Talk Like a Physicist Day

Who knew?

Today is Talk Like a Physicist Day.

It's also Einstein's Birthday

Oh! and International Pi Day.

Enjoy!

Right, I'm off to go do some physicsy things, like sending streams of electrons through cyberspace.

Teh Stupid - it's spreading!

...let us count the states where teh stupid is spreading....

• Florida (although we won a battle there, there's still unrest amongst the nuts)
• Texas (again, one battle won, but it's certainly not the war)
• New Mexico: "Academic Freedom" which is defined as teaching anything but the facts of evolution. Of course, academic freedom doesn't extend to creation myths beyond the bible.
  
• Oklahoma: An "Academic Freedom" bill that would protect students who give answers based on their religious beliefs, and not the facts:

  Students may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials, but no student, in any public school shall be penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific views.

  At least there are some in Oklahoma who are vehemently opposed -from the Edmond Sun:

  On Monday the Oklahoma House of Representatives Common Education Committee took direct aim at the integrity of science education in Oklahoma’s public schools, and thereby threatened the economic prosperity that Oklahoma so desperately needs. Intelligent Design is a false theory. It contains no testable hypotheses; it has proposed none. Intelligent Design is not science, and teachers who propose it to their students as science, and as a legitimate alternative to evolution, are violating the sacred trust they have with society, with their employers, with their students, and with themselves to practice academic responsibility, that all important correlate of academic freedom.

• Delaware: This story is incredible - I can't believe school board members are this backward. Here's a quote:

  During the meeting, Doe said, "a guy stood up and said the last one to oppose school prayer was [atheist leader] Madalyn Murray O'Hair and she disappeared never to be seen again." (O'Hair was abducted and murdered). Hearing that, Doe said, "sent chills down my spine. But people laughed, and they hooted and hollered, and applauded this guy" Doe said, adding, "He used to be a school board member."

• Minnesota: Another "academic freedom" bill that's anything but.
  

Just keeping track. I'll keep adding to the list. Note that this is just in the last couple of weeks - I'm sure there's more insanity out there. Let me know if you spot anything.

7 More Deadly sins.

OK - let's see what the Catholic Church has come up with to add to the list of the worst things possible:

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.

Bishop Girotti said that mortal sins also included taking or dealing in drugs, and social injustice which caused poverty or “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few”.

He said that two mortal sins which continued to preoccupy the Vatican were abortion, which offended “the dignity and rights of women”, and paedophilia, which had even infected the clergy itself and so had exposed the “human and institutional fragility of the Church”.

The mass media had “blown up” the issue “to discredit the Church”, but the Church itself was taking steps to deal with it.

Alrighty then. So we've got:

1) Ruining the Environment (Don't litter!)
2) Running morally debatable scientific experiments (Nanotechnologists - watch out!)
3) Messing with DNA (that's just too sciency, and science is bad)
4) Taking drugs (aspirin excepted, I assume)
5) Causing poverty or getting rich (er...isn't the church one of the wealthiest organizations on the planet? And, I thought avarice was covered already)
6) Abortion
7) Pedophilia (although the media has blown up the issue of clergy sex abuse, apparently.)

The Catholic Church - breaking its own rules since 64AD

Seems to me to be a rather ad hoc list (and just the teensiest bit hypocritical), like they came up with it sitting round in Starbucks one Friday afternoon. I would have thought they could have come up with a couple hundred more if they were really trying. How did they come up with the list? Who voted? Which sins didn't make the cut? Staring at computer porn maybe? Listening to Marilyn Manson? I can just imagine the debate in the Vatican "....well, his music is pretty nasty, but I just love the makeup!"

The Pope also complained that an increasing number of people in the secularised West were “making do without God”.

...and quite happily too, I might add.

Newsflash: Earth Not 6000 Years Old!

This may come as a bit of a surprise to the Young Earth Creationists out there, but we have a pretty good handle on the age of the universe, and it's not 6,000 years old. Nope. It's 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years.

It's the 120 million number that amazes me - we know the age of the universe to fantastic accuracy. What's more, we also know the age of the Universe when recombination occurred to within 3,100 years ( Recombination happened when electrons were first able to be captured by protons, forming neutral hydrogen for the first time after the big bang) just 375,938 years after the big bang.

How do we know this much cool stuff? It's all in the five year report of NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background - the photons that are left over from the big bang. Phil Plait has an excellent overview of the process:

It’s those photons WMAP sees. After 13.7 billion years, the expansion of the Universe has cooled the light, stretched its wavelength from ultraviolet to microwave. Another way to think about it is that the temperature associated with each photon went from thousands of Kelvins down to just a few, less than 3, in fact. That’s -270 Celsius, and -454 Fahrenheit.

That light emitted just after recombination tells us a vast amount about the Universe at that time. By carefully mapping the exact wavelength of the light and the direction from where it came, we can tell the density and temperature of the matter at that time. Incredibly we can also tell how much dark energy there was, and even the geometry of the Universe: whether it is flat, open, or closed.

Truly incredible. The important thing is that these results agree with the theory to an amazing degree - we can have high confidence that our theories of the beginning of the universe are not too far off the mark. That's what science is all about - generating testable theories that are either supported or knocked down by direct observational evidence. It's a process that has brought us incredibly far in our understanding of nature, and continues to build our knowledge.

Testable: what science is, and what religion isn't.

Dissatisfaction with Religion Growing

According to the latest opinion poll from Pew Research, dissatisfaction with religion seems to be growing in the US:

More than one-quarter (28%) of American adults have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion -- or no religion at all.... In addition, about 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

One of the most interesting aspects of the survey is the fact that young people are less likely to be religious than older people.

The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

There's a couple of takeaways from this survey. While the US is still far more religious than most of the other western democracies, especially those in Europe, we may be starting to see a turning point. As the population ages, it's clear that religion will become less of a factor in public life. Young people today are less likely to be religious, and less likely as they grow up to pass that onto their children.

With all the disturbing news about science education and creationism, religion in politics and the intolerance of many of the more fundamentalist christian churches here in the US, it's refreshing to note that time is on our side.

Happy Darwin Day!

Couldn't pass up the opportunity to wish the big guy, over there on the right hand side of this blog, a happy birthday. He's 199 today!
From the Darwin Day Website:

Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

There's plenty of events being run around the world, so go ahead and party - but don't forget to leave something in reserve for his 200th next year!!

Winter has arrived.

Here's a shot of my driveway this morning.

It's a good thing I work from home. It's pretty unusual for this time of year here to get this much lake effect snow in early December. The wind isn't usually blowing in this direction. It's probably time to service the snow blower.

Maybe sacrificing a goat will help?

Oh dear. 

Just watch this - Georgia governor Sonny Perdue praying for rain on the steps of the capitol in Atlanta, trying to end the drought.

Yeah, that's going to work.

Last time I checked - still no rain in Georgia.

Rewind back a few thousand years ago, and the Maya and Native Americans were pretty much doing similar kinds of rain dances, but they seemed to think sacrifices helped too. Look how far we've come. 

Sacrifices are silly.

Leopardy Goodness

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I'm a big Mac fan (not the hamburger, the computer). So, I anxiously awaited the arrival of my copy of Leopard the other day, not without a little trepidation, because the blogosphere was abuzz with FUD about the new OS.

Not surprisingly, everything went swimmingly with the upgrade, even on my less than new, barely above the minimum specs ibook.This points out, I think, a big issue with blogs and, more especially, commenters to blogs. As always, the squeaky wheel get the oil, and I would assume that the majority of upgraders have, like me, had no problems with the update. Those that have (and there are legitimate reasons why), have been very vocal. For an example of the hype, see the Macalope.

The upshot? Don't always believe what you read on the interwebs.

Do you believe in Ghosts?

....seems like the "This Old House" crew does.

It's also appropriate that I'm posting this on Halloween, I guess.

I couldn't believe that this article made it to the front page of cnn.com last week, but amazingly, it did.

In my line of work, I often deal with people who have (or claim to have) ghosts in their houses. Inevitably, most of them ask me what they should do about it. Should they move out? Should they talk to the specters, or just ignore them?

But the most common question I get is whether or not they should contact a ghost hunter to come to their houses and investigate.

The whole article goes on like this. A factual, how-to article on ridding ghosts from your house.

I know most of the US believes in magical sky fairies, but I guess I've not been keeping up on other non-existent phenomena quite as well.

It has to be a joke, right?

Atheism gaining ground in the USA?

A recent BBC report seems to indicate that it may be.

I think we've been seeing in general a resurgence of rational thought in the US, following a decade or more of extreme religious zealotry from the religious right. Maybe we're heading back to where mainstream America ought to be - a secular state, with no place for religion in politics or education.

Maybe the water was cold?

I've posted a few times on the hypocrisy of the evangelical ministry, but I can't even begin comment on this one.

An Alabama minister who died in June of "accidental mechanical asphyxia" was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report.

The community seems stunned, but is not jumping to an conclusions just yet.

Church officials issued a press release asking community members to "please refrain from speculation" about what led to Aldridge's demise, adding that, "we will begin the healing process under the strong arm of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

I wouldn't even know where to begin to speculate.

Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize

It was announced this morning in Norway that Al Gore has won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Congratulations Al!

This makes it even more of a travesty the he was not elected President in the 2000 election. Who knows how much better off we'd be as a country and a planet if he'd not been denied the presidency, despite winning the popular vote.

To celebrate, go out and buy or watch An Inconvenient Truth.

Sanity in the Media.

The New York Times wrote a nice piece yesterday on the film "Expelled" - a controversial work which sets out to establish that scientists who promote "Intelligent" Design are being ostracized from academia.

What's interesting here is not the old re-hashing of discredited ideas, or even that Ben Stein narrates, or even that there's such a controversy about how real scientists like Dawkins, Eugenie Scott and PZ Myers were misled into being interviewed for the film (see here for some background), no.

What's really interesting that this is the first time in a long time that I can remember that the mainstream media hasn't pandered to every crackpot idea under the sun. It's refreshing to read that:

There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. And while individual scientists may embrace religious faith, the scientific enterprise looks to nature to answer questions about nature. As scientists at Iowa State University put it last year, supernatural explanations are “not within the scope or abilities of science.” (emphasis mine)

Finally! The Times has the guts to call it like it is.

New Rules for Awards acceptance......

Apparently, there are new rules for awards acceptance speeches. As of last week, the only reason anybody wins an award is because Jesus helped them. No, there's no talent or hard work involved. God did it.

How do we know these new rules? Because Kathy Griffin dared to say at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards that:

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus," an exultant Griffin said, holding up her statuette. "Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."

Sounds OK, right? Well not according to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. He characterized the quip as "hate speech" and on CNN said that it was worse than racism and akin to what Don Imus did in insulting the Rutgers basketball team. What's more, when the awards are broadcast, the remarks will be censored.

We're moving one step closer to a theocracy here. Kathy Griffin makes one statement of fact at an awards show, and it's censored. "Blasphemy" is now not allowed on network TV. It's a sad day when a simple factual statement - that Jesus had nothing to do with winning an award - is associated with real hate speech. Looks like we can chalk up another victory in the war on terror to religious nuts.

Jesus and Dogfighting....

Michael Vick recently said that through his dogfighting, he had "found Jesus". Quote:

"I'm upset with myself, and, you know, through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God."

A couple of things here. First - Jesus shows up at dogfights? Who knew!

Second, and more seriously, I'm constantly amazed at how repentant people are after they've been caught, but never before. If they'd not been captured, they wouldn't have thought twice about apologizing, or saying things like:

"I was ashamed and totally disappointed in myself to say the least."

So.....was he also ashamed and disappointed for the decade or so he was running an organized dog fighting kennel before he was caught? No. What's more laughable is bringing Jesus into this - where was Jesus when Vick was killing the dogs? Was he betting on the fights? Is Jesus only around to minimize prison sentences? As willing PR for criminals? Shouldn't he be intervening before criminal activity takes place?

I tell you, religion constantly amazes me.

This is sad....

The Yangtze River Dolphin may be extinct, according to Samuel Turvey, a conservation biologist at the Zoological Society of London, who took part in the latest, intensive six week search of the freshwater dolphin's native range in the Yangtze River in China that failed to find any evidence for the baiji for the first time:

He said the dolphin's demise -- which resulted from overfishing, pollution and lack of intervention -- might serve as a cautionary tale and should spur governments and scientists to act to save other species verging on extinction.

"Ours is the first scientific study which didn't find any," he said in a telephone interview. "Even if there are a few left we can't find them and we can't do anything to stop their extinction."

This is the first major cetacean species to go extinct directly at human hands, despite significant publicity over the years. Tellingly, the fate of Lindsay Lohan has gotten more play in the media over the last couple of weeks than the poor baiji.

Ding Dong.....

....Jerry Falwell is dead. While I feel sympathy for his family, it's hard to mourn the man.

Falwell founded the Moral Majority, which led directly to the current religious right extremism in this country - which has been a major contributor to the social and political climate that has given us the Bush (both of them) and Reagan presidencies. He also actively campaigned against women's rights, gay rights, the separation of church and state, and the teaching of sound science education.

In my opinion, this man has done more damage to America than Al Qaeda and rather than promoting tolerance and unity, which would seem to me to be what his religion should be preaching, he divided the nation, and was probably the least tolerant person on the planet.

And yet there are people stupid and bigoted enough to regard him as hero. It's a sad state of affairs in this country when the entire 2 hour "Anderson Cooper 360" show on CNN was devoted to this man. A brief mention on the news scroll at the bottom would have been more appropriate.

Update: Christopher Hitchens has it right in a blistering attack last night:

Those Fanatical Atheists

Dan Gardner has a fantastic article in the Ottawa Citizen in which he talks about his atheism, and takes on those folks who think that any atheist who is vocal about religion is "fanatical":

Yesterday was one major religion's holy day. Today is another's. Tomorrow is a third's. So I thought this is an opportune moment to say I think all three of these faiths -- these mighty institutions, these esteemed philosophies, these ancient and honoured traditions -- are ridiculous quackery. Parted seas. Walking corpses. Nocturnal visits to Heaven. For goodness sake, people, the talking wolf in Little Red Riding Hood is more plausible.

Dan goes on to talk about fanatics:

But just what is the core of Dawkins' radical message?

Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.

That's it. That's the whole, crazy, fanatical package.

When the Pope says that a few words and some hand-waving causes a cracker to transform into the flesh of a 2,000-year-old man, Dawkins and his fellow travellers say, well, prove it. It should be simple. Swab the Host and do a DNA analysis. If you don't, we will give your claim no more respect than we give to those who say they see the future in crystal balls or bend spoons with their minds or become werewolves at each full moon.

And for this, it is Dawkins, not the Pope, who is labelled the unreasonable fanatic on par with faith-saturated madmen who sacrifice children to an invisible spirit.

This is completely contrary to how we live the rest of our lives. We demand proof of even trivial claims ("John was the main creative force behind Sergeant Pepper") and we dismiss those who make such claims without proof. We are still more demanding when claims are made on matters that are at least temporarily important ("Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction" being a notorious example).

So isn't it odd that when claims are made about matters as important as the nature of existence and our place in it we suddenly drop all expectation of proof and we respect those who make and believe claims without the slightest evidence? Why is it perfectly reasonable to roll my eyes when someone makes the bald assertion that Ringo was the greatest Beatle but it is "fundamentalist" and "fanatical" to say that, absent evidence, it is absurd to believe Muhammad was not lying or hallucinating when he claimed to have long chats with God?

I couldn't have put it better myself. Bravo to Dan Gardner for being willing to make his statement in a public forum.

Time 100

The latest Time 100 list of 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world is out.

Richard Dawkins made the list at number 73. The interesting thing about this, other than the fact that he's clearly making an impact in bringing the debate about religion to the mainstream, is that the writeup on him was by Michael Behe, one of the leading proponents of intelligent design. Here's a quote:

It is a measure of the artful way Dawkins, 66, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, tells a tale and the rigor he brings to his thinking that even those of us who profoundly disagree with what he has to say can tip our hats to the way he has invigorated the larger debate.

While the piece was by and large respectful, I have to call him on this point: Debate? There's a debate? Only in his mind and the minds of his cronies at the Discovery Institute. Evolution is the single most tested theory in science, and while there's certainly healthy debate as to some of the mechanisms at the detail level, no-one with any standing in the scientific community disagrees that process of Evolution is a fact.

Even more impressively, Dawkins made #3 on the Time poll of readers. Now, part of this may have been due to a concerted effort by fans to vote (Rain #1 anybody? Sanjaya #6? Who's Dane Cook?), but it's clearly a statement that he's now well know out in the real world. It's a positive sign, I think.

I'll have more comments about the rest of the list later, but these are the "scientists and thinkers" who caught my attention (not a creationist among them!!):

• Al Gore (politician)
• Neil deGrasse Tyson (astronomer)
• Lisa Randall (Physicist, Harvard)
• John Mather (astrophysicist)
• Svante Paabo (evolutionary biologist)
• Paul Allen (ex-microsoft founder, philanthropist)
• Frans de Waal (primatologist)

Most of these folks are doing real, important science, or popularizing science and inspiring the next generation - a vital role in today's climate (excuse the pun). I'll talk about each in more detail in the next posts.