Phi Zappa Quakka

It?s nice to see a Frank Zappa fan working in the Nature press office. A recent release extolling the current issue?s report on space dust from meteorites was titled: ?Who you jivin? with that cosmik debris?? The line is pulled from a 1974 classic railing against quackery from the same jester who had hypothesized that there?s more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe (and that stupidity has a longer shelf life). And to the list of Zappa quotes unintentionally relevant to the sciences I offer his take on breaking free from the chains of oppressive monoculture:"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."It?s a fair bet that Zappa would have guessed the significance of such a statement to geneticists and evolutionary biologists. Although in the culture-war realm, we?re increasingly seeing the charlatans donning the mantle of the underdog. The well funded folks at Discovery Institute increasingly posit Darwinism as...