To construct the map, the standard assumption that red shift is proportional to distance was made. However, a growing body of observational evidence indicates that there are further sources of red shift not related to distance. This implies that the map must be wrong since it is based on an incomplete interpretation of red shift measurements.

For a good documentary where the mentioned growing body of evidence is being discussed by astronomers and astrophysicists see "The Universe - Cosmology Quest". A torrent can be found here for example.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol banning chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is considered a textbook case where science and responsible governance lead to a landmark treaty for the benefit of the Earth and all its inhabitants. How often does that happen?

At about the time that the DuPont patent on Freon(TM), the most widely used CFC refrigerant in the world, was expiring the mainstream media picked up on otherwise arcane scientific observations and hypotheses about ozone concentration in the upper atmosphere near the poles.

There resulted an international mobilization to criminalize CFCs and DuPont developed and patented a replacement refrigerant that was promptly certified for use.

A Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded in 1995 for a laboratory demonstration that CFCs could deplete ozone in simulated atmospheric conditions. In 2007 it was shown that the latter work may have been seriously flawed by overestimating the depletion rate by an order of magnitude, thereby invalidating the proposed mechanism for CFC-driven ozone depletion [3]. Not to mention that any laboratory experiment is somewhat different from the actual upper atmosphere. Is the Nobel tainted by media and special interest lobbying?

[3] Nature 449, 382-383 (2007).

It concur with most of what you say, but in some of your statements you persist in assigning primacy to theory. Saying, for example that "theory is central, because without it you have but a bunch of anecdotes" does not reflect some necessary aspects of science. One I already pointed out: when you apply the scientific method to a new field of endeavor of which little is known, no theory is available yet. By necessity you have to start with observations, then develop hypotheses and experiments to test those hypotheses. As these hypotheses grow in number and detail, theories with some predictive power may emerge.

Another way to see that experiments and observation should have precedence is this: nature does not care about theory, it is what it is. Aspects of what nature is can be observed through experiment and observation. Theories are crutches for human understanding: approximate models small enough to fit into our feeble minds. But theories are risky to rely on because even the most well-established theory may in the end be found to be flawed after performing an experiment in a domain where it has not been tested yet.

In the particular field under discussion, the actual situation is more complex because the experiments are interpreted in the context of stack of theories. To measure the degree of double-strand DNA breakage via a comet assay, as Lai and Singh have done, makes implicit use of a lot of physical theories and theories of biochemistry. This stack of theories is lacking a theory that provides a well-verified explanation of the precise biophysical and biochemical pathways via which electromagnetic fields can induce such excess DNA damage. There are multiple candidates for an explanation, and comet assay is exactly the kind of experimentation that can help you narrow down the candidates. As I mentioned, they found a reduced signal when the iron in the blood of the rats was first chelated. Precisely the kind of finding that can help you eliminate candidate hypotheses and move other hypothesis on towards the status of theory.

In short, they have been doing perfectly fine science. And even though a complete theory is not there yet, their experiments unambiguously indicate that electromagnetic fields can pose a mutagenic risk even when those EM fields induce no appreciable thermal heating and the photon energy (proportional to frequency) is in the non-ionizing regime: to establish that does not require a theory of the damage mechanism, instead it merely requires the theories lower in the stack that are sufficient to interpret the comet assay methodology. Hence, their experimental findings are very much worth knowing of and giving publicity to. Sadly, they have received repression and censorship instead.

Sorry for being a bit abrasive earlier on. On reflection I realized there is a simpler way to explain why experiment and observation must be considered primary: they look at reality whereas a theory is only a model of reality.

you should be able to see the effects with isolated cells, for one

I remembered that an Austrian study used the same comet assay methodology as Lai and Singh on cell lines, and found you a link to the abstract.

The first thing about good science is that you need to have some sort of mechanism to explain your findings. That's what's called a theory.

You utterly misunderstand the scientific method. Experiment and observation are primary. Based on those, hypotheses and later theories can be elaborated in an iterative cycle of experimentation and theory development. But you do not need a theory to perform science: how else but by starting with only initial observations and experiments can you enter a new field of scientific exploration?

Theories can be helpful in interpreting experiments. But it should always be kept in mind that those interpretations are only as good as the theories. And theories are only approximate models of reality: there is always the possibility for them to be erroneous or be improved. If a subsequent observation or experiment falsifies the theory, then both the theory and the interpretations based on it are discarded if the scientific method is followed faithfully. In short, experiment and observation are primary and valuable in and of themselves.

Some further references for your benefit:

[Ader, 1997] Adey WR (1997): Bioeffects of communication fields; possible mechanisms of cumulative dose. In: Kuster N, Balzano Q, Lin eds., Mobile Communication Safety, New York, Chapman and Hall. pp. 103-139

[Edelsryn and Oldenshaw, 2002]: The acute effects of exposure to electromagnetic field emitted by mobile phones on human attention. Neuroreport 13:119-121

[Huber et al., 2002] I Huber R, Troyer V, Borbely A, et al. (2002): Electromagnetic fields, such as those from mobile phones, alter regional cerebral blood flow and sleep and waking EEG. J Sleep Res 11:280-295

[Krause et al., 2000] Krause CM, Sillanmaki L, Koivisto M, et al. (2000): Effects of electromagnetic fields emitted by cellular phones on the electroencephalogram during a visual working memory task. Intermit" Radiat Biol 76: 1659-1667

[Kuster et al., 1997] Kuster N, Balzano Q, Lin J, eds (1997): Mobile Communication Safety. New York, Chapman and Hall. 279 pp

[Oscar and Hawkins, 19771 Oscar KJ, Hawkins TD (1977): Microwave alteration of the blood-brain barrier system of rats. Brain Res 126:281-293

[Preece et al., 1999] Preece AW, Iwi G, Davies-Smith A, et al. (1999): Effects of 915-MHz simulated mobile phone signal on cognitive function in man. Internat J Rad Biot 75:447-456

[Salford et al., 2003] Salford L, Brun A, Eberhardt J, et al. (2003) Nerve cell damage in mammalian brain after exposure to microwaves from GSM mobile phones. Environmental health Perspectives 2003

[Sandstrom et al., 2001] Sandstrom M, Wilen J, Oftedal G, et al. (2001): Mobile phone use and subjective symptoms. Occup Med (Lond) 51:25-35

[ Schirmacher et al., 2000] Schirmacher A, Winters S, Fischer S, et al. (2000): Electromagnetic fields (1.8 GHz) increase the permeability to sucrose of the blood-brain barrier in vitro. Bioelectromagnetics 21:338-345

[Wilen et al., 2000] Wilen J, Sandstrom M, Hansson Mild K (2003): Subjective symptoms among mobile telephone users — a consequence of absorption of radiofrequency fields? Bioelectromagnetics 24:152-159

Sure, you have to weigh risks and benefits. But in order to do so, you need to know about and quantify risk. Those that have researched the mobile phone radiation risk often choose to use a hands-free kit to keep the antenna away from their head instead of foregoing the benefits of accessible communication altogether. In Russia, where the risks are acknowledged, much lower norms have been mandated for the emission levels of cellular base stations. There is plenty that can be done short of a ban.

A small side note: prions are not carcinogenic. They are supposed to induce a chain reaction of further prion formation. But the scientific evidence for that is not nearly as clear-cut as it is for the harmful effects of microwave and radio frequency EM fields. It is interesting how one bit of weakly supported science gets turned into a big media scare, while the harmful effects of EM fields get brushed under the carpet.

Oh gosh and golly, I so happened to cite one of those industry-funded hit pieces that is supposed to "prove" there is not effect. But hey just because there was no associated rise in the core body temperature of the rats does not mean there is no harm. Aside from direct one-photon absorption there are plenty of conceivable secondary mechanisms through which non-ionizing EM fields can induce physiological effects that are mutagenic (cause DNA breaks).

Let me give an example. Biochemical processes give rise to free-radical pair production. When the now unpaired electon spins on both radical molecules are induced to reorient, for which EM fields can lend a helping hand, recombination and neutralization of these free radicals is inhibited.

In fact, evidence has been found for an indirect mechanism. The degree of the observed DNA breaks as directly determined via comet assays was highly suppressed when the rats had their iron chelated. Iron, being a somewhat heavier element than most present in mammals, has a high spin-orbit coupling and as such is indeed a plausible intermediary in the up conversion of low-energy photons to high-energy effects.

In any case, there is plenty of other scientific evidence that RF and MW fields can cause harm. 70% of the non-industry funded studies find ill effect as you could have read in the earlier-given link you so conveniently ignored: http://www.seattlemag.com/article/nerd-report/nerd-report

There is plenty of evidence for mutagenic and other negative effects of radio-frequency and microwave fields. Just a small sample: http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/abs/10.2307/3579911 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2D-4G7NFGG-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F06%2F2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f82e85c25e8d4446ef498e2a2d93c83c http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8627134

So why is this not widely known? Because people tend to not look beyond the headline spin, the parent post being a good example thereof. But also because industry-funded studies tend to generate biased results http://www.seattlemag.com/article/nerd-report/nerd-report which are then touted as "proof" that there is no ill effect.

You assume that the knowledge that was public at the time matches what was known by the oil cartel which came into being rather earlier back in the times of Standard Oil. What the public thinks it knows about anything important is mostly lucrative and convenient lies foisted on them. For example, the public does not even know what oil is. Let me give you a hint: it is also being pumped up from extremely deep wells.

Ah, you have half a clue. Vast amounts of tar sands indeed. Vast amounts of oil all over the place, actually. Brazil, Cuba, Prudhoe Bay, and so on and on and on. If the public would know just how vast, they would revolt and not be prepared to pay the current excessive energy prices. That is why this Peak-oil nonsense is being sold to you time-and-again in bullshit articles such as the one above.

Reality check: land-based oil close to the surface carries a production cost of only a couple of dollars. Of that kind of oil, there are still vast supplies. In Iraq for example. That is why that country has been kept in a perpetual state of being messed up for a century now. It is even why it was created into being by drawing the borders as they were drawn by the western powers that be, with 1/3 Kurdish, 1/3 Shia, and 1/3 Sunni territory to ensure continual political instability. Guess what happened after the Iraqi's even so got their act together and elected a democratic government...

It is basic economics: the price point is determined by supply and demand. Artificial scarcity is a much better way to up the price up than trying to work on the demand side. This scam is being pulled not just with oil, but also with diamonds , land, foodstuffs, water, and so on. Think of it like hidden taxes levied by the criminals that rule you.

What if this physical reality is not as absolute as it mostly appears? What if the perception-warping effects of psychedelic drugs show that fundamentally this reality is subjective and flexible? What if it is really an adaptive stage, a credible illusion, in which we play out the role called "life"?

If true, that would certainly explain why we are so easily addicted to and feel at home in RPGs as we would be born role players.

With NVidia unable to release something competitive and therefore creating a "new" 3xx series into being through renaming 2xx series cards, the gts360m as well, those with a clue will be buying ATI for the time being.

Sadly, the average consumer will only look at higher number and is likely to be conned.

Ah yes, another attempt to sell the big lie that CO2-induced global warming is causing sea levels to rise.

I guess I should have said "if there's any good science".

That the article has caused controversy, made an editor resign, and had to be published in a non-mainstream journal in order not to be censored is predictable given its politically contentious implications. But that does not make it bad science.

Why do you not address its contents? What specifically about the experiments or methods is bad science? Oh, that's right, nothing: it presents clear-cut evidence of the presence of thermitic material in the WTC dust. The implications are obvious.