Alien pope abductors want open Wi-Fi access

The Pope calls for an end to alarmist predictions from scientists. You had a few thoughts on why that might have happened:

"Pope Benedict XVI has warned scientists to beware of making alarming predictions without having the proper science to back them up"....

Well that's basic job protection isn't it... If scientists start making wild claims and predictions with no evidence to back them up, what's the Pope going to have left to do?

Steve

Pot calling the kettle black I think. Surely religious leaders have an obligation to accuracy too. "...avoiding needlessly alarm predictions...", err like you are going to hell for example?

Surely he should also not say anything that is "not supported by sufficient data". Please provide the data that proves God's existence. Please provide the data that proves that us non-believers are going to hell. Then we might take what you say more seriously.

Ashley

The Pope's hardly going to worry about the forecast depletion of fish stocks - all he needs is one (and possibly a loaf of bread) and he can repopulate the oceans.

Mike

If this was QI, there'd be a big word flashing on a screen right now, and Stephen Fry would steal some of your points...

Re the pope warning scientists about making alarming predictions without sufficient data, I must say that I am somewhat disappointed at the Pope's lack of faith in the scientist's results. Surely, the Pope has some experience (one might even say extensive) in taking certain concepts (both pleasant and otherwise) for granted, without concrete evidence to back them up....

Happy Friday, Chris

I have to regard Mike Hulme's comments in your article about the Pope warning against alarmist science as somewhat hypocritical. The recent Stern report, lambasted for using only the most extreme predictions to justify massive tax hikes, was largely informed by the Tyndall centre's researchers. For more information on this, perhaps you should follow this link http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2006%20November.htm

There is a great deal of effort being expended by Climate Change scientists to promote the discussion as being one of calm, rational consensus. In fact this is anything but the case and a cynic might point out that having "Climate Change" in your job title rather makes you reliant on emphasising the 'Change' part to keep yourself in employment. The Climate has never, ever been stable and constant, and so far is anything but fully understood. Linking the sensationalist climate change crowd to the Pope's comments is highly misleading, and a bit of a PR coup on their behalf.

Andy

Aliens are coming, they probably don't like us, and we're all going to die. According to the man who used to hunt UFOs for a living. At the MoD. (We know...)

So my tax pounds are paying for some twonk to research UFOs? Good grief! What's next, Home Office Ghostbusters? Cheers Simon

---

Will the aliens need ID cards? How will they apply for visas if the normal channels are closed to them? Can they claim asylum? What if they have no fingers or eyes? The UK Government just hasn't thought this one through

Sean

You're correct: There is no point in "preparing" for alien invasion, because there's bugger-all we could do about it, at this stage in our evolution. And it doesn't matter whether or not they have "arm-mounted bazooka-death-ray-guns". All they need is the ability to travel freely through the solar system (which they would have demonstrated by the simple act of showing up here from elsewhere.) With that ability, they can make little side-trips to the asteroid belt, stock up on space-rocks, and keep dropping them on our heads until we surrender! And there's nothing we can do about it - we can barely get half-a-dozen people at a time into orbit! It's vanishingly unlikey that we will ever meet up with aliens, and if we do, we're toast. So there's no point in wasting our energy worrying about it, when there are lots of problems here on earth that we can do something about.

Stuart

Any aliens making it here must have developed interstellar space travel. Which involves chucking around the kinds of energies that could vaporize the entire atmosphere off the planet, with enough left lying around to rip the crust into tiny pieces, smash the moon into us and quite possibly Mars for an impressive Mortal Kombat style finishing move.

I suggest a new strategy; let the Wookies win.

Iain

Britain wide open to alien invasion? I think not, we have 390,000 jedi living here, let see the vicious little green men take all of them on.

Richard

Finally, a complaint:

Any ISP whose performance or customer support is poor or way below standard is rightly brought to the publics attention.

If Sky are hard done to their opinion is brought to the publics attention.

Yet all complaints about Sky's own extremely poor customer service and extremely poor ISP service appears to have been covered up by the people that should count. I along with many many many others have written in complaint about Sky's abysmal ISP service as their new broadband launched and spectacularly did nothing for it to fall on deaf ears.

I refer mainly to Ofcom and Watchdog to whom myself and many many others have wrote, as stated in the complaints forum, I am also disappointed that theregister too also appears to be keeping quiet about sky unless it is sky complaining about others.

I have since cancelled after nearly 2 months of waiting.

A disappointed UK register reader.

So many ISPs and so little time. That's all for this week. Enjoy the weekend. ®