According to some very prominent knuckleheads (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/21/scicos...), mankind has moved beyond destroying the planet and is now destroying the universe. Now, if you’re like me, your response to such news is something along the lines of, “All right!” or “Today the universe, tomorrow the fictional realms!”

For years, we’ve been told that our Styrofoam cups and proclivity for procreation were bad for our planet. After researching the facts, many of us were lead to have multiple children and order the really big drinks at Sonic.

Now, though, we’re in “danger” of destroying the universe by (you’re not going to believe how nefarious this is) looking at stuff. Even worse, we hasten the demise of everything by thinking about stuff.

The “theory” (and I use that word loosely because a theory is supposed to be based on something) is that we live in a universe which is just one of many universes. “Quantum theory” is the term that is often thrown around here. You may have seen it referenced on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

This is the idea that every decision ever made by anyone spawns one or more universes. For instance, when I woke up this morning and was deciding whether to get up then or sleep in some, I spawned a new universe. I got up, but another universe was spawned wherein I lay there for a while. (In that universe, everything probably went to hell and the earth ended before noon because I wasn’t up and trying to convince the automated person at PayPal to let me talk to a real person.)

This morning, billions of universes have been spawned because of the billions of choices that have been made. I think the logical, rational, response to that idea is a very reasoned, “Who gives a @#$?”

Well, it turns out we should give something. See, the knuckleheads are strictly non-religious Calvinists. If you go back and read the article you’ll find that the reason we are in danger of destroying the universe is that at the start of the universe there were specific amounts of light energy and (unproven) dark energy and lots of other things which may (or may not—this whole thing is based on a whole series of “Do you suppose”s that began way back in the sixties when someone asked, “Do you think they’d be this popular if they’d stuck with Pete Best?”) have had a specific shelf life.

BUT—and this it both crucial and stupid—this whole “”theory”” (one set of quotes wasn’t enough for this nonsense) of the crumbling universe says that there’s a problem with perception. See, in this Calvinistic universe mankind wasn’t supposed to have ever known about dark matter or some of these other things. Now that we (think we) have discovered these things, the very concept of them is being kept alive because of our perception long past when they were supposed to have existed. This, then, (it’s logical, if you accept the moronic basis it’s built on) is causing undue stress on the universe as things that should have gone away are now hanging around and interacting with things that haven’t appeared until later (when we perceived them is when they started “being”) and the conflict is like that old Trekkian conundrum of mixing matter and anti-matter.

While I don’t believe in this, I have long suspected that my own perception is imminently powerful. For instance, the Houston Astros are about 90 percent more likely to lose if I’m watching the game than if I just read about it the next morning. You think I’m being facetious, but according to the article that started all this, a pot’s boiling point really is affected by whether someone is watching it or not!

And they probably think it’s silly that I think they’re full of @#$.