Biochemist Michael Behe on This Day in History

 

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This day in history: Michael Behe was born on this day in 1952.

Michael Behe is a biochemist, author and professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Michael Behe received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978, where his dissertation was on sickle cell disease, and he subsequently spent four years researching aspects of DNA structure at the National Institutes of Health before joining the Lehigh faculty in 1985.

His books include Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution, which both highlight the inherent problems with evolutionary theory and present a case for intelligent design. He argues that molecular machines, such as the bacterial flagellum, are irreducibly complex. Such machines require all of their parts to function, Behe says, and so could not have come into being through an unguided process. He considers this evidence that the flagellum must have been designed. 

Behe observed:

"There is no publication in the scientific literature that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations." Darwin’s Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 186

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Neil deGrasse Tyson on This Day in History

 

This day in history: American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson was born on this day in 1958. 

The problem with NdGT is that he is an astrophysicist who tries to speak with authority on subjects that aren't astrophysics. 

"Tyson is an attention-seeking media troll who courts adoration from bloggers, students and hipsters while picking off low-hanging fruit and mocking people he doesn’t like. But he often does this not with the master troll’s scalpel but the clumsy tin ear of the lumbering buffoon who pisses people off for all the wrong reasons, with cheap, sarcastic bait masquerading as sassy intellect." Source

One of Tyson's most famous quotes is "The good thing about Science is that it's true, whether you believe in it or not". However, Science is a process, not a collection of sacred truths. Science for the most part is always changing. Politics drive science, because politicians fund science. As a result, Science is flawed.

Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked why certain medical experts were silenced during the pandemic. His response was: "I'm not interested in medical pedigree. I'm interested in medical consensus and scientific consensus...The individual scientist does not matter." Except, we now know that the politically approved consensus was wrong, and wildly so.

Tyson also tweeted that "Whiteness" has links with climate change and transphobia. 

Tyson posted a TikTok video insisting biology is insufficient in explaining gender ideology. In the video, Tyson said that people should think about gender as a 'spectrum' because sometimes people feel more female than male and sometimes they put on makeup in the morning and sometimes they don't. 'Tomorrow I might feel 80 percent male. I'll remove the makeup, and I'll wear a muscle shirt,' Tyson said. 

Detransition activist Chloe Cole responded: 'How about we stop confusing basic human biology with cosmetics....You're using 1950s gender stereotypes for an ideology that leads to the sterilization and mastectomies of 15-year-old girls who just don't fit in, girls like me.' 

Tyson says aliens might find humans too stupid to contact. Since he is the public face of science and intelligence on this planet, they may be right.

Konstantin Kisin & Neil deGrasse Tyson CLASH Over Trans Debate

Mary Shelley on This Day in History

This Day in History: Mary Shelley was born on this day in 1797. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. 

She wrote Frankenstein while still a teenager.

National Frankenstein Day is celebrated on this day every year. 

Helen Moore wrote the following in 1886:

Mrs. Shelley herself, in the preface of the last London edition of “Frankenstein," published during her life, has told how she tried day after day to think of a plot; to invent something uncanny or horribly fantastic, and how each morning, to the question, “Have you thought of a story?" she was obliged to answer "No," until a train of thought supplied by conversation of a metaphysical tone which she had listened to between Shelley and Byron, entered into her state of reverie in semi-sleep, and suggested the essential outlines of the plot of "Frankenstein."

What was thus suggested was probably nothing more than the central figures of the weird conception. Nothing could be simpler than the plot, nothing more horrible than the situations and the details. Frankenstein is a student who, by the study of occult sciences, acquires the power of imparting life to a figure which he had made. Graves and charnel-house had furnished the needed material from which he had constructed this colossal human form. To the thing thus prepared he is able to impart life. It lives and possesses human attributes. The rest of the tale is occupied in depicting the nameless horrors which visited Frankenstein as the result of his creation. The thing becomes the bane of his life. He tries to fly from it, but there is no final escape. One by one, the monster that he had created slays the brother, friend, sister, and bride of the luckless student, who himself finally falls a victim to his own wretched and unto-ward creation. The monster, upon its part, strives to adapt itself to life, but fails; finds no possibility of companionship, no admission into any human fellowship.

Such in brief outline is the plot, if it can be so called, of the tale which, with eager hands, the youthful romancer penned before the first horror of the idea had faded from her brain. At Shelley's suggestion the story was amplified. The introductory letters were inserted and the pastoral episode and other incidents were added to the later part of the narrative. As originally written the story began with the words, "It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils." In the work as published these words introduce Chapter IV.

Regarded as a mere tale, it is difficult to account for the hold this story has always had upon the minds of the reading world. As a story it does not justify its own success. To say that it is remarkable as a work of imagination does not meet the difficulty. By a work of the imagination, as used in the current criticism of "Frankenstein," is simply meant that it is a fantastic romance, such as we find in the "Arabian Nights," or in the prose tales of Poe. But a position utterly different from these is accorded to "Frankenstein."

We have intimated that there was a dual quality in it, to which it owed its singular power and place in literature. One element is doubtless the horror of the tale and the weird fancy of the author's imagination in the ordinary acceptation of the word. But it is to an entirely different department of mental conception that we must look for the secret of its peculiar influence. The faculty of imagination is something more than the recalling and rearrangements of past impressions. Profoundly considered, it is that function of the mind which formulates, as though real, a state of things which if present would so appear. It is the power of projecting the mind into unhappened realities. It is the faculty of picturing unseen verities. There is thus in it a prophetic element, not at all miraculous, but dependent upon subtile laws of association and suggestion. It is to this element that "Frankenstein" owes its power over thoughtful minds. It is by virtue of the allegorical element in it that it holds its high position as a work of the imagination. Yet so unobtrusively is the allegory woven through the thread of the romance, that, while always felt, it can scarcely be said to have been detected. Certain it is that no one has directed attention to this phase, or carefully attempted an analysis of the work, with the view of deducing the meaning thus legible between the lines.

That Mrs. Shelley herself was conscious of this element is certain, by the double title she gave it,— "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus." Furthermore, that she should thus embody, under the apparent guise of a weird story, suggestions of moral truths, developments of mental traits,—normal and abnormal,—and hints at, and solutions of, social questions, was in strict accord both with her own intellectual state and with the circumstances under which "Frankenstein" was produced. And yet nothing is more improbable than that it was written with such design, or that the youthful author was fully aware or even conscious of the extent to which the allegorical overlies largely the narrative in her work. This very unconsciousness of result, this obliviousness to hidden truths, is a distinguishing mark of genius. To take daily account of stock proclaims the small trader, not the merchant prince. Placed in a congenial atmosphere, genius in breathing the breath of life will exhale truths. The very gist of genius is embodied in this hidden relation to truth. That mind has genius which, detecting germs of truth under forms where the common eye sees them not, affords in itself the place and pabulum for their growth.

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We know the circumstance under which the book was written; the stories which suggested it were all weird in form and allegorical in type; the minds of those by whom Mrs. Shelley was at that time surrounded were minds to whom the mystical was the natural mode of thought and speech. Her own inherited and acquired mental traits were markedly of this same character. Furthermore, at this time the influence of Shelley was strongest upon her. Not that of one nature mastering and overpowering a weaker, but that yet stronger bond of one mind fitted by nature and oneness of motive to gain insight into, and be in unison with, the other.

Such, in a remarkable degree, was her relation at this time to Shelley; to her his nature was revealed. They had spoken and dwelt upon his past until it was an open book to her. His aims and his failures, his aspirations and fears, his nature and philosophy were familiar and ever present to her mind. Moreover, from him she had learned much about the great world of men and things, broadening her nature and conceptions beyond the ordinary limit of feminine knowledge; indeed, with the result of attaching her own peculiar insight to the facts and ideas thus included within her extending horizon. In both of their minds the tendency to dwell on social and ethical problems was strong, and to such natures union means cubic strength. What wonder that, if, underlying her story thus produced, should lie partly concealed or vaguely hinted, social and moral ideas, awaiting but recognition, to become in turn the suggestors of their own redevelopment in the minds of us who read.

That some, nay, many, of these have an almost direct bearing upon Shelley himself, either as proceeding from him or pointing to him, is to be expected; to say that they all thus have would be perhaps straining a theory otherwise tenable. What we can safely affirm is that he who, with this idea of the allegorical substratum, will reread the story, will be richly repaid in the suggestions the mind cannot fail to receive, and which, according to the mind of each, will attach to the nature of Shelley himself, or, more widely taken, will stand as general truths, applicable alike to all.

Such a general truth is that pictured in the character and pursuit of the student Frankenstein himself. He exhibits to us the man of one idea, absorbed in but one department of science, not only abandoning other studies, but rejecting the ordinary avocations of life. Family, frie nd, even the voice of her who loved fails to recall him to action or to a sense of the proper proportion of things. We see the result not only in the loss of symmetry and balance in his character, but find it having its legitimate effect in making him the slave of his own too concentrated studies. So that finally he becomes possessed by the ruling idea he had so dearly cherished, and the reward of his infatuation is the delusion that he can accomplish that which a healthful mind would have avoided,—a delusion which had grown up in the very seclusion and isolation of life that the unhappy student had adopted; to which the fitting antidote would have been the diversion of the commonplace interests which he had carefully excluded. The power to produce the horrible creature, as the fruit of this delusion, is but the poetic justice of his sentence. The terrible result of his creation furnishes the morale and teaching of the allegory. Into this part of the story is interposed the train of thought which is suggested by the construction of the human form by Frankenstein. In its preparation the student selects the most beautiful models for each limb and feature. He spares no pains, and each separate anatomical part is, taken by itself, perfect in symmetry and adaptation. But when once the breath of life is breathed into the creation, and life quickens its being and gleams from its eyes, and function succeeds in the hitherto inanimate parts, all beauty disappears; the separate excellence of each several part is lost in the general incongruity and lack of harmony of the whole.

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Can art see no suggestiveness in this? Can society, in its attempt to manufacture conglomerate masses out of dissimilar elements, learn nothing from the teaching here inculcated?

Once become a living being, Frankenstein and this monster that he had made bear to one another the sustained relation of creator and creature. Throughout the entire narrative this relationship is one long allegory with phases as diverse as a prism. Most prominent is the total failure to create that which should find place in life only by growth. In the sad, lone, utter incompatibility which environed the creature,—in the inability of others to accept or tolerate it,—in its own desperate, heart-sickening attempts to educate and train itself into harmony and communion with those who should have been its fellow-beings, and in its final despair and terrible outlawry and revenge, is shown the futility of the attempt to regulate human beings or their concerns, except under the laws of growth and development. And "Frankenstein" contains no deeper teaching than that we cannot legislate happiness into this world; that such attempt at last, after affording a maximum of
misery, returns to plague the inventor.

Another phase of this relationship between the creator and his creature is so strongly suggestive of a certain period of Shelley’s religious life that the mind hesitates before denying the likeness. The creature of Frankenstein, finding itself in a world in which all happiness is denied it; to which its powers of strengthfulness, however exercised, bring it no good, but serve only to increase its misery and sense of loneliness, turns to its creator and, with alternate curses and prayers, beseeches him to either slay it or fit the world for its companionship. In this dilemma the creator does neither. He merely admits either his unwillingness or his inability to do that which simple justice to his creature, to say nothing of his love and duty, would prompt. Thus the creator is made to figure as lacking either justice or omnipotence.

How Shelleyan this idea, the closest student of him will best judge.

But the chief allegorical interest in the narrative concerns itself about that tendency in the human being to discard the established order of things and to create for itself a new and independent existence. In the simple story, Frankenstein made a being responsible to him alone for its creation,—-a being not produced by the ordinary course of life, not amenable or even adaptable to the existing world of men. Right or wrong, better or worse, the creature may be, but different certainly, and this irreconcilable disparity points back ever to its origin, which had been anomalous and strange.

The whole story is but the elaboration of the embarrassment and dangers which flow from departure from the ordinary course of nature; this forced attempt to invade society from within. What strong existence in real life of this same tendency Mary Shelley had seen in those nearest and dearest to her! She has not failed to learn the lesson of her mother's history; time analyzes rather than destroys. And the life of Mary Wollstonecraft was doubtless seen by the clear-minded daughter in stronger contrast of light and shade than it had been by its contemporaries. Who knew so well the glories of that life? Its successes as well as its miseries had sprung from the self-same causes as those of Frankenstein,—from the breach of the conventional; from overstepping the limits ; from creating an individuality and a sphere of existence denied it by Nomos, and consequently sure of the hostility of society.

To this same cause Shelley himself attributed justly the events and moral struggle of his own life. From earliest childhood revolt against convention, and rebellion against authority, had characterized him. His perpetual tendency, like that of Mary Wollstonecraft, like that typified in "Frankenstein," was ever to create for himself an existence not conforming to the ways of the world.

As we read the story of the modern Prometheus, and page by page trace the evolution of this idea, the ethical aspect is oppressive in its prophetic truth. Each must do this for himself. One thing, however, we may note. The visitation of judgment, the terrible results of the exercise of the power of creation, do not begin, do not recoil upon Frankenstein, until he has actually launched his creature into the world of so long as he kept the scheme within himself so long as the influence of the thought and work was confined to him alone, no evil came; on the contrary, after a certain point the struggle after this ideal was a stimulation and an incentive of the highest order. It was only when the overt act of introducing his new existence into the world was accomplished, that misery began to flow from it to all concerned, and even to those apparently not concerned in it. This is the saving clause in the prophetic allegory. Without this it would fail to square with the truth.

See how far-reaching are the ideas which this allegory evokes, how subtile its suggestions are. Mind after mind has felt the power of this story, so simple in its apparent construction, and has again and again returned to it, not asking itself why; feeling a power it did not recognize, much less analyze; hovering, in fact, around it as birds do when charmed, because of an attraction which was persistent and real, although unknown, even unsuspected. All attraction implies some sort of a magnet. Nothing attracts so powerfully as the true.

The world, by its acknowledgment of the coercive quality of “Frankenstein," has given silent acceptance of its genius. The other works, novels, critiques, biographies, while they have had literary merit, feeling, even power, have not shown genius. "Frankenstein" alone was personal, it alone reflected Mrs. Shelley's true self. Her other books contain simply what she wrote in them: this alone contains what was written in her. Being, as she was, stronger in her personality than as a literary artist, the book that alone partook of that personality would alone partake of her peculiar genius. This, considered in its fullest light, "Frankenstein" does.

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Science Critic Michael Crichton on This Day in History

 

Michael Crichton on Science

This day in history: Author Michael Crichton died on this day in 2008. Many of his books were made into movies, like Jurassic Park. In one of his last books, State of Fear, he was very critical of global warming and the scientific community: “Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done. And if they are smart, they’ll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. This is not a good system for research into those areas of science that affect policy. Even worse, the system works against problem solving. Because if you solve a problem, your funding ends. All that’s got to change."

From George C. Leef:

State of Fear is a didactic novel, teaching while telling a story. Author Michael Crichton is attempting here to do more than just to make a general statement to the reader, such as Upton Sinclair did in The Jungle (“capitalism is bad”) or Ayn Rand did in Atlas Shrugged (“capitalism is vital”). He is attempting to enlighten the reader in great detail about the subject of global environmental change. Specifically, Crichton wants to disabuse people of the carefully cultivated notion that we face inevitable global environmental catastrophe unless we immediately adopt a program of radical economic contraction to stop the emission of “greenhouse gases.”

Equally important, Crichton wants to tear away the curtain of sanctimoniousness that hides the self-serving nature of the main “green” organizations. Their disregard for science and truth already imposes costs on people, with the heaviest costs falling on the poorest people. If the United States were ever so foolish as to embrace the “green” agenda in full, the result would be economic disaster of monumental proportions. Crichton accurately sees the radical greens as self-interested groups whose officers irresponsibly push fear and pseudoscience to drum up financial support.

When you put such an ambitious product in the hands of a bestselling novelist, you have the makings of a book with strong impact. That’s just what Michael Crichton delivers.

It’s important to bear in mind that while Crichton has made his career writing fast-paced “technothriller” novels, he has a strong scientific background that includes a medical degree from Harvard. Clearly, he has not lost the ability to think analytically about scientific claims. The greens’ incessant use of alarmist rhetoric, disinformation, and junk science has caused many scientists to speak up in protest. Crichton wants the general reading reading public to understand what scientists do and that environmentalists often play fast and loose with the scientific method.

The action in the novel centers around a fictitious (but very realistic) environmental organization called the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF) and its unpleasant, maniacal leader Nick Drake. NERF has been spending huge sums of money to covertly acquire some esoteric technology, a fact that comes to the attention of John Kenner, a cross between an MIT professor and a swashbuckling adventurer. Kenner gradually figures out what Drake is up to — the deliberate staging of environmental disasters, human casualties and all, for the purpose of hyping a big environmental conference and lawsuit NERF is planning. Kenner uses all his brains and guts to foil the plots.

Naturally, there is plenty of suspense, mystery, and action. What Crichton hopes is that readers won’t just go bouncing along with the plot, but will absorb some of the scientific information he frequently includes in the form of dialogues between Kenner and some environmental true believer. For example, Kenner responds to a flip comment by an environmental lawyer that Antarctica is melting due to global warming by printing out a list of scientific papers (all of them genuine) in which the researchers have found evidence for Antarctic cooling. The lawyer merely responds by saying that the studies were probably financed by the coal industry.

Kenner counterattacks by asking if the lawyer holds his views merely because his salary is paid by environmental groups. The lawyer becomes angry at the implication that he is just a paid flunky, and Kenner then bores in.

“Now you know how legitimate scientists feel when their integrity is impugned by slimy characterizations such as the one you just made. Sanjong and I gave you a careful, peer-reviewed interpretation of data. Made by several groups of scientists from several different countries. And your response was first to ignore it, and then to make an ad hominem attack.You didn’t answer the data. You didn’t provide counter evidence. You just smeared with innuendo.”

State of Fear is chock full of important lessons like that. Once he gets rolling, Crichton is like a guy who, now that he has his chain saw out, figures he might as well cut up not just the downed tree branch in his backyard, but all the rest of the dead wood around. He goes after lots of other environmental pseudo-issues (such as that power lines cause cancer) and emphasizes the high cost of some environmental policies (such as the resurgence of malaria since greens managed to have DDT banned). By the book’s end, there’s a big pile of sawdust that used to be the environmentalist thought-world.

Of course, the book has been blasted by the greens and big-government interventionists who don’t want to see one of their prize justifications for the expansion of the state called into question. Their ire alone is almost enough to recommend State of Fear. Crichton’s brief essay “Why Politicized Science Is Dangerous” (included as an appendix) is certainly enough to recommend it.

Sample this rarity — a best-seller that has something very important to say.

George C. Leef

George Leef is the former book review editor of The Freeman. He is director of research at the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

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Science Skeptic Charles Fort on This Day in History

This Day in History: Charles Fort was born on this day in 1874. He is best known for his "Book of the Damned." Fort was a skeptic of science, and his book produced numerous instances of occurrences that science just could not explain, or were just ignored by science. Such instances described were falling frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials, spontaneous human combustion, ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort), poltergeist events, unaccountable noises and explosions, levitation, unidentified flying objects, unexplained disappearances, giant wheels of light in the oceans, and animals found outside their normal ranges. He offered many reports of out-of-place artifacts (OOPArts), strange items found in unlikely locations.

"Fort had long criticized scientists for their methods of investigating paranormal phenomena, suggesting that they let their beliefs influence which data they accepted as valid and which they ignored...He also enjoyed attacking scientists whenever they made predictions or proposed theories that later turned out to be false. In response, scientists and other intellectuals ridiculed Fort’s work, though it was popular with the general public." Source

"Witchcraft always has a hard time, until it becomes established and changes its name. We hear much of the conflict between science and religion, but our conflict is with both of these. Science and religion always have agreed in opposing and suppressing the various witchcrafts. Now that religion is inglorious, one of the most fantastic of transferences of worships is that of glorifying science, as a beneficent being. It is the attributing of all that is of development, or of possible betterment to science. But no scientist has ever upheld a new idea, without bringing upon himself abuse from other scientists. Science has done its utmost to prevent whatever science has done."

"Every science is a mutilated octopus. If its tentacles were not clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts."

The Fortean Times magazine is still being published.

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Galileo's Forced Recantation on This Day in History

This Day In History: The Holy Office in Rome forced Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in, after heated controversy on this day in 1633.

Galileo’s story is a well-known illustration of the dangers of both unchecked power and declaring scientific matters “settled.”

“And yet, it moves.”

Thus muttered Galileo Galilei under his breath after being forced by the Inquisition to recant his claim that the Earth moved around the Sun, rather than the other way round. The public vindication of Copernican heliocentrism would have to wait another day.

Today, Galileo’s story is a well-known illustration of the dangers of both unchecked power and declaring scientific matters “settled.” Yet, throughout history, Galileo wasn’t alone.

Scientists once knew that light moved through space via the luminiferous aether—how else could its waves travel? In 1887 Albert Michelson and Edward Morley proved with a high degree of certainty that it wasn’t so thanks to a “failed” experiment designed to conclusively demonstrate the existence of this invisible medium. Poor Michelson suffered a nervous breakdown when faced with such unexpected results.

In 1931 a book published in Germany, One Hundred Authors against Einstein, defended the settled science of Newtonian physics, proclaiming Einstein’s theory of relativity a fraud. Einstein was reported to have replied, “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”

Bad Science, Bad Policy

"Settled science" can spur the public to act. The results can be catastrophic.

The important thing is that “settled science” can be used to spur the public to act.

On these pages I recently recounted the story of the early 20th century belief in Eugenics, a science widely adopted by governments around the world as a basis for social policy, with horrifying results.

Australian physicians Barry Marshall and Robin Warrens were ridiculed when they hypothesized that ulcers were caused by microbes, which every scientist knew couldn’t survive in stomach acid. Doctors were sure that peptic ulcers were caused by stress and spicy foods. In frustration, Marshall drank a Petri dish full of cultured H. pylori, proving the settled science wrong. Hopefully, the Nobel Prize he and Warrens received compensated for the illness that resulted.

And remember the government’s dietary guidelines, including the warnings against salt and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Pyramid urging Americans to eat more carbs and fewer fats? That didn’t work out so well, did it?

We all grew up knowing that life began in the “primordial soup” of the seas, sparked by lightning. A recent paper in Nature casts doubt on that theory, producing evidence that life may have begun in hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor. The jury is still out on this one.

And that’s the point.

The Jury Is Always Out

It’s worth keeping the above examples in mind, when someone proclaims that surely we are much smarter today than we were in the past. That we can finally put our faith in scientific certainty, especially when journalists and politicians tell us that 97 percent of scientists agree on something. That once consensus is reached among experts, it’s important to stop listening to criticism. If you have any doubts, just Google up the phrase, “Science Says,” and view the parade of claims that carry that new and improved Good Housekeeping Seal of Infallibility.

Real science is characterized by healthy skepticism, relentless questioning, and a constant testing and re-testing of theories.

Yes, reactionaries on the payroll of nefarious forces insist on reminding us that science is a process, not a destination. What difference does it make if a hypothesis has been artfully constructed to render itself immune to falsification by experiment? Who cares if computer simulations enshrined at the heart of public policy have never made a correct forecast? How dare anyone imply that billions of dollars in government grant funding create perverse incentives for researchers to support the party line?

The important thing is that “settled science” can be used to spur the public to act.

And exactly what has the “settled science” of cataclysmic anthropogenic global warming convinced us to do? Deliver unprecedented power to politicians and bureaucrats. Power to commandeer entire industries. Power to pump billions of taxpayer dollars into half-baked schemes cooked up by crony corporatists.  Power to redistribute income on a global scale. And to maintain this power, when cracks begin to show in the narrative, criminalize dissent, much as the Inquisition did to Galileo.

Real science is characterized by healthy skepticism, relentless questioning, and a constant testing and re-testing of theories, systems, and models. Casting dogma in stone, then stoning non-believers, is a hallmark of religion, not science. And when we finally wake up from our global warming-inspired public hysteria, our progeny will pat themselves on the back for being so much more advanced than we were. Before, alas, the cycle repeats again.

 

Bill Frezza

Bill Frezza is the former host of RealClear Radio Hour and the author of New Zealand’s Far-Reaching Reforms: A Case Study in How to Save Democracy from Itself.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

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Contents:

Philip Dru: Administrator - A Story of Tomorrow, 1920-1935, by Edward E House 1912

A Journey to the centre of the Earth by Jules Verne 1905

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 1870

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne 1865

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift 1920

A Houseboat on the Styx by John K Banks 1902

The Source's of Gulliver's Travels by Max Pol

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 1869

Micromegas by Voltaire 1752

THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAAL by Edgar Allen Poe

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912

Erewhon by Samuel Butler 1917 (Erewhon is an anagram of "nowhere")

Erewhon revisited twenty years later by Samuel Butler 1910

A Voyage to the Moon by George Tucker 1827

Flatland -  a Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott 1884

The Epic of Gilgamesh by Morris Jastrow 1920

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allen Poe 1838
"One scene in this book visits a whaling ship lost at sea, taking with it all but 4 crewmen. Out of food, the men drew lots to see who would be eaten, the unfortunate decision landing on a young cabin boy named Richard Parker (and here it gets really weird)....46 years later there was an actual disaster at sea involving the Mignonette wherein the men drew lots and decided to eat their cabin boy...a boy named Richard Parker."

Atlantis - the Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly 1882

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Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy 1917 (the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location but in a totally changed [Socialistic] world)

The Great Keinplatz Experiment by Arthur Conan Doyle 1913

The Final War by Louis Tracy 1896

The Odyssey, Books 1-8, 1905

The Odyssey, Books 9-16, 1905

The Odyssey, Books 17-24, 1905

The Magic Skin by Honore de Balzac 1915

Beowulf, by WJ Sedgefield 1910

The Mahabharata 1884

The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1871 (the main character discovers a highly evolved subterranean civilization)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain 1917

The Land of Oz by Frank L Baum 1904

Dorothy and the wizard in Oz by Frank L Baum 1908

The Red One by Jack London 1919  (a story involving extraterrestrials)

The Iron Heel by Jack London 1907 (set in the future from that author's point of view)

King Arthur and his Knights by MR Warren 1905

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by William Langland 1917

A Wonder Book of Old Romance (William and the werewolf, King Robert of Sicily, Sir Cleges and the cherries, The fair unknown, King Horn, The seven wise masters, Sir Degoré and the broken sword etc) by FJ Darton 1907

The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin 1906

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald 1920

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 1 by George MacDonald 1871

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 3 by George MacDonald 1871

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 4 by George MacDonald 1871

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 7 by George MacDonald 1871

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 8 by George MacDonald 1871

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 9 by George MacDonald 1871

Works of Fancy and Imagination, Volume 10 by George MacDonald 1871

Phantastes - a Faerie Romance for Men and Women by George MacDonald 1920

The Well at the World's End by William Morris, Volume 1, 1903

The Well at the World's End by William Morris, Volume 2, 1903

A Tale of the House of the Wolfings by William Morris 1892

The Story of the Glittering Plain which has been also called the Land of living men or the Acre of the undying by William Morris 1891

News from Nowhere by William Morris 1897

Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair by William Morris 1900

The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris 1897 (perhaps the first modern fantasy writer to unite an imaginary world with the element of the supernatural)

The Sundering Flood by William Morris 1898

The Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany 1916

The Chronicles of Rodriguez by Lord Dunsany 1922

The Sword of Welleran by Lord Dunsany 1908

Tales of Three hemispheres by Lord Dunsany 1918

Tales of Wonder by Lord Dunsany 1916

The Last Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany 1916

A Dreamer's Tales, and other Stories

The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison 1922

Doctor Huguet by I Donnelly 1891

Gods and their Makers by Laurence Housman 1897

The Field of Clover by Laurence Housman 1898

The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis by Clemence Housman 1905

The Home of the Seven Devils by Horace Newte 1913

The Old English Baron a Gothic story. Also The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Tales and fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson 1905

Devil Stories - an Anthology, by MJ Rudwin 1921

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen 1894

The Twilight of the Gods by Richard Garnett 1888

The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France 1914 (full of metaphysical mockery on the one hand and a portrayal of Satan as seeker of mysteries on the other.)

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by L Hearn 1904

The Romance of the Milky Way and other studies & stories by L Hearn 1905

Doctor Grimshawe's secret by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1883

The Snow-image and other Twice-told tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1876

Fairy Tales and Romances by Anthony Hamilton 1849

Eric Brighteyes by H R Haggard 1891

Stella Fregelius, a Tale of Three Destinies by H R Haggard 1903

Foggerty's Fairy, and other Tales by WS Gilbert 1890

The Monomaniac: Or, Shirley Hall Asylum by William Gilbert 1864

The Magic Mirror by William Gilbert 1866

Fables and Fabulists, ancient and modern by Thomas Newbigging 1895

Avatar, Jettatura, The Water pavilion by Theophile Gautier 1902 (Avatar has to do with identity exchange, Jettatura is about the Evil Eye)

Martin Pippin in the apple orchard by E Farjeon 1922

Weird Tales by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann 1885

Walter Besant's Works 1894 (The Doubts of Dives, The Demoniac, The doll's house-and after)

Melomaniacs by James Huneker 1902

Selected tales of Mystery by Edgar Allen Poe 1909

Auriol: The Elixir of Life by William Harrison Ainsworth 1898

Told after supper by Jerome K Jerome 1891

The chronicles of Clovernook by Douglas Jerrold 1846

The Heroes by Charles Kinsley 1856

The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes by Rudyard Kipling

The Lord of the Dark Red Star by Eugene Lee-Hamilton 1903

The Romance of the Fountain by Eugene Lee-Hamilton 1905

Hauntings & Fantastic stories by Vernon Lee 1906

Before Adam by Jack London 1907

Unveiling a Parallel, by Two Women of the West 1893

The Magnet - a Romance of the Battles of Modern Giants by Alfred O Crozier 1908

Welsh Rarebit Tales by Harle Oren Cummins 1902

On a Torn-Away World - The Captives of the Great Earthquake by Roy Rockwood 1913

When the Sleeper Wakes by HG Wells 1899

Camperdown by Mary Griffith 1836

Timar's Two Worlds by Maurus Jokai 1894

A Time of Terror by Douglas M Ford 1906

The Woman who Vowed by Ellison Harding 1908

The Man Who Ended War by Hollis Godfrey 1908

The Story of Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll 1904

Prince Prigio by Andrew Lang 1889

Weird Islands by Jean de Boschere 1921

The Magic Aeroplane by LRS Henderson 1911

The Voyages and Travels of Sindbad the Sailor 1843

The Smoky God - A Voyage to the Inner World by Willis G Emerson 1908

A Journey to the World Under-ground by Nicholas Klimius 1742

The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs Molesworth 1882

Four Winds Farm by Mrs Molesworth 1887

Pinocchio - the tale of a Puppet by Carlo Collodi 1911

The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany 1915

The Building of the City Beautiful by J Miller 1893

The Extra Day by Algernon Blackwood 1915

The Inner House by Walter Besant 1888

The Revolt of Man by Walter Besant 1896*

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire by Elliot Evans Mills 1905

Better Days - A millionaire of To-morrow by Thomas P Fitch 1891

Humanity and the Mysterious Knight by Mack Stauffer 1914

The Last Generation - a story of the Future by James E Flecker 1908

James Ingleton: The History of a Social State, A.D. 2000 by Mr Dick 1893

The City in the Clouds by C Ranger Gull 1922

The Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham by James K Paulding 1826

Dr. Silex by JB Harris-Burland 1905

Romance Island by Zona Gale 1906

The Commonwealth of Oceana by James Harrington 1656

The Island of Fantasy by Fergus Hume 1905

Erewhon by Samuel Butler 1872

Erewhon Revisited by Samuel Butler 1910

Democracy A.D. 2100 (1897)

A Traveler from Altruria by William D Howells 1894

Upsidonia by Archibald Marshall 1915

Etidorhpa - The End of Earth - the Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey by John Uri Lloyd 1901

Christianopolis - an Ideal State of the 17th Century by Johann V Andrea 1914

Across the Zodiac - a Story of Adventure by Edwin Pallander 1896

The Plan of Laughing Land by W Costley 1906

Modern Paradise by Henry Olerich 1915

The New Regime A.D. 2202 by John Ira Brant 1909

Utopia - The History of an Extinct Planet by Alfred Denton Cridge 1884

A Fortune from the Sky by Skelton Kuppord 1903

Freeland - a Social Anticipation by T Hertzka 1891

The First American King by George G Hastings 1905

The Elixir of Life 2905 A.D. a Novel of the Far Future by Herbert Gubbins 1914

Limanora - the Island of Progress by Godrey Sweven 1903

Meccania the Super-State by Owen Gregory 1918

John Harvey - a Tale of the 20th Century by Anon Moore 1897

The World in 1931 by Stewart E Bruce 1921

The Destruction of Gotham by Joaqiun Miller 1886

The World Rebuilt by Walter Walsh 1917

Life in a Thousand Worlds by William S Harris 1905

Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah by Hermes 1873

Athonia - The Original "400" by H George Schuette 1911

Beyond the Horizon by Fred B Morrill 1918

The Republic of the Future, or Socialism a Reality by Anna Bowman Dodd 1888

Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson 1908

From Earth's Centre by S Byron Welcome 1895

1900 - A Forecast and a Story by Marianne Farningham 1892

Daybreak - a Romance of an Old World by James Cowan 1896

A Modern Utopia by HG Wells 1904

The Ideal City by Cosimo Noto 1903

Account of an expedition to the interior of New Holland by Lady Mary Fox 1837

The Immortals' Great Quest by James W Barlow 1909

A Crystal Age by WH Hudson 1922

The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer Lytton 1871

Armata by Thomas Erskine 1817

The Republic of Plato 1906

History of a World of Immortals without a God by Jane Barlow 1891

The New Republic by James Leddy 1902

A Romance of Two Centuries - a Tale of the Year 2025 by Kenneth S Guthrie 1919

A.D. 2000 by A.M. Fuller 1890

The New Columbia - The Re-United States by Patrick Tangent 1909

The Perfect World by Ella Scrymsour 1922

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy 1917 (the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location but in a totally changed [Socialistic] world)

In 1897 Bellamy wrote a sequel, _Equality_, dealing with women's rights, education and many other issues. Bellamy wrote the sequel to elaborate and clarify many of the ideas merely touched upon in _Looking Backward_.

The success of Looking Backward provoked a spate of sequels, parodies, satires, and skeptical dystopian responses. A partial list includes:
Looking Further Forward: An Answer to "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy (1890), by Richard C. Michaelis

Looking Further Backward (1890), by Arthur Dudley Vinton

Speaking of Ellen (1890), by Linn Boyd Porter

Looking Beyond (1891), by Ludwig A. Geissler

Mr. East's Experiences in Mr. Bellamy's World (1891), by Conrad Wilbrandt

Looking Within: The Misleading Tendencies of "Looking Backward" Made Manifest (1893), by J. W. Roberts

Young West: A Sequel to Edward Bellamy's Celebrated Novel "Looking Backward" (1894), by Solomon Schindler

Looking Forward (1906), by Harry W. Hillman.

The result was a "battle of the books" that lasted through the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th. The back-and-forth nature of the debate is illustrated by the subtitle of Geissler's 1891 Looking Beyond, which is "A Sequel to 'Looking Backward' by Edward Bellamy and an Answer to 'Looking Forward' by Richard Michaelis".
William Morris's 1890 utopia News from Nowhere was partly written in reaction to Bellamy's utopia, which Morris did not find congenial.

The Socialist Science Fiction on this disk includes:

Equality by Edward Bellamy 1908

Looking further Forward - An Answer to "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy (1890), by Richard C. Michaelis

Looking Further Backward (1890), by Arthur Dudley Vinton

Speaking of Ellen (1889), by Linn Boyd Porter (Albert Ross)

Looking Beyond (1891), by Ludwig A. Geissler

Mr. East's Experiences in Mr. Bellamy's World: Records of the Years 2001 and 2002 by Conrad Wilbrandt 1891

Looking Within: The Misleading Tendencies of "Looking Backward" Made Manifest (1893), by J. W. Roberts

Young West: A Sequel to Edward Bellamy's Celebrated Novel "Looking Backward" (1894), by Solomon Schindler

Looking Forward (1906), by Harry W. Hillman

News From Nowhere by William Morris 1890

Plus You Get:

The White Stone by Anatole France 1910

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman 1894

Moving the Mountain by Charlotte Gilman 1911

The Angel of the Revolution by George Griffith 1895

Eugene Sue—The Wandering Jew, Volume 1, 1845

Eugene Sue—The Wandering Jew, Volume 2, 1845

Eugene Sue—The Wandering Jew, Volume 3, 1845
(the hero is a dispossessed laborer and the author is a radical socialist)

The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde 1907

Utopia by Thomas More 1902

The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon 1909

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