Via Mano, I am reassured to learn that not all scientists were taken in by Epstein. Sean M. Carroll represents what I’d regard as the best response to the blandishments of a perverse, corrupt weirdo trying to seduce scientists with money.

His host interrupted the meal to call Epstein and then handed Carroll the phone.

“It was a 2-minute conversation, and frankly, it didn’t make much of an impression on me at the time,” Carroll says. “As best I can remember, we talked about the Big Bang and dark energy and things like that.”

But Carroll says when he told others about the call, including his wife, science writer Jennifer Ouellette, we “were rolling our eyes.” In a recent blog post, Carroll said Epstein came off as a “standard, fast-talking charlatan who trotted out lots of big words with no real understanding [of them].”

A few months later, Carroll received an email invitation to a scientific conference at Epstein’s home on his private Caribbean island. “It was billed as a workshop of scientists from different fields, something that I usually find appealing, and it sounded like fun,” he says. But he declined after learning a bit more about the arrangements.

“Jennifer was also invited,” Carroll recounts. “But when we asked if she would be a participant, they said ‘she could go shopping with the other wives.’ And we were repulsed by that sexist attitude.”

“I had no idea through any of this that he was a convicted sex offender,” Carroll adds. “That would have made it a much easier decision for me. But in 2010 he was not a famous person. If I had tried really hard, I could have found out about [his criminal record], but the thought that I would really have to try hard never entered my mind.”

Carroll says the lure of possible funding wasn’t an issue for him. “I’m not desperate for money,” he says. “And besides, at the end of your life, who you are is the accumulation of the things you did. It’s not just how much money you got.”

“standard, fast-talking charlatan who trotted out lots of big words with no real understanding [of them]” is a pretty good summary of the the Epstein spiel. Keep that in mind when you read about scientists who were taking rides on Epstein’s plane — they had to be either stupidly naive or criminally greedy.

Hey! I’m going to be speaking at an Iowa Atheists event tomorrow, which has me mildly shocked. I hope I haven’t forgotten how to talk, or worse, that the only thing I can talk about is spiders (No! Do not talk about spiders! People find it either boring or horrifying!)

It’s been a long time. You know, I’ve been effectively blacklisted by all the major atheist organizations because I’ve loudly criticized some of the atheist saints, like Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens, and then got attached to some hated shibboleths like feminism (but I’m not a woman), or gay liberation (but I’m straight), or trans rights (I’m also not trans), or some other heresy. The last time I talked to an atheist organization about speaking was about ten years ago, and that was painfully tentative — the person I spoke with wanted to check my availability, but they were afraid that some members of their group hated me so much that they’d veto the suggestion…which is what happened, I guess, because I never heard from them again.

Just as well. I’ve got an hour or more of macrophotos and videos of spiders that no one would want to see, anyway. If any of those groups that blacklisted me somehow decided to bring me on, that’s what they’d get, and it would serve them right.

Today I’m driving to the Twin Cities. Tomorrow at 2pm in Des Moines I’ll be talking about social justice, instead, which would make them cry even harder.

Mano Singham considers an essay from one of those people who say they were an atheist, but have now returned to their faith. Mano treats it thoughtfully and respectfully, and I can appreciate that, but nowadays my response to such a claim is “You’re full of crap, bye.”

I know, I’m a bad, rude person.

Unfortunately, it seems like even the most fervent, fanatical televangelist has a similar story about having been a heretical wastrel in their youth, but then they found Jesus and are now saved. It’s part of a redemption arc, and also part of a slur against atheists, that they only deny God because they are immature and hedonistic and haven’t thought seriously about faith.

I think Mano has it exactly right.

I left religion for purely logical reasons. not emotional ones. I found that however hard I tried, I just could not reconcile the scientific view that everything occurs according to natural laws with the traditional religious view that seemed to require an entity that could bypass those laws to act in the world to change the course of events. It took me a long time to overcome the emotional attachment to the religious beliefs that I had. So while I can understand how logical reasoning can make one leave religion, I cannot see how it can drive the reverse process, as Beha seems to desire.

Same here, except that my family faith tradition didn’t have much of an emotional attachment to Christianity, so shedding it was relatively trivial. I agree, though, that there are no good rational reasons to compel return to a faith, which is why I reject any attempts to rationalize it. It feels good to you, it connects you to friends and family, you have fond memories of your time in church…that’s fine. I believe you. Go ahead, I’m not going to deny your feelings. But if you try to tell me you have compelling, logical, scientific reasons to believe in a god, I’m going to tell you you’re full of shit.

This guy, Christopher Beha, has his own simple excuse.

To ask “How am I to live?” is to inquire as to not just what is right but what is good. It is to ask not just “What should I do?” but “How should I be?” The most generous interpretation of the New Atheist view on this question is that people ought to have the freedom to decide for themselves. On that, I agreed completely, but that left me right where I’d started, still in need of an answer.

That’s about as superficial a rationalization for becoming a Catholic as I can imagine. Why become a Catholic? Because you need someone to tell you what to do. Maybe Mr Beha should then ask, “Why should I trust this guy in a clerical collar or this holy book to know what I should do?” He’s not looking for an answer, he’s looking for an authority.

The more complete interpretation of the atheist view is that there is no one to tell you what to do with your life. And anyone who is telling you otherwise is lying to you.

The Washington Post ran an article with the provocative title, “These Patients Saw What Comes After Death. Should We Believe Them? Researchers have developed a model to explain the science of near-death experiences. Others have challenged it.” It’s obviously empty fluff, garbage of the kind that gets pumped out all the time to appeal to the gullible yokels in their readership. I’m not one of them. I also refuse to read the WaPo anymore (rot in hell, Jeff Bezos), but then, fortunately or unfortunately, the same article has appeared on Beliefnet, sans paywall. Now everyone can see how insipid the ‘evidence’ for life after death is. This article should present some evidence. It doesn’t. It’s the usual anecdotal silliness.

Here’s their big example.

After she dropped to her knees outside her home in Midlothian, Virginia, suffocating, after she was lifted into the ambulance and told herself, “I can’t die this way,” and after emergency workers at the hospital cut the clothes off her to assess her breathing, Miasha Gilliam-El, a 37-year-old nurse and mother of six, blacked out.

What happened next has happened to thousands who’ve returned from the precipice of death with stories of strange visions and journeys that challenge what we know of science. Last year, a team of researchers from Belgium, the United States and Denmark launched an ambitious effort to explain these experiences on a neurobiological level — work that is now being contested by a pair of researchers in Virginia.

At stake are questions almost as old as humanity, concerning the possibility of an afterlife and the nature of scientific evidence — questions likely to take center stage at a conference of brain experts in Porto, Portugal, in April.

“The next thing I knew, I was out of my body, above myself, looking at them work on me, doing chest compressions,” Gilliam-El said, recalling Feb. 27, 2012, the day she suffered a rare condition called peripartum cardiomyopathy. For reasons that aren’t fully understood, between the last month of pregnancy and five months after childbirth, a woman’s cardiac muscle weakens and enlarges, creating a risk of heart failure.

Gilliam-El, who had given birth just three days earlier, recalled watching a doctor try to snake a tube down her throat to open an airway. She remembered staring at the machine showing the electrical activity in her heart and seeing herself flatline. Her breathing stopped.

“And then it was kind of like I was transitioned to another place. I was kind of sucked back into a tunnel,” she said. “It is so peaceful in this tunnel. And I’m just walking and I’m holding someone’s hand. And all I’m hearing is the scripture, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …’”

Please, please learn about the concept of confabulation. If you black out, when you resume consciousness, your brain quickly invents stories to fill the gap. They aren’t necessarily accurate. A trained nurse is going to be familiar with happens to patients who lose consciousness, and could overlay that on the period when she was actually non-functional. She’s also pre-loaded with religious mythology, and that gets stuffed into the constructed memory. It’s not evidence of anything.

I have a recent personal experience that applies. I too blacked out after a fall; I remember the pain of bouncing my skull off the sidewalk, and then the next thing was becoming aware that I was sitting in my office at work. I remember nothing of what happened between those moments.

But I quickly made assumptions. I must have (scenario A) got up, dusted myself off, and walked to work by force of habit. Or (scenario B) a pedestrian must have helped me up and sent me on my way, or (scenario C) a passing motorist pulled over and gave me a lift to the building, or (scenario D) an angel swooped down, clutched me to her soft downy bosom, and transported me to my office chair before giving me a revitalizing swig from the cask of whisky she carried in a cask on her collar. Do I have any evidence for A) my indomitable will, B) a pedestrian, C) a motorist, or D) an angel? No I do not. Some might be more likely than others, but I can’t claim I have any verifiable evidence for any of them.

Likewise, Gilliam-El knows she passed out in an ambulance — and we can find evidence for that — and that she regained consciousness in a hospital some time later — also based on evidence. But all the stuff about entering a tunnel and holding hands and hearing scripture, is an unverifiable invention of her brain.

That’s all these articles ever provide, a collection of stories people provide after periods of unconsciousness to rationalize their experience, and then calling them “evidence for life after death”. They’re not.

It’s always annoying that these ideas get “experts” who are unable to distinguish fantasy from evidence to support a popular myth.

Did you think the claims of moon landing hoaxers absurd?

Perhaps the flat earth conspiracies filled you with contempt?

Prepare yourself for the latest lunacy.

A theory claiming that Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds on August 12, 2026, has made the rounds on social media, sparking confusion and speculation. The claim originated from a so-called leaked document named Project Anchor, which began circulating online in late 2024. Posts suggested the U.S. space agency was secretly preparing for a short-lived gravitational anomaly that could lift people and objects into the air before violently bringing them back down.

You would be well-advised to nail your shoes to the floor on August 12, if you believe that nonsense.

At the center of the claim was a fabricated NASA initiative reportedly named Project Anchor, with a proposed budget of 89 billion dollars. The theory claimed the agency was preparing for a gravitational anomaly expected on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC. According to content shared on now-deleted Instagram accounts, this so-called anomaly would cause anything not firmly secured to float several meters in the air before crashing back down.

The narrative was unusually detailed for a hoax. It broke down the seven seconds of supposed weightlessness step by step. In the first two seconds, people and objects would lift. By seconds three and four, they would rise up to 15 or 20 meters. By second five, panic would break out. By second seven, gravity would return, bringing a deadly descent.

How would NASA make such a specific, detailed prediction of an unprecedented event completely outside the bounds of physics?

In the absence of a credible, reputable skeptic organization, I guess we’re going to get all of our science from TikTok from now on.

It’s cold across much of the country. There’s snow and ice on the ground.

IT’S A CONSPIRACY!

At least, some stupid people are trying to imagine alien weirdness going on, including this desperate ignorance from Candace Owens, who thinks it’s artificial because it doesn’t melt at 30°F.

I looked at some of the comments. Many are trying to explain to her that the freezing point of water is 32°F, and that 30 is less than 32, and some mention that the temperature in Connecticut when she was horrified by frozen water was actually 25°F. Others are agreeing that yes, it’s a government or alien conspiracy.

Remember this when Candace Owens trots out another bizarre conspiracy theory. I think the lawsuit by Brigitte Macron against her is going to go well.