Editorial

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” This is Stephen Hawking’s statement that accompanied the book launch of “The Grand Design”.[1]

Elon Musk visited my hometown of Adelaide, South Australia, twice in 2017. As you’d expect, he was greeted by huge public and media interest. People were excited that our humble little city would receive attention from the man behind Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX.

At a time when the abundance of information makes it imperative to talk about information hygiene, critical thinking should be the first missing filter we talk about.

According to studies, the higher a population’s level of education, the lower the percentage of those who believe in God. A Gallup poll, for instance, shows that while 70% of people who have finished primary school say they are religious, only 52% of college graduates could admit the same thing.

Many will admit that they have never thought about this question because they live the status quo without critically evaluating it.

To believe is not to close one's eyes to questions or to abandon reason in favour of illusory spiritual comfort.

It's intuitively inappropriate to talk about happiness when the subject is depression. But it is even more inappropriate to talk about abnormality, inadequacy or maladjustment in the same context.

For parents, Christmas is always a stressful time: how to satisfy the child's desires without spoiling them and giving them the impression that they deserve to receive whatever they want, just because their decibel level exceeds the parents' level of calm and patience.