Free Republic

On March 25, 2010, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on their blog that ESA’s study of the mass of Phobos had been accepted for publication in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. The announcement excerpted startling conclusions of ESA’s findings: “We conclude that the interior of Phobos likely contains large voids. When applied to various hypotheses bearing on the origin of Phobos, these results are inconsistent with the proposition that Phobos is a captured asteroid.” (1,2) Since that time, a number of prominent ancient astronaut blogs have had plenty to say about the findings. The ESA findings were most...

Rebooting Carl Sagan's seminal "Cosmos" miniseries three decades later is almost impossible — unless you happen to be renowned astrophysicist and science educator Neil deGrasse Tyson. For those who may have missed the original back in 1980, "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" was a documentary series on PBS that explored the universe as well as the history of scientific discovery. Sagan's topics of discussion ranged from Japanese folklore to debunking astrology to the ultimate fate of the stars and galaxies that surround us. Now Tyson is hosting a new version of the TV series called "Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey," with the...

Science Daily — Earth sits between two worlds that have been devastated by climate catastrophes. In the effort to combat global warming, our neighbours can provide valuable insights into the way climate catastrophes affect planets.From what scientists know now, it is possible that Venus and Mars started out a lot like Earth. At some point in time, each planet followed a path that changed its climate. The transition was from Earth-like to either a cloudy inferno (Venus) or a frigid desert (Mars). Data from Venus Express and Mars express is now helping scientists determine if, when and why each...

Back in 1980 the US space programme was in the doldrums. Apollo was fading into history and there hadn't been a US astronaut in space for five years. The quirky space shuttle, much diminished from its initial vision, was still waiting to make its maiden flight. But that fall came Cosmos, a revolutionary documentary series with a compelling host. Both the television universe and the real one have never been quite the same. Carl Sagan, by equal measure professorial and childlike, offered space enthusiasts a new paradigm. Buck Rogers was out; refined and groovy cosmic citizen was in. Here was...

Star Children for DarwinFeb 28, 2009 — Why should we be looking for alien intelligence around other stars when it is right behind your eyeballs?  You may not have known that you are a star child, but that’s what a leading astronomer called you.  As a good star child, you need to pay tribute to Charles Darwin.     In New Scientist, Lawrence Krauss called on children of spaceship Earth to “Celebrate evolution as only star children can.”  In this, he tied together the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope on...

The other half of the universe Carl Sagan’s widow and longtime collaborator Ann Druyan gives the world another book by the late eminent scientist — this time on religion Conventional religion is taking a beating in the book world right now, with Richard Dawkins' “The God Delusion” and Sam Harris' “Letter to a Christian Nation” and “The End of Faith” making the bestseller lists. These books have boiled to the top of the current global political stew of radical extremism, suicide bombings, violent religious fundamentalism, the popularity of intelligent design and the denial of evolution and global warming. The intensity...

Big Bang - Big Scam, Or Sometimes Evolutionists Need To Be Smacked Upside The Head With A Board From Noah's Ark \In the Great Debate that has the Public Fool System fighting any challenge to the Theory Of Evolution, we must remember that many jobs - especially in Universities - would be at risk for the profs and their underlings - who must defend the THEORY, or find a more honest occupation elsewhere. An Intelligent Designer (why not just say God?) advocate on the college campus is scoffed at as a latter day Ptolemy, who believed that the earth was...

Richard Robinson attempts the impossible, trying to hopeful about pessimism and despair. After concluding that God and the immortal soul are nonexistent, Robinson claims man can still create meaning by pursuing truth and beauty and virtue, most importantly courage and brotherly love. In an Atheist's Values He writes: "The human situation is this. Each one of us dies. He ceases to pulse or breathe or move or think. He decays and loses his identity. His mind or soul or spirit ends with the ending of his body, because it is entirely dependent on his body. The human species too will...

Apparently Carl Sagan was a closeted homophobe: "Dear Mr. Derbyshire -- If you were not aware, Carl Sagan -- Yes, the happy, life-affirming, turtle-necked, warm-glow Carl Sagan -- was also mildly & tolerantly homophobic. "Two biographies on Sagan came out in 1999 and both (though one more than the other) were pained and hurt by some of the comments that would come out of Sagan's mouth. My favorite was that Sagan wasn't convinced that homosexuality was genetic, though if forced to accept that conclusion, he wanted it understood that homosexuality was a genetic deformity. Another was when Sagan discovered that...

<p>My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today.</p>