It’s not just in the “global warming” arena that we’re assailed by the notion of some ironclad “scientific consensus.”  I’ve seen it thrown out in articles about high fructose corn syrup or bisphenol A being eeevil, too.

Not all that long ago, there was a powerful “scientific consensus” about the cause of stomach ulcers — that it was excess stomach acid.  Then a couple of guys named Barry Marshall and Robin Warren came along and proved it wrong — but not before they were roundly ridiculed by those who wanted to hold fast to the agreed-upon “wisdom.”  Thanks to Marshall and Warren’s refusal to back down, millions of ulcer sufferers are victimized by symptoms no longer; we now recognize that bacteria are the cause and treat the afflicted with antibiotics.

Everyone ought to be made familiar with the scientific philosophy of Karl Popper, for whom science is not about proving anything (which is impossible), but about DISPROVING incorrect conjectures — of which much of our science consists.

How does one at all cover the whole Deep Purple oeuvre?  (How, indeed, does one even use the word “oeuvre?”) Well, I won’t even try. I’ll just throw out a random sampling of their gems.

This one from Machine Head should’ve gotten at least as much play as “Smoke On the Water” (if only for the brief Roger Glover bass solo):

And another tour de force from the same album, in which Ritchie Blackmore shows us how foolish we were in our arguments about who was the best guitarist in the ’70s:

I’ve always really liked “Speed King:”

And how about “My Woman From Tokyo?”

And last, at least for our limited tribute, who can forget “Burn,” which remedies the tragedy of not having Ian Gillan in his longtime vocalist slot by highlighting instead David Coverdale, who does a fine job and almost makes you forget he would later get seriously slapped around by Tawny Kitaen.  Meanwhile, drummer Ian Paice completely outdoes himself, while the dueling solos of Blackmore and keyboardist Jon Lord — who would go on later to serve as a vehicle for highlighting the vocal genius of former ABBA member Frida Lyngstad (now Her Serene Highness Princess Anni-Frid Synni Reusse, Countess of Plauen — I kid you not) — are also taken to new heights:

I’ve got to say, while Roland Orzabal (below, left) just looks like an older version of his early-’80s-heyday self, Curt Smith is one of those rare lucky bastards whose appearance actually benefited from his aging a couple decades.

Check out the motorcycle he built from the ground up — he welded his own frame and did the paint himself, among many other feats of gearhead supermanhood.

The song is from 1969.  The concert is from ’82, about the time I served these guys barbecue at John Wills Barbecue in Memphis, Tennessee, after their concert there.  Pretty nice, down-to-earth fellas as I recall.

He died 40 years ago today.  (Thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit for the reminder.)

Here’s a useful skill to know.

H/t to Gizmag.

I was reading a car magazine during my visit to my gearhead brother Rich’s house last weekend, and came across an article about a racing driveshaft… made of aluminum.

I asked if he ever imagined when he got into that stuff 25 years ago that he’d live to see such a thing.  For anyone who remembers what we could do with aluminum back then, his “no” answer is all too predictable.

My world of bicycle stuff is similar — it was a massive breakthrough when Gary Klein made a boron-reinforced aluminum frame that you could actually ride back in the early ’80s.  But the now-ubiquitous aluminum, carbon fiber and titanium frames have made steel-framed bicycles a novelty.

And Rich and I had a similar conversation — this one centered around Matchbox-sized toy cars — about the improvements in plastics, the point being that plastic toy car parts are at least as good as some of the pot metal parts that frustrated us in our day.  (The makers of those cars desperately need either to go back to the old style axles we enjoyed, though, or apply some of the materials advances there too — the ridiculously thin-gauge and easily bent wire they use for the purpose now is entirely unacceptable.)

There’s been so much ink — real and electronic — spilled about the computer and electronics end of the technology revolution.  And the advances in those realms deserve the attention.  Still, we take far too much for granted in the advances in materials science.  So it’s nice to see this article, which means we may soon see even more unfathomable uses of lightweight aluminum.

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”  — C. S. Lewis