Archive for the 'Science' Category
First, second, and now… third-hand smoke!
January 7, 2009“Clean Car Challenge”? Words matter!
June 23, 2008When in need of something that animates me enough to write a post, I have to look no further than a global warming- related story.
McCain is apparently selling an idea called the Clean Car Challenge- where the government offers $300 million to anyone who develops a battery for electric cars that meets certain goals set forth by the proposal. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for developing new energy technology, and these are very good goals.
However, this is driving me nuts, and I’ll tell you why. The name of the prize is WRONG. There is nothing more vital to public discourse than clarity. The language we use to communicate is the front line in the battle of clear thought. This “Cean Car” business- along with “Clean Energy”, “Clean Coal”, and the like- just muddies the waters. It is not honest discourse, it is not an honest title.
What, exactly, is being rewarded by this prize? Well:
The presumed Republican nominee on Monday proposed a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology… such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars”.
What the heck does clean have to do with any of that? This is certainly to be a more efficient car. It is indeed intended to greatly reduce the “carbon footprint” of the driver. But is it in any sense more clean than existing electric cars which emit no emissions of any kind into the air? No!
Now of course well all know that the association intended by those who created the prize title is that this car is “clean” because it will reduce carbon emissions by its energy efficiency. There is just one problem with this. Carbon dioxide isn’t dirt, people. It’s all around you, all the time. It is not even a poisonous gas- it is vital to life. There is a real problem when the language has been manipulated to the degree that people automatically equate clean air with low carbon dioxide levels. They are two very disparate ideas. I am willing to acknowledge that, yes, perhaps low carbon emissions are a good thing. However, the real goal of an initiative such as this should be efficiency and a reduced dependency on oil, thereby creating cheaper energy.
Think about it this way- what if someone, somewhere, developed a battery powered car that emitted no carbon, required no oil, and was very cheap and efficient to operate, allowing you all the freedom of existing gas powered engines, but (for some reason) it spewed a fetid mix of (carbon free) chewing tobacco, baby diapers, and finger nail clippings all over the place? By the currently employed definition of “clean”, this car would fit to a T. But would it really be clean? Of course not. So why do we equate no carbon with clean? It makes no sense.
Look, I know there is very little common ground between myself and the global warming crowd. But can we at least make an attempt to not make the issue more complicated by bastardizing the English language in this way?
Newt Gingrich sucks now
June 5, 2008Spending money to combat climate change could easily be the most ridiculous political proposition around today. It’s definitely worse than making kissy faces at Iran, absolutely worse than McCain or Obama’s economic proposals, and possibly worse than rolling back our relationship with Israel.
Look- even if you believe global climate change caused by man is a major problem, it doesn’t immediately follow that spending large amounts of money to fight it is a good idea. Think about it this way. If you had termites in your home, you would call the local bug guy to come zap them. However, if you were say, George III somewhere around the time of the American Revolution, and you had termites in your summer home in Wessex or Sussex or Dorkshire or wherever, it wouldn’t be the smartest idea to sink large sums of money and effort into combating them. There just isn’t a whole lot you can do about it. You could burn down your house, sure, but that’s pretty drastic. The only option you have is to adapt. Keep an eye on the problem, fix disasters as they occur, and perhaps research any promising ways to address the problem through new technology.
My point is that when it comes to the global climate and our ability to do anything about it, we are more like George III dealing with termites in 18th century England than we are Dr. House combating a mysterious disease. We simply don’t know enough, aren’t powerful enough, and don’t have enough tools to do much about it. Sinking billions of dollars into a problem we can’t fix is, frankly, crazy.
And it doesn’t help matters that Newt Gingrich, former champion of the contract with America, has bought into it.
It’s sad but true:
Ah, that’s the question isn’t it?
April 22, 2008Or rather, these are the questions:
People have been wrestling with these same questions for centuries, and I of course don’t claim to have all the answers. There are volumes of books written about them, and I suppose all explanations would be called “rationalizations” by the maker of the video. After watching it, I suddenly realized that I only had a vague idea of what, exactly, a rationalization is. So I did what all “college educated professionals” (yuk yuk yuk) would do. I looked it up:
ra·tion·al·ize
v. ra·tion·al·ized, ra·tion·al·iz·ing, ra·tion·al·iz·esv.tr.1. To make rational.2. To interpret from a rational standpoint.3. To devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for (one’s behavior): “Many shoppers still rationalize luxury purchases as investments” Janice Castro.
Now it is obvious which definition of rationalize is meant by the video (#3), however let me point out something here which has some bearing on the whole affair: a rationalization is in the eye of the beholder. What is rational to one person may be complete nonsense to another, and the only way to determine whether an argument is a rationalization is to base this determination on the things one already knows to be true, or one’s presuppositions. By labeling all arguments contrary to his assertion that “God is imaginary” as absurd, the video creator is involved in circular reasoning of the following variety: essentially he is saying it is absurd to give an answer to the question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” because all such explanations are rationalizations. He is presupposing that God is imaginary before announcing his conclusion- something a “college educated professional” (translation: if you don’t agree with me you’re stupid) ought to know will lead to error. Observe the following syllogism:
- All arguments based on rationalizations lead to invalid conclusions.
- Any answer to the question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” other than “God is imaginary” is a rationalization.
- Therefore, “God is imaginary” is the only valid conclusion.
- There was a man who lived in 1st century Israel called Yeshua (Jesus) who was unjustly executed by the Roman authorities.
- There is overwhelming historical evidence that the gospels of the NT ought to be considered as accurate depictions of his life and words.
- There is overwhelming evidence even independent of these gospels that he rose from the dead.
No, instead I would simply like to ask in regard to those presuppositions: what does the maker of the video do with Jesus? How does a man rising from the dead after 3 days in a grave square with the statement “God is imaginary?” If you can answer me that, then I will tell you why God does not heal amputees (even though he did- lepers and so forth, with fingers missing, etc. In front of people. It was written down. By 4 men, all 4 of whom were tortured over and over because they wouldn’t admit they made it all up).
Weather Channel founder says global warming is crap
March 4, 2008I honestly am not sure which of the following statements are true:
1) Global warming (or more specifically, global climate change) is not happening at all, period, end of story. Much like the heterosexual AIDS scare of the 80s/90s, it is simply a fabrication of the media and 20 years from now, we’ll be thinking “Whatever happened to the whole global warming thing?”
2) Global climate change IS happening, but it is natural. It is overwhelmingly due to the activity of the sun or other natural phenomena with a microscopic man caused portion, and even if we stopped all carbon related activity whatsoever, there is essentially nothing man can do about it. (Even if this one is true, it doesn’t mean global warming is necessarily a bad thing. There are many reasons to think that global warming would actually be a net benefit for mankind.)
3) Climate change is happening, it is caused by man, but we shouldn’t do anything about it because it’s either not going to be catastrophic, or at the very least not worth the cost because the benefits of energy use outweigh the costs of rolling back carbon emissions. This is the view of one gentleman of whom I am a big fan, Bjorn Lomborg. (click the link! it’s good!)
I am certain, however, that the following is false:
4) Global warming is happening, it will be catastrophic, it is man’s fault, and we must act to stop it now no matter the cost.
The last statement seems to be the point of view of the most of the world nowadays. It certainly seems to be the view espoused at UK- at least in my Geography 160 class (Dr. PP Karan).
However, the founder of The Weather Channel John Coleman seems to think #1 is true, and he is talking about suing over it.
Can I just ask: if the guy that founded TWC is not convinced global climate change is happening, should you be?
Big Bang Badda Boom
February 20, 2008Be warned that this post gets a little heady. If you skip to the end, there’s a really interesting, general-population oriented video explaining what is meant (at least by one scientist) by ‘10 dimensional string theory’. It’s a fun, short video. Skip to the end and watch it if you want.
If I may be allowed to put on my nerd hat (which begs the question: do I ever remove it?), it may surprise some that this idea actually makes sense to me (I’ve butchered the article text into a smaller form):
For decades, physicists have accepted the notion that the universe started with the Big Bang.. (but) physicist Neil Turok is challenging that model… Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end… According to Turok, …the Big Bang represents just one stage in an infinitely repeated cycle of universal expansion and contraction…
Within a school of string theory known as m-theory, Turok said, “the seventh extra dimension of space is the gap between two parallel objects called branes. It’s like the gap between two parallel mirrors. We thought, What happens if these two mirrors collide? Maybe that was the Big Bang.”
And now the most interesting part:
Turok’s proposition has drawn condemnation from string theory’s many critics and even opposition from the Catholic Church.
Ah, nothing like crack-pot physics theorizing to bring together string theorists and the Catholic Church.
Now, I say that it may surprise some that I, a religious Christian theist, find this to be an acceptable idea because it seems to fly in the face of the traditional Christian view of creation; a view which dictates that God created the world ex nihilo. I’m sure this is precisely the reason the Catholic Church is upset. Yet it is short sighted, oh my dear fellow religious devotees, to react to this sort of theory with animosity and distrust toward science and scientists.
I have my problems with string theory and much of modern physics, but I do not run from it. Indeed I consider it a healthy, Biblically sound attitude to lend equal weight to faith/scripture and science, and Turok’s theorizing is a case in point. If he is correct, then it must be admitted that instead of the Stephen Hawking position where the world suddenly comes into existence, the universe has always been and always will be. And this is where the Christian theist gets the last laugh.
One critique of Christian theism from a purely materialistic world view, whether it is steeped in a humanistic or Nihilist approach, avers that faith in an infinite God is an untenable position. It has been much more tasteful (and I don’t mean emotionally- for most materialists, the non existence of God is emotionally distasteful) for the materialist’s intellect to be able to say that the universe had a definite beginning in and of itself, and that it will have a definite end. Inexplicably- and I honestly have never entirely understood why- Christians have come to embrace the concept of the Big Bang, on the basis that it establishes that the universe did indeed have a beginning, as scripture teaches; and not only a beginning but a Beginner, since logic implies such things like the Big Bang can’t happen on their own. Christian theists and the Stephen Hawkings of the scientific community have found themselves in a sort of odd agreement about this theory, each for their own reasons. Unfortunately most Christians do not realize that as a result of this unholy alliance, they are victims of a recondite fraud; the entire point of the Big Bang theory is to allow physicists to postulate a framework where the universe could have a beginning on its own, without a Beginner. Philosophical afterthoughts by amateurs are of no import- they are not at all scientific.
Let me be clear: I am not advocating wholesale abandonment of Big Bang theory based on this one Wired article, neither for Christians nor for physicists. For one thing, Wired’s reputation (at least with me) is sketchy at best, and for another, I am suspicious of string theory and think the whole idea is a bunch of metaphysical claptrap anyway. And as I said before, I am very comfortable with the idea of harmony between science and faith: they are not mutually exclusive. However, if Turok is right and the materialist is forced to admit the universe is an infinite entity past and future, it is hard to ignore the scientific implications this would have on belief in God. As things stand, the materialist can ascribe to a finite universe based on credible scientific theory and at least try to make himself appear on a higher intellectual plane than the theist, who must have faith in an infinitely existing God. There are answers to this riddle, though they are complicated. If this situation were to change- if the infinitely existing universe were an established principle of scientific observation- the materialist no longer has a leg on which to stand. He must evaluate a body of evidence that leads him to have faith in an infinitely existing universe, exactly as the Christian theist evaluates a body evidence (some of it the same evidence) which leads him to faith in an infinitely existing God.
The materialist will complain that his idea is based on scientific observation, and that this theory of metaphysics (defined as the mechanics of first cause) does not necessitate an infinite God anymore than the Big Bang necessitates a Big Banger. I have no argument in response except to say that he is correct, but the point is not that it proves the existence of an infinite God. The point is that the classical critique against Christian theism, viz, that Christian theism demands a step of faith which is not insisted on by materialism, is rendered moot. We are now both on the same page.
And now as promised, here is the fun video:
Thoughts of the future
February 16, 2008Speaking as an aspiring engineer, this is a really lame list. I mean, some of these areas are admirable goals, but after reading the title of the Wired article, And the 14 Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century Are…, I was disappointed. It seems like nothing more than an exercise in a bunch of guys trying to sound smart and not much else.
Would a 20th century list made circa 1900 have even been worth making? Would it have included the computer? internet? television? radio? interstate highway system? antibiotics? space shuttle? radar? A36 steel? plastic? polymers? artificial textiles? secondary water treatment? quantum mechanics? A foresighted one might have included the airplane.
I realize the intent isn’t to try to predict and instead to try to focus efforts, but that’s just my point. From a technological and engineering perspective, we are so clueless about what the coming decades hold that a bunch of ‘the smartest guys in the room’ trying to draw up an admittedly informal but still quasi-centralized focus on research efforts is silly at best, perhaps even arrogant, and at worst misguided.
Look, I’m not against planning, but we rarely are able to plan the future or even for future problems anyway; the only things we can plan are solutions for current problems. And that’s all this list is trying to do. If I was a gambling man, I’d say that at most 4 of these 14 things will be at all close to the top of the most important feats of the century we so recently embarked on.
Anyway, here’s the (lame) list:
- Make solar energy affordable.
- Provide energy from fusion.
- Develop carbon sequestration methods.
- Manage the nitrogen cycle.
- Provide access to clean water.
- Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
- Advance health informatics.
- Engineer better medicines.
- Reverse-engineer the brain.
- Prevent nuclear terror.
- Secure cyberspace.
- Enhance virtual reality.
- Advance personalized learning.
- Engineer the tools for scientific discovery.
Something for which to give thanks
November 22, 2007It’s Thanksgiving Day- the most important holiday of the year if you ask me; a day more important than Christmas, Easter, or Independence Day. Why? Because there is not one virtue more integral to a joyful, humble, righteous human life than an attitude of thankfulness.
This past 2 weeks something happened in the world that ought to give every compassionate and morally-minded individual reason to be thankful: the embryonic stem cell research debate is effectively dead.
Witness this story in the New York Times:
Two teams of scientists reported yesterday that they had turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo — a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.
<snip>
Researchers and ethicists not involved in the findings say the work, conducted by independent teams from Japan and Wisconsin, should reshape the stem cell field. At some time in the near future, they said, today’s debate over whether it is morally acceptable to create and destroy human embryos to obtain stem cells should be moot.
<snip>
The new method sidesteps other ethical quandaries, creating stem cells that genetically match the donor without having to resort to cloning or the requisite donation of women’s eggs. Genetically matched cells would not be rejected by the immune system if used as replacement tissues for patients. Even more important, scientists say, is that genetically matched cells from patients would enable them to study complex diseases, like Alzheimer’s, in the laboratory.Until now, the only way most scientists thought such patient-specific stem cells could be made would be to create embryos that were clones of that person and extract their stem cells. Just last week, scientists in Oregon reported that they did this with monkeys, but the prospect of doing such experiments in humans has been ethically fraught.
But with the new method, human cloning for stem cell research, like the creation of human embryos to extract stem cells, may be unnecessary. The new cells in theory might be turned into an embryo, but not by simply implanting them in a womb.
“It really is amazing,” said Dr. Leonard Zon, director of the stem cell program at Children’s Hospital Boston at Harvard Medical School.
And, said Dr. Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University, it is “ethically uncomplicated.”
For all the hopes invested in it over the last decade, embryonic stem cell research has moved slowly, with no cures or major therapeutic discoveries in sight.
I cannot emphasize how incredibly monumental this news is. It means that finally, people with differing views on morality and politics and come together to fight terrible diseases that afflict humanity without having to worry about the ethical implications.
One more quick story on this Thanksgiving Day before I go eat turkey (TURKEY!), also via the New York Times:
If the stem cell wars are indeed nearly over, no one will savor the peace more than James A. Thomson.
Dr. Thomson’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that in 1998 plucked stem cells from human embryos for the first time, destroying the embryos in the process and touching off a divisive national debate.
And on Tuesday, his laboratory was one of two that reported a new way to turn ordinary human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without ever using a human embryo.
The fact is, Dr. Thomson said in an interview, he had ethical concerns about embryonic research from the outset, even though he knew that such research offered insights into human development and the potential for powerful new treatments for disease.
“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough,” he said. “I thought long and hard about whether I would do it.”
He decided in the end to go ahead, reasoning that the work was important and that he was using embryos from fertility clinics that would have been destroyed otherwise. The couples whose sperm and eggs were used to create the embryos had said they no longer wanted them. Nonetheless, Dr. Thomson said, announcing that he had obtained human embryonic stem cells was “scary,” adding, “It was not known how it would be received.”
But he never anticipated the extent and rancor of the stem cell debate. For nearly a decade now, the issue has bitterly divided patients and politicians, religious groups and researchers.
Now with the new technique, which involves adding just four genes to ordinary adult skin cells, it will not be long, he says, before the stem cell wars are a distant memory. “A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote,” Dr. Thomson said in the interview.
As for the science behind it, the thrill of discovery, he said, “Surprisingly, there is no ‘Wow’ moment,” either from 1998 or now. Both times, the discovery came after he had spent months rigorously testing the cells to be sure they really were stem cells, worrying all the while that they could die or be lost to contamination. When he knew he had succeeded, the suspense was gone.
“Imagine holding your breath for a few months,” Dr. Thomson said. When he was done, he said, “I felt mostly a sense of relief.”
But he knows what he wrought. Stem cells, universal cells that can turn into any of the body’s 220 cell types, normally emerge only fleetingly after a few days of embryo development. Scientists want to use them to study complex human diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in a petri dish, finding causes and treatments. And, they say, it may be possible to use the cells to grow replacement tissues for patients.
The problem until now had been the source of the cells — human embryos.
The topic, says R. Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin ethicist, “took on an almost iconic quality the same way Roe v. Wade has.”
In the meantime, many leading scientists decided not to get into the stem cell field. There was a stigma attached, Dr. Thomson says. And, he adds, “Most scientists don’t like controversial things.”
A native of Oak Park, Ill., James Alexander Thomson, 48, did not set out to throw bioethical bombs. All he wanted, he said, was to answer the most basic scientific questions about cellular development.
First there was a degree in biophysics from the University of Illinois. As a graduate student, Dr. Thomson began working with mouse embryonic stem cells and then, with federal support, he extracted stem cells from monkey embryos. After earning two doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania, one in veterinary medicine and one in molecular biology, he continued research at his own laboratory at the University of Wisconsin.
Eventually he realized, though, that studying mice and monkeys could take him only so far. If he wanted to understand how human embryos develop and why their development sometimes goes awry, he needed human stem cells. But, he says, he hesitated.
In 1995, he began consulting with two ethicists at his university, Dr. Norman Fost, a physician, and Ms. Charo, a law professor. He wanted to anticipate what the ethical problems might be and what the criticisms might be.
Dr. Fost was impressed.
“It is unusual in the history of science for a scientist to really want to think carefully about the ethical implications of his work before he sets out to do it,” Dr. Fost said. “The biggest problem in ethics is not anticipating problems.”
But Dr. Fost and Dr. Thomson guessed wrong about what would bother people most. They thought it would be what Dr. Fost termed “the technological power” of stem cells. What if someone put human stem cells into the brain of a rat, for example?
“I thought at the time that this was possibly the biggest issue,” Dr. Fost said. “It was unprecedented in the history of biology. It’s the ‘Help, get me out of here’ scenario. Let’s say the rat brain turns out to be entirely human cells. What’s going on in there? Is it a human brain? And how would you study it — you can’t ask the rat.”
Meanwhile, as Dr. Thomson was planning his effort to obtain human embryonic stem cells, another discovery changed his entire view of development. In 1997, Ian Wilmut, a scientist in Scotland, announced the creation of the first cloned mammal, Dolly, cloned from frozen udder cells from a long-dead sheep.
Dr. Wilmut had slipped an udder cell — a cell that normally would never be anything but an udder cell — into an egg whose genetic material had been removed. The egg somehow brought the udder cell’s chromosomes back to the state they had been in when embryo development first began.
“Dolly changed the way I thought about developmental biology,” Dr. Thomson says. “Development was reversible.”
Four years ago he and, independently, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University set out to figure out a way to mimic what an egg can do. Both succeeded and both discovered that all they had to do was add four genes to the cells and the cells would turn into what look, so far, just like stem cells.
“It is actually fairly straightforward to repeat what we have done,” Dr. Thomson said.
More work remains, but he is confident that the path ahead is clear.
“Isn’t it great to start a field and then to end it,” he said.
The rights of the as-yet-uncreateable
November 12, 2007Apparently, cloning primates is no longer science fiction, which means cloning humans is soon to be a reality. But not quite yet.
However, the UN- that bastion of freedom which has historically done such a bang-up job of protecting human rights around the world- is worried:
Unless the world bans human cloning it may be just a matter of time until we share the Earth with exact copies… Tobin believes the international community will have a responsibility to protect the human rights of cloned individuals if human cloning is not banned. Essentially the choices come down to this: prevent human cloning by acting soon or work towards preventing discrimination against clones.
This seems like only so much alarmism to me. If clones are created and birthed, it still has to be done via a womb- this is not like that 1980s flick D.A.R.Y.L. (remember that one? With Michael McKean. The kid steals an F-15 and can play amazing Atari.) where they grow kids in some kind of artificial womb and raise them in a big secret base somewhere. The clones will still be babies with a birth mother, and at least 1 genetic parent which may or may not be their birth mother- but with so many single parent families today, is that aspect even a concern? They will still grow up and go to school. There will be nothing to distinguish them (except perhaps for genetic abnormalities or ailments stemming from shortcomings in the cloning process) from everyone else. Cloned sheep stink just like other sheep. Cloned cows taste just as yummy as regular cows. The only thing that will be odd about the clone is that he or she will be strikingly physically similar to their mother or father as they mature. That and their only having 1 genetic parent are the ONLY differences.
This is also an classic example of Orwellian doublethink. I guarantee you that the same folks who are so concerned about the rights of unborn, uncreated, cloned humans who do not even yet exist have nothing- zero, zilch- to say about rights of the millions of unborn children currently murdered around the world every year.
So, yet again, the UN is stirring up a controversy where there is none, and belying its real goals. This is really about power. The UN wants to control how much we drive our cars, regulate the internet, and exercise judicial powers over people all over the world, among other things. I have no doubt people are genuinely concerned about this cloning thing, but really, this is not about cloning; this is about a group of people who think they are so enlightened and sophisticated that they feel it is their moral duty to impose their views on the entire world.
Now from a standpoint of Judeo-Christian values and the sanctity of human life, of course there are other issues to consider here, such as creating human embryos in a laboratory for experimentation and/or for harvesting their stem cells, resulting in eventual destruction, and the commoditization of human life (growing a selling cloned human body parts). I’m not saying that we should just clone clone clone to our little heart’s content. However, the only thing that will guide us through these morally murky waters is a sober evaluation of the questions at hand, and not the sentimentalized alarmism so prevalent in other quarters of life today.
