{"id":36298,"date":"2011-06-19T13:00:57","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/calamities-of-supernature-bad-astronomy\/"},"modified":"2011-06-19T13:00:57","modified_gmt":"2011-06-19T13:00:57","slug":"calamities-of-supernature-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/calamities-of-supernature-bad-astronomy.php","title":{"rendered":"Calamities of (super)nature | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.calamitiesofnature.com\/archive\/?c=547\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/d47d5_calamatiesofnature_ghosts.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"207\" height=\"265\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-33454\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a>Calamities of Nature is a webcomic that frequently has skeptical and scientifiic themes. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.calamitiesofnature.com\/archive\/?c=547\">A recent one deals with ghosts and the soul<\/a>, and it hits on a message <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/2007\/09\/27\/the-supernatural-does-not-exist\/\">I&rsquo;ve said many times<\/a>: <em>there&rsquo;s no such thing as the supernatural<\/em>. Either something is natural &mdash; that is, part of the Universe &mdash; or else it doesn&rsquo;t exist.<\/p><p>If you posit some thing that has no perceivable or measurable effect, then it may as well not exist. And as soon as you claim it does have an effect &mdash; it can be seen, heard, recorded, felt &mdash; then it must be in some way testable, and therefore subject to science. You can&rsquo;t claim ghosts are supernatural, beyond the realm of science, but also claim they show up <em>on a freaking thermal camera!<\/em><\/p><p>Well, you can claim that, but you&rsquo;d be wrong. So there you go.<\/p><p><em>[NOTE: In a funny coincidence, after I drafted this post but before I published it, my fellow Hive Overmind blogger Sean Carroll <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2011\/06\/18\/calamities-of-supernature\/\">posted a link<\/a> to this same cartoon using almost exactly the same post title! COINCIDENCE? Well, yeah, actually. Great minds and ...<\/em><\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/fPqsGukTJze7EDA-F5qyCsIsnNc\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/a508f_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/fPqsGukTJze7EDA-F5qyCsIsnNc\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/dc486_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/dc486_LyxICfBfUe8\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/dc486_wYerEPydlw4\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calamities of Nature is a webcomic that frequently has skeptical and scientifiic themes. A recent one deals with ghosts and the soul, and it hits on a message I&rsquo;ve said many times: there&rsquo;s no such thing as the supernatural. Either &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/calamities-of-supernature-bad-astronomy.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}