Richard Taylor sent me a link to an article in the New York Times on extrasensory perception – a couple of days ago – and I have been thinking about it ever since. Not so much the extrasensory perception part, but a quote in the article that  inadvertently points out what I see as the major problem with Science. And with everything else, as far as that goes – the Stern Unified Field Theory on what is wrong . In disagreeing with the results of an experiment, a scientist says Claims that defy almost every law of science are by definition extraordinary and thus require extraordinary evidence.  

What he is really saying is Claims that agree with the already agreed upon laws of science are, by definition, ordinary and do not require much evidence. In other words, if it reinforces the status quo, we start by presuming it is correct. Of course this reinforces the status quo which – then – is used to prove the status quo is right. What ever we are doing, what we believe, is right because we are doing it, because it is our belief structure.

Lifted without comment from Newshogger via 3quarksdaily.

Lyrics to "If It Were Up to Me" by Cheryl Wheeler

Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin'
Maybe it's the president, maybe it's the last one
Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers
Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack
Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse
Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms
Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia
Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the Internet
Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants
Maybe it's taxes, big business
Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads
Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts
Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phone
Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.
If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.

Michele and listened to the memorial at Tucson last night. I think this may have been the first public memorial I have ever watched. I missed both Reagan's Challenger speech and Clinton's Oklahoma bombing speech. I don't know why I usually don't like to listen to these sort of things but did want to hear Obama's comments ( which were billed as being about ten minutes), but I am glad I listened. 

At first I was taken back by the boisterous crowd. I was expecting a church – with hushed, somber, rhetoric -  and I got a basketball arena. But -starting with the opening prayer – I was moved by the whole thing. I thought Obama was at his best and it reminded me of Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech – not so much in the words but in the internal timing of the speech. I was not the only one that felt that way.

But, in the end, it was not so much what Obama said, but the obvious emotion that was so powerful.

I'm going to just blatenly rip off Time magazine on this:

He says he's just a goofy dork on a silly network, with prank-calling puppets as his lead-in. But when it comes to events like Sept. 11, the Iraq War and Monday night's post-assassination processing, Stewart has increasingly been turned to as not just the man to mock the absurdity of our media-political machine, but also to make sense out of the madness. Whether he recognizes his role or not, Stewart has become an influential barometer as to the seriousness of an offense (Rick Sanchez), the merits of an argument (John McCain, on “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”) and the hypocrisy of lawmakers (the 9/11 health care bill). And every once in a while, in moments of startling sincerity and intimacy, he has also embraced the challenge of trying to process a nation's fear and pain.

In fact, over the span of a decade, he's done the latter so well that we now look to him for our dose of sanity amidst the chaos:

If I had to give up everything on the internets except one thing; that one thing would be the New York Times. Not so much for its front page news which is pretty interchangeable with alot of other sites – the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera,  and The Christian Sciense Monitor, are my favorites – but for all the stuff that is one level down.

One thing that is one level down is a daily column on what is happening  today -  minus one hundred and fifty years – in the Civil War. I really do not know the Civil War very well. I know General Grant pretty well but not what else was happening at the same time, but in a different place. Reading this everyday in the New York Times is fascinating. Everything seems to be happening so slowly and quickly at the same time. It is not at the pace of a history book, it is at the pace of life. Life with lots of different people – with lots of different agendas – doing different things at the same time. Even if you are not interested in the Civil War, check it out.