Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Bio
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.
Stories (121)
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Michelle Bachelet Speech at CSW69: Michelle Bachelet Reaffirms UN Women’s Global Mission, Empowering Half of Humanity
Former UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet reflects on the organization’s founding in 2010 through the merger of DAW, INSTRAW, OSAGI, and UNIFEM, created to champion women’s rights worldwide. She highlights persistent structural barriers, political backlash, and the economic potential of gender equality, noting studies showing women’s participation could add $12 trillion to the global economy. Bachelet underscores that empowering women strengthens democracy, economies, and societies as a whole. Quoting Archbishop Desmond Tutu, she urges continued hope and action, reminding the world that gender equality remains both an urgent moral imperative and a smart investment for humanity’s shared future.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Humans
Beyond Dogma and Relativism: Scientific Skepticism Meets Secular Humanism
Rejecting both postmodern relativism and divine-command dogma, this piece argues for a third path: mixing scientific skepticism with secular humanism. Rather than reflexively “drinking the Kool-Aid,” it urges testing claims, valuing falsifiability, and grounding ethics in human flourishing. Scientific skepticism supplies method—doubt, evidence, reproducibility—while secular humanism supplies purpose—dignity, freedom, pluralism. The essay warns that political dogmatisms, including state-promoted atheism in China, mirror religious authoritarianism. It advocates evidence-based policy on climate, health, and technology; open inquiry; and empathy as civic virtues. In short: Galileo’s method meets the Universal Declaration’s ideals, uniting disciplined doubt with compassionate action within a naturalistic, fallibilist outlook for all.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Humans
Fort Langley’s Pride Crosswalk: A Village’s Tangle of Symbolism
Fort Langley, known as the “birthplace of British Columbia,” hides an undercurrent of control beneath its postcard charm. A satirical account of a self-styled “Midnight Dad Brigade” exposes tensions over image, power, and moral authority in the village. Harassment and intimidation against dissenters underscore how fragile civility can be in tightly knit communities. Parallel to this, the rainbow crosswalk at Mary and Glover—installed in 2017 and repeatedly vandalized—has become a flashpoint for identity and belonging. The Township’s 2025 attempt to replace it with “heritage” art, later withdrawn after backlash, reflects the continuing struggle between heritage and inclusion.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Humor
Fumfer Physics 23: Why the Universe May Never Face Heat Death
In this dialogue, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner explore how Information Cosmology (IC) diverges from the Big Bang model. IC rejects the concept of heat death, arguing that as the universe expands, it would require ever-increasing information to define matter precisely—a paradox that breaks conservation of information. Instead, IC predicts an eventual contraction after vast time scales, with cosmic structures gradually fading as information coherence weakens. The framework posits a universe that behaves like an immense computational system with finite capacity, maintaining equilibrium over immense epochs rather than expanding endlessly toward entropy.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
October 7, 2023 in a Long History of Antisemitic Violence
October 7, 2023, fits a continuum of violence against Jews across millennia. From ancient deportations (Assyria, Babylon) to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Bar Kokhba revolt, medieval pogroms, expulsions from England, France, Spain, and Portugal, the Mawza Exile, Khmelnytsky massacres, and Russian-imperial pogroms, persecution recurred, culminating in the Nazi genocide of six million. After 1945, assaults continued: the Farhud in Baghdad, Kielce, waves of expulsions across the Middle East and North Africa, Suez-era crackdowns, and Poland’s 1968 campaign. On October 7, militants murdered about 1,200, wounded thousands, and took hundreds hostage. Rising antisemitic rhetoric historically foreshadows rising violence.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Education
Humanist Enabling Life Project: Compassionate Response to Sharia Amputation, Blasphemy Attacks, Murder, and Other Faith-Based Abuses in Nigeria
By Dr. Leo Igwe [Ed. Dr. Igwe is one of the most prolific and energetic humanists known to me.] Dr. Leo Igwe is a board member of the Humanist Association of Nigeria and of Humanists International. He holds a masters in philosophy and a doctoral degree in religious studies from the University of Bayreuth in Germany and wrote his doctoral thesis on witchcraft accusations in Northern Ghana. Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches and Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Education
How OFA Group’s AI “PlanAid” Is Transforming Building Code Compliance and Architectural Efficiency
Thomas Gaffney is the Chief Operations Officer of OFA Group (NASDAQ: OFAL), an architectural technology company pioneering AI-driven automation for building code compliance and design review. With a background in product operations and strategic partnerships, Gaffney leads initiatives that help architects, developers, and investors deploy greener, faster, and data-informed projects. Under his leadership, OFA launched its beta AI platform PlanAid in October 2025 following a successful IPO earlier that year. Gaffney frequently engages with media and industry leaders to discuss the convergence of architecture, artificial intelligence, and sustainable innovation in the built environment.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
Fumfer Physics 22: Entropy, Order
In this philosophical-scientific exchange, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner explore whether the universe distinguishes between matter and meaningful information. Their conversation moves from the cognitive processing of text to cosmological entropy, the “heat death” scenario, and whether civilization-generated order could influence universal information flow. Rosner suggests that while entropy increases globally, local systems—like planets and minds—can grow in order and information. Jacobsen draws analogies between human learning and cosmic evolution, proposing that advanced civilizations might sustain galactic order, potentially integrating themselves into the universe’s informational architecture.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
Fumfer Physics 21: Cosmic Obliteration, Time, and the Faintest Photon
In this thought-provoking exchange, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner explore whether the universe could suddenly vanish—an instantaneous obliteration consistent with certain relativistic and quantum-mechanical models. Rosner compares such an event to the physical annihilation of information in a brain destroyed in milliseconds, extending the metaphor to cosmic scales. The conversation delves into the idea of localized collapses, reversals of time, and Frank Tipler’s controversial “resurrection” cosmology. It concludes with speculation on whether photons can fade into nonexistence through infinite redshift, raising questions about how the universe tracks—or forgets—its most fundamental information.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
Fumfer Physics 20: Time, Black Holes, and 3D Space
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner examine Information Cosmology (IC) as an alternative lens on gravity, time, and dimensionality. IC treats the universe as an information processor: no true event horizons, no infinite-density singularities—only quantum limits on compressibility and information flow. Time slows near collapsed matter yet remains dynamic at the center. Extra dimensions are informationally expensive, so reality stabilizes to three after early fuzzy epochs. Redshift reflects informational segregation; correlated histories cluster locally. Photons exemplify dimensionless behavior until interactions set geometry. A universal clock emerges from global information updates, roughly aligning subjective brain time with overall objective cosmic ticks.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
Fumfer Physics 19: Galactic Filaments, Gravitational Waves
In Fumfer Physics, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner explore the physics of gravitational wells, rotational asymmetry, and the nature of galactic filaments. They discuss how irregularly rotating massive objects emit gravitational waves—steady hums or periodic pulses—and how galaxies align along cosmic filaments forming the universe’s vast web. Rosner draws a bold analogy between these cosmic structures and the human brain’s associative networks: both systems light up, store, and transmit information. Their dialogue connects astrophysics, consciousness, and cosmic evolution, suggesting that the universe itself might operate through mechanisms of activation, dormancy, and renewal across billions of years.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
Fumfer Physics 18: Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling and the Engineering of Quantum Reality
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their pioneering work on macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in electrical circuits. Their achievement bridges theory and engineering by revealing quantum behavior in large, engineered systems—once thought confined to atomic scales. This experimental triumph laid groundwork for quantum computing, where maintaining fragile quantum states enables calculations beyond classical limits. Their work embodies the precision and universality of quantum mechanics, a cornerstone of modern physics and technology, reaffirming its supremacy in explaining nature’s smallest and now, surprisingly, larger scales.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen4 months ago in Interview
