Physicists in Congress

There are three of them, according to this piece in the New York Times, and it probably wouldn't hurt if a few more were elected.

"The Stupidity of Dignity"

Damien Broderick alerted me to this essay by Steven Pinker, "The Stupidity of Dignity," which is about bioethics, the increasing influence conservative religious forces are having on medical developments in the U.S., and why noted bioethicist and buffoon Leon Kass thinks it's beneath anyone's dignity to eat an ice cream cone in public. Pinker sounds the alarm here.

Year Million...

...edited by Australian polymath Damien Broderick, which includes an essay I wrote in collaboration with engineer Anne Corwin, is now out from Atlas Books.

Where Are They?

Nick Bostrom hopes that the search for extraterrestrial life is unsuccessful. In the May/June 2008 issue of Technology Review, he writes:

"What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth? Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast, cold cosmos.

"But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.

"Conversely, if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form--some bacteria, some algae--it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it would be very bad news. The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, certainly--but a bad omen for the future of the human race."

Find out why he thinks so here.

Update: A PDF of the Bostrom article can be found here.

"Obama vs. the Phobocracy"

Nebula Award winner Michael Chabon's eloquent February 4th op-ed piece on Barack Obama can be found here, and seems more relevant than ever.