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How will it turn out? Space

April 24, 2009 //

This is the second posting in my 2019 time capsule series, where I consider how the questions of the present will be viewed in 10 years time or afterwards. Today, I’m going to focus on space, and some of the big questions that may well have convincing answers within the next decade.

Dark Matter

Dark matter in the observable UniverseWe look into the skies and we try to understand why the universe acts as it does. Unfortunately some of our biggest questions don’t have good answers. We resort to placeholders such as “dark matter” and “dark energy” to explain why galaxies spin the way they do, why the universe seems to be expanding at an accelerating rate, and other conundrums that make little sense to us with our conventional models of the world. With the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider, it it possible that answers may be found and that our understanding of the world will need to be rewritten within the next 10 to 20 years. What progress will we have made by 2019?

Extraterrestrial Life

ET DNAThe Earth is the only place we know of that contains life. Our planet is saturated with living organisms: from the deepest undersea valleys to the highest mountaintops; the rims of the hottest volcanoes to the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Life came into being only a few hundred million years after the Earth itself formed and somehow managed to survive the hellishness of our world’s early existence. Life is pretty rugged. And yet, we know of no other place: no planet, no moon, no comet or asteroid, where life is present. But there are hints. Methane, water and microfossils on Mars, ice volcanos on Europa and Enceladus. Who knows what we may find? Probes are being developed as we speak. Will we discover, as some think, that life is not just confined to one small planet, but is virtually everywhere?

Tomorrow: Technology.

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Categories thinking

Happy Darwin Day!

February 12, 2009 //

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin, the co-discoverer of one of the greatest scientific explanations in history: why life is so complex, so wondrous and so diverse. Why life can survive against all manner of odds, and why some forms of life die off, never to be heard of again.

Darwin’s theory, properly called the theory of Evolution through Natural Selection, has not remained constant since it’s publication 150 years ago. Advances in our understanding of heredity, of genetics and of sexual selection have acted to improve our understanding of the ways in which living organisms adjust to the vagaries of nature and each other. The theory is being constantly refined and improved, but one thing is absolutely certain: The supporting evidence continues to flow in. For biologists, geologists, biochemists and a whole class of scientists, it acts like a map, allowing them to better understand what is going on, providing great clues as to the underlying reasons for particular phenomena, and governing the course of research worldwide.

To some, the theory may seem harsh, hopeless and random. It is too far an intellectual leap, directly challenging the core of their beliefs. This is a huge pity, because it’s explanatory power reveals so much about our origins and the diversity in nature that we see every day. It is no more a moral codebook than the theory of gravity. It provides us with an understanding of the world as it is, not how we would like it to be. When we strive to make the world a better place for all of us, surely we are enrichened by this knowledge rather than denying it outright?

So today I celebrate Darwin Day, remembering not just Darwin, but also Wallace and all the scientists who came after him. Thank you for all the efforts you have made.

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Categories events, science

Let's have some Academic Freedom around here!

January 28, 2009 //

The creationists are right. We need academic freedom. We can’t just have one view, pounded into us by those pesky scientists. Schools and universities must be forced should be allowed to teach alternative views to their students side by side with science. That’s what education is for, isn’t it? We need Academic Freedom in our schools and we need it NOW!

Here are the principal areas that our educators need to focus on right away:

1) The Earth is Flat. When I go outside the door, it’s flat. Even when I climb a mountain (and I did that once) it still looks flat. Even when I go on a plane, (and I’ve done that too), it’s flat. So the earth being flat is a legitimate scientific view and must be taught in science classes alongside the (rolls-eyes) “oblate spheroid” dogma.

2) The Moon, the Sun and all the stars revolve around the Earth. Well, they do, don’t they? All rising in the east and setting in the west just like they are meant to by God. This Copernican stuff doesn’t wash with me, it didn’t wash with countless popes until 1992, and it shouldn’t wash with you either. So let’s teach the controversy and make sure that those Galileans are knocked back in their corner.

3) If waves need water to pass through to splash on us, then there must be a similar medium in which light passes through in space! It’s called Aether and it deserves a shot. Better than that weird quantum electrodynamic stuff (and far more understandable too, IMHO). Down with Quantum Mechanics! BOO! Up with Aether!

4) Now the “scientists” are always drumming up silly ideas like atoms and molecules when there was a perfectly legitimate theory in place before this new fashioned stuff came into play. It was called Phlogiston Theory. A cool name, eh? Every time you burn something, Phlogiston is released! When you burn an every day object: a match or a heretic perhaps, the weight afterwards is less than the weight before, and the difference is Phlogiston. Academic Freedom dictates that we see Phlogiston get equal treatment to chemistry. 

5) Of course medical doctors are always going on and on about saving people with antibiotics and vaccines and using approaches involving “studies” and “evidence” to find a cure, when there are lots and lots of alternative theories with the great advantage that you don’t need to perform any proper studies at all! Much cheaper, no need to learn tough mathematics like statistics and many of them feel nice and tingly. All you need to do with your chosen therapy is to believe that it will work. If it doesn’t, there are lots more to choose from. We have therapies that give dilute water magical healing properties, that control the flow of chi in your body and that shield us from toxins that cause imbalances. Some of the theories conflict with each other completely but hey, you can choose what theory suits you best! All you need is a big wallet and a mind unbridled by critical oversight. 

So let’s put science in it’s place for once and for all! Let’s ensure that every half-baked hypothesis we have ever dreamt up has legitimate pride of place beside scientific views in our schools and colleges. Just because a theory has “weighty evidence” and “a solid scientific consensus” around it, just because it been tested a million times and has never been disproved, doesn’t mean it should be treated any more seriously than its rivals no matter how off-beat and nonsensical they are. So, let’s take a moment and celebrate the great wonder of ignorance. It beats reality anytime.

(Inspired by this article)

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Categories opinions, science

A pointless climate change documentary?

November 26, 2008 //

Phelim McAleer is a film-maker who has produced a documentary challenging the climate change consensus. He appeared on an Irish political program this evening to  debate with a climate scientist, Dr. Kieran Hickey. Now I haven’t watched much of this guy’s documentary yet, but even so, his argument was full of glaring logical fallacies.* 

1) A key plank of McAleer’s argument by the sounds of it is that because the scientific consensus got DDT so badly wrong that they must be wrong this time. 

Rubbish. Even if the scientists did get DDT wrong (and I’ll bet there’s a bit more to this story than meets the eye), that doesn’t necessarily mean they are wrong on climate change. Methinks there is some selective thinking going on here. What about other scientific consensuses he omitted to mention? The connection between HIV and AIDS? Cowpox vaccination and Smallpox? Microbes and cholera? Smoking and lung cancer? Indeed, when it comes down to it: Gravity, Genetic theory, Plate Tectonics, Quantum Mechanics and Evolution are all scientific consensuses. It’s just a classic case of poisoning the well. 

2) Scientists have an agenda. 

The allegation here is that climate change is a big liberal conspiracy. This is an odd one, because the biggest vested interests in the climate change debate have always come from the other side! Get this: the combined revenue of the top 5 oil companies last year was 1.5 trillion dollars. 1,500,000,000,000 dollars. 1.5 million million dollars. That’s more than the entire GDP of Canada. Climate scientists were persona non grata in the White House for most of the last 8 years of the Bush presidency. If it’s a big conspiracy the financial backers must be an odd bunch indeed. Just because scientists are (according to you) bad people, it’s doesn’t make them wrong, Phelim. 

3) Climate change is a fad.

Apparently Phelim was taught in school in the 1970’s that the Ice Age was approaching in our lifetimes. In between there have been lots of fads, many of which have never come true. This argument attempts to conflate fads with real science, which is just ridiculous. Many of these fads never had any sort of consensus scientific backing. They were just media baubles – minority views that caught the imagination of the press for a period of time. Climate Change originated in the 1970’s as a seriously minority view. There was an activism bandwagon on climate change in the 1980’s which was often shone more heat than light. Cultural fads like this come and go, but the difference in this case was that real science began to weigh in over the past 20 years or so. This has swung the pendulum away from pure fad and into the realm of fact. An analogue is Wegener’s continental drift model that began as a minority view, but became in time accepted as a valid scientific theory when the science began to validate many of his arguments. Fads are not science. They lie on the margins, waiting to be validated or disproved. A lot of hard work needs to take place for a fad to become science, and in the case of climate change, this work has been carried out, with the argument pointing in no uncertain terms towards a deeply worrying future for us all. 

Here’s my biggest gripe with the whole thing. Debates are good when one person’s opinion is pitched against another person’s opinion. So if you bring the audience around to your point of view, you’ve won. Well done. A big prize to you. However, when you have a debate against a scientific consensus, then it doesn’t work so well. Even if the audience all agree with you, even if they carry you around on their shoulders in adulation, that doesn’t make your argument right. Science is not determined from public opinion. It has nothing to do with public opinion. It’s based on evidence, and the only way to challenge the science is to use the tools of science against it. These challenges do happen, but they don’t take place in public debate forums. No, they happen in scientific journals, conferences and papers, where each piece of evidence is scrutinised and debated until, you guessed it – a consensus emerges. So, even if the science is wrong in this case, Phelim, what is your alternative? Film-making?

* If you have never heard much about logical fallacies, I recommend you to take a look through this site. It may be the most educational hour or so you will spend this year.

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Categories Ireland, science

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. It really does.

October 3, 2008 //

These stories came along in threes today. I don’t know what to say.

1) “Neal Beagley, 16, died because of bladder complications nearly four months ago. Authorities said his parents belong to the Followers of Christ Church, a religion relying on prayer in place of medical care.” 

KPTV, via Friendly Atheist

2) “Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.”

BBC World Service

3) “Entrusting their recovery to untrained counselors barely out of Bible college, the Mercy girls said that exorcisms and speaking in tongues took the place of treatment, that expulsion was the punishment for peeing without permission, and that DVDs featuring the testimony of former gays were peddled as a cure for lesbianism.”

Nashville Scene, via Friendly Atheist

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Categories science, stuff

A solar energy breakthrough?

September 1, 2008 //

Oh my.

A big breakthrough was announced last month by researchers in MIT that may dramatically increase the importance of solar cells as a major source of energy. Up to now, there has been no easy way to store solar energy. The immediate availability of sunlight pretty much dictates how much power you have at any time. As soon as the sun goes down your immersion heater starts to cool down and your solar powered car grinds to a halt.

Meanwhile, nature has been busy mocking us. All around, efficient natural solar factories are at work converting the sun’s heat into chemical energy and storing this energy away for use at a later time. These conversion factories are known to the rest of us as leaves.

Taking a leaf (ouch) from nature, the MIT researchers have discovered a chemical mechanism (a catalyst) that can be used to extract oxygen from water at room temperature. Another catalyst is then used to extract hydrogen from water. All you need to trigger the reactions is electricity (from a solar cell for example). Both gases can then be safely stored away for later use. To create usable energy later on, you recombine the two gasses in a device known as a fuel cell.

Cheap, reliable, clean solar energy generated from within your home. Your house as a power station and as a refueling station. No need to wire your house to a power station. According to the scientists, we might see changes happening in as little as 10 years time. It will be interesting to see how it works out. 

Then again, this is Ireland. Now, if you could extract energy from rainclouds you might get somewhere..

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Categories worth a look

What if life was found on Mars?

May 25, 2008 //

The Phoenix lander alighting on the surface of Mars

Later today (or early tomorrow morning depending on your current time zone), the Phoenix probe lands on Mars to investigate if life, or traces of ancient life, exists in Mars’ polar wastes. There is a fascinating video on APOD today showing the probe entering Mars’ atmosphere and unfurling its instruments.

It is possible that today may mark one of the greatest discoveries in human history – finding life on another planet. But what are the repercussions, really?

From a religious perspective, there appears to be two possibilities: many of the moderate religions would be relatively open to the idea that the universe is teeming with life, a view bolstered by the Vatican astronomer recently. The fundamentalist religions would appear to have a problem, having accepted that the Earth is the ultimate focus of God’s work. It’s unlikely though that any of them will collapse, inoculated as they are against logic and evidence-based thinking. A bit of word-smithing will usually suffice for most of their congregations and to hell with those throwing stones from the outside. In other words: business as usual.

From a scientific perspective, the discovery on life should not come as a surprise. Over the last 400 years, a stong body of evidence has been built up that we are not so important, or unique, in the greater scheme of things. Given the vastness of the universe, and the ability of life forms to survive even in the most inhospitable of conditions on Earth, the discovery of extraterrestrial life would only bolster this viewpoint. Philosophically, the existence of life would be uncontroversial enough. What’s far more interesting would be the questions that this discovery would pose. What is the composition of the DNA? Would the chemical composition be different? What are the origins of life on Mars? Where else might we look for life? What would the implications be were we to bring samples back to earth? What would this tell us about the creation of artificial life in the lab? To put it mildly, the discovery would have the effect of reshaping and redirecting the research agenda in the 21st Century.

From a man-in-the-street perspective, it would be enlightening, a topic of conversation. I’m not sure if it would change anyone’s life irreperably, as we have now become so used to the announcement of impressive scientific discoveries in our lives. It would be a flitting moment of celebrity, until the media find something else to absorb their attention.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is moot and the more probable event of life not being found will be the result. In any case I’d welcome any views you might have.

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Categories interests, worth a look

What if we were not here any more?

April 10, 2007 //

What if humans no longer existed? What if one day, all the animals woke up to find us no longer here? What would happen to the Earth then? Here’s an account that speculates about what might happen next.

I’m fascinated by these things ever since I read a book that associated the rise and fall of human society in Ireland with pollen samples taken from ancient soils.

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Categories Ireland

The Cambodian Jungle Girl

January 19, 2007 //

The media is reporting that a woman has been discovered in Cambodia who has lived in the wild since the age of eight. She is unable to speak any language and has had no normal human contact for 19 years.

I find the subject of feral children both fascinating and discomfiting. Feral children (children that have been brought up in the wild) have been documented for many centuries and have inspired many of the great works of children’s literature, from the Jungle Book to Tarzan.

These children have been the subject of much scientific research since the eighteenth century because these cases seemed to posess a key insight to deep questions about humanity. What are humans like when civilisation and socialisation are removed? What is our natural state? Are we influenced by nature or by nurture? What aspects of us are innate and what are acquired traits? Are we naturally good, or naturally bad? Can we change who we are? Is religion instinctive? How close are we really to our animal neighbours? In what specific ways are we different?

In the case of feral children, many of these questions remain unanswered. The feral state, for a human child, is an unnatural one. Many of the children were damaged by their experience and needed significant care for the rest of their lives. In fact, cases of modern day child-neglect (such as the Genie case) are not dissimilar. The cases seem to emphasise strongly that we humans need others and probably have always done so. Studying a lone child in the woods eating roots and berries tells us very little, apart perhaps how great our ability to survive is and what effect isolation can have on the development of a young mind.

A few years ago, I wrote up some of the more celebrated stories here, and a very compresensive account of all the stories can be seen at this site.

Update 2006/01/24 : Reportedly, the girl has tried to speak, but the words are not intelligible.

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Categories interests

Moments along Lake Michigan

November 13, 2006 //

Field Museum of Chicago

My friends and I went on a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago this weekend. It’s one of America’s greatest natural history and cultural museums, and like many similar places of learning around the world, you would need a week to see all the exhibits.

The museum bears a resemblance to the Natural History Museum in London. Instead of a diplodocus, “Sue” the Tyrannosaurus Rex is there to greet you, alongside two massive elephants under the watchful eye of a pair of great totem poles. We spent an hour with the birds and animals of the World, listening to the sounds made by these creatures – the song of the Loon was extraordinary: how ancient explorers to the continent must have been petrified when they heard this bird for the first time.

We then took a trip through the geological section. PC showed us a geode that her dad donated to the museum and we also saw a fine collection of meteorites. The museum has a very fine “history of life” exhibit where the public is invited to walk through a number of galleries ranging from Pre-Cambrian times right up to the post-Ice Age (Holocene) epoch, interrupted now and again by a Great Extinction. The Cambrian Period room is particularly good. They have a huge video display showing us what the animals of this time might have looked like and how they might have behaved, and in glass cases are the Burgess Shale fossils of bizarre creatures such as Wiwaxia, Hallucigenia and the Pikaia. I could have stayed hours in that room alone, but even greater delights were on display in other rooms – a full size Apatosaurus skeleton, the small “Tully Monster” fossil: an unknown creature from the Carboniferous Period, as well as impressive mammoth and megatherium skeletons. One of my favourites were the intact fossils from the Santana formation in Brazil – flash-fossilised fish that still show their scales and soft body parts. The last exhibit on the way out of this section is a display that tells you how many species have been made extinct since the museum opened that day.

On Sunday, I drove up to Milwaukee, and spent around an hour there, getting utterly lost mainly. It’s a pretty city – quite old in places with some fine lake-side views. There’s a lot of road construction taking place in the city so it took me a while to find my way out. I spent the next few hours in Gurnee Mills Mall, an enormous outlet store near the Wisconsin border, buying toys for a fraction of the price you would get them in Ireland.

In O’Hare, while waiting to check in for my return flight to Dublin, an old priest started to hand out lollipops to some kids in the queue behind me. I found this very unsettling, and I think their parents did too. A random act of kindness? Maybe. However given everything that has come to light in Ireland over the last 15 years, another inference could too easily be drawn. I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting cynical..

I got about two hours sleep in the plane – the usual – but I have a good book recommendation from a fellow passenger – The Kite Runner. He compares it to To Kill a Mockingbird, so I must read it as soon as I have finished “The Heart of Darkness” – another enthralling book.

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Categories tours and trips
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