big?
Charged Water, that's why. ;-)

Pat