Check out Science Uprising 3. In contemporary culture, we are asked to believe – in an impressive break with observed reality – that the code of life wrote itself: … mainstream studies are funded, some perhaps with tax money, on why so many people don’t “believe in” evolution (as the creation story of materialism). The fact that their doubt is treated as a puzzling public problem should apprise any thoughtful person as to the level of credulity contemporary culture demands in this matter. So we are left with a dilemma: The film argues that there is a mind underlying the universe. If there is no such mind, there must at least be something that can do everything that a cosmic Read More ›

Fun with the grammar we take for granted: Groucho Marx (1890–1977) used to start one of his quips with “I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.” That seems clear enough but then he follows up with “How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.” The punch line depends on the ambiguity of the question. At first, we interpret the words in a common-sense way; we assume that Groucho was wearing his own pajamas. The joke consists in surprising us with a grammatically possible but fantastic alternative. Contemporary comedian Emo Phillips quips that ambiguity is the devil’s volleyball.1 Computers have no sense of humor. Given the sentence without context, they don’t have a clue who is wearing Groucho’s pajamas. Read More ›