Yup, people have tried and tried and tried to find any evidence for telepathy. There is none. Go to www.randi.org to see for yourself.

There just isn't any point in public funding for any more experiments on something there is no evidence for. If you or anyone else thinks otherwise- then you're free to use your money and your time to carry out the research.

Of course, you could also try getting military funding. It's documented in 'The Men who Stare at Goats' by Jon Ronson that the military got quite interested in designing telepathic weapons for a while. Still- it all came to naught, because telepathy simply doesn't work.

No one can prove telepathy doesn't exist- in the same way that I can't prove that there are no fairies living at the bottom of your garden. It's one more negative that can't be disproved, and so of no help in deciding whether a God exists or not.

What I can say is that for any hypothesis to be of worth- it should be testable. The God hypothesis evidently is not. Thus, it's completely irrelevant whether God exists or not- because he doesn't have any measurable effect on the physical universe.

I tend to think of things that have no measurable effect as 'non-existant', since they may as well as be. Of course, other people can choose different alternatives.

We can build detectors which are sensitive to individual photons- and quarks can be inferred from high-energy scattering experiments.

Presumably though you're referring to the 'if a tree falls in a forest and there's no-one around to see it' question. However, there are conceivable experiments which would be sensitive to detecting falling trees- there are no experiments that can test the God hypothesis.

What is your proposed test?

He's funnier than me and more talented and he's younger than me and he's got a best-selling book.

I hate him.

Maddox will never be able to pass your left-wing purity tests and you'll never be able to appreciate great art or humor because of your dogmatism.

Satire doesn't answer to you- it answers to no-one.

Why are we laughing? We're laughing at you.

Yes you're right- to use satire is to rape, torture and kill. Why should you be forced to download his web-page and read Maddox's pathetic attempts at humor? If I had my way- there would be more than one humor web-site on the internet so that we would have the choice to read something else. I'd also install off buttons on every computer.

Maddox should take lessons from genius's like Rosie O'Donnel- who is not in favor of killing kittens and has taken a controversial stand against rape.

Don't read it then.

Good grief!

He's racist? I assume you can back that charge up?

I didn't realise that you meant were racist abusers in general- and not just the author that this letters page is about. My apologies, I shouldn't have disagreed with that opinion.

Otherwise, thanks for taking a controversial stand against racism and fascism.

My suggestion still stands though. If you don't like a website, then feel free to press all those other fancy buttons on your web browser- such as the X button.

Oh, and here's a clue for you. The book is called 'The Alphabet of Manliness' and features a Tarzan-like figure battling a giant ape on its front cover. Maybe the author was aiming for a satirical effect. Of course, that's just a guess on my part.

I didn't realise that you meant men were racist abusers in general- and not just the author that this letters page is about. My apologies, I shouldn't have disagreed with that opinion.

Otherwise, thanks for taking a controversial stand against racism and fascism.

My suggestion still stands though. If you don't like a website, then feel free to press all those other fancy buttons on your web browser- such as the X button.

Oh, and here's a clue for you. The book is called 'The Alphabet of Manliness' and features a Tarzan-like figure battling a giant ape on its front cover. Maybe the author was aiming for a satirical effect. Of course, that's just a guess on my part.

Such a great way to win any argument- just call the person you disagree with an 'idiot' and a 'simpleton' and tell them they can't read. Witty too!

Yes I double posted. I left out a word in my first post. Who cares?

I can't say for certain that Manjoo is correct, but he appears to be using the tools of reason and logic with detailed references to make his points. I do know that if Manjoo had found compelling evidence that the election was rigged that he would be sitting on a major story, which would in all likelihood make his career.

It takes a certain degree of paranoia to assume that Salon is in the business of hiring right-wing shills to deceive its readers. It is however perfectly credible that Rolling Stone would publish a known controversialist with little credibility to hype a largely discredited conspiracy theory in the hope of increased sales.

I would suggest that one way to tell good journalism from bad is that good journalism occasionally presents the readers with stories containing truths that they would really rather not hear. The sort of stories that cause numerous readers to write in demanding to cancel their subscription. This would suggest to me that the publication is trying to prioritize truth over pandering to their readership.

I'm not the first to mention this, but it would be easier to believe Kennedy if he hadn't previously written controversial articles detailing an alleged link between autism and mercury found in vaccines. One of these articles was published on Salon (for shame).

Kennedy's autism articles were sensationalist, manipulative scare-mongering, dependent on a conspiracy theory and has been completely debunked.

(e.g. http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/06/robert_f_kenned.html)

Why are readers willing to cancel their Salon subscriptions in order to defend RFK?