Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC) is a phenomenon in which someone, typically quite fat and usually an alcoholic, may spontaneously catch fire and burn. What makes this an ever-popular favorite is that, according to the story, no ignition source is required and little or nothing around the victim will be burned whereas there will be almost nothing left of the victim except hands and feet. (WIKI: Spontaneous Human Combustion - Warning: the article is highly-distasteful as to how the process works)
Scientists have studied the phenomenon as there is a case log that goes back at least to the Seventeenth Century and apparently the phenomenon really does exist but there was little or no evidence of cases that were triggered without an ignition source. The folk wisdom is that victims spontaneously burned but there doesn't seem to be any empirical basis for it.
So then we talk to the same guys about the Big Bang. This was the event from which all things sprang and thus the Universe was born. Galaxies, stars and planets appeared in great abundance. From single point, an entire Universe arose and the physics for this are impeccable. The science works beautifully.
Then we ask them what caused the Big Bang and they'll tell you nothing caused it, the Big Bang just happened. So we ask, it was just spontaneous, huh?
Something like that, they say.
It's not my purpose to refute scientists as people with considerably less knowledge than my own do that almost every day. Most of them are in the Tea Party but there are many equally-ignorant others. Similar fools turn up as anti-vaxxers but they aren't so much of a problem as their kids will die and Darwin will solve it. The still self-righteous mothers will probably blame it at that point on vapor trails from aircraft or tuna from Fukashima.
Scientists have studied the phenomenon as there is a case log that goes back at least to the Seventeenth Century and apparently the phenomenon really does exist but there was little or no evidence of cases that were triggered without an ignition source. The folk wisdom is that victims spontaneously burned but there doesn't seem to be any empirical basis for it.
So then we talk to the same guys about the Big Bang. This was the event from which all things sprang and thus the Universe was born. Galaxies, stars and planets appeared in great abundance. From single point, an entire Universe arose and the physics for this are impeccable. The science works beautifully.
Then we ask them what caused the Big Bang and they'll tell you nothing caused it, the Big Bang just happened. So we ask, it was just spontaneous, huh?
Something like that, they say.
It's not my purpose to refute scientists as people with considerably less knowledge than my own do that almost every day. Most of them are in the Tea Party but there are many equally-ignorant others. Similar fools turn up as anti-vaxxers but they aren't so much of a problem as their kids will die and Darwin will solve it. The still self-righteous mothers will probably blame it at that point on vapor trails from aircraft or tuna from Fukashima.
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