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Just as astronomers, etc. have created a standard model of the cosmos, and physicists have created a standard model of matter and energy. There has also been a standard model for living in the U.S.A., All of science is tentative, subject to revision and based on the preferences of some of the people who created the standard model. The standard models are convenient, because they explain many things and allow specialists to look at the iffy spots and to find inconsistencies.

For example, ...

I was conversing with a woman who is a university senior in premed, n d it came out that she has never studied either Latin or Greek. I can understand that lack for business majors, but people in the sciences need to have a fair knowledge of Latin and at least some Greek. It wasn’t long ago, when one could not be admitted to college without a working knowledge of both languages. The requirement for knowledge of Greek was dropped in the late nineteenth century, when colleges were overwhelmed by men ...

I have respected science and knowledge in general since my earliest memories. I strongly considered going into a scientific field professionally, but being outside the sciences is more appropriate to someone of my personality; I am better suited for generalism than for the narrow specialization of the sciences.

While it is possible that the human race will be destroyed by a change in the climate of the Earth, that is rather unlikely, and it would be impossible for humans to alter ...

I have followed science news for decades, but I have become progressively less impressed with it, because of the lower quality of the reporting. Part of the reason might be that I am more knowledgeable now than I was a few decades ago, but I do think that the writers of science articles are not as familiar with the material they are writing about as was typical in the past. Some articles give me the impression that the writer had no prior knowledge of the subject at hand.

One recent ...

Mark Twain — 'A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.'

I think I should blame the popular press, but there may be blame for the education industry also. Within the last few days, two different people tried to “correct” a piece of science that I mentioned, but they were wrong, and my fact was the real fact.

The first time was with respect to “climate change”. The claimer insisted that the popular delusion that climate change ...