NEWS ROUNDUP | Objectivism, Transhumanism, Skepticism, Private Space Flight, Game of Thrones

A few notable things I ran across recently:

1. Will Thomas of The Atlas Society (formerly known as The Objectivist Center) argues that transhumanism is compatible with Objectivism.
2. Kylie Sturgess, in her Curiouser and Curiouser column for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, interviewed Scott Sigler. I hadn’t heard of him before, but apparently he’s known as a podcaster and now also as an author of techno-thrillers.

   Sigler describes skeptics as people
    

   who were spreading the other side of the information instead of misinformation. They are out actively encouraging people to think for themselves, and what’s been interesting is that they’re not necessarily telling people “this is bunk.” They are encouraging people to think critically about things and learn how to address things when you run into them.

   He goes on to mention how, among other things, evolution is being challenged in America. But there’s a flipside to long-accepted, fairly well-established science being attacked in knee-jerk fashion by those faith-based types leery of science in general and of science that challenges their religious beliefs in particular. Sometimes science can become corrupted in politically-charged fields, and scientists lose their objectivity. I’m reminded of an old post I wrote about scientific skepticism in relation to global warming alarmism. I riffed off of Clarke’s First Law of Prediction and Asimov’s Corollary.

   But to get back to Scott Sigler, has anyone read any of his work? If so, what do you think? Do you recommend it?

3. PalPal founder Elon Musk’s company SpaceX carried out a successful mission the other day, marking the first private space flight. The Dragon spacecraft, capable of carrying 7 astronauts, was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, moved onto earth orbit, circled the planet a couple times, and splashed down in the Pacific. A successful test and (generally) a great day for private enterprise and private space flight, although it looks like the project was partially funded (I don’t know how much) by NASA which is not ideal. Check out the live coverage, complete with video, over at Gizmodo. Apparently in a nod to Monty Python, the Dragon capsule carried a wheel of Le Brouere cheese.
4. In case you hadn’t heard, HBO is producing a tv show based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy series of novels. It’s an excellent, gritty series told from tight multiple-character points of view (POV), with little magic (at least at first), in which little if anything is black and white, and realpolitik drives events. The show is titled Game of Thrones after the first book in the series. Here is nearly 12 minutes of behind-the-scenes and sneak-peak footage (via SFSignal):