Two Articles in Scientific American

Via Arts & Letters Daily, this article in Scientific American indicating that the universe is a very odd place indeed.

And here is an article in Scientific American by Michael Shermer asking whether all companies have to be evil. I especially like this line:

The first line of defense against evil, then, is transparency, open communication and the constant surveillance of every aspect of a system.

Its very true. There are, of course, some trade secrets and so forth, but a person or company or government (or blog for that matter) that is open and transparent and encourages fact checking, even of itself, even by itself, is less likely to be peddling bs than one that doesn’t. And they’re less likely to be able to justify (to themselves or to othrs) pulling a fast one.