If factual information upsets you, then you are creating a world that is not embracing objective truths, and that's not how you advance a democracy.

But to measure cause and effect... you must ensure that a simple correlation, however tempting it may be, is not mistaken for a cause. In the 1990s the stork population of Germany increased and the German at-home birth rate rose as well. Shall we credit storks for airlifting the babies?

Nature is not here to keep you alive. It has just as many ways to kill you as it does to sustain you. And if you cherry-pick this fact, you are left thinking that earth is some haven for life, but 96, 97 percent of all species that ever lived on earth are now extinct from the actions of the earth itself and an occasional asteroid to stir the pot.

Feeling a little small? Well, in the context of the cosmos, we are small.

It's progress I think, that science has joined philosophy, metaphysics & religion as subjects drunk people argue about in bars.

NASA has spin-offs, and it's a huge and very impressive list, including accurate and affordable LASIK eye surgery.

In America, there are people who don't read science fiction but still think about tomorrow, so it's not only the force of science-fiction that makes you a tomorrow thinker.