The way that human beings acquire the ability to understand and use language is a hotly contested scientific question. Often the various theories have fallen on either side of the usual nature/nurture divide: are human beings born with a built-in capability to use language? Or, do we learn most of our language use through interactions with parents and other people? Noam Chomsky, arguing for the “nature” end of the answer, believes we are born possessing a language acquisition device (LAD); a part of the brain that contains most of the major principles of language. On the nurture-end of the spectrum,…

The sun is now called Macaca. The moon is referred to as The Infidel. The stars are to be known as Downtown Phoenix. The Big Bang is newly christened The Ring-a-Ding. The Milky Way is now the Skid Mark. The remaining planets collectively are renamed the G8. Please refer to planet Earth as 2Warm 4Al .

It’s official. Pluto has resigned from the solar system. Citing the recent vote by the International Astronomical Union to change its status from planet to dwarf planet, the former ninth rock from the sun has responded with a firm “Thanks, but no thanks.” First, a committee of astronomers came up with a new definition that would have seen Pluto demoted from full planetary status to a subcategory called “plutons.” Then the full membership rejected that compromise and made it clear that Pluto wasn’t a real planet. “Nice try,” said the fiery ice ball. “But it’s rather condescending, don’t you think?…

Pedestrian crap. Albert Einstein’s “General Theory of Relativity” (Annalen der Physik, Leipzig: Verlan Von Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1916) is crap. It’s oblique, it’s opaque, it’s bloated with transparent effort. Salted, sanctimonious effort. I literally fidget turning the pages. Einstein is the worst physicist of his generation. Yet it goes deeper. He also grovels to the reader–God, it’s hackneyed–trying to ingratiate himself with “quaint” turns of the phrase, “curved” regurgitations on space-time. It’s more pandering than this Serbian nationalism fad. A decade ago, he shoved that tortured Special Relativity onto us. And it was stupid, just plain stupid. Complication masking inanity,…

Elementary School Level: 1st Place: “My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)” Cassidy Turnbull (grade five) presented her uncle, Steve. She also showed photographs of monkeys and invited fairgoers to note the differences between her uncle and the monkeys. She tried to feed her uncle bananas, but he declined to eat them. Cassidy has conclusively shown that her uncle is no monkey. 2nd Place: “Pine Cones Are Complicated” David Block and Trevor Murry (grades four) showed how specifically complicated pine cones are and how they reveal God’s design in nature. Middle School Level: 1st Place: “Life Doesn’t…

Dedicated to the man who was one of the funniest things, ever, on television, and we mean that in only the best of ways Cor Crikey! And g’day mate! Right now we’re walking up to Hawaii’s Gemini Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea. It’s got a beaut of a telescope inside, and we’re hoping to find a new planet today. (Whispering) Here we are at the front door. But we should first give it a bit of space. Patience is important when dealing with telescopes. And we’ve got to be careful with that door. It’s locked! Looks like the…

“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate” Ockham’s razor, states that the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. While the definition is straightforward, application of Ockham’s Razor requires some development. In this paper we are going to investigate the question, “How is simplicity to be determined?” Some philosophers and scientists have suggested that simplicity is determined by a certain kind of elegance or in other cases a level of coherence combined with explanatory power. We suggest that such models are nonsense. We will start off by taking examples from the fields of Psychology and Linguistics before drawing some general…