Category Archives: Education

The Misnamed Blog Carnival

The latest Carnival of Space is up.

For anyone interested, I’ve never participated in this, primarily because in my experience, they’re not really carnivals of space — they’re carnivals of space science, a subject in which I have little more interest in than other kinds, except to the degree that it provides knowledge of how to develop and settle it. This is a specific instance of a more general irk — when many people learn that I’m an expert on space policy and technology, or I do a radio interview, they assume that I’m both an expert on and interested in space science and astronomy and (even more annoyingly) UFOs. It’s the same kind of general public level of (lack of) knowledge that leads to phrases such as “rocket scientist.”

Good Question

In the midst of appropriately ridiculing Al Gore, Charles Krauthammer raises an interesting point:

Look, if Godzilla appeared on the Mall this afternoon, Al Gore would say it’s global warming…

[Laughter]

…because the spores in the South Atlantic Ocean, you know, were. Look, everything is, it’s a religion. In a religion, everything is explicable. In science, you can actually deny or falsify a proposition with evidence. You find me a single piece of evidence that Al Gore would ever admit would contradict global warming and I’ll be surprised.

OK, so how is the global warming religion falsifiable? What would it take?