Invoking God to Explain Ignorance is Unproductive

Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God's handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout. ut a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when ...

 Governments Can't Control Science

Faced with the admitted difficulty of managing the creative process, we are doubling our efforts to do so. Is this because science has failed to deliver, having given us nothing more than nuclear power, penicillin, space travel, genetic engineering, transistors, and superconductors? Or is it because governments everywhere regard as a reproach activities they cannot advantageously control? They felt that way about the marketplace for goods, but trillions of wasted dollars later, they have come...

 What are Dilithium Crystals

Finally, the Star Trek writers added one more crucial component to the matter-antimatter drive. I refer to the famous dilithium crystals (coincidentally invented by the Star Trek writers long before the Fer-milab engineers decided upon a lithium target in their Antiproton Source). ...What do these remarkable figments of the Star Trek writers' imaginations do? These crystals (known also by their longer formula 26 dilithium 21 diallosilicate 1:9:1 heptoferranide) can regulate the matter-antima...