This is probably a matter of taste, but that Hubbard was “engaging page turners, light burners, wage earners. They show a keen grasp of storytelling” is hardly the same as saying he was a good writer—the same can be said of Dan Brown and I think he’s little better than a hack.

Hubbard was, however, popular in the 30s and part of the 40s, at one time one of the Big Three—Asimov, Heinlein, Hubbard. Hubbard lost his place first to Van Vogt (whose career was later wrecked because Van Vogt fell into Hubbard’s Dianetics orbit) and then, depending on which year, Sturgeon and Clarke.

But, yeah, I agree with his slippery grasp of science and its distinctions, which is why it always amazed me that Campbell put up with him. But then Campbell allowed him to use Astounding SF as the springboard for Dianetics because, Campbell claimed, Hubbard had cured his sinusitis.

They also show a near total ignorance of science and math, and only the faintest grasp of the distinction between magic and technology.

In fact, his instinct for storytelling is probably why he was deemed unfit for independent action during his stint in military intelligence: He couldn’t tell observation from his imagination in the real world.

The Bible is a good blend of allegory and myth. That locations mentioned in it actually existed is as amazing as there being a city on the north eastern coast of America that strongly resembles Metropolis, as documented by DC Comics. This is not proof of Lois Lane.

Just because Atlanta is depicted in “Gone With The Wind” and there was something called the Civil War, does that change that book from fiction to history?

Also, people in ancient Greece knew the world is round, hundreds of years B.C.E. People here and there, from time to time, have lost that knowledge and regained it, usually because someone in authority found it useful to teach that view to them. (Hm, I wonder why?)

Just because the archaeology of Jerusalem, Jericho, and so forth has verified the existence and much of the history of such places is no reason to accept the mythic confabulations of the authors of the Pentateuch with regards to creation—no more than the actual existence of Troy proves that Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, and Athena were real.

And trust me on this, Reverend—I understand the bible. I’ve simply come to a different conclusion than you.

Give her real power to knock heads and get to the bottom of this, and I have confidence that she would get the job done more than anyone on Wall Street would want to think about.

A couple of 100 years ago people believed the world was flat, and to say the world was round was considered fiction.

Every cities or civilizations mentioned in the good book have been documented to have existed exactly where it said it did. But also, artifacts and ruins have been found to reinforce what the good book says. Is that call fiction?

“A man was driving down a country road then was pulled over by the police. The man ask, why he was pulled over. The officer said that he was speeding. The man said he saw no speed sign. The officer told him that some weeds was covering the sign. The officer gave the ticket and left.

The man was mad. He decided to fight the ticket in court. When that day came, he gave the judge his argument. The judge said to the man, Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

In other word the judge was simply tell him that just because didn’t see the sign doesn’t mean its not there.

Honeymoon is over, Ms. Warren. If you don’t know where the money is, you are partially culpable.

So basically the software can be 99 percent confident that you are saying “hair” when you are really saying “hare”.

Back in the 90’s I worked with a commercial AI system that read handwritten applications and output test for used in a database system. The system used a 300 MHz cpu that interfaced to a high performance document scanner and a second 300 MHz PC that hosted a custom hardware neural net simulator designed around 4 intel 860 processors (the 860 cpu was a 64-bit high performance pipelined RISC processor, often touted as the “Cray on a chip”). Ten years later, any mid-range PC could do more than the $8000 co-processor board was able to do.

The AI system achieved about 98 percent accuracy with confidence levels set at around 85. Some of the problem handwriting was difficult for our editing staff to read.

B vitamins have long been used in detoxification programs for drug and alcohol abuse. Niacin has several effects in moderate to high doses. It temporarily increased blood flow throughout the body, has an anti-inflammatory effect, and in many people causes a “flush”, a prickly heat sensation that can range from barely noticeable to intensely painful. However very large doses can perforate ulcers, leading to death.