A math professor in the Philippines has disproved Fermat's Last Theorem and been nominated for a Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the Grand Unified Theory. Impressive!

But wait! The tenacious journalistic talents of intrepid Filipino blogger Alecks Pabico have cast significant doubt on the veracity of this professor's claims.

There is so much I could say on all this, but it's all kind of apparent from these links. But this incident does deal a blow to the claim that bloggers aren't real journalists. Despite having no understanding of how trolls work, Alecks and his readers sure have a gread deal more journalistic credibility than, say, the Manila Times.

(Manila Times link from Snarkout.org. Others from Google.)

There was a nice selection of images, but I liked the same one Debbie liked. (Runner up was "I am the Bell Curve.")

For Matthew:

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.

Okay, what *is* neo-Darwinism anyway, and are these scientific claims really invented to avoid evidence of purpose and design? This whole argument would be okay assuming that science really is trying to explain away the appearance of design. I don't know; I'm not a scientist; maybe it is. Hank will surely agree with me that inventing outrageous claims of your opponents and then arguing how wrong they are is really fun, but Hank and I don't then go around publishing op-ed pieces in the New York Times.