US Presidential Candidates Receive Questions on Science

The two US Presidential candidates received 14 questions related to science and science policy/funding.

According the ScienceDebate website, the 14 questions are designed to be “broad enough to allow wide variations in response, but specific enough to help guide the discussion towards many of the largest and unresolved challenges currently facing the US.”

You can read the actual wording of all of the 14 questions here.

Let's see if they have the courage to actually answer these questions AND also participate in the Science Debate. But based on previous attempts at having one, I'm not that confident. Even answers to these questions may not say much, since science funding is nowhere near the top of the priority for most people. Just look at the current election campaign and see if this has ever been mentioned. What we had instead are issues of "faith".

Zz.

Recapturing The Excitement Of Science

This article is all over the place and going in all directions. Its main emphasis is on the refurbishing of the Faraday Lecture Theatre at the Royal Institution in London. Still, it is an interesting read, especially on the historical aspect. Even more interesting, however, is that the impression that I have regarding the teaching of physics, and how the importance of physics is communicated to the general public, are articulated exactly in the article.

What a contrast with today. Last week, Ofsted reported that at both primary and secondary school level, science lessons were dull and there were not enough practical experiments. Teachers no longer entertain classes with explosions of powdered magnesium; gone are the bunsen burners for heating noxious mixtures in fragile test-tubes.

"Science is a fascinating and exciting subject," said Chief inspector Christine Gilbert. "Yet for many pupils, it lacks appeal because of the way that it is taught."

So why are so many people today happy to admit that they find science difficult and dull? Some of the blame may be laid at the doors of our education system, as the Ofsted report suggested. But there must be more to the flight from science.

People who would never admit to a lack of understanding of art or literature are happy to confess to total incomprehension where science is concerned. Yet our lives today depend as never before upon the outcomes of innovative science and technology. Without medical science, our lives would be shorter and more painful; without physics and chemistry, domestic conveniences that ease our everyday lives could never have been developed.

If, however, the reason for the general public's disenchantment with science is to be laid at the door of scientists unable or unprepared to communicate their subject so as to engage the interest and enthusiasm of non-specialists, then the Royal Institution is continuing a long tradition actively to counter such a trend.

This person in that speeding case may be exactly the product of such an environment, resulting in a complete disconnect between the advances in physics and the way we live our lives today.

Zz.

The Laws Of Physics Do Not Apply Here?

I was casually reading this article, which started out to be rather amusing. But then, it got VERY annoying especially when the ignorant judge started to give out his opinion.

A couple in England was contesting a speeding ticket when the wife was caught using a speed camera. Her husband, who happened to be a physicist, challenged the speeding ticket because the speed camera wasn't used according to instruction.

Now I have no idea who's right or who's wrong here, and this isn't really the focus of this blog post. However, what caused my jaw to drop was what the judge then said.

West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership spokesman, Philip Gwynne, said Mr Fielden appeared to be "defending his wife's honour" by "using the laws of physics."

He said: "However, the judge has ruled that in speeding cases it is the law of the land that matters – not the law of physics.

"Maybe it's time that we left physics in the classroom and allowed cameras to get on with their job which is to reduce injury and death on our roads and encourage people to drive within the speed limits," he continued.

Er... hello? Didn't the camera actually used physics to measure a vehicle's speed in the first place? And what's with confining physics to only "in the classroom" nonsense? Is he out of his mind making such a silly statement like that?

I hate to say this, but I shouldn't be shocked by such stupidity anymore. However, it also a reflection on those in physics to evaluate on whether we have done enough to emphasize the relevance of physics in our world today. Too often, big news on physics have come from very esoteric areas of physics. This includes high energy physics (the LHC is in the new a lot lately), astrophysics, etc., all of which are definitely important, but have a major disconnect between the subject area and what the general public are familiar with. They don't see how such things are applicable in their daily lives, and so have the impression that physics only deals with things that they don't use. They forget that their basic electronics, and most of their modern conveniences, came out of discoveries in physics, especially solid state/condensed matter physics.

Confining physics to the classroom is the last thing we want to do.

Zz.

EDIT/UPDATE: There's a bit of confusion on my part on who said that idiotic passage that I quoted from the news article. From this report, it appears that it is the person by the name of

Philip Gwynne, a spokesman for West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, which runs the camera, said: "Maybe it's time we left the physics in the classroom. The cameras are there to encourage people to drive safely."

If this is true, than I apologize to the presiding judge, and this Philip Gwynne character has a serious problem. The "West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership" can't possibly want someone this ignorant to be their spokesman..... can they?

Zz.

Public Outreach Program For Gravitational Wave Astronomy?

It could happen! It certainly isn't a very well-known area of physics/astronomy, so any kind of publicity and public outreach can certainly help in making the field more familiar to students and the public.

This preprint highlights the effort in introducing gravitational wave research by the LIGO collaboration to students, educators, and the public.

Abstract: The nascent field of gravitational-wave astronomy offers many opportunities for effective and inspirational astronomy outreach. Gravitational waves, the "ripples in space-time" predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity, are produced by some of the most energetic and dramatic phenomena in the cosmos, including black holes, neutron stars and supernovae. The detection of gravitational waves will help to address a number of fundamental questions in physics, from the evolution of stars and galaxies to the origin of dark energy and the nature of space-time itself. Moreover, the cutting-edge technology developed to search for gravitational waves is pushing back the frontiers of many fields, from lasers and materials science to high performance computing, and thus provides a powerful showcase for the attractions and challenges of a career in science and engineering. For several years a worldwide network of ground-based laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors has been fully operational, including the two LIGO detectors in the United States. These detectors are already among the most sensitive scientific instruments on the planet and in the next few years their sensitivity will achieve further significant improvement. Those developments promise to open an exciting new window on the Universe, heralding the arrival of gravitational-wave astronomy as a revolutionary, new observational field. In this paper we describe the extensive program of public outreach activities already undertaken by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and a number of special events which we are planning for IYA2009.

Zz.

Rethinking Expertise

In an earlier post, I responded to a writer who called professional scientists the "most scientifically illiterate group in the US" and pointed out several fallacies of that statement. The problem here is that the level of expert knowledge that scientists consider themselves to have. We know what it means and how it feels to know something very well. This is why when we read other area of studies, we know we do not have the same level of expertise and would rather be inclined to refer to a true expert in such a field.

A book that was recently reviewed in Physics World seems to support what I had said. In Rethinking Expertise by Harry Collins and Robert Evans, the authors makes several distinction on the level of knowledge that a person can have.

The starting point of the book is the obvious realization that, in science or any other specialized field, some people know more than others. To develop this truism, the authors present a “periodic table of expertise” — a classification that will make it clear who we should listen to when there is a decision to be made that includes a technical component. At one end of the scale is what Collins and Evans (who is also a Cardiff sociologist) engagingly call “beer-mat expertise” — that level of knowledge that is needed to answer questions in pub quizzes. Slightly above this lies the knowledge that one might gain from reading serious journalism and popular books about a subject. Further up the scale is the expertise that only comes when one knows the original research papers in a field. Collins and Evans argue that to achieve the highest level of expertise — at which one can make original contributions to a field — one needs to go beyond the written word to the tacit knowledge that is contained in a research community. This is the technical know-how and received wisdom that seep into aspirant scientists during their graduate-student apprenticeship to give them what Collins and Evans call “contributory expertise”.

What Collins and Evans claim as original is their identification of a new type of expertise, which they call “interactional expertise”. People who have this kind of expertise share some of the tacit knowledge of the communities of practitioners while still not having the full set of skills that would allow them to make original contributions to the field. In other words, people with interactional expertise are fluent in the language of the specialism, but not with its practice.

I think most of us who work in science are fully aware of that, and that is why we seldom offer "expert" opinion on an area that we didn't specialize in. We KNOW what level of understanding is required to be able to make an original contribution to it. This is something crackpots are not aware of, and something that most of the public are not aware of when they talk about science and gave the impression that they have actually understood the issue on hand.

I think I have the "interactional expertise" in many areas, where I can actually engage in a semi-intelligent conversation with experts in those areas. However, if someone were to ask me for information about something in those areas, I would definitely refer to an expert, even though I believe that I know more about that area of study more than the average Joe off the street. Unfortunately, for some people, my referral to an expert somehow implied that I'm "scientifically illiterate". How logical is that?

Zz.

The Problem With Using Scientists' Words To Support Religious Beliefs

This is a rather interesting article in Slate.com. It discusses the propensity of some people of quoting scientists, especially Einstein in particular, to support a particular religious point of view, or to say that even those great scientists believed in a deity.

I suppose when one deals with history or the nature of human interactions and beliefs, these quotes are the "data" one goes by to draw up a conclusion about that person. Of course, one only needs to examine a lot more than just a few quotes to get a more complete picture. Quotations need a frame of reference, a context, to give a fuller picture.

However, physics, on the other hand, are not done via a series of quotations, no matter how much one can cite such a thing. Most people not in this field of study seem to not be aware of that. If you look at the "debate" in the comments section on the issue of the LHC safety, you'll encounter a lot of "quotes" from various documents or from various people. This is done while the person extracting the quotes have no clue of the physics in question. One cannot engage in a physics discussion with people like that!

There is also another angle to all this. As a physicist, I highly respect the accomplishment of all the giants in this field. How can one not when one is benefiting from all the work and discoveries done by them. When I wrote my glowing comments about John Bardeen, while I admire his down-to-earth and unassuming demeanor, what I admire the most are his accomplishments, more than anything else. In other words, I look up to him as a physicist.

However, I also know that while I am in awe of these great scientists, I do not worship them. Their words are not the gospel, and they are or were still ordinary human beings. From what I have seen, many physicists also share the same level of acceptance. It is only those who somehow need need to put these people on such high pedestal that are examining each and every word that these prominent scientists say as if a favorable statement somehow justify their beliefs. "See? Einstein thinks the same way as I do!" Big Deal! Do you also understand General Relativity?

Zz.

Can Special Athletes Really Defy Physics?

I shouldn't highlight this, but I'm pissed at the title. The title of this article has no relevance whatsoever with the content. So why even bother making such a mockery?

Sometimes, when you're talking about "willing" something to happen, you don't mean defying the laws of physics.

It's not like a great place-kicker can make a poorly struck field goal hook back against the wind.

Nor do I believe Tiger can physically cause a putt to change directions.

But great athletes can mix talent with desire -- plus an incredible confidence -- to create the result they need.

Nothing in the article comes even close to "defying physics", whatever that means. If Tiger Woods actually putted a golf ball downhill past a hole, and then the ball decide to act against gravity and comes back to go into the hole, now THAT is what I would call 'defying physics', thankyouverymuch! If that happened, it will be an even bigger news than his painful win at the US Open, I can tell you that!

Furthermore, these people seem to have forgotten that Tiger has LOST {gasp!} before. I'm guessing that he had tried to "will" many putts into the hole during those losses that didn't happen. Thus, some of the claims being made in that "news" piece seem to be based on only on sports highlights on TV that selects favorable "data", rather than examines the whole body of evidence.

I don't expect a thorough scientific analysis of the data for something like this, but at the same time, the inability for people to do some simple analytical evaluation is utterly shocking. This is why there are people who believe in various mumbo-jumbo such as The Secret.

Zz.

Physicists in Congress Calculate Their Influence

OK, let me first of all qualify myself by saying that I love, LOVE, reading this piece. I don't ever recall reading a report on this before, even though there have been previous articles on how physicists work in the US Congress. But this NY Times article on the 3 physicists in the US Congress is just plain delightful.

First of all, it highlights what I have argued earlier. What is important is not that one learned a specific issue, but that one is equipped to learn about things and think things through analytically, which is something that can be acquired as a skill in a science class.

There are 435 people in the House, Mr. Holt said, and “420 don’t know much about science and choose not to.” He recalled his exasperation when anthrax spores were discovered in the Capitol in 2001 and colleagues came to him and said, “You are a scientist, you must know about anthrax,” a subject ordinarily missing from the physics curriculum.

“The difference,” he said, “is we would be perfectly happy to pick up a copy of The New England Journal of Medicine and read about the etiology of anthrax.”

“In fact, we basically did that,” Mr. Ehlers said.

“We know more than our colleagues,” Mr. Holt said, “but not more than they could know.

But it is also sad to know that these lawmakers are saddled with the same level of ignorance that we have seen in the general public.

But sometimes, he said, the problem is just old-fashioned ignorance. Several times he has found himself “rushing to the floor” to head off colleagues ready to eliminate financing for endeavors whose importance they did not understand.

Once it was game theory. The person seeking the cut did not seem to realize that game theory had to do with interactions in economics, behavior and other social sciences, not sports, Mr. Ehlers recounted.

Then there was the time he rose to defend A.T.M. research against a colleague who thought it should be left to the banking industry. In this case the initials stood for asynchronous transfer mode, a protocol for fiber-optic data transfer.

One would think that if one is making such an important decision on something, that one would at least figure out what those things mean, especially when these lawmakers have staffers that can easily brief them on what they are.

It would be nice to have more people in power who have a more positive inclination towards science, and physics in particular. However, I'm skeptical that there will be significantly more.

Zz.

Science Education for Everyone: Why and What?

This is a rather provocative and often insightful essay posted on RedOrbit. It discusses not just why a general science education for non-scientists/engineers is important (we all know that), but also how it should be done. There are certainly many points in this essay that I agree, and I certainly consider the general introductory course in Physics, for example, not quite as effective to non-science majors in terms of getting across the point. That's why I have tried to put down some suggestion on how to do this better from the perspective of the introductory laboratory exercises.

However, the essay goes a bit further than that and tackles the larger issue, which by and large, I agree with. However, I also think that the author may be missing an important point in all of this. For example:

When we take as our goal the production of students who are comfortable handling science-related issues that arise in public debate, two propositions follow immediately, both of which are profoundly out of tune with the current academic consensus: (1) the students need to know something about all areas of science, rather than a lot about a single area; and (2) the students do not need to be able to "do" science.

I have absolutely no problem with that one. But this one is where the author missed something important:

A common response to the notion of teaching all of the sciences is the claim that the standard type of courses really teach something called the "scientific method," and that this will magically give students the background they need to read the newspaper on the day they graduate. This argument is so silly that I scarcely know where to start commenting on it. If it were applied to any other field, its vacuity would be obvious; after all, no one argues that someone who wants to learn Chinese should study French, acquire the "language method," and learn Chinese on his or her own. If we expect our students to understand the basic principles of ecology or geology, we should teach those principles explicitly. To do otherwise is to indulge in what I call the "teach them relativity and they'll work out molecular biology on the way home" school of thought. Incidentally, the notion that there is a magical "scientific method" explains a bizarre feature of the modern scientific community. I am referring to the fact that, outside of their fields of specialty, professional scientists, as a group, are probably the most scientifically illiterate group in the United States. The reason is simpie: scientists are never required to study science outside of their own fields. The last time a working physicist saw a biology textbook, for example, was probably in high school. If you do not believe me, ask one of your scientific colleagues how he or she deals with public issues outside of his or her field. Chances are you'll get an answer like "I call a friend," a technique I refer to as having recourse to the Golden Rolodex.

There are 2 problems with the author's view on this:

1. Scientists, more than anyone else, I would think, know the limitation of what they know, and because of that, realize that that what they know about other fields are only at the superficial level. I can bet you that if you take someone off the street and another physicist, for example, evaluate carefully what each of them know about stem-cell, I will put my money that the physicist has a deeper technical understanding of what a stem-cell is. Yet, if you ask them casually about such issue, you can easily get the "I call a friend" answer. Why? Because most of us do not consider our knowledge to be on the expert level on such issues. Our "threshold" for considering that we have a valid understanding of something is SO HIGH, because we know what is meant to be an "expert" at something, that many of the important aspect of understanding something are in the DETAILS which one are not aware of by knowing something just superficially! So to deduce the fact that a scientist would rather rely on someone who is an expert in the other field as being "illiterate" in that area of study is bogus! This is where an "anecdotal" observation simply doesn't have enough substance to draw up such conclusion.

2. When we teach students science, or physics in particular, we are teaching them SKILLS, or more specifically, analytic skills. It is a systematic examination of the problems, looking at correlations via the relationships between various quantities and parameters, and then looking at the cause and effect. If one look closely, what I've mentioned here is totally INDEPENDENT of physics! You can apply such skill to any problem that one encounters in life! In fact, I just applied such skill in #1 to argue why the author's conclusion is faulty! When I did my series on the revamping of the undergraduate physics lab, the whole purpose of it is to make a CONSCIOUS effort to get the students to examine these aspects of the formation of knowledge. How do we accept something as being valid? When someone claims that "... scientifically illiterate group...", how do we judge that to be valid rather than just simply accepting it blindly just because someone writes it on a webpage? This is the whole essence of our ability to analyze a situation to make a valid conclusion, and thus, forming knowledge about something. While you do not study classical mechanics in introductory physics classes so that you can be able to understand the issues surrounding global warming, the SKILL that you acquire in thinking through a problem in classical mechanics is very much relevant in your effort to decipher the wide range of information that is contained in global warming.

But why can't we simply cut to the chase and just teach the kids about global warming, stem-cells, energy crisis, etc.. etc? Because there are an infinite number of scientific issues that can pop up! We simply can't cover ALL of these issues or even anticipate what's to come in the future. Nanotechnology is something that is fast emerging as something that could create quite a social issue soon. And who knows, there are those that could easily pop up anytime soon. Teaching specific subject matter rather than the skills that are subject independent is like giving a hunger person some fish, rather than teach that person how to fish. You can satisfy the immediate needs, but next time the same type problem crops up, you have to continue to provide more, rather than just give that person the skill to be able to solve it on his/her own.

I'm not saying covering these areas in a general science course is useless. They are not. However, they should be covered as ILLUSTRATIONS of the application of the analytical skills they learned in science classes. When someone mention "stem cell", a scientist wanting to know about it will first ask "OK, what is a stem cell? How is it defined? What does it do, and what are the properties?" Then the scientist will ask "OK, what are the social/cultural/moral issues? What are the points from each side? Do they make any valid ideas that are consistent with what stem cell is defined as? Are their conclusions unique, or can there be more than one conclusions based on the same set of data and understanding?" These are ALL the same type of questions a scientist asks in his/her own line of work, and the same skill applies when he/she tries to understand the same thing. I don't see any other way to evaluate something to be valid. This will allow someone to clearly know the boundary between something that is based on solid, physical evidence, versus something that has gone beyond that into the realm of moral decisions and social opinions.

The problem right now, as I see it, is that there isn't a conscious effort to tell these students that this is one of the main purpose of them enrolling in such science courses. Many, if not most, of the instructors are simply teaching the content, with little emphasis, even if they are aware of it, of the analytical skills that are being "accidentally taught" through such classes. So these students are encountering a very valuable skill without knowing it, and they lose it afterwards because it isn't something that was visible to them as being important. It is why, I think, that we can start with the revamping of the intro physics labs, because this is where science is right in front of their face, and where they see how we accept or understand something. Only through a conscious and deliberate effort of emphasizing such analytical skills can we generate a general population that can do their own self-evaluation of the information that they are being bombarded with.

Zz.

Boffo Box Office for Science Festival

All early reports seem to indicate that the first ever World Science Festival is a resounding success. They have either sold out or virtually sold out almost all of their events.

“Despite the fact that we are programmed against ourselves,” he says, “with almost seven or eight of our events happening at the same time in some instances, we have sold more than 90 percent of our seats and may in fact sell out the entire event.”

But what I found amusing was the dimwit who wrote the first comment to that news article. He/she seems to have the impression that the whole point of having a science festival is to encourage kids to have a career in science! If that's the case, we should bar adults from going to such events, since they definitely are too late to change careers! Yes, stop that 60-year old grandpa from attending Alan Alda's "QED"!

I sometime think that the gene pool needs some chlorine.....

Zz.

João Magueijo’s Big Bang

I don't normally highlight either fringe science or something that is still so highly controversial that it requires more "gestation" period. But since this thing is going to be on TV tonight, I might as well point it out. The Science channel will be airing a documentary presenting the highly controversial view of cosmology from the point of view of cosmologist João Magueijo. He, if you have followed this field closely, is a proponent of the idea that the intrinsic speed of light has been varying over time since the beginning of our universe. I'm guessing that he is justifying this view based on the still-controversial observation that the fine structure constant may have varied over time (see here and here).

Still, this NY Times review of the documentary isn't that flattering.

Not everyone will be charmed, however, by the extent to which he and his producers apparently thought it was necessary to dumb down and dress up the science in question. Everything is presented in classroom metaphors, and not very vivid ones: shots of static on a television screen represent cosmic radiation; a stretchy sweater with a lot of extra buttons stands in for the expanding universe. An inordinate amount of screen time is also devoted to shots of the dreamy Dr. Magueijo staring at models of the solar system or lying on a deck chair and gazing at the sky.

It doesn’t help when he brings his own bad-boy biography into the picture (a habit that began with his 2003 book, “Faster Than the Speed of Light”). We’re treated to the story of how he had his Einstein-was-wrong-about-the-speed-of-light breakthrough while fighting a hangover, and to the sight of him chuckling while watching what appear to be fake home movies, with an actor playing the young João.

Unfortunately, I have other commitments tonight that I won't be able to watch this show, and I didn't set anything to record it. If you did catch it, can you post something here and let me know what you think of it?

The article did get one thing rather accurate, though. I've seen his pictures several times already before this (haven't met him in person yet), and I might even go out on a limb and say that he is one of the most good-looking physicist that I've ever seen. :) I'm guessing that the camera loves him, and in many circles, that's good enough for a TV show.

Zz.

World Science Festival Debuts Tomorrow

If you are lucky enough to be in the New York city area, you can participate in the World Science Festival which will start tomorrow in Manhattan.

The festival website has more info and programs for this event.

Brookhaven's Summer Sundays

I have mentioned this whenever they have their yearly open Summer Sundays. If you are anywhere near Long Island, NY, you really shouldn't miss the opportunity to visit Brookhaven National Laboratory during one of their Summer Sundays. You get to visit not only the lab in general, but also get to tour the facility that's open for visitors for that day. Typically, the days highlighting the NSLS and RHIC are two of the more popular and tend to have the largest number of visitors, and understandably so.

This is one of the few opportunities one gets to tour a world class science facility and gets to ask questions to scientists working there.

Speaking of Brookhaven, it seems that people are still publishing erroneous rumors and accusation towards the lab that are amazingly wrong (and presumably getting away with it). The lab wisely decided to address the inaccuracies published in a book titled "SWelcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town", and included references to the affect of the lab on that two and the surrounding area on Long Island. It is amazing that someone would publish a book and yet, hardly do any homework on what they are writing on. Unfortunately, many of the book's readers would probably never see these counter points against the book and so, these inaccuracies (lies?) will be perpetuated. This is usually the "source" of information for the "public" and these accusations are taken as gospel by many.

Zz.

Accelerator Disaster Scenarios, the Unabomber, and Scientific Risks

I just want to say that I had a lot of fun reading this preprint by Joseph Kapusta. It is entertaining, insightful, and has a ton of information for both scientists and non-scientists alike. It reinforces the point that I've been trying to make, which is the constant miscommunication between scientists and non-scientists. The blame goes on both sides - scientists for not considering how what they say is being interpreted by the public, and the public for not self-educating themselves into trying to understand not just the science, but the vocabulary that science uses. Not being aware that there are discontinuity in the communications and understanding of the two parties is the first significant problem. This is also a very good opportunity to again highlights the wonderful essay written by Helen Quinn that I've mentioned a while back. Everyone should read it!

If you have some time, I'd recommend reading this article by Kapusta, even for just for its "storytelling" aspect.

Zz.

Leaps of Faith

Here's someone who understands the importance of basic, theoretical physics research - Mike Lazaridis, founder and co-CEO of Research in Motion (i.e. make of the Blackberry).

That's one reason why, in 1999, Lazaridis donated $100 million of his nascent fortune to seed the institute. Another, he says, is "because people take theoretical physics for granted." No kidding. This world of equations and chalk dust is about as far away as you can get from the world of commerce. Why anyone would hand over such a massive amount of money—at the time, close to one-fifth of Lazaridis's net worth—to a collection of wild-haired math freaks is lost on most of the folks on Bay Street. Sure, Lazaridis knows that quarterly earnings are important. (In its most recent quarter, RIM posted a higher-than-expected profit of $412.5 million and shipped 2.2 million new BlackBerrys, the first time in the company's history that it broke through the two-million-mark in a quarter.) But he also knows that without the kind of work being done at Perimeter, chances are slim that someone will develop another world-beating technology like RIM's 60 or 80 years down the line.

Many of the CEO's of major technological and electronics companies are aware of this. The question is, do the general public and the politicians know this?

Zz.

Looking Into Nuclear Power

Two different articles appeared almost at the same time discussing the use of nuclear power to generate electricity. So you might want to read them here and here.

I will fully admit that I am very much in favor of nuclear power. As with many aspects of physics/science policy in which ignorance and lack of knowledge have interfered with the decision-making process, nuclear power has suffered from the same fate. Both article addressed many of the issues involved currently when one talks about nuclear power.

Zz.

Analysing the Afterlife

I normally do not go after something like this, because, frankly, it's a no-win situation. You can't make any rational argument against something that is irrational. However, when someone invokes something out of physics or scientific process to justify their irrational belief, then it is then fair game to evaluate the fallacy of his/her argument.

This author is trying to argue that one simply cannot dismiss the idea of an 'afterlife', whatever that may be. His main arguments?

Scientific and psychological reasoning and scepticism have yet to firmly counter the notion that there is an afterlife.

and

experiential evidence from around this world points to some form of existence in ‘the next’.

The first one is silly and just plain lazy. He's arguing that you can't prove that it doesn't exist. This is nonsense because it is the burden of a person arguing for the existence of something to show that it exists, not the other way around. So while his argument is to counter a previous article that appears to argue why it this afterlife doesn't exist, to turn around and argue that it does based on the point that "you can't prove it doesn't" really is extremely weak.

But the second part is what is more fascinating in terms of proving my continuing point that the general public, or at least those not in science, do not have any clue on the difference between anecdotal and scientific evidence. He is actually touting this "experiential evidence" as if this is something that is reliable and valid. It is a FACT that our minds can play tricks on us. It is a FACT that has been shown many times how people can believe that they saw something that never occurred (see here, here, and here). Therefore, experiential evidence is NOT RELIABLE as valid evidence. It is certainly less reliable when a person is under medical/physiological duress that he/she is near death! So to use those as justification for anything is extremely dubious.

It is ironic that he said that "... The afterlife may go against common sense, but twentieth century physics has taught us that common sense is often a poor guide to truth...." yet, he somehow ignored the rest of what physics has taught us of the nature of scientific evidence and what is valid. You'll notice a common thread here when someone who doesn't know much about physics will pick and choose what he/she wants to take from physics. The author of "The Secret" wants to use quantum mechanics to justify various part of it, and ignores the rest that will render the argument false. The same thing is occurring here. If this person is so respectful of what "twentieth century physics" has to teach us, then take the whole thing, rather than just what's convenient for him.

The fact that something like this continues to be presented as valid argument, and published in popular media without any hesitation, shows that (i) such fallacy is not seen as problematic to be accepted, and (ii) the readers and the general public probably won't catch what I've just mentioned here. Try reading the papers or watching TV. You'll see many more arguments being made that is based on simply a matter of opinion, or based on non-existent evidence, or an incomplete understanding. In many cases, no one is asking for evidence or justification of the point being made. So these things are being said as if they are "facts".

The nature and validity of the evidence being presented to support an argument is something that has been emphasized very little in public discourse. That is what is so discouraging.

Zz.

Renewed Call for Science Debate

I mentioned earlier that the planned for the Science Debate 2008 among the US presidential candidates has been postponed due to lack of interest among those candidates. There is now a push for 3 possible dates in May.

While I think this is very important debate not just in terms of the issues, but in terms of a way we can judge how these candidates arrive at what they believe to be a valid opinion, I am not that optimistic that they will agree to this. Why? Because unlike most of the other debates, one actually need to have some knowledge of facts in this debate to be able to form an opinion. If you look closely at all the other debates, one can almost make things up as one goes along at answering the questions or discussing the issues. In those debates, style mattered more than substance. In a Science Debate, substance will take precedent over style. And for most politicians, that is very difficult to do.

So I am not going to hold my breath for this to happen...

Zz.

Freeman Dyson to Give Public Lectures at Yale: "Three Myths in the Public Perception of Science"

If you are in the New Haven, CT area, you might want to consider attending this series of lectures given by Freeman Dyson.

• “Science Coming to an End,” on Monday, April 14, 2008 — Dyson will explain why he does not agree with some intellectual humanist scholars, most prevalent in Europe, who believe that science was a passing fad that is fortunately now over. This is a joint Leigh Page-Tetelman lecture, sponsored by the Physics Department and Jonathan Edwards College.

• “The Mathematician as an Automaton,” on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 — Dyson will talk about some mathematicians he has known and the different kinds of thinking they do. He divides them into “birds” and “frogs.” Birds fly high and survey the landscape out to the horizon. Frogs live in the mud below and enjoy the beauty of the creatures that they meet there.

• “The Selfish Gene on Thursday,” on April 17, 2008 — Dyson will talk about the relative importance of the individual and the community in language, in law and in science. He asserts that the clash between individual and community values in all three contexts is at the root of many of our ongoing quarrels.

They all sound fascinating. If you attended any or all of these lectures, I'd love to hear a comment from you here.

Zz.

The Physics of Baseball

OK, I've posted many entries related to physics on this blog. Someone might have the impression that I'm a big baseball fan - I'M NOT! :)

Still, this is a rather fun and exciting news report on the physics of baseball. It was a talk and a lot of demonstration given by Paul Doherty, senior scientist at the San Francisco's Exploratorium. It sounds like it was a lively and somewhat "interactive" presentation, even if one could get hit on the head with a foam ball. :)

Zz.