Sorry for the long interruption on our internet hotline, but I've been gone much of the summer on Race Across America (RAAM), the 3,000-mile, nonstop, transcontinental bike race that I founded in 1982 and just completed for the 17th year (I raced it 5 times but now just do it by car ... the sane way). There is not much of a skeptical tie-in with RAAM, but this year's route went from Irvine, California to Savannah, Georgia by a southern route, passing through the heart of Roswell, New Mexico. The race goes 24-hours a day (riders sleep just an hour or two a night), but I happened to arrive in Roswell just as the big UFO museum was opening, so I spent some time, took some pictures, and will do a nice photo montage for Skeptic magazine in an upcoming issue. If you've never been it is well worth the trip. On a Wednesday morning at 11am, there were about 50-60 people going through the museum. There is no charge to get in. They have a box for donations, so I gave a buck each for me and my RAAM partner Robb. I couldn't figure out how they stay in business until I got to the other HALF of the museum, which was the concession section, filled with every possible commemorative item ever conceived of by an entrepreneur--t- shirts, mini stuff alien, beany aliens, alien pens, alien mugs, alien glasses, alien puzzles, alien posters, alien frame pictures, alien sweatshirts, alien pins, alien chewing gum, alien candy, a poster of all the different types of aliens and UFOs (since there are NONE for real, it is an interesting study in human creativity), etc., etc.
My radio show, SCIENCE TALK WITH MICHAEL SHERMER, Wednesdays from 6-7pm PST, has been doing well. This week's guest is Jared Diamond, discussing the Pulitzer Prize he won for Guns, Germs, and Steel. Last week I had on Freeman Dyson. When I asked him about the famed "Dyson Sphere" as featured on an episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation, he said it was (in reference to my book WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS), that it is the single weirdest idea he has ever conceived! He also said his idea of propelling spacecraft by nuclear explosions was now hopeless out of date and no one is working on that any longer. One of his most famous statements, made in INFINITE IN ALL DIRECTIONS (an autobiographical work), is that the universe, in some sense, knew we were coming. He has taken some heat for this, but he explained that he does not believe that science in any way proves God, he agrees with Gould that science and religion are two different enterprises, and that all he meant was that evolution shows certain trends that seem inevitable, like going from simple to complex, increases in size, and increases in encephalization (thus consciousness, self-awareness, etc.). He also said that the mass bombing of the Germans in WWII probably did little to hasten the end of the war. (He worked in Bomber Command for the Brits, as a mathematical prodigy doing calculations and studies on bombing effectiveness, etc.) Interesting guy, Dyson.
The paperback edition of my book, WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS, has made the Los Angeles Times paperback bestseller list two weeks in a row now, 6th place last week, 9th place this week. Now, if we were smart and had no scruples, we could do what the scientologists used to do with L. Ron Hubbard's books: go out and purchase every copy in every bookstore in order to get on the bestseller list. Barnes and Noble discovered they were doing this when they started getting reordered copies of the books with their own price tag on them! Also, WEIRD THINGS is also now on audio, with yours truly as the reader. It was much more difficult than I thought, taking days of work to read it. The producers don't allow you to miss a single proper pronunciation, and there are some words that we say improperly in speech that, when you try to pronounce them correctly, clearly, and slowly, are not so easy. For example, I simply could not say "anesthetize" properly, and the more I tried the worse it got, until finally I said "paralyze" and the producer, in frustration, said "works for me"! I have new respect for actors and voice-over people. It's hard work. Those people who do Books-on-Tape, unabridged, dozens of hours each, are really something.
If you haven't seen the film INFINITY, it came and went last year with hardly a notice. But it's a beautiful film, and, as far as I can tell, historically accurate. It is the story of Richard Feynman, from youth to the atomic bomb. It's main focus is a love story about he and his first wife, who died of the consumption (tuberculosis). The film has a bunch of vignettes taken directly from the famous Feynman stories told in SURELY YOU'RE JOKING MR. FEYNMAN, one of the most delightful books ever written by a scientist. Rent it. It's available at Blockbuster. Check out the latest issue of Skeptic, now on the newsstands, with Deepak Chapra on the cover, with the story entitled DEEPAK'S DANGEROUS DOGMAS. Our fall lecture series begins at the end of October. I'll be doing an announcement here and in our regular database mailing list, as soon as we finalize the speakers.