Multiplicities In Paradise

T he universe is deteriorating.  A mere 10 years ago, any decent search engine would reveal 100s of YouTube videos and thoughtful articles from people like Christopher Hitchens , Stephen Hawkins, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris if you searched for Intelligent Design or Creationism. Today, most of those entries have disappeared or moved 100s of pages back in the queue and instead there is a plethora of pseudoscience nonsense much of which intentionally being passed off as science, much of which can be traced back to the Discovery Institute or Discovery Science - anything from these sources is propaganda masquerading as science. It's a con job. And like in the political realm, people are apparently easy marks. Don't be duped. The pressure is on. The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike. I find this particular type of con job must disdainful.  Here's the deal. I don't believe, nor do I elevate the subject matter by disbelief,  There is NO evid...

The title of this post is taken from the American classic novel "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I n music, it's said that the romantic period (and it's overblown excesses) ended with Wagner. That may be so. It brings to mind the quote oft attributed to Mark Twain (yes it sounds like his work, but it was actually Bill Nye [not our Science Guy, but the journalist-humorist ]   " Richard Wagner's music is better than it sounds”. It's a densely packed statement. But what exactly is romanticism? And why do we need it now? I posit that romanticism is hardly a "sweetness", as many may conjure up. There is nothing particularly sugary about being dark and tormented, the furor of passion, nor the despair of an idealism that can not be attained. Yet that is what the core of romanticism is composed of. Nor is it merely adjective abuse. It's more than an aesthetic in decor. So what is it then? Ideals. Perhaps Ideals have m...