As Christian Fundamentalists work hard to undermine science in the U.S. and the Bush administration subverts the field for their political goals, the Japanese government is planning to hire a new generation of Science teachers for primary, middle, and high schools to spur new interest in the field in Japanese youngsters.

Meanwhile, how is your Internet connection in the U.S.? I currently pay $40/mo. for a 100 Mbps fiber optic line, and the reception’s great. I can do that because years ago, the Japanese government implemented a policy called “e-Japan” to spur Internet development in Japan. It worked, finishing a year ahead of schedule in its goal to make almost all of Japan able to connect to the Net at speeds no less than 30 Mbps at low cost.

The U.S., to this date, still has no coherent policy on Internet development. Beyond, that is, abortive attempts by bought-off congress members to repeal Network Neutrality, allowing the Telecoms to charge even more for Internet connections, while not binding them to any promises to develop faster broadband connections.

All this while Americans are suddenly realizing that gas prices are only going up, and those gas-guzzling SUV’s they thought were so cool are far too expensive to maintain. Guess which country is the only one specializing in smaller, fuel-efficient automobiles?

You would think that at some point, the U.S. would learn a lesson or two. This time around, it’s not so much about Japan being super-smart as it is about America being super-dumb.

Stumble it!

Well, the ID’ers are at it again, trying to cram creationism into Science classes by way of sabotaging the teaching of Evolution theory. This time, their false-front is called “academic freedom,” as in “academic freedom bills” which creationist legislators are pushing to get passed now. It’s all about the name of the bill, isn’t it? This one is like the “Patriot Act,” suggesting you’re not a patriot if you vote against it. We all know that the more strongly a bill is so named, the more likely it is not to have any relation to the name, and this one certainly fits the bill.

The problem is this case, of course, is that it’s not about academic freedom. It is not “academic freedom,” for example, to teach that photosynthesis doesn’t happen, or that the Earth’s atmosphere is primarily made up of oxygen. Instead, that kind of stuff is more accurately termed as “being wrong.” Now, the ID’ers are not claiming that photosynthesis doesn’t happen or that the Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t mostly consist of nitrogen. My point is that they would be arguing such drivel if they had happened to interpret the bible as having said so. They are not against Evolution because it’s wrong–after all, they have not argued against scientific theories that are far more likely to be wrong. They argue against it because it goes against the peculiar brand of science they have divined from scriptures written by people who knew even less about science than the least-educated people in the country today. They argue against Evolution because they want people to believe in their own product instead.

The argument is that these new laws don’t bring creationism into the classroom, but just like ID, that is a shallow pretense and is ultimately false. After all, what is being proposed is essentially to tear down Evolution in the classroom and teach that it is false–which is precisely the nature of the intelligent design scheme, which runs not on its own evidence but rather purely on the conjecture that Evolution is wrong–which they claim leads us to the conclusion that god created the universe.

They are, to their credit, becoming a lot more politically savvy about this. Creationism failed because it was a blatant attempt to implant one religion’s dogma into science classes. ID failed because it was a sloppy attempt to dress up creationism as a faux scientific theory; its origins were directly traced back to creationism, and as a “scientific” theory, it was laughable. This latest attempt is the creationists’ cleverest attempt yet, because it claims to do nothing but to allow teachers to challenge Evolution theory, which is what Science is supposed to do–challenge and test theories to see if they stand up.

That sounds legitimate, except for one small detail: it is even more a fraud than ID was. This is not about challenging Evolution theory in scientific venues to test its veracity; if it were, there would be no new laws necessary; anyone can challenge Evolution theory anytime they want, however often they want. ID’ers have been trying to for some time, and they came up against a teensy little problem: their challenges have to have the smallest shred of legitimacy or fact, and none of theirs have that. What these new “academic freedom” laws intend to do is not to challenge the theory, but to discredit it with false claims that have been disproved in that very peer review.

Here’s the Fox News argument presented by one creationist “Science” teacher:

Doug Cowan, a public-school biology teacher, said his colleagues are often afraid to speak out.

Mr. Cowan said he tells students: “I’m going to give you the evidence for Evolution and the evidence against, and let you decide.” For instance, he’ll mention Darwin’s observation that finches evolve different-shaped beaks to suit different ecosystems. Then he’ll add that you don’t see a finch changing into another species.

Asked what evidence he presents to bolster evolution, Mr. Cowan paused. “I don’t have any,” he said.

Mr. Cowan is obviously an idiot. First of all, if he has no evidence to bolster Evolution, then he clearly is not a Science teacher; that’s like a professor of Constitutional Law claiming he doesn’t have any evidence to bolster the concept of Freedom of Speech. Secondly, the claim that no one sees a finch spontaneously change into a giraffe in a sudden puff of smoke is just one of the many completely ludicrous “criticisms” of Evolution theory that has the honor of having been so plainly disproved that even creationists are loath to bring it up; Mr. Cowan apparently didn’t get the memo.

But even aside from that, Mr. Cowan is suggesting that it’s a good idea to have creationists masquerading as authorities representing Science in the classroom to follow a half-assed representation of a rock-solid theory upheld by a century and a half of testing and peer review with a rebuttal of plainly false creationist fabrications, and then “let the students decide.” Yes, let’s do this for all subjects. Let’s hire members of white supremacist groups to teach American History, give students a half-assed lecture about slavery, follow it with a rebuttal about how black people enjoyed slavery and were better off under it, and then “let the students decide.” Or let’s have Computer Science taught by Luddites who briefly introduce the Internet and follow it up with a scare lecture about how using the Internet will lead teenagers to be raped and killed by child molesters, and let the kids decide on that, too. Because this kind of teaching methodology will only lead students to make informed choices which are bound to be correct. Right?

Let’s not kid ourselves. This bill to introduce “academic freedom” is nothing less than a bald attempt to give creationists who have defrauded their way into becoming “science” teachers to sabotage the teaching of actual science so that the students will, they hope, be driven to accept creationism.

This new angle is building up to a regression of lies and scams, all leading back to creationist claims that what we see with our eyes contradicts the obvious reality of biblical stories. I mean, really, who could believe that science-fiction claptrap about the formation of proteins in a primordial soup, followed by the formation of cells grouping into colonies, which then progressed into more complex forms which survived by being the best-adapted to changing environments? Baloney! After looking at all of the abundance of fossils, the chemical analyses, the structure of DNA, and all the rest of the evidence, it is so obvious that man was formed when a big guy with a white beard breathed on a lump of clay! I mean, come on, how clear can it be? All you have is a century and a half of piercing peer review and mountains of evidence; we’ve got a guy who may or may not have been a sheep herder four thousand years ago who claims he spoke to god!! Beat that, science bitches!!

Stumble it!

For those of you who have not been following the story in P.Z. Myer’s blog Pharyngula, there is a “documentary” out called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed which is essentially a brazenly slanted and strongly dishonest “Intelligent Design” propaganda film, hosted by one of the “theory’s” most prominent proponents, Ben Stein. From the very start, the entire project was a sham. Contacting various scientists and others who are proponents of evolution, an organization calling itself “Rampart Films” asked them if they would like to be interviewed for a film titled Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion–a very reasonable-sounding title. A search on the organization’s web site at the time would have brought forth this blurb:

Crossroads - The Intersection of Science and Religion:

It’s been the central question of humanity throughout the ages: How in the world did we get here? In 1859 Charles Darwin provided the answer in his landmark book, “The Origin of Species.” In the century and a half since, biologists, geologists, physicists, astronomers and philosophers have contributed a vast amount of research and data in support of Darwin’s idea. And yet, millions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and other people of faith believe in a literal interpretation that humans were crafted by the hand of God. This conflict between science and religion has unleashed passions in school board meetings, courtrooms, and town halls across America and beyond.

Indeed, this sounds like a very reasonable presentation of the issue in a fair, unbiased way. The scientists agreed to be interviewed. However, once the interviews were procured, the name of the production company was switched, and the title of the movie and its summary changed to:

Ben Stein, in the new film EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed; His heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world’s top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few. Ben travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth…that bewilders him, then angers him…and then spurs him to action! Ben realizes that he has been “Expelled,” and that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the “crime” of merely believing that there might be evidence of “design” in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance. To which Ben Says: “Enough!” And then gets busy. NOBODY messes with Ben.

A slight change in tone, one should admit. When Myers and others’ interviews were put into the film, they were presented not only out of context, but in a completely new one: their filmed answers (shot in a style as if they had to be filmed with a hidden camera) were intercut with footage of goose-stepping Nazi storm troopers. You can guess where things went from there.

Basically, the film does what ID’ers generally do: present no actual evidence for their own argument (not possible, because there is none), but instead attempt to expose the “fallacies” in evolutionary theory (all such claims are demonstrably false) whilst trying to cast evolution and “Darwinists” (are the filmmakers “Yahwehists”?) as responsible for every reprehensible person, organization, and event in history.

A recent development is the lengthy review by Scientific American which, predictably, rips the filmmakers a new hole in their space-time continuum. A short excerpt:

Like the decision to call evolution Darwinism, the omission of science from Expelled was a deliberate choice. In fact, it was crucial to the film’s strategy. Because they know Americans revere freedom of speech and fairness, the producers cast the conflict between evolution and ID as purely a struggle between worldviews—a difference of opinions, a battle of ideologies—in which one side is censoring the other. They know that the public will instinctively want to defend the underdog, especially when that opinion aligns with the religious beliefs many of them already share.

It is a terrific strategy, but with one caveat: that airy skirmish of opinions must never, ever touch the ground of solid evidence. Because if it does, if viewers are ever allowed to notice that evolution is supported by mountains of tangible, peer-reviewed evidence gathered by generations of scientists, whereas ID has little more than a smattering of vanity-press pamphlets from a handful of cranks… the bubble pops.

Expelled is all about how science should not reject people with ID “theories.” The filmmakers must therefore stop you from ever asking, Why?—because even children understand that in science, two ideas are not equally good if one of them is wrong. Some of the ideas fluffing up ID are demonstrably wrong; the rest are often described as “not even wrong” because they are so untestable or irreconcilable with the rest of science.

It was hard to choose just that one snippet because the entire review is excellent, going to great lengths to show how completely full of BS the film and its creators are, with Scientific American using as much evidence to prove their point as the filmmakers do not use to not prop up their own.

For more on the general subject, check out the Index to Creationist Claims, which exhaustively shoots down every creationist and ID myth and lie; the PBS documentary Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial (the entire documentary is viewable online, and it is excellent); my discussion of the reactions to that documentary; the site Expelled: Exposed, which covers reviews and other coverage of the “documentary”; and (again) P.Z. Myers’ blog, Pharyngula.

Stumble it!

Tonight I feel like indulging in a little Quantum physics 101. There’s something in quantum physics which is always fascinating: the double-slit experiment.

Take a light source, like a light bulb. Across the room is photosensitive paper which will get dark if exposed to light. Between them is an opaque wall. In the wall there is a tall, thin slit that can be opened and closed.

You open the slit. As expected, it will expose a section of the photosensitive paper behind it and you’ll get a tall, thin exposure there.

Now, imagine there’s a second slit. Do the experiment again, but this time open both slits at the same time. You might expect that you will expose two slits on the photosensitive paper, one for each opening in the wall. But in reality, you get a series of exposures on the photosensitive paper, as if there were many slits.

This is because when energy travels, it does so as a wave, like waves in a pond. If you drop two stones into a pond, waves go forth, and when the two sets of waves meet, they form an interference pattern. Same thing with the light through the two slits; the light pouring through each slit comes through in a wave form, like the waves from the stones in the pond; the waves interfere with each other, and so form the extra exposures.

Okay, so far we’ve only determined that energy travels as a wave. You’ve heard about “radio waves” your whole life, so this is not too impressive. But when further experiments are done, weird things begin to happen.

The idea of the interference pattern is that large numbers of energy packets are flowing through both slits, so obviously (or so one would think) the interference pattern comes from different light waves coming through each slit. Light wave A travels through one slit, and light wave B travels through the other slit; A and B meet on the other side and interfere with each other.

So someone decided to carry out this experiment with a variation: instead of using a light bulb, a different energy source was used: one that would emit just one packet of energy at a time, a packet of energy that could not be divided. Each packet would have to travel through one slit or the other, with no other packets to interfere along the way. After letting this experiment run its course and enough of packets of energy to pass through both slits, one would expect to see only two exposures, one for each slit, on the photosensitive paper on the far side of the wall with slits.

Except that’s not what happens. Instead, you get the same multiple-exposure interference pattern. And that’s where the weirdness comes in: if only one packet of energy, only one “wave” of light, is issued at one time, what could be interfering with it?

The answer: the energy is interfering with itself.

According to the theory, when you issue a packet of energy and let it go flying across the room, it does not simply follow a single straight path across the room. It takes every path across the room, simultaneously. In the case of the double-slit experiment, the energy packet does not just pass through slit A or slit B, it passes through both slit A and slit B.

But how can one piece of energy go through two slits? Here’s where it gets hairy: every possible path the light could possibly take is taken by a ghost-like probability of the energy packet, each probability nonetheless being “real” enough to interfere with other probabilities. It is as if a near-infinite number of probable versions of that energy packet take off across the room, interfering with each other all along the way. When the packet reaches the photosensitive paper and is forced to make an observable record of its location, the multitudinous probabilities collapse into the one most likely probability, and the impact of the energy packet on the photosensitive paper is recorded.

What’s more weird is what makes the probabilities collapse: observation. Place a detector at each slit that can observe the energy packet going through the slit–before it has a chance to interfere with itself on the other side–and the multiple exposures disappear, leaving only two exposures on the photosensitive paper. Even a detector over just one slit is enough to collapse the probabilities into single, definite paths–somehow the energy packets going through the unobserved slit “know” that observation is going on at the other slit, and behave accordingly.

You’ve probably heard of Schrödinger’s Cat; this thought experiment expresses what is explained above. I prefer to simplify it as a coin-in-a-box. Flip a coin in the air so it will land in an opaque, soundproofed box. When it drops below the upper rim of the box, slap a cover onto the box. You cannot hear where the coin went, how long it bounced around, and being human, you can’t predict which side will come up, heads or tails, just from watching the trajectory and the rate of spin of the coin going into the box. To make absolutely sure, flip the coin in the dark, so you can’t possibly predict how it landed.

The common-sense expectation is that the coin has landed in the box, and is either heads-up or tails-up, and it has a specific location in the box. We assume these things are decided just as if we were watching them, except in this case, we simply haven’t seen the results yet.

But the quantum theory expectation is far different. Once we stop observing the coin, it no longer exists as an object with a specific location. Instead, it exists as a cloud of probable-coins. Half of those are heads-up, and half are tails-up, aside from a small number of probable-coins that rest on their sides along the edges of the box. Probable-coins exist in all possible locations within the box. It’s really just one coin, expressed as a cloud of probable outcomes. And it stays that way until we open the box and observe it–at which time the probable-coins collapse into the most likely probability, which we observe.

That idea really messes with your head. It gives a whole new interpretation to the question, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” According to this theory, if no one is there to hear it, the tree doesn’t even fall. Just probable-versions of the tree fall, and what sound they do or do not make, I won’t venture to guess.

Einstein didn’t like this–probably for many different reasons, but at least because the theory implies that different probable-versions of a particle somehow instantaneously communicate with each other. That is, when the probable-versions collapse, they don’t all shout “Olly Olly Oxen-Free!” to each other. When an observation is made, they simply all collapse, regardless of distance, and that violates classical expectations of how things work.

Einstein tried to disprove this “spooky action at a distance,” but in fact, an experiment performed in Switzerland has shown it to be real, where two “twinned” photons shared information instantaneously at a distance of ten kilometers. We now know that two intertwined particles can share information without paying attention to the speed of light. However, because of the way things work, we cannot use this as a means of faster-than-light communication.

This one effect aside, the whole situation raises bigger questions: is a conscious observer required, and if so, then is consciousness tied in with the fabric of the universe? Is nothing real until it is observed by life forms capable of being observers?

Those into New-Age spiritualism will often might conclude that this is proof of the soul. Scientists will tell you that these are abstractions created by mathematical attempts to explain observable phenomena and do not necessarily translate into real-world conclusions that New-Agers might subscribe to. Science fiction writers use this as a launching point to travel to all sorts of possible explanations, fiction made more fascinating because of its “grounding” in real physics.

In the end, we don’t know what the hell is going on. But it is fun as hell to speculate, to travel to those possible realities, and to know that–to paraphrase J. B. S. Haldane–the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but it is stranger than we can imagine.

Stumble it!

After seeing this story summing up all the candidates’ stands on evolution (read Mike Gravel’s in particular), I was reminded of an excellent television program aired a few months back: NOVA’s (when aren’t they excellent?) special two-hour Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. If you haven’t seen it, you can (and should) watch it wholly online at NOVA’s web site.

The program does a very good job of describing the trial in Dover, PA, where a judge ruled unconstitutional a school board policy to present Intelligent Design as an alternate theory to Evolution. Not only did the Evolution side blow the ID claims out of the water, but they also succeeded in revealing a paper trail which showed that ID was the direct evolutionary descendant of creationism.

I’ve made my thoughts on ID clear in this blog before. It is, as the Dover case illustrated, nothing more than creationism reworked for the sole purpose of sneaking it into science classes. Simply put, ID has no evidence to back it up; its entire case is that evolution is wrong, and therefore ID is right. There is no evidence, no mathematical model which supports ID; it is a theory based upon a negative, relying purely upon fallacious criticisms of evolution so that a metaphysical argument is “proven” by nothing more than the process of elimination.

It is a theory which personifies the creationist mindset: don’t think. It doesn’t rely on any positive evidence. It requires no deep study, no deep thinking–just belief. Essentially, it says that we are just too complex, so don’t even bother finding an explanation other than god. And that pretty concisely sums up how creationists approach things: not with deep understanding, but with a superficial denial based upon a poor grasp of core issues.

You can see this in action by looking at the PBS Ombudsman’s column for the show, where a good deal of viewer mail is displayed. It is quite educational.

One question asked by several creationists is best stated here:

If evolution were true and man “evolved” from apes, why do we have apes and monkeys co-existing with man? Why have the apes not all turned into humans?

This is the sort of question that so baldly expresses the simple lack of understanding of evolution by those who feel they know more than enough to dismiss it. It reminds me of my co-worker from years back who felt confident that radioactive dating methods that showed the Earth being far more than 6000 years old were wrong because she believed she found a fatal flaw in the science… based on her hearing a summary of the procedure in her high school Science class. She didn’t study, didn’t ask, didn’t investigate; she just found something that sounded like it could be a flaw, and immediately decided that science must be wrong and her religion correct.

This question about co-existing with other primates is a classic example of this sort of shallow, non-thinking reasoning. The person who asked it obviously wasn’t looking for an answer; a quick Google search would have provided him with the answer, as would have a simply query over the phone to any local Science teacher or perhaps even any librarian. Clearly this person had either heard this question asked but not answered, or thought of it themselves, and never sought an answer to it beyond the ID community.

Had they done so, they would have found the answer. First, and most glaringly, we did not evolve from “apes.” Both humans and apes evolved from early primates. There is somehow the idea that the apes that now exist also existed back then, and we are descended from them; this is incorrect. Now, if you want to call the early primates “apes,” go ahead, but it is an incorrect classification that leads to further misunderstanding. Second, evolution is not a process where all members of a species change at the same time and in the same way; this was amply demonstrated in the NOVA documentary when it explained “branching.” And while the early primates from which all current primates evolved went extinct, there is no rule which says they have to disappear. Some species have remained unchanged for hundreds of millions of years; it is possible for a new species to have branched from an ancient one, and yet both still exist side-by-side.

Of course, one writer mentioned the whole “macro-evolution” paradigm. Since evolution can clearly be seen at work over the course of a few years, ID’ers have split evolution into two categories–“micro-evolution,” which they concede happens but does not contradict creationism, and “macro-evolution,” which is large changes over large spans of time, which they deny because it does contradict creationism. This is known as “moving the goal posts,” something that the creationist crowd does constantly. You provide proof that a creationist claim is wrong, they either ignore it, deny it, or, in the goal-post-moving paradigm, claim that it’s not enough and more specific evidence is needed.

Another viewer writes:

This was labeled as a landmark case. Not so. This was a smaller court not a Federal court from what I have found.

Again, we have people not just assuming facts not in evidence, but assuming facts contrary to clear evidence. Right at the beginning of the documentary, it was made clear that the judge in the case was appointed by President Bush. That clearly makes him a federal judge. Not to mention that a very quick Google could have shown the fact even more clearly. The same writer continues:

Most scientists who are Darwinists have atheistic beliefs just as there are people of faith who support creation or ID. About two years ago a FEDERAL court ruled that atheism is a religion.

And here we come to another common belief among creationists: that evolution is as much a child of atheism as creationism is of religion. Of course “Atheism” (“strong Atheism,” that is, the belief that god does not exist) is a religion. But evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with Atheism. Atheism is a belief system; evolution is a scientific theory with huge amounts of physical evidence which has healthily survived a century and a half of strident and piercing attack and review.

It is only from the fundamentalist religious viewpoint that evolution is a belief system, or is part of one, and that is chiefly because fundamentalists use biblical scripture as if it were a Science text, and from there come to conclusions about the nature of the universe which are easily shown as false by physical observations. Fundamentalists see any idea or information which contradicts their religious beliefs as being just as much based on a belief system, and so they ascribe it to Atheism, or as an attack on their religion.

Most of the negative views on the documentary accused it of bias. An easy accusation, since it’s such a contentious topic, and so many see it in a deeply subjective light. But ultimately, it’s a false claim, based upon the perception that their side was not adequately presented–because their side was shown as losing.

Any look at the evolution vs. ID debate is going to be controversial, and any view that winds up supporting one side will naturally be called biased by the other side. What NOVA did was to focus on the two in the crucible of a federal courtroom, not to mention one presided over by a Republican, a Lutheran, and appointed by George W. Bush, no less. ID’ers could not have asked for a fairer judge, and initially, were pleased, as this commenter on a ID blog wrote:

Judge John E. Jones on the other hand is a good old boy brought up through the conservative ranks. He was state attorney for D.A.R.E, an Assistant Scout Master with extensively involved with local and national Boy Scouts of America, political buddy of Governor Tom Ridge (who in turn is deep in George W. Bush’s circle of power), and finally was appointed by GW hisself. … Unless Judge Jones wants to cut his career off at the knees he isn’t going to rule against the wishes of his political allies. Of course the ACLU will appeal. This won’t be over until it gets to the Supreme Court. But now we own that too.

NOVA looked at the issue in the most even-handed venue that could be found (one which actually leaned in favor of ID from all appearances), where both sides had their chance to present their arguments.

One clear fact is that the side representing evolution won, and won big. That would suggest that they made their case much better, and therefore NOVA’s presentation was probably more toward the “fair” side of things. The only way you could get around this would be to suggest that Judge Jones was somehow so biased and unfair that the decision was fatally flawed and incorrect… and predictably, this is exactly the tack that ID’ers have taken since the decision was handed down, and they turned viciously against “their” judge.

Some commenters on the NOVA documentary felt that there was even a conspiracy at work:

WHAT IS PBS AFRAID OF, that they would not allow it??? PBS’s refusal to allow a fair rebuttal tells the whole story. What a shame that so many Americans who can intuitively see that there is a difference between intelligent involvement and random chance must pay for such one-sided reporting. It is sad that the Intelligent Design idea has been hushed-up. Talk about loss of freedom of speech!

What it really comes down to, however, is that the claims of “Intelligent Design” are completely unscientific, and are not backed up by a shred of evidence that can withstand any sort of review. Any “evidence” posited by the ID side can inevitably be knocked down. For a large number of examples of this, visit the Index to Creationist Claims, which deals with all such “evidence” with comprehensive and devastating detail. Really, go take a look at it–it’s pretty impressive.

And that’s why Science ends up winning cases like the one in Dover: they have got their stuff together. I guess defending a theory successfully over a century and a half of arduous attack will leave you that way.

Though I kind of like the way Ars Mathematica put it, graphically:

Stumble it!

There is news of a big dinner in London tonight where some kind of new “super material” is to be revealed, a material which is supposed to lead to a major lowering of production costs, which will help to greatly reduce climate change. Engadget and a few other sites are buzzing about it. Here’s a quote from the story released in The Independent last week:

Al Gore is to be the star turn at a dinner where guests have paid at least £1,000 a head, and some will have parted with £50,000 for their share of the Aberdeen Angus steak and pink champagne, under the high ornate ceilings of London’s Royal Courts of Justice. The combined wealth of the diners has been estimated at £100bn. But the most unusual aspect of the evening is not the price of the tickets but the nature of the floor show. In place of professional performers, the guests will be regaled by people who are not always thought of as entertainers, though some think they are all mad. They are inventive British boffins who care about climate change. …

“This is something … that’s the accumulation of almost a decade of work,” [Kane Kramer] said. “It’s a new science, a Super Material. It would be 80 per cent cheaper than any alternative means of production, and it will contribute in a major way to reducing climate change.

”I like it because it’s kind of lateral. It will make possible things that weren’t possible before. We have put it through severe ‘due diligence’, with quite a team of people, not just in the UK, and we’re completely 100 per cent sure that this is the way forward.“

Sound familiar? Sounds like Steorn all over again, except the cast listing looks a lot more appealing. The thing is, the story at The Independent seems to be misleading. It seems to be suggesting that the event is centered around this new technology. However, a quick Google News search reveals that there is an event hosted by Al Gore at London’s Royal Courts of Justice tonight, but it’s a fundraiser for various charities. No mention of startling new technology, or any kind of technology showcase by British inventors; the showcase is famous people pitching charities, and then a singing performance by Damien Rice.

The fundraiser should have ended a few hours ago, and there are no news stories about new technology. So, is Kramer joining the ranks of Steorn in the Royal Hall of Vaporware Breakthroughs?

Stumble it!

Steorn said they’d demo the Orbo in July, and it seems like that will finally happen. The alleged perpetual-motion free-energy machine will go on display, according to reports, at the Kinetica Museum in London. It will repeatedly lift an object, for ten days, in a clear plastic case with no battery or other power source in evidence.

According to Steorn’s CEO:

“The law of conservation of energy has been very reliable for 300 years, however it’s missing one variable from the equation, and that’s time,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy explained to Silicon Republic that Orbo technology works on the basis that occurrences in magnetic fields do not happen instantaneously, and are therefore not subject to time in the way that, say, gravity is.

This time variance allows the Orbo platform to generate and consistently produce power, going against the law of conservation of energy which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Should be interesting to see what comes of this. It sounds fake and it sounds real. One hopes for real.

Update:…or not, again. Steorn cancelled the event due to “technical difficulties.”

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Apparently, something may or may not be revealed about the Steorn Orbo saga on Friday. For a rundown on what Steorn Orbo is, either check out my prior blog post on it, or read this blog on Orbo developments, but the Reader’s Digest version is that a company called Steorn says that it accidentally stumbled upon a way of arranging magnets so as to create a system which produces more energy than is put into it–the classic perpetual-motion “free energy” machine, which the company has now dubbed “Orbo.” Sounds just like any number of hoaxes and false claims that litter the landscape every year–but the twist is that the company isn’t acting like a bunch of fraudsters: they stopped sales and solicitations, took out a very expensive ad to call for a scientific jury to study and verify the technology, and are otherwise making the kind of noises that one would not expect from those perpetrating a hoax.

Now, Steorn has announced that on Friday, April 13, they “will be releasing the update on the Jury process and so on.” People are expecting this to mean that the company will be releasing at least preliminary results on what the jury has found, and perhaps identifying members of the jury and publishing some of their statements. “Other info,” possibly including some specs on the technology, are also expected. Steorn claims that they are producing around 100,000 devices that use the technology as samples, and that could be released anytime between now and July.

Will it turn out to be a hoax? Will it change the world? Is it just an incredibly elaborate publicity stunt to promote the TV show “Lost”?

One hopes, and yet one suspects.

UPDATE: False alarm. Steorn was just releasing an update to information already released. The only new information is the number of people on the jury, which is 22. Ho-hum. So wait until July, which seems to be the next date where they might come out with something. Or, from today’s experience, not.

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You’ve got to just love the stuff NASA comes out with. This is a new image of Io, the wildest of Jupiter’s moons, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft as it passes by Jupiter to get a speed boost as it travels to Pluto. Io can be seen with three volcanic plumes erupting–one of them, as you can see, spectacularly–and mountains bigger than Everest catching the morning sun on their peaks.

Beyond cool.

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You may or may not have heard of a company called Steorn, which is hyping a product called “Orbo.” Despite the names, the company is not Norwegian–it’s Irish (though the name “Steorn” is Norwegian, meaning to guide or manage). And the product is not a new piece of computer equipment or fashion accessory, it is, supposedly, a source of free energy:

Orbo produces free, clean and constant energy - that is our claim. By free we mean that the energy produced is done so without recourse to external source. By clean we mean that during operation the technology produces no emissions. By constant we mean that with the exception of mechanical failure the technology will continue to operate indefinitely.

Okay, already your skeptic’s hat is firmly planted atop your head by now, no doubt. Interestingly, on the exact same page the above claim is made, the entrepreneurs themselves admit that “The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy, perhaps the most fundamental of scientific principles.”

Every so often, you get claims like this. Sometimes it’s a promise of an invisibility cloak, other times it’s a car that gets 200 miles to the gallon, but usually it’s like the contention above–a free, clean energy technology which is also potentially a perpetual-motion machine, or close enough to one.

The interesting thing about this claim is that it’s just odd and bold enough to make your tinfoil hat slip ever so slightly off-center so that the bozo rays from this company make you wonder just a tiny bit if there’s actually something to it.

And admit it: you want it to be true. It would be so cool.

Here’s the deal: these guys published a full-page ad in The Economist (which likely cost $160,000) last year claiming that they developed a technology which provides a “free, clean, and constant energy” source. They have invited skeptics and scientists to come and review the technology first-hand. The firm’s CEO is not some conspiracy-theory nutcase (he says he doesn’t believe in them), is not claiming that anyone is trying to suppress their findings, and promises to reveal and license the technology later this year after the independent scientific review has been completed. The noises they’re making sound very much on-the-level (”until this thing is validated by science we won’t be doing anything commercial with it”), and their process of validation seems like they’re willing to pony up the goods for independent verification.

Facts like these are what makes the claim intriguing. On the other hand, the company has released no firm explanation or proof of the new technology; it has a very shaky financial history; and, let’s face it, the technology they claim to have would violate the first law of thermodynamics. That being the case, a patent for the whole technology cannot be granted, which is convenient as a way to avoid revealing the whole technology in a patent application.

Nevertheless, the claims are enticing if vaporish:

Sean McCarthy stated in an RTE radio interview that, “What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy… The energy isn’t being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It’s literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy.”

In a demonstration to The Guardian at Steorn’s office, a computer display reported the device to have an efficiency of 285%. The article goes on to say that Steorn claims to have measured efficiencies up to 400%. The device has been reported to be an all-magnet motor, with no electromagnetic component. Steorn also claims that according to its research the device can be scaled to almost any size, powering anything from a flashlight to an airplane.

None of these claims have been independently verified.

There is a huge chance that these guys are very clever scam artists who are trying to get investors to pour money into a fake technology which they can claim was an honest but failed attempt at a free and clean energy source (apparently, they have raised two and a half million euros, though that was before the public announcement–they claim that since the announcement and until the results of the validation are complete, they will raise no new investments).

But in the same way you hope that this time your lottery ticket will have the winning numbers, you find yourself willing, even if just a little bit, to suspend disbelief and imagine what it would be like if these guys were actually on the level and actually had something here.

Here’s the CEO of the company talking about the whole shebang:

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Here is another excellent example of the conservative mindset at work. Some people take science so simplistically that they do not try to understand a concept beyond the two words used to describe it–especially when they know that dealing with the issue would threaten the lifestyle they are comfortable with.

Of course, while that might explain people like Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, it cannot explain someone like Pat Michaels, someone who actually studied the subject and holds a professorship, trying to claim that extreme cold weather events are proof that global warming is a crock. One would assume that a person who actually got a Ph.D. in ecological climatology would not be so idiotic as to say, “if you believe that warming causes cooling, you’re like my neighbors down in Virginia who think that if you put hot water in the ice cube tray, it freezes faster. It doesn’t work that way.”

Unless, of course, you are a right-wing extremist who is so blinded by your political leanings and the money you can make whoring for the energy industry as to make nonsensical statements like that one–as if the Earth’s climate is not complex enough for a warming trend to cause disruptions that could create extreme cold weather events in some places.

Which, of course, is another way that conservatives find to believe the “science” that suits their politics: find the rare “scientist” with credentials for the task, ignore their severely compromised status, and believe what they have to say, like a chain smoker buying into the “research” and “studies” funded by the tobacco industry that say smoking is harmless. It’s little more than that–addictive behavior–which is why it’s no surprise that it is a common practice in the Bush White House.

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Researchers in the U.S. are carrying out experiments to see if gay sheep can be changed into straight sheep. This, naturally, has sparked all sorts of fun outcry, including people defending the sheep’s “right” to be gay, and others saying it’ll be a “cure” for homosexuality.

The fundies must be conflicted about this one. After all, if homosexuality could be reversed chemically, I am sure they would be overjoyed. On the other hand, accepting this research, especially before knowing whether it will be successful, would be the same as admitting that homosexuality does occur in animal species, and axiomatically that homosexuality is a natural process and not a choice (those sheep chose to be gay!)–both being conclusions they have soundly rejected.

Although I am usually favorable to most scientific research as a matter of principle, I am not very positive about this particular line. The only benefit I see is the possible light shed on mammalian reproductive biology, and then only if the experiments produce some kind of measurable and reproducible effect. However, the nature of the experiments themselves is disturbing, as it would appear to be an attempt by people who are anti-gay attempting to “cure” homosexuality. (How ironic it would be if they failed to make gay sheep straight but instead found a way to make straight sheep gay!)

But should the “desired” technique be found, it could lead to what is essentially forced chemical alteration of human beings, akin to chemical castration of sex offenders. This of course stems from the belief that homosexuality is a disease, or at least an “imbalance,” something unhealthy and undesired, which should be “cured.” It brings to mind a relatively bad episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Riker falls for a member of a sexless society who is sexual; when discovered, she is cured of her “deviancy.”

Of course, there is also the possibility that a drug regimen could be found which does not change one’s actual sexual orientation, but could make one temporarily more inclined to respond to sexual cues from a certain gender. Think of drugs that make a peaceful person violent; you have not changed their nature with the drugs, you have simply poisoned them with a mind-altering drug. This would be particularly dangerous because it could be used to “prove” that homosexuality can be “cured” or “treated” whilst doing no such thing. Similarly, if the experiment fails, fundies will likely claim such a result to be proof that homosexuality is not a biological process, which would also be a faulty conclusion.

All in all, it does not sound like a very worthwhile line of study–unless the researchers are closet fundies trying to “get rid of” gay people. In which case it might be worthwhile from that point of view, while repugnant and horrifying from others.

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Due to supposedly non-existent global warming, a huge 50-sq.-km chunk of ice has broken free of an ice shelf in Canada and could smite oil rigs and wreak havoc upon oil tanker shipping lines.

Let’s think about this like a fundie televangelist: what, exactly, is god trying to tell us?

Hmmmm….

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“Giant squid are a major source of food for sperm whales.” [Source]

Oh.

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Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye. –Luke 6:42

You’d think that in Kenya, a country now world-famous as being the cradle of mankind due to the fossils found by Dr. Richard Leakey there, would be proud of that distinction and would overcome quite some obstacles to claim international pride in the fact. Apparently, however, a bunch of fundamentalists have cowed the nation’s museums enough to seriously consider hiding the fossils so as not to upset the people who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that evolution is “just one theory.”

Leaders of Kenya’s 6-million-strong Pentecostal church want the fossils “de-emphasized”:

“The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact,” said Bishop Bonifes Adoyo, head of the largest Pentecostal church in Kenya, the Christ is the Answer Ministries.

“Our doctrine is not that we evolved from apes, and we have grave concerns that the museum wants to enhance the prominence of something presented as fact which is just one theory,” the bishop said.

The criticism that it is a “theory,” of course, is a common creationist fallacy; Evolution is a “theory” just like gravity is a “theory.” The theory is not about whether it exists, the theory is about how it works. Evolution clearly exists, and in that respect, it is not “just one theory,” it is fact. The only thing that can overcome that is a faith in a belief that says you should ignore facts before your eyes in favor of the unsupported belief–which is exactly what these people are asking be done.

Now, even if one is to bend way over backwards and allow them their “theory” argument, consider what they have said: Evolution is “just one theory.” Well, another “theory” is creationism. And that “theory” has vastly less evidence to back it up than Evolution has. So it should be “de-emphasized” more, yes? Even they themselves admit that Evolution goes against their doctrine–not their research, not their evidence, not their proofs, but their doctrines, which are lesser than research, evidence, or proof (unless you have the all-important fact-defying faith).

But then consider the irony: the fossils they are seeking to suppress are evidence to back up Evolution (hence their eagerness to suppress them). First, they dismiss Evolution is “theory,” and say that because of this, evidence to back up that theory should be “de-emphasized.” Imagine you come up to someone in the early morning and say, “Look, the ground as far as we can see is wet, therefore it must have rained last night.” To which the other person says, “That’s just a theory, so we should ignore your evidence for it and only look up at the sky. See, it is clear and sunny now, therefore there was no rain last night. Ha, what a jolly fool you are!”

If the religious folks were to have their own “theories” held up to the same rigorous tests that they castigate science for not passing (even when it does), their “doctrines” would shatter into tiny little pieces. Ergo, my quote about the mote and the beam from Luke. That’s one thing religion is sometimes good for: maxims about principles and common sense. So why is it that the most holier-than-thou bible-thumpers violate these principles more than anyone else?

Thank goodness that the people running the museums have good sense and–

“We have a responsibility to present all our artifacts in the best way that we can so that everyone who sees them can gain a full understanding of their significance,” said Ali Chege, public relations manager for the National Museums of Kenya. “But things can get tricky when you have religious beliefs on one side, and intellectuals, scientists, or researchers on the other, saying the opposite.”

[sound of me smacking my palm against my forehead]

Yes, it is tricky when one side wants to present evidence and the other side wants to suppress it. Whatever are we to do? After all, we are just simple museum folk.

[smack!]

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There’s an old joke about [insert your favorite group to be japed at here] planning to send a rocket to the sun. “Won’t the astronauts burn up?” is the standard question, to which the reply is, “No, because we plan to land the rocket at night!”

Strangely, there is a serious real-life analogue that exists: a photograph taken of the sun… at night. By Japanese scientists, no less. [See photo below.] At least, partly at night. It was accomplished by capturing the image through the Earth, or at least partly so–half of the image was collected at night, as it was taken over 503.8 days and nights, with neutrinos. Since neutrinos can travel through the Earth rather easily, collecting them from the sun at night is not a hindrance.

Hat tip again to Cosmic Variance.

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A week ago, I reported that we had 12 planets. Now we’re down to 8. Either the Death Star is hard at work out there, or astronomers keep changing their minds.

As cool as the former explanation would be, it’s the latter. Now, Pluto, Ceres, and Xena have been demoted from the “planet” category, and are now classed as “dwarf planets.”

As much as I would have preferred more planets, I can see the sense to this. The question is, is this really the last word? They seem to be saying so now, but then again, they seemed to be saying so last week, too.

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I remember back in elementary school when another student made a science fair project and I noticed a few errors in it. One was that the solar system had eight planets. I mean, how outdated a source must that student have been using? Even if I hadn’t been an astronomy buff at that early age, I probably still could have told them that there were nine planets in the solar system.

Five extra-terrestrial planets have been known about since ancient times, since they are visible to the naked eye and can be observed changing position relative to stars (”planet” comes from the Greek word for “wanderer”). While people had inklings that they were not just points of light or some other mysterious forms of matter, it was not until Galileo that it was generally recognized that planets are worlds, like (or not quite like) our own. The original six planets did not grow in number until 1781, when William Herschel discovered Uranus (no jokes please, despite there being no real good way to pronounce that planet’s name in English). Interestingly, Uranus was first observed as early as 1690, but was not recognized for what it was, and even Herschel initially thought it was a comet. Later, he tried to name it “George’s Planet,” for the British monarch, but was overruled by the international community, which then began to set the commonly accepted rules for naming new planets.

Another celestial body was discovered between Mars and Jupiter in 1801, but was later considered not to be a planet because it was one of many objects that would later be classified as “asteroids.” That first asteroid found in 1801 was Ceres. More on that in a bit.

After that, it was a game of gravity: Uranus’ orbit was slightly off from what calculations said it should be, and so we started getting inferred planets–the idea was that the gravity of a then-unknown planet was affecting Uranus’ orbit. This led to the discovery of Neptune in 1846–although Neptune, like Uranus, was observed long before. In fact, the first confirmed sighting of Neptune was by Galileo in 1612.

Neptune’s observed orbit, however, seemed to also be unexpected, leading to another search for a planet that might be affecting the new discovery. That led to Pluto, but not immediately. It took almost a century to find the ninth planet, partly because Pluto, in fact, was not disturbing Neptune’s orbit. In fact, Neptune’s orbit was just fine–the astronomers had made a mistake in calculating the planet’s mass. But the error led to the search that finally ended in 1930, when Clyde Tombaugh, following the work of Percival Lowell, discovered Pluto. The name was actually suggested by an 11-year-old girl named Venetia Phair (which is also a cool name), and was accepted not only because it fit the rules of planetary nomenclature, but because the first two letters (now making up the planet’s sign) were evocative of Percival Lowell’s name.

But Pluto would start arguments among astronomers which would lead all the way to today’s news: is Pluto really a planet? When it’s size (smallest of the nine planets, even smaller than the Earth’s moon) and orbit (highly eccentric and well off the orbital plane of the rest of the planets) were determined, the differences between Pluto and the rest of the solar system cause many to believe that Pluto was not a planet, but some “captured” object, unworthy of planetary status. That’s where the debate remained until now.

For the past two years, astronomers have been debating the classification for what constitutes a planet, and many believed that Pluto would be demoted. Well, the results seem to be in, and though it won’t be official for another week, it seems that not only will Pluto remain a planet, but that three other objects will be added–and maps of the solar system will have to be re-written. Mind you, that’s not due to any new discoveries, only an artificial construct of vocabulary. The new definition is:

A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.

In other words, it has to be round and orbiting the sun. Kinda inclusive, don’t you think? It could lead to a whole bunch of new objects out there joining the planet club, despite being kinda dinky. Maybe they should set an arbitrary size limit as well–”you must be this tall to join the solar system.” But for God’s sake, leave Pluto in!

Pluto will indeed remain a planet, and another object, now only named 2003 UB313 (the discoverer wants to call it “Xena,” but the convention of scientists is leaning towards “Persephone”). But there are two surprises: first, Ceres will become a planet. Though part of the asteroid belt, it is big enough, and, I guess, round enough to be considered a planet. The other surprise: Charon, which until now has been recognized as one of Pluto’s moons (it has three in total). Charon will join Pluto as a planet, in a new category called “Plutons,” which describes any Kuiper Belt-like objects (beyond Neptunian orbit) that have been or may be found. Charon and Pluto may become more like co-planets rather than planet and satellite; both orbit each other presenting the same face all the time.

There are a lot of other large spherical objects out there that could in theory join the club, so stay tuned. As for me, the biggest adjustment will be fitting in “Ceres” between Mars and Jupiter–it just seems so strange, kind of like getting used to the idea that Jupiter has 63 moons. I grew up with 12; 63 just isn’t right. And I guess that’s the whole point for some people.

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Ever get into an discussion with a creationist or an ID’er, and they throw some factoid at you “proving” evolution is fake? Or have you just read some creationist tract and are interested in the other side? Or, even more challenging, are you a creationist or ID’er and you want a healthy test of your beliefs? (Ha! As if.)

Well, in any case, check out the Talk Origins Index to Creationist Claims. Even if it is of no immediate practical use, it’s a very well-documented and exhaustive list of “arguments” forwarded by creationists to “disprove” evolution, each with an excellent explanation of why each claim is bogus. From “evolution is only a theory” to the “half an eye” argument and far beyond, it’s all there. Very interesting reading.

And if you ever get the chance, watch this PBS documentary on evolution, narrated by Liam Neeson. Excellent series.

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On Saturday, I related the story about how I was hit by lightning, complete with an audio recording of the incident. I was amazed by being hit, wondering what the odds against that were.

Today, I found out something that makes the odds beyond astronomical, almost beyond belief: one of my co-workers, a professor whose desk is right next to mine, was also hit by lightning–same day, approximately the same time, and same intensity of electrical shock, but in a different part of town.

I know, your first reaction will be that they are pulling my leg. No way something that unlikely could happen. Probably they’re having fun with me, maybe they didn’t believe my story and are being sarcastic. What a sucker I am, right?

I’ll admit, I can be gullible, but I can guarantee you that this is not the case this time. I trust this person implicitly; their personality is completely incompatible with that kind of a gag. My brother-in-law, that would be a different story. By this particular co-worker, not a chance. It’s true: we were both hit by lightning the same day, at roughly the same time.

My co-worker, as it turns out, was jogging in a park near her home at the time (about 10 km away from where I was). Like me, she had misjudged the weather, and was caught off-guard by the sudden thunderstorm. In her case, it was already raining a little and she was wet when the lightning hit. She saw a flash and felt the electrical shock down her left arm as the thunderclap and lightning flash hit. Like me, she was startled, though my reaction right after that was, how cool was that! whereas my co-worker was much less enthralled by the experience. She ran for the nearest shelter, a small utility shed in the park, and waited out the lightning storm there.

But really, what are the chances? I calculated the odds, very, very roughly, of both of us being hit at 90 billion to one–but that’s just for any two people being struck by lightning, and does not factor in the circumstance that we both work together in a small office. I have no idea how to factor that in, but I’m sure that if you did, the odds would go up to the point where you’d need a few sheets of paper just to contain all the zeroes involved.

Stranger than fiction….

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