Look I love Bill Nye so I mean no disrespect, but was Bill out drinking with Charles Choi? He is all over the place... and slurring...

I'd say that's reasonable. But assuming there's something to the process that eludes us (?), and it was necessary to mine it from such sources... interesting intellectual experiments.

If I may risk the ire of fifty million elvis fans: the books are not well written. Whatever "understanding" of that fact you have, I recommend you file under "grain of salt" until you've made your own mind up. Well written is not something I found them to be. "Passably written," might be a phrase I'd use. On a good…

"Understanding of space-time" and "basketball superstars"

Wow! You just gave me a great idea for an alt-history movie script. The Odd Couple meets Sherlock Holmes meets CSI, but all across Elizabethan Europe!

Just because Carl Sagan never bragged to his friends doesn't mean he didn't own at least one hobo-skin suit.

I'll go on record as not a Harry Potter fan in general, but even allowing that tastes vary and so forth — I don't want to read anything by an author who's "favorite" books are something so... to be frank, ephemeral.

Who would have ever thought "privileged-but-put-upon teen mage in mage school" or "defanged vampires in mopey defanged teen romance" would ever be genres of their own?

Well no wonder Nobel never married! Mathematicians were having sex with his wife.

Or, you don't know your parents as well as you thought! They've accidentally exposed their secret lives as doctors to you.

Apgar is an acronym of the things assessed by the test AND the name of the pioneer behind the test?

I agree. I had a tabby named Jones, after Alien and maybe that's unrelated or maybe that's why but I can absolutely picture Jonesy from the film, and that cat is so totally darker, slimmer, and ... wrong-faced/headed.

Depending on what super-specific super-obnoxious prepackaged trend follows, you may well eat those words unfortunately.

In any discipline — especially hard science — constantly redefining terms is kind of the whole point. You're arguing against the notion of shorthand, of language in general in fact. "Can't you stop calling it a car and debating whether this is a car or that is a car and just say it has four wheels and an engine and…

Agree about Troi, for sure. Again, the further from "ship's counselor" she gets, the much much better the character became. I actually like Sirtis's performance in most episodes (*excepting the sloppy first 1.5 years or so, as with the rest of the cast), but for all its willingness to keep returning to that dry well,…

I am always mixed on Keiko, but Worf has always been a comic genius. No joke!

"Congratulations. You are fully dilated to ten centimeters. You may now give birth."

"I'm not worth your time," is your position, then. With just enough of that charming personal-attack subtext to make it clear this is an internet debate and not two people debating a topic pleasantly.
Fair enough. So much for connecting or getting through. I guess by your own decree, you're not worth my time. A shame.

Angelica: Would you like to hear one of my poems?

FetchingCatBrothers has the right of it. Not to sound dismissive but bringing up reproductive rights of first world nations when discussing the exponential population and technology booms that would allow us to travel to and safely harness material from colliding almost-black-holes... well, I can only assume the…