Michael Specter: The Danger of Science Denial

If you had access to a time machine, would you go forward or backward in time? Forward absolutely - gimme the good stuff. A lot of people would like to go back - see some dinosaurs, Cleopatra, crap like that. I too have some times and places I'd like to experience -  ancient Greece and learn from Aristotle, even more ancient China and talk with the Buddha, experience a Jimmi Hendrix concert live at his peak - you know the greats!

Right now, even though we are at an all time high of technology and knowledge, it seems we are at the precipice of a great back slide - a new intellectual dark age where people no longer believe that science is factual. Where ancient homeopathic cures are more trusted than modern medicine because they are deemed 'natural' therefore better and because the ancients knew something that we don't today. Yes, it is true that aspirin is derived from the bark of a willow tree. But, it took chemists to distill out the curative chemicals and concentrate them so we can take two small pills and don't have to boil down large quantities of bark to make a bitter liquid (of an uncontrolled and unknown concentration) to drink.

Here's the problem, an easily grasped belief seems more true and real to a lot of people than real science, that is very difficult to understand. I don't pretend to understand all of the science I believe in. To a large degree I am taking the word of the scientists that they are conducting their experiments correctly and are reporting the results correctly. However, what I do have over a concocted belief is the all mighty Scientific Method. Test your beliefs against the scientific method and see if they hold up - then I will believe.

Genetically Modified foods create mutant monsters?! Tested false. There are some concerns, but let's not dismiss them without knowing the facts. GM foods on my plate? Yes, a second helping please. Do you realize that without GM foods we'd never be able to feed the billions on this planet? Plant disease resistance, drought tolerance, vitamin enrichment are not bad qualities. So GM foods or vast famine; don't trust me, do your own research. Or just go eat a petroleum-based cream filled, yellow dye colored artificial sponge cake and be quiet.

Vaccines will give children autism and a host of other nasty diseases? What you believed was wrong. Tested false. Vaccines against disease? Yes, please. If I never get the flu again, I buying my doctor a gold-plated putter for his short game. Vaccines have been proven over and over to not cause autism, however they DO prevent or polio, rubella, and other crippling and debilitating diseases; once again don't trust me, look it ups on your own. And don't trust an entertainment celebrity as an authority, go to the people who do research and have professional degrees and careers established on science. Or you could dig out the leg braces that your great grandfather wore because of his brush with polio and oil the hinges because your child might need them.

Because, let me tell you people, prayer and placebos did not make your vitamin enriched breakfast cereal, your pasteurized milk and your smart phone - science did.

Placebos are fine until belief replaces science, then people die. And it is a slippery slope once your beliefs start to replace fact. Did bleeding ever cure anyone? Can acupuncture cure cancer?

And now a short video...





For some unrelated amusement on this topic listen to Brian Dunning of the podcast Skeptoid sing "Buy It!"

The God Equation

I came across this on PZ Myers' blog "pharyngula". Read more on PZ's take on this The God Equation?  
So now we have the God equation (again).

This one is

• Hl is the radio frequency of the hydrogen fine transition in space
•  π (pi) we all know from high school math is the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle
•  Ω is the number 0.0123456789; it represents all the characters of the base 10 number system
• C is the speed of light in a vacuum - approximately 300,000 km/sec
  

In addition to the points that Mr. Myers brings up, I would like to know what are we solving for? An equation has a variable for which we are to solve. If everything is defined, where is God? Is He the culmination of light speed, a decimal carried out to 10 places, the frequency of an element in space, and pi?
That's silly.

Additional possible equations:

• From the The Church of Yahweh the sufficient condition for the self existent being to be able to generate a universe I + WILL = EXISTENCE.
• X is God according to ( a + bn )/n = x There is a story that has made the rounds in mathematical history books about the well-known mathematician Euler embarrassing the philosopher Diderot. This quote is from http://scidiv.bellevuecollege.edu/Math/Euler.html which was Condensed from Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bell (1937, Simon and Schuster), and An Introduction to the History of Mathematics , 4th ed., by Howard Eves (1976, Holt, Rinehart and Winston):
  

  Diderot had been invited to the court by Catherine the Great, but then annoyed her by trying to convert everyone to atheism. Catherine asked Euler for help, and he informed Diderot, who was ignorant of mathematics, that he would present in court an algebraic proof of the existence of God, if Diderot wanted to hear it. Diderot was interested, and, according to De Morgan, Euler advanced toward Diderot, and said gravely, and in a tone of perfect conviction: "Sir, ( a + bn )/n = x , hence God exists; reply! " Diderot had no reply, and the court broke into laughter. Diderot immediately returned to France.
  

  However, this is apparently a fabrication. Read of the debunking on http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/euler.html explained by Dirk J. Struik, from his book A Concise History of Mathematics, Third Revised Edition, Dover, 1967, p. 129:
  

  This is a good example of a bad historical anecdote, since the value of an anecdote about an historical person lies in its faculty to illustrate certain aspects of his character; this particular anecdote serves to obscure both the character of Diderot and of Euler, Diderot knew his mathematics and had written on involutes and probability, and no reason exists to think that the thoughtful Euler would have behaved in the asinine way indicated. The story seems to have been made up by the English mathematician De Morgan (1806-1871). See L. G. Krakeur and R. L. Krueger, Isis, Vol. 31 (1940), pp. 431-32; also Vol. 33 (1941), pp. 219-31.
  

Too bad that story was a hoax; I liked it. Stupid philosophers, they should get some comeuppance!
Anyway, let's wrap all of this up with an enlightened quote from a Nobel Prize winning Physicist Steven Weinberg, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

So be good for goodness sake!

More Galaxies than People

Feeling big today? Think about this:
"There are far more galaxies than people." -Carl Sagan

But, by the same token, don't feel bad; think of the uniqueness of you in the face of the rest of the cosmos. Only once ever has a configuration of atoms come together to have your thoughts and experiences.



Now, finish your beer, get another, and go watch SportsCenter...

 

The Galaxy Zoo

You can help classify the heavenly bodies - sweet!
The following is quoted from their Web site:
"The Galaxy Zoo files contain almost a quarter of a million galaxies which have been imaged with a camera attached to a robotic telescope the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, no less). In order to understand how these galaxies — and our own — formed, we need your help to classify them according to their shapes — a task at which your brain is better than even the fastest computer."

So go now and help; it'll be the coolest nerdy thing you've done since selling your Everquest character for $200 and a case of Mountain Dew!

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

Fish Itch Also

Preliminary research on mice indicates that there are nerve cells that pass along an itch signal to the brain that appear to be seperate from the pathway for pain.

NPR - Scientists Identify 'Itchy' Neurons In Mice
by Jon Hamilton

Icky (living?) Thing in a Sewer

Dateline...
A Sewer pipe, Cameron Village, Raleigh, North CarolinaApparently, it's just a cluster of invertebrates called bryozoan, which are commonly found in both the sea and fresh water environments, says Thomas Kwak a biology professor at North Carolina State University's Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.
Research:

• PZ Myers a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, writes about it in Server blobs of North Carolina


• WRAL (local news site to area of filming) -Mysterious 'sewer creature' sparks curiosity - by Dan Bowens

Does it live?

Agave Plants Cultivated Since 800 AD

Tequila goes way back - we all know that it's agave squeezings that make that mythical passout booze tequila. It looks like the native cultures of the US southwest raised agave as a food crop.


Visit the web site here http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10219/
Images by Annette Heist/Science Friday, Wendy Hodgson and Melissa Kruse-Peeples. Filmed and produced by Flora Lichtman.

Patterns Made by Sound

Okay, you artsy people get on this one. I'll expect something like an animated short made by sand and sound soon. [God, I love alliteration]




I found this on NPR Science Friday hosted by Ira Flatow.
The video was made by Wake Forest University Department of Physics,
http://www.wfu.edu/physics
Sam Eisenberg and Peter Scherpelz/HMC 08,
Hendrik Orem/HMC 09,
Hyung Joo Park/HMC 08,
Patricia Sparks/ HMC Physics,
Jon Jacobsen/HMC Math,
NPR story produced by Flora Lichtman.

Carbonated (Fizzy) Fruit

Patrick Buckley, co-author of "The Hungry Scientist Handbook" makes fizzy fruit with dry ice. I wonder if the process would increase the life of the fruit in the fridge?

Educause 2008 Ramachandran talk URL

http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted5/Viewer/?peid=d45a2cd8e48346daaba953453f3b1c56#

I was having a little trouble viewing the video, but that could be the million and one geeks on the wireless network here ;)

Vilayanur Ramachandran talking at Educause 2008

Vilayanur Ramachandran is giving a talk similar to this TED Talk, on Wednesday morning at Educause this year in Orlando, Fl. I get to go, and I'm so excited; this doc is an awesome presenter and studies fantastic anomalies of the human brain.

Sweet! I'll try to post after the talk...so I can gloat about how amazing it was.

Ultra Deep Field Image by Hubble Telescope

This is awesome. This is a zoomable image of the deepest field image yet taken by the Hubble Telescope.
The exposure time was a cumulative time of 11.3 days during the span from Sept 24, 2003 - Jan 16, 2004.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/image/a/format/zoom/

While you are viewing it think about what you are seeing. These galaxies are not as they are now; but you are seeing them as they were "between 400 and 800 million years...after the big bang."
Now consider that the universe is between 12 and 14 billion years (source: map.gsfc.nasa.gov) and you are seeing the extreme past. Doing the math with the average of both numbers, imaging that the universe is currently a person between 21 and 22 years of age. Now image that you could look at them through a telescope from far away and see them as they were when they were 1 year old. Wow!
"This will hold the record as the deepest-ever view of the universe until ESA, together with NASA, launches the James Webb Space Telescope in 2011."
- I can hardly wait...

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity

I have always wanted to be an astrophysicists but could never cut the math.

Watch in a bigger format at Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity on Hulu.com

Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome

Have you heard of Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome? - Self cannibalism.

Listen to NPR Science Friday June 6th 2008, it's about half-way through. Interviewee is
Richard Preston with a new book "Panic in Level 4"

For more information visit:
Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome Information Page at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Quote from website: "Lesch-Nyhan syndrome (LNS) is a rare, inherited disorder caused by a deficiency of the enzyme hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). LNS is an X-linked recessive disease-- the gene is carried by the mother and passed on to her son."

Braincast - on the frequency of mind and brain

A great podcast aiming to explain difficult topics to uncomplicated people. This podcast is by Arvid Leyh and started in Germany in 2005. Thankfully, for those of us who only understand every third word in German, he has started a version in English. Thanks Arvid!
English version
German version

Two blogs worth noting

"The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a weekly Podcast talkshow produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS) in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) : discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view."


Astronomy Cast -- "Take a weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos with Astronomy Cast."