Doing Science

From The Guardian (online version): "Here in the Afar desert, one of the hottest and driest places on earth, the tribe had witnessed the birth of a new ocean. Images from the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite showed that a huge rift, 37 miles long and up to eight metres (26ft) wide, had opened deep in the Earth's crust. "

Obviously in reaction to the idiots who go around declaring Pluto "not a planet" and Lake Huron "not a real lake", some British scientists have swung to the other end of the daft spectrum and declared a crack opened up by an earthquake to be a new ocean. This despite the rather diminutive dimensions of the thing (as compared to,say, the Pacific or Atlantic which are distinguished by having boundaries that run for thousands of miles) and the complete lack of water in it (normally considered to be the sine qua non of oceanic seaness on Earth).

I have to admit that I have put the scientific establishment on notice in the past and demanded that scientists stop mucking about redefining things that have been around longer than they have and do real science instead. In this I must bear some of the blame for this obvious dash to look busy. However, scientists should be aware that we are on to them and can spot fake science when we see it. This new "ocean" typifies the kind of thinking that is bringing western civilisation down.

Scientists! Stop mucking about! We demand the following projects be followed with all dispatch

1. Develop the flying car at an affordable price
2. Moon rockets that work properly
3. Moonbases that are worth going to. Some shed with no ameneties doesn't count!
4. Anti-gravity liftbelts
5. Pistol-size death rays
6. Telepathy pills
7. Free electricity for all
8. Elimination of the gene that enamours one of "push to talk" cellphones from humans
9. Robots that look like real robots instead of the idiotic steamshovel affairs that populate our car factories
10. Digital Cable TV service that doesn't look like crap when compared to old fashioned analogue cable TV.
11. X-Ray vision goggles
12. Rocketshoes with an altimeter in the heel
13. Gill Pills for those who like to SCUBA but can't afford the ridiculous welding-bottle affair currently in vogue
14. FTL Star Drive. We'll never get anywhere interesting lollygagging around in Einsteinian space.
15. Solid state music storage and reproduction gear that doesn't compress the signal so hard it sounds like crap when played back
16. Generic Remove Disease Pills. That should put paid to the stupid HMOs

That's enough to be going on with. No more arguing about minutiae! Do science!