The Pope's Atheist

Article: The Scientific Pantheist Who Advises Pope Francis

The "scientific pantheist" is Hans Schellnhuber. He is actually an atheist (which raises questions about either his integrity, advising a Pope or the Pope's gullibility in chosing a sworn enemy as an advisor). His beliefs are sometimes called, "scientific pantheism," however.

The article mentions the Gaia Principle, or Gaia Hypothesis. The orginal Gaia Hypothesis held that, because earth's climate has been stable (swinging from cool to warm) over billions of year, it must have feedback loops maintaining the climate, just like a living organism has feedback loops maintaining a stable internal environment.

In other words, it was an analogy.

However, over time, the Gaia Principle, or "theory," became less of a scientific analogy and more of a mystic, "Gaia, the Mother Earth is a living thing" crackpot idea.

Schellnhuber is of the latter variety.

Read the article: the earth has a "geophysiology." The earth is "cognizant."

Twenty years ago, having a crackpot like Schellnhuber advise you would immediately revoke any and all credibility.

If you read his wikipedia page, he sounds legitimate.

It is as if a prominent Presidential candidate announces that he has Immanuel Velikovsky advising him on astronomy.

Article: Divorce Shocker: Most Marriages Do Make It

Article: Divorce Shocker: Most Marriages Do Make It

 This is based on a book. I saw a post of this somewhere a few weeks back, so the book has been out for a while now.

The commonly used statistic for divorce in the US is 50%; that is, 50% of all US marriages end in divorce. Turns out there was never any basis for this number. Nobody ever researched the actual rate of the divorce. The 50% statistic was derived from the increase in the divorce rate in the 1970's to 1980's and extrapolated.

Various quotes:

"First-time marriages: probably 20 to 25 percent have ended in divorce on average," Feldhahn revealed. "Now, okay, that's still too high, but it's a whole lot better than what people think it is."

[I]t's even lower among churchgoers, where a couple's chance of divorcing is more likely in the single digits or teens.

Feldhahn has more shocking research: four out of five marriages are happy. That number flies in the face of the popular belief that only about 30 percent of marriages are happy.

Some observations:
1) Herbert Stein's law paraphrased, no trend that can't continue, won't.
2) No trend lasts forever. (I could not find an attribution)
3) People like to believe bad news.
4) Some people love to spread bad news.
5) "There are three types of lies: Lies, d**n lies, and statistics." This has been attributed to various wits, wags, and writers.