And a fairly long exchange of letters (December, 2000) on the subject of, was Velikovsky an obvious fool, and if so, what should be done about him? Because my correspondent in this has said that on reflection he prefers not to be named. The conversation is still worth recording.

THE FOLLOWING LINKS ARE TO BOOKMARKS IN THIS DOCUMENT. You may just skip this section and read stuff in the order it appears here, beginning with the Spring 2000 note that caused me to put this all together.

Science, when done right, remains the best means of advancing human knowledge, and the notion that we don't know anything, and can't know anything, and everything we think we know is false, is bunkum: we all know we live longer and better (in the physical sense) than our ancestors; that we know more about the Universe than was known in, say, the 13th Century; that we may still believe nonsense, but there is less nonsense about the nature of the world than there used to be. Spiritually we may not be so well off, and I suppose there are those who say we'd be better off diseased and ignorant but with the right spiritual beliefs, but outside cocktail parties and undergraduate bull sessions there aren't many people I want to know who believe that. I have my doubts about this era, but they don't involve regretting that I have teeth and feel pretty good at my age.