Electricity Powers the Universe (James P. Hogan)

Hooray! Lew Rockwell published a column about the Electric Universe! James P. Hogan describes why the generally accepted theory of the cosmos is deeply flawed, and why electricity plays a far greater role than it is given credit for:

Humans have a wonderful ability for creating visions of ways to improve themselves, thereby making the world a better place; and then, it seems, for losing track somewhere along the way of turning the visions into reality.

Take the business of science, for instance. After several thousand futile years of fighting wars over whose revealed truth was really true, and attempts to impose truth by decree with the aid of rack and thumbscrew or deduce it via rigorous logic from self-evident premises that nobody could agree on, the idea finally emerged that a better way of finding out about the way things are in the world might be to stop fixating on how they ought to be, actually look at what's out there, and accept what it's telling you, whether you like it or not. It works pretty well with such questions as figuring out why cannon balls and planets move the way they do, what heat is, and other matters that can be decided beyond argument according to whether your motor starts or not, or if your plane gets off the ground – all of which rapidly become engineering. But when it comes to issues that aren't settled so easily – the meaning and origin of life; how the cosmos gets to be the way it is, and where it came from: areas where authority can still command and get away with it – things don't seem to have really changed that much. Powerful establishments enjoying political favor and monopoly privileges in teaching and promotion rigidify into orthodoxies defending their beliefs tenaciously, with dissenting views being dismissed, ridiculed, and marginalized, even when supported by what would appear to be verifiable fact and simpler arguments. In possibly an ultimate of ironies, in areas where hopes for science were at their highest, instead of showing the openness to alternatives and readiness to follow the evidence wherever it pointed that were supposed to characterize the new way of understanding the world, much of what we hear today seems to be taking on more the trappings of intolerant religion protecting dogma and putting down heresy.

Read the rest, and make sure to take a look at the links at the bottom of the article!