U.S. spent $52B on nukes last year

The U.S. spent $52 billion on nukes last year, according to the The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. The United States spent over $52 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs…

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Science versus pseudoscience according to Carl Sagan

Provoked by a persistent fellow who has been haunting this site and who constantly downplays the scope, value and accuracy of science in his comments, some of us have been increasingly trying to express what it is, exactly, that makes science valuable and more "truthful" than pseudoscience. While considering this issue, I decided to reread Carl Sagan's inspired book: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996). Sagan's ideas reminded me of the value of Ann Druyan's suggestion that we eliminate the term "supernatural" from our vocabulary and substitute "sub-natural." I believe that this approach would quite often put things in better perspective. I will quote here, at length, various passages from The Demon-Haunted World bearing on the definition and value of bona fide science. Sagan so often said it so very well: Superstition and pseudoscience keep getting in the way, distracting [believers in pseudoscience], providing easy answers, dodging skeptical scrutiny, casually pressing our awe buttons and cheapening the experience, making us routine and comfortable practitioners as well as victims of credulity. Yes, the world would be a more interesting place if there were UFOs lurking in the deep waters off Bermuda and eating ships and planes, or if dead people could take control of our hands and writers messages. It would be fascinating if adolescents were able to make telephone handsets rocket off their cradles just by thinking at them or if our dreams could, more often than can be explained by chance and our knowledge of the world, actually foretell the future. These are all instances of pseudoscience. They purport to use the methods and findings of science, while in fact they are faithless to its nature-often because they are based on insufficient evidence or because they ignore clues that point the other way. They ripple with gullibility. (Page 13) [more . . . ]

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Scientific American: Ten places already affected by climate change

Scientific American has published a list of ten places that have already significantly experienced climate change. When the insurance companies weigh in (see the second entry on the U.S. Gulf Coast), you can be sure that we're dealing with money (based on dispassionate probabilities), not ideology.    Many major casualties on…

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