I'm sure by now that you are all sick of hearing me proclaim that humans are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, but the generalization goes so far and explains so much. To wit, regarding Flight 990, check out Richard Hoagland's web page below. Hoagland, recall, is the "Face on Mars" fellow (he still hasn't given up on that one and claims NASA is not being honest about downloading the photographs of the eroded mountain he claims is a carved face that is part of monumental architecture created by ancient Martians). It now seems that Flight 990 is somehow linked to the mysterious face and other unsolved mysteries.
I kid you not, here is a classic example of pattern-seeking:
http://www.enterprisemission.com/egyptair.htm
The first problem we had with the apparent crash of this flight was in the numbers. Many of our regular readers wrote to us and pointed out the excessive According to an Egypt Air official, Chairman of the Board, Eng. Mohammed Fahim Rayan, live on CNN, the plane spent "nineteen and a half hours" in the United States on this particular series of flights. In fact the exact time (according to the New York Port Authority timeline) was specifically 19 hours and 47 minutes (!), the so-called "tetrahedral value" (see below) we have cited on so many occasions. The flight number 990 is of course divisible by three as 330, or 330 X 3 (33-3 anybody?) Add to that the fact that according to the Pentagon there were 33 Egyptian military officers on board, the plane was at 33,000 feet when it began its horrendous crash dive (down to just over 16,700 feet when transponder contact was finally lost), it had picked up 33 passengers in Los Angeles, it disappeared exactly 33 minutes after take off, and it had just over 33,000 flight hours -- and we of course were very interested. [Note: all of these numbers have been reported, but not necessarily confirmed at this time].
Marilyn Vos Savant, the world's highest I.Q., in Parade magazine, Sunday, November 15, to a reader who asked about the Big Bang. Marilyn is making the mistake so many people make of confusing "faith" (in religion) and "confidence" (in science). Just this morning, for example, K.C. Coles' wonderful article on string theory finally appeared in the Los Angeles Times (she penned this series six months ago), but the title of the article, along with textual narrative, talks about how this Caltech professor "kept the faith." I append her comment, where you can write her if you wish, and my short e-mail letter to her explaining this simple confusion.
"But do you believe [in the Big Bang theory]? If so, how do you support your belief that the entire cosmos was once smaller than a polka dot? (With a strong line of reasoning? Some solid evidence? Anything at all?) If you cannot, welcome to the world of faith: You're accepting what you've been told by those you respect. And that's what creationists do. They just respect different folks."
You can respond to: marilyn@parade.com
Here is my e-mail letter to her:
Marilyn:
We do not "believe in" the Big Bang, nor do we have "faith" that it happened. These are religious words dealing with beliefs despite a lack of evidence. The Big Bang is well supported by overwhelming evidence, some of which doesn't take a Guinness-sized I.Q. to understand; e.g., the most distant galaxies are receding away at a faster rate than nearer galaxies, exactly what one sees in any type of explosion here on earth. We have "confidence" in the theory of the Big Bang that comes through decades of testing and research. The theory of the Big Bang, like the theory of evolution, is so well supported that we can consider it a fact in science, if we define fact as something so well supported that it would be perverse to withhold our provisional assent.