"But if someone has a Ph.D. and a background in quantum mechanics, I'll listen to them."

I'll graduate in two years with a Ph.D. in low dimensional physics, and I know a thing or two about quantum mechanics, so maybe you'll listen to me? So: I once wrote to Salon, after reading some piece in which the author clearly had no understanding of science, and suggested you hire an editor who did. Who am I to expect you would?- but it's really obvious you haven't. The two mad articles by Goldstein today (alarmist to the point of irrationality), topped off by paranormal crap? Please:

"DuBois, supposedly communing with Roach's dead mother, says a lot of vague and unlikely things, until she mentions an hourglass in connection with Roach's brother -- who, unbeknownst to DuBois, collects hourglasses. How can science explain that?"

Mm, perhaps by noting that since the medium likely had no personal knowledge of the author, she first says a lot of vague and unlikely things, until she mentions an article, by chance, that happened to stir up a memory.

But come on! you don't need science to explain that. It's not even rocket science.

Apparently, you're fine with writers who dwell in vast oceans of ignorance about the subjects they discuss, but I really don't see how that makes what they have to say interesting or even mildly informative.

Please: find yourselves writers, plus an editor, who are capable of working with scientific subjects. This is getting embarrassing. Take the initiative to distinguish Salon from the crap science coverage that is a hallmark of most mainstream media.

Erik Henriksen

Dr. Collins may be a great biologist, but he's a terrible physicist: he has a simplistic view of the big bang and the anthropic principle, and to base his belief in God on on these grounds certainly leaves him open to having his worldview shaken once again. First, the evidence for a big bang does not imply that nothing existed before it; several current theories assume the existence of some universe or space even before the big bang. The "something created from nothing" argument for God is, basically, made up because it sounds good– or worse, as Dr. Collins seems to say, just because "he can't imagine" what came before. As for the anthropic principle, a majority of physicists actually find it to be an incredibly weak argument; but if anything, this principle argues for the existence of a multitude of universes, with each having its own particular values for the fundamental physical constants. Hardly a unique universe created by God!

However, Dr. Collins betrays his intellectual laziness most clearly with the following statement: "Scientists have not been able to figure that out." Well, gee-whiz! I guess those boys and girls in the white lab coats just don't have a clue! Haven't figured it out yet, oh well, it must be due to God! ...I find it particularly funny that he says this– especially during his "most compelling" arguments for Godˆ– because this is exactly the argument used by the so-called "intelligent design" movement: oop! too complicated, haven't figured it out! Must be God!

Weak, weak, weak. I'm always saddened and surprised to see otherwise rational people just lost it when confronted with daily issues of morality and survival. It's as if they've spent too much time with textbooks, and then can't deal with the difficulties of the real world. Of course we don't know all the answers to and intricacies of human existence, but to simply give up any attempt at a non-superstitious understanding of our world just because at the moment we don't know it all already is... incredible, mind-boggling, beyond belief.