Late Heavy Bombardment Myth Is Dying
January 24, 2018
A favorite tale from the Apollo era, the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment, is being bombarded itself.
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Planetary Rings Defy Long Ages
November 1, 2016
Models of the origin of planetary rings are simulations based on fictions. Real physics cannot keep them billions of years old.
Moon Origin Story Collapses
September 13, 2016
In a one-two punch, discoveries undermine the accepted story of the moon's origin and its subsequent history.
Rearranging Deck Chairs on Sinking Planet Theories
April 27, 2016
Supernovas come in handy as theory rescue devices.
Major Scientific Revolutions Are Still Possible
November 24, 2015
Beware the myth of progress. There's more scientists don't know than what they know.
Origin-of-Life Speculation Goes Off the Rails
October 21, 2015
Astrobiologists and their accomplices in the media are finding life everywhere where it isn't or couldn't be. Time to call in the science rangers.
Titan: Planetary Scientists Invent Imaginary Histories
June 15, 2015
Getting from then to now is more poetic license than demonstrable fact.
Comet Ocean Theory Debunked
December 11, 2014
Data from the Rosetta mission debunk the notion that comets brought Earth's ocean water. Now they're hoping asteroids could have.
Lunar Impact: Major Moon Basin Was Not a Big Hit
October 8, 2014
The theory of how the largest impact basin on the moon was formed has been turned upside down.
Fresh Impacts Viewed on Mars, Moon
May 21, 2013
New impacts observed on the moon and Mars allow space scientists to learn about crater formation in near real time. What conclusions can be drawn?
Planet Theories vs. the Evidence
April 26, 2012
Planet theorists are putting up a valiant fight against new findings, but in some cases, the evidence seems to be winning.
What Do Scientists Know About Prehistory?
January 9, 2012
Evolutionary biologists and geologists speak of events happening millions or billions of years ago as concrete facts. They are not observational facts, though; they are inferences from indirect evidence. Indirect evidence can often lead to different conclusions; in fact, some philosophers like Duhem and Quine argue for “under-determination of theory by data,” meaning that data can never converge to support just one theory. Some can demonstrate logically that there are an infinite number of theories that can explain a set of data. Evolutionary scientists counter that there are only one or a few that are reasonable (implying that theirs is among the limited set of reasonable ones). Recent discoveries that threaten to overturn past reasonable theories, though, cast doubt on their confidence.