Author Archives: BigBill

About BigBill

Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.

We’re watching a political party implode.

Posted on April 9, 2016 by BigBill

Unless you’ve been cut off from all human contact in the backwoods of Maine for the past 6 or 8 months, you know exactly what I’m talking about:  the Republican party’s freak show of a primary process, complete with debates that … Continue reading →

Posted in General commentary on the world as I see it..., Political commentary | Leave a comment

What happens when facts lead us to where we don’t want to go?

Posted on March 30, 2016 by BigBill

As I outlined in the last entry, sometimes the facts take you to a place you don’t want to go. Obviously the first thing to do is make sure you have your facts in order. But if the facts are … Continue reading →

Posted in Nutrition and eating, Science | Leave a comment

Where do the facts lead?

Posted on March 26, 2016 by BigBill

There is a price to pay for critical thinking, if you are an honest person. The scientific method is really just an organized way of consistently applying the rules of critical thinking. Let’s take a closer look at the process … Continue reading →

Posted in General commentary on the world as I see it..., Religion and philosophy, Science | Leave a comment

Picking cherries

Posted on March 18, 2016 by BigBill

Cherry picking data is a logical fallacy where only information that support’s one’s conclusion is shared; contrary information is either ignored or suppressed. It’s also called “the fallacy of incomplete evidence,” which probably makes it more clear what is going … Continue reading →

Posted in Political commentary, Science | Leave a comment

Just the facts, Ma’am.

Posted on March 13, 2016 by BigBill

Fact: something that actually exists; reality; truth. There’s no such things as a false fact; if it is a fact then it is true. It’s true that people argue over facts, but actually they are arguing over the interpretation of … Continue reading →

Posted in General commentary on the world as I see it..., Science | Leave a comment

“I have no need of that hypothesis”

Posted on March 5, 2016 by BigBill

Pierre-Simon Laplace was another really smart guy, by all accounts. He was a physicist, mathematician and astronomer who lived in France from 1749-1827 during some pretty turbulent times: the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. All occurred during his lifetime. … Continue reading →

Posted in General commentary on the world as I see it..., Religion and philosophy, Science | Leave a comment

Science denial today

Posted on February 25, 2016 by BigBill

In my last post I talked about how, during the 1500s, the church leaders persecuted the astronomers Galileo and Bruno for their observations that the earth was not the center of the universe. Galileo recanted and was confined to house … Continue reading →

Posted in General commentary on the world as I see it..., Political commentary, Science | Leave a comment

The Enlightenment and the scientific method

Posted on February 20, 2016 by BigBill

A while ago I wrote about how, when DARPA funded research leading to distributive computing and our effort to land a man on the moon drove the search for ever-more-powerful and energy-conserving computing capability, no one could possibly have envisioned … Continue reading →

Posted in Religion and philosophy, Science | Leave a comment

History, heliocentrism and hubris

Posted on February 18, 2016 by BigBill

Any kid of 8 in the US who’s paid the least amount of attention in school knows that the sun is the center of our solar system and that the earth revolves around it. This is of course  contrary to … Continue reading →

Posted in Religion and philosophy, Science | Leave a comment

Space is really, REALLY big!

Posted on February 11, 2016 by BigBill

It’s nearly impossible to get a grasp on how truly vast space is. I got interested in space when I was a little kid growing up in Illinois farm country. I had a map of our solar system on my … Continue reading →

Posted in General commentary on the world as I see it..., Science | Leave a comment