Yay Science

This is the best thing I've ever read on the "debate" over evolution.

Science simply doesn't deal with hypotheses about a guiding intelligence, or supernatural phenomena like miracles, because science is the search for rational explanations of natural phenomena. We don't reject the supernatural merely because we have an overweening philosophical commitment to materialism; we reject it because entertaining the supernatural has never helped us understand the natural world.

-- From Jerry Coyne, a biology professor at, fortuitously, the U of C. (But I got it from edge.org.)

Also, I was
touched by his noodly appendage! The Mermaid Parade at Coney Island this year included a Flying Spaghetti Monster escorted by ARR! Pirates!

Also, if Bohr wasn't a tzaddik, God has something to answer for:

It revolves around how Bohr's style affected the way physicists think and work, how they individually and collectively strive for answers, how they relate to their mentors, their peers, and their students. In the process of wielding this power, Bohr also became the most loved theoretical physicist of the twentieth century.

Yes, loved. Respect and admiration were feelings young physicists had for all of these greats, but love is something different. Yet it is a term that appears again and again in memoirs when physicists speak of Bohr. It is interesting to explain why this is so, what it was about Bohr's persona, his behavior, his way of thinking and working, that led others to regard him with such warmth.

One of the many factors that contributed to this affection was Bohr's lack of pretension or pomp. There wasn't a trace of personal ambition or aggrandizement in him, though few of these geniuses seem to have had much need of this. They were all secure in the knowledge of their own stature, but Bohr had an almost childlike innocence about such matters. He also worked tirelessly to improve others' work and lives. There are countless examples of people owing him their positions, their careers, and sometimes their very survival. He had a sense of who was in need, when and how to intervene, and how to make a difference.

But combined with all this was something else that seems to have played a role. Being connected to others, or as Bohr's biographer Abraham Pais calls it, being conjoined, was a need for Bohr, almost a necessity. His discussions were carried out as a kind of Socratic dialogue in which he slowly shaped and molded his thoughts, so much so that some said he was a philosopher, not a physicist. Bohr also loved paradoxes, believing that seeing the many sides of a problem was the way to reach resolution and clarity. His close friend Einstein described him as uttering "his opinions like one who perpetually casts about, and never like one who believes he holds the whole defining truth." This astute remark captures much of Bohr's essence—he constantly strove for that defining truth.

Bohr's need for others, for conjointness, was displayed in his relaxation as well, be that skiing, sailing, simply walking, playing a game, or going to the movies. He made others feel needed because he did need them. Bohr was certainly a great man and without guile, but his constant engaging of those he was involved with was a major factor in creating the love they felt for him.

--Gino Segre, from the same issue of the Edge