I'm not really enjoying Dan Brown's new novel The Lost Symbol. First, it's hard to take it seriously now that I know Robert Langdon looks like Tom Hanks. I half expect him to start talking to a volleyball, or throw on a flowery dress and move into a women's dorm.

But the main problem is, this is a book about science written by a Mormon. It reminds me of that movie where Sally Field plays America's best-loved stand-up comedian. She gets on stage and says stuff like, "Did you hear about the worm who was all puckered up? He was really in a pickle!" and the audience literally dissolves in hysterics.

In The Lost Symbol there's a ridiculous discussion where Peter Solomon, the brilliant Renaissance billionaire/mystic who's Tom Hanks' mentor, tells his sister Katherine that ancient civilizations knew more about science than we do. Take polarity, for instance: the "positive/negative balance of the subatomic realm." It was discussed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita over two thousand years ago! Yes, you probably didn't realize he was referring to protons and electrons when he said there was both good and bad in every little thing.

And take string theory. You might assume it's a whole new field -- but you'd be wrong, because reputable geologists found sisal in King Tut's tomb! Early mystics literally knew it all! We're just rediscovering it! Distinguished botanists found fossils in Egypt that show somebody putting a cat in a box!

This is science for idiots, for morons, for Nostradamus fans. This is for folks who take a quatrain like

At forty-five degrees the sky will burn,
Fire to approach the great new city:
In an instant a great scattered flame will leap up,
When one will want to demand proof of the Normans.

and decide it predicts the invention of the Foreman Grill.

Brown spouts an amazing line that seems to summarize his belief system: "Every generation's breakthroughs are proven false by the next generation's technology."

Yes, it's about time somebody deflated boobholes like Galileo and Salk. I remember when we realized the moon really is made of cheese, and found out that the polio vaccine is just chicken broth mixed with the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices. But I swear to God, I don't think I could go on if I found out the Slankie really isn't a sleeping bag or a blankie.

On the bright side, I'm sure the scientific community will find this statement quite helpful. Let's call it Dan Brown's Law: Whenever a scientist makes a breakthrough, assume the opposite is true. Gravity? No such thing! Really, everything in the universe is covered with invisible double-stick tape. DNA? Meaningless! Actually they're little spiral staircases installed in the body by gay corpuscles. Relativity? You know, I still don't understand what relativity is about.

But me, I'm no idiot: I know if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I too want to be a best-selling writer, so I'm currently working on two future classics: a Victorian romance where the heroine is a breathtaking young beauty who has a rutabaga for a nose, and a historical epic about a brilliant poet whose magnum opus starts "There once was a woman named Regina. . . . "

Sure, they might sound feeble on paper, but Nostradamus swears it's Oscar time for Tom.