Keith Nagel wrote:
As such, it seems perfectly within the bounds of the list to make statements about Ben Spock, MM OHare and God being personally responsible for the destruction of an American city.
It is indeed within the bounds of the list to make these statements! No problem-o. There are, however, two limitations. They apply to matters of fact, and to hypotheses.
1. Matters of fact should be correct. That means you should fact-check something that sounds like an urban myth. It is a fact that Spock's grandson, not his son, committed suicide. The cause was insanity, not his upbringing. This is not debatable.
2. Hypotheses should be falsifiable, or they are not scientific. Revtec asserted, among other things, that spanking children is good for them. That seems highly unlikely to me, but at least in principle you could test it, and prove it true or false. So I was not objecting to that. That's the kind of weird, off-the-wall assertion we should welcome . . . I suppose.
Some of Revtec's other statements were clearly not intended to be taken as facts or hypotheses. Lyrical statements such as "Good friends are like stars . . ." have no scientific content. People do not resemble high temperature hydrogen plasma, and Revtec is not suggesting this might explain spontaneous human combustion. However, the message was clearly marked "off topic" so I have no objection to this aspect of it.
As far as I am concerned, any statement of a religious nature can only be taken as a non-falsifiable lyrical or emotive outburst, without scientific content, sort of like a joke about sex or breaking wind (or breaking wind while having sex). It is the sort of thing an extraterrestrial visitor with different biology would never understand, relate to, or laugh at. Such things are off-topic by definition, but harmless.
Anyway, enough silliness. I am preparing a paper by Mizuno that will be off-the-wall enough for everyone here. I hope it will be ready tomorrow. It is about his January 2005 explosion. Analysis of the computer data has revealed that it liberated about 800 times more energy than the total electrochemical energy input before the experiment. So I guess that rules out a chemical explosion, doesn't it? If anyone other than Mizuno made this claim, I would dismiss it, but he is the most honest person I have ever known, and this time, he has computer data and photos.
- Jed
