Toward an Encyclopedia Apocalyptica
To a post-apocalyptic population, merely explaining scientific and technological facts about our situation won't help. We'll need a guidebook.
Strung Together
Must We Sacrifice the Beasts at the Altars of Our Fierce Gods?
Like the Aztecs before us, and despite the sheen of humane treatment, zoos continue to be sites of ritual animal sacrifice.
Consider the Troll
The pressing question isn't so much what a troll is and how he came to be, but what to do when confronted with a troll.
We Have Never Been Human
Within our bodies, single-celled organisms outnumber cells that we identify as human DNA ten to one. We're merely a colony within a colony within a colony.
A Brief Lesson on Poetry for Physicists
Praise for Carlo Rovelli's international bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics has been near universal. Can the reviewers all be wrong? Yes, they can.
E.T. Was Gay
Steven Spielberg's most child-friendly blockbuster primed a generation to be more accepting of homosexuality.
I Was So Bored Watching ‘Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens’
Star Wars is the latest exemplar of a genre that's accelerating toward its own creative exhaustion. That genre, of course, is the Hollywood tent-pole.
Where Is the Truth in Our Romance of Popular Physics?
If all the truth of physics is in the math, what kind of storytelling are we lay persons getting when we read popular accounts of physics that are completely stripped of it?
How Ethical Are Ad Blockers?
For many netizens, a free Internet would be the apogee of its early techno-utopian vision. Yet the "free internet" rallying cry is one of the latest, greatest manifestations of consumerism.
The Empire of Scientism Strikes Back
Despite what Steven Pinker has claimed in his epic debate with Leon Wieseltier in The New Republic, science is less Theory of Everything and more Harper's "Findings".
‘No God But Funny’ and ‘Earth Angel’ Are Preaching to the Choir
It's challenging enough to write good comedy. It's nearly impossible to do so burdened with an agenda, even one as innocuous as featuring a "likeable atheist" as the protagonist.