Reply #18: Have some more KoolAid(tm).

[bemildred]

It's grape. I put some extra sugar in it.

Here is more "wisdom" from the good doctor:

Aliens Cause Global Warming

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to
argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more
precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the
way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this
progression of belief will be my task today.

Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing
in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite
impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several
widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis
in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy
relationship between hard science and public policy.

I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born
in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of
the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in
preparation for a nuclear attack.

It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I
believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind.
Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a
world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass
manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science
held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and
working relationships across national boundaries and political systems,
encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to
fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world
might not be a very good place, but science would make it better. And it
did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has
been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our
troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan,
feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also
expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and
superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be,
in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And
here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as
a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more
ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our
world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not
benefited from permitting these demons to escape free.

SEPP