The big discoveries raise questions that make astronomers work feverishly and argue with an agitation that verges on rudeness.

The big discoveries raise questions that make astronomers work feverishly and argue with an agitation that verges on rudeness.

The natural pattern of current astronomy is provided by the cryptic unity of nature itself (belief in which is the chief act of faith of the scientist).

Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.

The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.

It's likely that CO2 has some warming effect, but real proof of that hypothesis is tricky. You have to confirm by observation exactly how the CO2 changes the situation at different altitudes in the atmosphere and in different regions of the world. For example, CO2 is supposed to warm the upper air faster than the surface, but the measurements don't show that happening. When the CO2 effect is eventually pinned down, it will probably turn out to be weaker and much less worrisome than predicted by the global warming theorists.

But, when tales of the cosmos are told, this period of ours may always be recalled as that in which men first came to realise what a violent universe we inhabit.