28 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
Neil deGrasse Tyson on NASA Funding
First of all, let's clarify what the NASA budget is. Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar bailout, that sum of money is greater than the entire 50-year running budget of NASA?
And so when someone says, "We don't have enough money for this space probe," I'm asking, no, it's not that you don't have enough money, it's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.
You rem... 1 
notes
notesThe economic bailout was more than the entire history of NASA's budget. America is prioritizing toward the next quarter instead of the future.
29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Science Works Better than Religion
Religion, magic, science: All assume a reality behind the commonplace that gives meaning and structure to the world, and which might somehow be made to work for our benefit. Thus we have offered prayers, incense, and sacrifice to the gods, cast magical spells and incantations, or built, for example, colossally expensive particle accelerators to probe the inner secrets of atoms and the first moments of the ultra-hot big bang.
To what effect? As for prayer, the gods have been dramatically nonf...
1 If we think of the particle accelerators, NASA, Universities, and other buildings, then cathedrals to science outnumber those to religion, and that is because science produces results.
