NEW SCIENTIST magazine [www.newscientist.com] is a British
pop science periodical that, alas, I
failed to find on American library shelves when I was down there this past summer.
You're missing a treat: That magazine not only covers 'mainstream' science & technology, it also gives those PHD's who espouse far-out, even nutty
theories a receptive, or at least a tolerant, forum...They don't go as far out on the fringe as Art Bell does, but close...
Here is a real doozy of an example:
[back issue of NEW SCIENTIST; April/27/02] "Why We All Live In A Hologram."

To quote a friend of mine from New York, "That's the title of the lead article...I kid you not."

You've probably gathered that the gist of this 'theory' is...is that the human race lives in some sort of giant
HoloDeck...a hell of alot bigger than
the one Captain Piccard recreated in.

Oooookaaay!....Suppose that Professors
Leonard Susskind [Stanford University]
& Gerrard't Hooft [Utrecht University],
who developed this 'theory', haven't lost their marbles, what then?

It brings up this 'metaphysics'
query: "What happens if one day someone
'out there' says [quoting from Star Trek, the Next Generation] "Computer!
End holodeck program!"

Jacob

Hmmmmm...