Skiing Mount Improbable

Google Ate My Mind

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:24:00 +0000

I've been wanting to post, really I have. But, well... you know... things...

I don't know why life has seemed so busy. Clearly, judging from some of the other blogs that I read, life isn't any busier for anyone else - why should it be for me? Am I lazy? A bit. Do I make poor choices for my free time? Undoubtedly. It probably means that the moment has come for a time and motion study.

Or perhaps not. That way madness lies.

Speaking of madness, I missed this article the first time around, Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", and finally read it in the Best American Science and Nature Writing for 2009. I have to say that it really, really depressed me; not least because I like to read, nor because I've got way too much money invested in books to now find that I'll no longer be able to read them because the sodding internet has reprogrammed my mind, making it impossible for me to finish a thought, never mind a modestly-sized book.

No, the real reason it depressed me is because my father railed for years about how children don't need to immediately learn to use computers in school - at least, not from the moment that they're pushed sobbing into their kindergarten classroom - and that maybe they should learn other things instead. And now I find myself in the not-altogether-comfortable position of having to agree with him.

On the other hand, he was right about badgers, too, so perhaps I can let this one slide.

Anyway, read the article if you've been wondering why it is that you haven't been finishing any books lately, or why it is that you keep looking for hyperlinks in the print copies of those magazines in the dentist's waiting room.

Run, Don't Walk

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:10:00 +0000

I don't generally exhort people to go out and buy things, but this will just have to be the exception. You might have heard a certain band interviewed on Science Friday last week. If you care about science at all, if you're remotely interested, have kids that you want to interest, or are just a bit of a fan, then you need to get the new disc from They Might Be Giants, Here Comes Science. Even if you're not a fan of TMBG - and to be honest, while I like them, they're not my favourite musical combo - the lyrical content is fantastic. Good solid science, presented for children and adults alike.

Favourite songs so far? "I Am a Paleontologist", "Why Does the Sun Shine?", "Photosynthesis", and, of course, "Here Comes Science". I laughed out loud at these songs: they're that brilliant. Frankly, lyrics like these that don't mince any words or pander to the nonsense of the superstitious are a necessity right now.

So, as I say, if you're a friend of Science (I think the capital "s" appropriate here), an FCD (Friend of Charles Darwin), a teacher, friend of reason, or anything like that, give these tracks a listen. The two-disc set includes a DVD with some quirkily animated versions of the songs, which I can't imagine kids not going for. I'll test it on ours this week-end and report the results (I could probably construct a doubly-blinded study, if I really wanted to put the effort into it...)

Of course, these things sound all the nicer on a nice 160GB iPod, which thanks to GHR I now have, and can fit my entire music and audio and podcast library onto, with all of ten gigabytes to spare. Best gift for no discernible reason ever - now how to reciprocate?

NASA Swag

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:26:00 +0000

Science Club at our humble little science store is a meeting held on Saturdays where school children from kindergarten through the eighth grade can come monthly to hear discussions of various science topics. This year, being not only the International Year of Science but also the International Year of Astronomy, the four hundredth anniversary of Galileo's observations with a telescope, the bi-centennary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species (free etext from Project Gutenberg here), we've had a number of great topics to discuss. October's will be no exception. This month, the local NASA educational outreach officer is due to come in to discuss space flight and space exploration.

Unfortunately, she can't make two of the four planned meetings. Fortunately, the Amateur Astronomer is a keen student of space missions, so he's taking one presentation, and I am taking the other, my sole credential being with my life-long fascination with space travel (I was the kid with the scrapbook of Voyager mission newspaper cuttings, after all). Yesterday, we met with the NASA educator, and she presented us with some of the materials that we could use and distribute to the kids, including images, stickers, and experimental materials. The image cards are very cool, we have a poster of mission patches to show the kids, stickers to give out, and different ways to model the size of the solar system. Should be a good time.

We have some really great ideas about what to do for this presentation, so much so that it's going to be hard to cram it all into an hour. And no, I don't intend to answer the question about how one uses the toilet in space. Some mysteries are better left... well, mysterious, and I'd prefer not to stray into the scatological if at all possible. But that's just me.

Of course, we don't get to eat the space food that we will have to show. I understand that. It's expensive to put Smarties in a vacuum-sealed bag. But the idea of making ziploc instant pudding bags to simulate how you would eat when weightless sounds too good to pass up, so I think that we're doing that.

If you want to learn some more about NASA's educational outreach, check out the website (the local one for Missouri is here). And if you're a member of the Beagle's Science Club, be prepared for some fun in October!

Carl Sagan, Rebooted

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:29:00 +0000

Every science blogger and their brother seems to have posted a certain video recently, featuring the much-lamented and much-missed Carl Sagan. However, there may yet be one or two people who still haven't seen it yet (why they'd be reading my blog, I have no idea). A word of introduction, first: if you like the style of the AutoTune the News videographers, or just find it strangely interesting, then you may well like this (not by the same group, just so you know):

Carl Sagan was central to my early understanding of and love for the sciences, and this is a delightfully quirky tribute.

Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:48:00 +0000

Just noticed my Google adverts in the sidebar... the top one is for the very drool-worthy TeleVue Ethos eyepiece. Finally - adverts that I can actually agree with!

Back Into the Fray

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:29:00 +0000

It's been an inexcusably long time, faithful reader (by now, I'm sure that my inactivity has whittled you down to the singular).

I'd plead all of the usual rubbish... witter, witter - illness. Maunder, maunder - return to full-time work. Cribbet, cribbet - life and family offline. And it'd all be true, but you're not really caring about that, so let's just press on, shall we?

I've been reading, and writing, as it happens, just not posting. Here's an example, taken from some of my thoughts about the execrable Unscientific America:

"... In the face of a growing movement of scientists writing cogent and trenchant books - and, perhaps more tellingly, blog posts - Mooney has now decided, it would seem, that the lack of public understanding of science is... wait for it... the fault of scientists. More specifically, it is the fault of scientists who are... again, wait for it... poor communicators. While having just written the aforementioned cogent and trenchant books.

"This thesis is a load of dingo's kidneys."

I'll whip up a full review in good time, because it's just too delicious to pass on the chance to explain just how this self-congratulatory* and smug little volume (and I do mean little) gets it all so wrong. My view of UA is held in comparison to lots of other wonderful current works on science (Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True is excellent, as is Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters; I've just started on the new Richard Dawkins book, The Greatest Show on Earth, so far it's quite good too), let alone to a book like Charlie Pearce's Idiot America, which is, for the most part, a lark and a lovely read. But then, I would say that, would I not? I'm part of the problem, aren't I, dears?

Here also are some ruminations on the sort of people who have quite inadvertently found themselves shopping in a science store:

"...Sometimes, though, people come through our portals unaware of where they are, and unaware of what to expect. And this, for whatever reason, can make them turn... er, well - unpleasant. When they're hostile, they typically fall into one of three categories:

The sneering, knows-it-all, "my god can beat up your god" (even if you don't have one) type, who flaunts their unreason as a sort of badge of honour

The "la-la-la-la - can't make me hear it" school of argument: this one includes the sort of person who says smug things like "stars are millions of light years away? Well, I don't believe that", as though you were some sort of drooling infant who had just claimed that the bloke round the back was busy turning water into wine.

The openly nasty "I don't want to be here, they [accusingly points at compatriots] made me come in the door" type (had one of those about a month or two back, and suspect that she might have been an old boss of mine)

Presented just to show that I haven't been bone idle all this time. What else have I done? Let's see... Put together and gave a - very shaky - workshop on mineral identification, which I'd hope to do much better next time. Done a lot of reading. Taught some children the basics of geology (hardly qualified to do so, but did it anyway). Went on holiday. Went to a wedding (note to self: in future, when going to a wedding of people about whom I know and care nothing, imbibe more. Much more.). Did some observing with trusty telescope. Neglected friends (another noun rapidly moving toward a singular, rather than a plural, construction). Constructed a small laboratory in the basement (must nip out and get dehumidifier before chemicals end up as unrecognisable sodden masses), largely out of old tables and string. Still haven't build either of my two Spitfire model kits. *Sigh.*

In short, wasted a lot of time. But no more. Or at least, less time wasteage in future, more posting!

Here are some quick ideas for the future:

More science!

Periodic rebuttal of the "ID the Future" podcast - because it's much healthier than shouting at my iPod while I drive

Book reviews! At long last... er... again!

Actually updating my Twitter feed! (some have argued that I'm a bit of a twit anyway, but never to my face).

More about me! Because a blog about my interests isn't self-centred enough already.

So that's the plan, roughly. Love it or not, we'll see how long this lasts.

I'm old enough to have kept ~~diaries~~ journals when I was younger - proper paper things in which I earnestly scratched away. Trouble was, after a few weeks, I'd get bored. Attention span of a radish, me, whether twenty years ago or now. But we'll give it a go, see what happens. No promises. Now get on your bikes and ride.

* For example, count the references in UA to ScienceDebate 2008 in the light of the authors' rôles in its creation and perpetration... I didn't dream that, right? They were hugely involved in SD2008, weren't they? So isn't it just a tiny bit... well, crass to point at it and say "look, look, at the wonderful thing that we did!", or is that just me?

My Favourite Sort of Morning

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:03:00 +0000

Cool, quiet, rainy. The sort of morning which typically one only experienced in the imagined Octobers of one's youth. A bit like living a morning in a Ray Bradbury novel; all small-town America and just a hint, a soupcon of warm-spirited spine-tingling mystery in the air.

I have the shop to myself, listening to the static-laden AM-signal of the local classical radio station. Some Vaughan Williams would be nice, but Elgar or Copland or Debussy would do.

Hairs freshly cut by an only moderately-incompetent barber.

A smooth, rich cup of coffee.

Some more books on which I need to be working, preparing my workshop on Techniques of Mineral Identification, to be held slightly less than two weeks hence.

All in all, could be worse. But for now, I'll enjoy the quiet and the absence of the telephonic overload. I'll watch the delivery vans go by, and wait for the one with parcels for my attention.

And the rain, it raineth down.

New Hominid Discovery

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:27:00 +0000

The story of the discovery of a new hominid fossil, found in Spain, is making the rounds of the news circuits at the moment, hot on the heels of the Darwinius massilae discovery; the new hominid has been reported in Science Daily. Named Anoiapithecus brevirostris, the fossil, called "Lluc" by researchers, is another piece in the puzzle of hominid development.

As with many hominid fossils, this one is sadly but not unexpectedly largely incomplete, but study has been possible, regardless:

"[The research team's] findings are based on a partial cranium that preserves most of the face and the associated mandible. The cranium was unearthed in 2004 in the fossil-rich area of Abocador de Can Mata (els Hostalets de Pierola, l’Anoia, Barcelona), where remains of other fossilized hominid species have been found. Preparing the fossil for study was a complicated process, due to the fragility of the remains. But once the material was available for analysis, the results were surprising: The specimen (IPS43000) combined a set of features that, until now, had never been found in the fossil record.

"Anoiapithecus displays a very modern facial morphology, with a muzzle prognathism (i.e., protrusion of the jaw) so reduced that, within the family Hominidae, scientists can only find comparable values within the genus Homo, whereas the remaining great apes are notoriously more prognathic (i.e., having jaws that project forward markedly). The extraordinary resemblance does not indicate that Anoiapithecus has any relationship with Homo, the researchers note. However, the similarity might be a case of evolutionary convergence, where two species evolving separately share common features.

"Lluc's discovery may also hold an important clue to the geographical origin of the hominid family. Some scientists have suspected that a group of primitive hominoids known as kenyapithecines (recorded from the Middle Miocene of Africa and Eurasia) might have been the ancestral group that all hominids came from. The detailed morphological study of the cranial remains of Lluc showed that, together with the modern anatomical features of hominids (e.g., nasal aperture wide at the base, high zygomatic rood, deep palate), it displays a set of primitive features, such as thick dental enamel, teeth with globulous cusps, very robust mandible and very procumbent premaxilla. These features characterize a group of primitive hominoids from the African Middle Miocene, known as afropithecids."

It's a fascinating article, and if your time permits take a few minutes to read and absorb it.

I am also obliged to say there that if any "Intelligent Design" proponents would like to try to step forward and offer their comprehensive and authoritative view on how their "theory" addresses major paleontological finds like this one, I'll be waiting - amusedly - for your rhetorical infelicities to pour forth. In the meantime, the grownups can carry on with the real science, and I look forward with great anticipation to the next big find.

Confidence Shaking

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:27:00 +0000

One of the features generally known about me is that I'm not a mathematical sort of cove. In fact, pretty much the opposite.

Nevertheless, I was pretty pleased with myself for starting to read through Donald E. Sands' Introduction to Crystallography. It's a subject that I've never properly understood, and I thought that it might be worthwhile to spend a few hours trying to become acquainted with the subject in greater detail.

I made it as far as nine pages before I encountered this:

Calculations involving oblique coordinate systems are certainly more tedious than they would be if the axes were at right angles to each other, but compensation is provided by features such as the identity of the fractional coordinates of equivalent points in different unit cells. The following formulas will be useful.

The volume V of a unit cell is given by

V = abc(1- cos² α - cos² β - cos² γ + 2cos α cos β cos γ)^1/2

The distance l between the points x₁, y₁, z₁, and x₂, y₂, z₂ is

l = [(x₁ - x₂)²a² + (y₁ - y₂)²b² + (z₁ - z₂)²c²

+ 2(x₁ - x₂)(y₁ - y₂)ab cos γ + 2(y₁ - y₂)(z₁ - z₂)bc cos α

+ 2(z₁ - z₂)(x₁ - x₂)ca cos β]^1/2

You should verify these formulas for the familiar case where α = β = γ = 90 degrees. Derivation of these formulas is accomplished easily by means of vector algebra.

Blink.

Vector algebra?

Blink. Blink.

Clearly, this isn't going to be quite as easy as I had hoped.

Liquid Water on Mars

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Here's a quick link to a rather interesting article from Universe Today, regarding the somewhat controversial topic of liquid water on Mars. It will be interesting to watch the development of this story.

In the meantime, here's a quote that fits the mood which this news engenders in me...

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."

-- H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1898

It's still one of the more chilling opening passages of any book. I re-read TWOTW a few years back, and was delighted to find parts that I didn't remember. Probably due to the setting and the nature of the story, it holds up ever so much better than it's near contemporaries, the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars (or "Barsoom", if you like) novels...

In the meantime, back to the science. Dreams of other species and terrible war machines for another day.

From the "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" Files

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:31:00 +0000

In view of a lack of time, here's a quick story to amuse you. It's something of a moral tale, so clearly, as a non-theist type-person, I shouldn't be telling it, right?

It was late January. A telephone call came in to the science store. It was a local representative, an academic, for a science competetion for secondary school students. They needed help: did we have anyone who could run one of their sections of the upcoming competetion, specifically the section on fossils?

It sounded like the sort of thing that I would enjoy, so after some negotiation and fact-finding, I accepted. I generally enjoy the opportunity to do science education - it's a good and useful expenditure of my time. I would have been happier running a section on rocks and minerals, and I normally tell people that fossil are not my strong suit, but in this case, it would be straightforward. It was essentially an exercise in identification and placement of the fossils at the correct point in geologic history. I went out, bought the recommended source book so I wouldn't be working too far out in the wilderness from what the students had prepared, and set to work.

I planned for it to be really fascinating and cool as well. While the identification could have been done from photographs or sketches, why would we do that when I had the cool stuff at my disposal? We have some fairly interesting, unusual, and expensive fossils and fossil casts at the store, and I felt certain that I could persuade the owners to let me borrow some of them for the competition. I also had an overarching plan - to present the fossils as evolutionarily grouped over the different geologic epochs. Bonus questions would allow the students to fill in the gaps, if they could. And, despite it falling on St. Valentine's Day and a Saturday, GHR, rather than balking at the idea, wanted to come with me and help. Scheduling would be tight, but I could make it work. Everything seemed to have fallen into place.

About a week later, with exactly ten days to go, an email arrived:

Hi William—

My name is [name], and I am a member of the [withheld] Club ([office held withheld]). [The Party of the Second Part] had asked me a while ago to compose the test for the fossil portion of the [this event]. I understand that the director of this year’s [event], [Event Director], has asked you to conduct the fossil test. If you wish to do this, I am o.k. with that. If you want to split the questions, that would work also. I have a few questions done on trace fossils, trilobites, and brachiopods. Let me know what you want to do and if you want me to help. I will be available to proctor the test on Feb 14, and also have some specimens that can be used for the stations.

Thanks,

[name]

And here's how it sounded in my head:

My name is [ name withheld ]. I was originally asked by [ someone who's name I don't recognise ] to run the fossil section of this event.

I [hold a high office] of the [ local fossil society ]. I know a lot about fossils, and have a collection. I was preparing to run the event's fossil section, but I hadn't bothered to write back to the organisers yet to tell them. It seems as though they've asked you, whoever you are, to do it instead.

I could take over running this. Or I suppose we could work together. If we had to. Let me know.

It's actually a misuse of the "blockquote" tag there in the second instance, but I think that I've accurately reproduced the tone that I heard in my head. This is what, on reading it, I got from the email. Of course, that's one of the dangers of email: unless you're precise, your reader may or may not get the message that you intend.

In any event, this was something that I had not expected, and I quickly weighed my options:

I could accept co-proctoring the event, and attempt to work with someone I didn't know, at the last minute, against the backdrop of my already-planned programme.

I could refuse, and say that I wanted to run the event by myself.

I could drop out from running the event.

You would be right in saying that there was no good thing to do. I could adapt, and work with someone who - from the tone of their email - was clearly some sort of über-fossil royalty, and clearly casting themself as my better - after all, I wasn't a part of their club. I could carry on myself, with now-wrathful eyes watching my every step for a mistake. Or I could step aside, in favour of someone who was, by dint of their interest and apparent experitse, probably more qualified than I.

I emailed the organiser and stepped aside.

At the time that I did this, I presented all sorts of justifications to myself, saying that "I'm sure they can do it better" and that while, yes, my version would have been pretty cool, "they're bound to have access to all sorts of good fossil to use". And surely, "they've been planning to do this, therefore it should be good".

Why, then, had they wanted to work together? On, I think, the Wednesday before the competition Saturday, I found out.

An individual came into the store mid-afternoon, and introduced themself as my email interlocutor. Did we have any fossils that they could purchase for the section? They had lost all of theirs.

I was more than a little gobsmacked. This was the person who had flaunted their expertise? This was a local society office-hodler? They went on to explain that they only really knew local fossils, and didn't have any representation of anything outside of the Pennsylvanian era. After looking and clucking their tongue at how expensive fossils can be, they spent about $20 on a few tiny instances and left.

I didn't hear anything about how the eventual event went over. I feel certain that, as a result, the students who participated in this event didn't have as rich an experience as they might have done. I couldn't possibly have known it at the time, but I certainly felt badly seeing the paltry selection of fossils that went out the door with this fossil society leader. I felt badly knowing that my ideas, my plans... based on what I had seen, they would have been better.

Like every time that I make a bad decision in my life, I try to learn how not to do the same thing again. Remember how this was going to be a moral tale? Or, at least, a tale with a moral? This time, I think that the moral that I learned was this: I should really, really trust my instincts. I should learn to see through titles, and hollow bluster, better than I do now. The line that I should have taken? "I've already put a lot of work into this event. If you would like to see my notes, you are welcome to, but currently, I think that I have a handle on everything. If you would like to assist with proctoring this event, let's talk about when and how you will be there to help out."

Honestly, it would have been better. Better for students trying to be keen on science. Better for the event. And better for me, not having to realise that I was essentially out-bluffed by a brachiopod hunter.

The Reappearance of the Prodigal Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Every time that I've started to write again recently, I seem to hear Derek Jacobi in the back of my head, after he's just found out in Utopia [SPOILER ALERT] that he's not the meek and mild Professor Yana, but the Doctor's arch-nemesis (I'm thinking of the thoroughly-evil, not just a little campy, Deadly Assassin-era):

"The Master... REBORN!!!"

(cue maniacal laughter)

So the blog shall return, and I'm going to try to force myself to have the time and energy to carry on with it for a while. We shall see how that goes.

Here are a few random thoughts in the meantime:

It's not as though I haven't been busy, despite everything. Sure, I've fallen behind on listening the "IDiocy: the Future" podcast, in favour of catching up on AstronomyCast. Honestly, I just couldn't bear listening to Luskin for a while. Life is too short, and contrary to what the Disco would have you think, you don't get a second go.

I haven't had the heart yet to look and see what the traffic spike on this blog a couple of weeks ago was. There weren't any comments, just a sudden high number one day... Thursday, I think. Bloody Thursdays.

Republicans? Really? This is the best that you can do? Mitt, Eric, and Jeb's Pizza Party? The "Rove and Cheney Won't Shut Up Tour, 2009"? The bastard spawn of Cape Girardeau, MO? Either you've genuinely worked at making a pathetic effort at opposition, or you have a monumentally evil plan. The trouble with that second hypothesis is this: I don't really see any of you as the "evil genius" type. "Incompetent buffoon sidekicks", yes. "Demented lackwits", absolutely (looking at you, Michelle Bachmann). "Evil genius", not so much. And what exactly is it that you're opposing so flacidly? Do you think that you can just run out the clock on climate change, social justice and equality, real science education, not torturing people, abiding by the traditions and laws of the nation you claim to love... ? I don't think that all of you are inherently evil, but some of you simply must learn the difference between that which is politically expeditious in the short term and the exigencies of reality.

Every now and then, being on the largely pointless time-suck that is Facebook does yield a few old friends who I have actually been pleased to hear from. They should just know, as does the rest of my - admittedly minute - personal social circle, that I am a minor legend when it comes to not responding to emails in a timely fashion. It's rather my "thing".

In another bit of news, I'm also posting snippets of this and that via Twitter. Yep, I caved; you'll see the feed on the right. My feed is guaranteed to be at least part science, as that's what I do every day, but with some twists, and probably the odd occasional and unwarranted personal remark. Share and enjoy.

My Twitter cohort @leifb put me on to a good site for amateur astronomers in the US, Clear Dark Sky. It's a great reference if you want to know just how good your seeing conditions will be for the coming evening. I'll be posting some more about my newly re-kindled love for astronomy as time and events warrant, including something brief and pithy on the frustrations of attempting astrophotography when you don't have the right gear... =)

It's gardening season again, so there will probably be pictures of our successes... or failures. As I neglected to snap photos of either daffodils or custard apple flowers, it's the least that I can do.

Meanwhile, in the world of science, things are positively buzzing in all quarters:

The Hubble Space Telescope repair mission is completed. The dangerous Servicing Mission Four, vital upgrades, a second shuttle on standby in the event that something goes wrong... fantastic stuff. Apart from a few minor problems, everything seems to have gone swimmingly.

Two European space telescopes, Herschel and Planck, have also been launched, and are headed for their orbits around L2.

A new primate fossil, some 47 million years old, has been reported (original paper at PLoS One). Of course, media reports have immediately gotten the whole damn story wrong - as you would expect from the largely scientifically-illiterate media. For the last time, people, there's no such thing as a "missing link", at least, not in the way that you're saying it.

That's about the strength of things for now. More entries as events - and available time - warrant.

Spring Crocuses

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:35:00 +0000

This entry would have been more à propos had I been able to get myself to post it a week and a half ago. O tempora, o mores... Nevertheless, here we are now, with photos of flowers, just in time for spring. Taken on 16 March with a Canon EOS Rebel XT (don't cameras have silly names?), these aren't the earliest local crocuses that I remember seeing, but they are some of the nicest. At some point in the history of our hundred year-old house, someone littered the back garden with crocus bulbs, and if I've bothered to rake the winter before, we get a nice show just on the cusp of spring.

I've always been a mediocre photographer. I tried on more than one occasion to learn the rudiments of composition, style, and technical saavy - the things that go into taking a really good photograph. I've always understood that there was an actual science that went into good photography - I just couldn't be asked. In the days of film-based 35mm SLRs, therefore, the only good photographs I ever took were accidental. No matter what I thought I was seeing through the viewfinder, what I got when the prints came back was... less than perfect, shall we say.

Fortunately, in the era of digital cameras, it's possible for even mediocre photographers to take passable photographs. Whereas before I would have had an entire roll of over-exposed images because I entirely neglected to reset the metering from Manual and didn't notice the warnings, now I can make any number of mistakes and just delete the ones that went hideously wrong, while retaining the ones that I am pleased to say represent "my vision". Er... yes... "my vision"... of crocuses.

At the time of writing, the daffodils are up as well - and I've always had a soft spot for daffodils, in a Wordsworthian sense. Look for more photos soon.

I know - the suspense is hard to bear, isn't it?

First Observations

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:23:00 +0000

Last night it was clear and cold, and although the Moon was up, rendering the sky stupidly bright on top of two nearby streetlights, it was still possible to take my new toy out for a quick spin. Here's a quick review of my initial impressions of the Celestron Omni XLT 150.

The XLT 150 a six-inch Newtonian reflector, which means that it has a main mirror, six inches (150 mm) in diameter, which collects light and reflects it to the secondary mirror, which in turn sends it through the focuser and into the eyepiece. This arrangement means that you get more light collection than many traditional refractors that would cost the same, due to a refractor requiring a more expensive primary objective lens.

I had already put the telescope together completely, but elected to remove the tube from the mount for my first forray out of doors. The mount is the CG-4, and is referred to a German mount, a variant of the equatorial mount, and its shipping weight is 45 pounds. It's not too ungainly, although you can't collapse the legs of this tripod without removing the stabiliser / accessory tray. After getting the mount outside, I went back for the tube, and had the telescope ready to go in short order. Next came the challenge: what to look for?

I knew, based on the programme which GHR and I had watched at the Linda Hall Library last Friday, that we wanted to try for Saturn, but it was too low on the horizon, so I went for a classic, and started hunting for things in Orion. I used the low-power 25mm eyepiece which comes with the XLT 150 to start with, planning, if necessary, to move up to the other eyepiece which I had received, an Orion Stratus 5mm. The XLT 150 has a focal length of 750mm, giving me either 30x or 150x magnification; the telescope's specifications give its useful magnification limit as 324x, although atmospheric conditions can drive that number down, as we will see. Surprisingly, as it was my first time out with a new telescope, I wasn't to be disappointed. In an article from Sky & Telescope about astrophotography, the photo illustrates exactly what I saw (with hopes that the author won't mind its use in the furtherance of the astronomical hobby). M42, the Orion Nebula, with three bright stars in a row. It was a cloudy, distinct patch in my 25mm eyepiece, and switching out for the 5mm, it sprang into view. I was excited enough to call GHR outside to have a look (since she is the one who decided that this was the gift that she had to get me), and we shared a sweet moment of astro-geekery.

After looking around a bit more, then temporarily destroying my night vision by pointing the telescope directly at the Moon without a polarizing filter, and then delaying an hour for dinner, I decided to go back to trying to catch Saturn. By this time, the tube had reached thermal equilibrium, which meant that there should be no currents of air distorting my view as the tube cooled to the temperature outside. Currently, the sixth planet is following the moon across the sky (figuratively, of course), and the brightness of the moon worried me. Saturn to the naked eye is a pale yellow dot. After further jiggery-pokery with the telescope setup (by which time the planet had only barely cleared the trees over the road), I set the spotting scope's crosshairs squarely on the yellow point, and had my first look through the 25mm eyepiece. And it was... amazing.

Clearly visible, even if just a small point, was Saturn (at about the size in the photograph, although the rings were different as noted). The rings were evident, although still more or less a flat plane - they should open up later in the year - and after a moment, I realised that I could also see three points of light - orbiting in the same plane as the rings, which I believe were moons. Probably Titan and Rhea and... Enceladus? Someone can feel free to correct me on that, if they can find the answer before I can figure it out from my sources. At any rate, I quickly swapped out again for the 5mm eyepiece, and was rewarded with the disc of Saturn looming larger in my view. It would move across the eyepiece within a few seconds, at which time I would use the mount's controls to bring it back into view. I can't tell you how many times I repeated that action.

It was at this point that I remembered that I had borrowed a Barlow lens from work to test with our spotting scope, and that it was still on my desk. The Barlow, as you can read, decreases the focal length of the eyepiece, thus increasing the magnification provided by that eyepiece. By putting a 2x Barlow into the focuser before inserting the 25mm eyepiece, I effectively doubled the magnification. Barlows are sold in a variety of shapes, sizes, and powers; the one that I had for testing was an Orion 2x Shorty Barlow (so named for its shorter barrel). Although this worked exceedingly well with the 25mm eyepiece, with the 5mm eyepiece, I was pushing the useful magnification limit (instead of 150x, the 2x Barlow pushed the magnification to 300x). Although I was rewarded with a still-larger Saturn swimming in the eyepiece, it was difficult to focus and remain focused. A better Barlow and better seeing might have made this combination work better, but I'm not complaining. It was still fantastic.

All in all, I know that I've got a lot to learn about telescopes before I even start to get the most out of mine. Real, genuinely dark skies will be a first prerequisite, and I'm hoping to get a crack at some before long. It will mean driving out into the country, but there are sites in the area that should afford better views. An all-night star party sounds like fun as well, and I know that we were already talking about organising one at the store for early summer. I'll definitely be pushing for that.

Next steps? I've heard of some people doing rudimentary digital astro-imaging just by pointing a digital SLR through the eyepiece, and I'm tempted to try that next time, just to see what I can capture. Alternately, I may go so mad as to buy the appropriate T-ring and see what I can do, but that's some way down the road yet. And another eyepiece or two, along with some appropriate filters, won't go amiss. But these are things for which I can save my money and buy well.

Still one of the best birthday presents ever, then? Undoubtedly. And my review of the Celestron Omni XLT 150? I'm sure that I will find its limitations, but for the moment, I can only say that this is a great starter telescope with a lot of potential, and one that I'm certain to be enjoying for years to come.

Best Birthday Gift Ever? I Think So.

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:41:00 +0000

A little while back, I chronicled my desire for a good telescope. It's probably a direct result of having wanted one ever since I was quite young, and now being around them all of the time.

Over the road from me, when I was a child, there lived a boy called Charles. He was about four years older than I was, and as a result, he seemed not only infinitely cool but infinitely wise. This was the 1970s - we had different standards for wisdom then. Whatever Charles was interested in, I wanted to be interested in. I started reading HG Wells just to be in the small - and very exclusive - HG Wells club that he was forming: he'd written a quiz about the Master's work that I'm pretty sure I couldn't even pass now as a sort of entrance exam. After that, it was Edgar Rice Burroughs, who we both read and adored. Charles was also into astronomy, and I remember - or seem to remember but am not entirely certain of, as I've done a lot of drinking since then - being allowed out on special nights by my parents to look at the stars. I wanted my own 'scope, but that was one of a long list of unrequited childhood dreams (which in a way, are the best of childhood dreams).

It wasn't as though I didn't have other interests to take up my time. And eventually, of course, other distractions were invented, which would in their course sway me from the goals which I had originally imagined for myself. That, of course, is another story for another day.

The point - and I do have one - is that it appears that GHR not only reads the blog, but takes notice of things. Because guess what turned up at home the other day? Yes, you guessed it:

This.

Yes, you could say that I'm pretty lucky - or even very lucky. You'd be right.

This afternoon, I set about putting it together. Not too hard. But here's an interesting thought: things tend to be much bigger in your home than they are in the shop. And of course, now that I have it assembled, what's the forecast? Rain. Bloody rain.

Oh well. I've waited for this long. Another day or two isn't going to be the end of the world.

By the way, I accidentally posted earlier, so if that popped up on your feeds and whatnot, it wasn't anything. Apologies.

Asteroid Passes Earth Inside Moon's Orbit; Bobby Jindal Calls for Dismantling All Telescopes

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:08:00 +0000

The BBC reported this week that an asteroid possibly as big as a 10-storey building passed within 72,000 km (44,750 miles) of the Earth on Tuesday, at 1344 hours GMT (would have been 7.44 local time for me). The asteroid, 21 to 47 metres in length (it's still hard to be sure, until we see it again), would therefore have been the same size as the object which triggered the famous Tunguska Event, now believed to have been an asteroid vapourising and then exploding above the ground in the midst of the Russian wilderness, 101 years ago. There is no doubt that had this asteroid struck a major population centre of the day (London, New York, Paris... pick a city, really), the results would have been catastrophic.

So what does this have to do with monitoring volcanoes?

Against this background, we consider the rebuttal of Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal given to President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, in which he laid out his budget plans. One of the things that Governor Jindal targeted for derision was spending on volcano research, in these words (transcript):

"But Democratic leaders in Congress -- they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government [if they're moving the government fleet to green vehicles, then it's about damn time and I have no problem at all with it], $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland [this has already been debunked multiple times, look it up], and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." [emphasis added] Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

-- Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Republican Response to President Obama's Address, 24 February 2009

Predictably, geologists didn't look on this sort of cack-handed attempt to score cheap political points with much favour. In fact, anyone with any sense at all might have thought twice before parroting this ridiculous line. Maria Brumm over at Green Gabbro was particularly direct:

"I have two questions.

Do Republicans (or moderates who don't have a kneejerk anti-Republican reflex) also feel like he's talking to the nation as though we were all kindergarteners? I was flabbergasted, but I don't know how to properly account for my rather strong political biases here.

DID HE SERIOUSLY JUST SAY THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE MONITORING VOLCANOES??!?!!!????@#$@!

Ms Brumm follows this with a further entry, The Stimulating Effect of Monitoring Volcanoes, in which she says in part:

"Volcano monitoring money will be spent directly, and swiftly, on goods and services - primarily new and upgraded monitoring equipment, and the people needed to install the equipment and interpret the data (source). We'll get a long-term economic benefit from our improved ability to forecast and mitigate eruptions, just like we would with the oft-cited infrastructure investment of a new road (albeit with slightly more uncertainty - but the expected value is positive). And because volcano hazard warnings are a public good, there is little risk of disincentivizing private industry."

But let's leave this to one side, for the moment. Let's consider the neo-Republican approach to science, as exemplified by Mr Jindal. Major threats from asteroids? Well, surely the private sector will step in there, and privatise protection services for areas that wish to be protected from rocks from space, right? Same applies to volcanoes.

Natural forces, Mr Jindal, do not respect international boundaries. Nor do they give a toss for your sound-bite politics.

Oh, and before you complain that Jindal really did no such thing as calling for the dismantling of telescopes, let me direct you to your nearest dictionary. Look up the word "hyperbole". Then "irony". And, finally, "cack-handed nitwit". Repeat as necessary.

Going Mobile

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Apparently reader 'antbus' has grown impatient with my lacksidaisical posting habits, and who can blame him? So, rather than indulge in a third doughnut while I wait at the auto dealership for a routine maintenance procedure on GHR's beloved Prius, I'm venturing into the heady world of about three years ago and taking a first stab at the world of 'mobile blogging'. We'll see how it goes...

One thing that hasn't really changed with the advent of the 'new technological era' is the concept of the waiting room. Sure, there are more people with laptops and mobiles, and there's wi-fi (possibly of the very weak variety, like the network I can't connect to here), but other than that, they're much the same. Same bleating telly, either on sport channels or the mind-numbing idiocy of day-time chat and tragedy shows, same old magazines and oft-read newspapers, same people trying to kill time until their number is called, or until their car's vital fluids flow viscuous and clear once again.

Uncannily, though, and perhaps as a reflection of the current state of the world, this waiting room is surprisingly quiet. It's strangely sobering.

Febrile Musings

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:41:00 +0000

So I know that I've been less-than-conscientious about the blog this month. What can I say? Sometimes, life gets the better of you. Again, as is usual, I've been writing up drafts of entries, but they haven't seemed to come together in entirely the way that I would like, which has resulted in a lot of frustrated re-writing before slinking off to read a book or do something else less frustrating. Such is the nature of February.

It's also been an extraordinarily busy month, with two weeks of tending my normally part-time job in the science store at a full-time rate, while the owners were off laughing it up at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. There was my abortive effort to run the Fossil Identification section of the local Science Olympiad, which was nipped in the bud after about a week of preparation in a twisted fashion which I will recount in due course. Then there were holidays, birthdays, and on-going battles with a nasty bout with a persistent rhinovirus, which is ongoing.

All this against a background of a month of big news in astronomy, paleontology, and a renewed effort by certain cretins in the Missouri legislature to revive some stupid pro-ID legislation, all of which I've simply been too tired or ill or busy to deal with. Happily, you lucky people don't rely solely on me for this information. Thankfully, MousieCat was all over that last one, for instance, and also routinely forgives me for not immediately answering her emails. MC, I owe you a pint, or at least a glass of chardonnay.

I'll be trying to get back into the swing of things again, but the next few weeks are going to be pretty bally busy as well, so no prommises. In the meantime, keep reading and thinking and all of that!

New Toy

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:23:00 +0000

So, as my friend Georgia has pointed out, I'm an odd contradiction. When she first knew me, long ago, I was more than a bit of a technophobe. In fact, I actively disliked computers and their ilk. And was rather vocal about it.

Apparently, this has changed. Somewhere along the way, I went from nouveau Luddite to techno-consumer, to the point where technology and I could almost be said to be on friendly terms. A case in point: GHR and I this week-end started shopping for new mobiles, and, after seeing it in person, I decided the new toy that I was already pretty sure of wanting: the Google Android OS-based G1.

And so far, although I'm certainly something of an Apple partisan (writing on a Mac right now, actively detest and loathe but still use Windows), I'm not regretting choosing the G1 over an iPhone thus far. The G1 has some amazing features, and while its interface isn't perfect, and some of the apps tend to kick off suddenly and without warning, it generally works a treat. The full keyboard under the display is great, again once you are accustomed to working at that scale; since I'm planning to use this device at least in part for lightweight blogging and email, it will be important. The display is crisp and clear and fantastically touch-sensitive, once you become accustomed to it. The camera's nothing special, but will probably be useful too.

One of my favourite toys built into the G1 is the GPS, which so far works in conjunction with Google Maps, but also has the potential to work with a yet-to-be-written G1 application which will provide full GPS capabilities. The possibilities, in short, are endless. What I know for certain from this afternoon's drive over to Lawrence is that the GPS is useless if the phone can't connect to Google Maps, which was rather irritating, but also helpful in defining the mobile's limitations. Really, for the moment, I'm just having a good time playing with it.

Oh, and GHR's present to me on the big holiday yesterday was absolutely fantastic: the previously-mentioned Stephen Jay Gould tome, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, after which I've been lusting a bit, and which I had previously kidnapped from the library. A memorable, if not especially nice dinner rounded off the day well. How was your V-day?

Extinction

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:29:00 +0000

To tell you the truth, the story that I'm going to recount angers me quite unreasonably. It all started with a single photograph, which I saw and started thinking about. A photograph of a rare gibbon, and the gibbon's infant.

But to begin: endangered species die all over the world, all the time. More often than not, human action can be attributed to that. Some would argue that we are in the midst of what is called the Holocene Extinction Event, which may or may not be related to humanity. For the moment, let's leave that to one side.

In the beginning, as it were, humanity killed other creatures out of ignorance, or out of need, or out of fear. And, as a step along in the development of a species, that's not really surprising. It seems unlikely that any evolved species would just stumble blithely into awareness one day. It's a process that takes tens of hundreds of thousands of years.

But now, we know better. Or we should. We all should.

Here's an image for you: just take a minute to look at it.

Here's the caption from the BBC Image of the Day that accompanies this image:

With only about 100 individuals remaining in the wild, it's vital that this young cao-vit gibbon (Nomascus nasutus) learns to fend for itself. The Critically Endangered species only found in one location, on the border between Vietnam and China (Image: Fauna and Flora International)

I'm going to sound as though I'm banging on the same drum again, but here we go: if everyone in the world had a basic understanding of evolutionary theory, and understood its full implications, there wouldn't be just about 100 of these beautiful creatures left, fighting for their lives in some remote spot on the Sino-Vietnamese border. Why? Because not only would we understand that habitats and species are precious, amazing resources, which were not ours to destroy, we would also realise that to wipe out things that we didn't understand, to kill them for short term gain, to destroy their habitats for temporary profit: that diminishes humans, and human achievement, just as much as it leaves an ugly scar on the landscape and another hole in the phylogenetic tree.

How aware of their fate are these gibbons? Do they grasp, on some level, their dwindling numbers, the shrinking of their community? In a very real evolutionary sense, these creatures are our relatives. And that realisation should lead to another, which is this: they deserve better.

Humanity's legacy stands atop a vast mountain of the bones of those animals we destroyed to get to where we are. Some of those bones belong to other humans, to our earlier ancestors, or to the species which we have consumed or food and energy. And like I say, for much of our history, it's been unavoidable.

That's no longer the case. We know better. We can manage things better. We're the only species that can: that makes it our responsibility, too. Extinction is a natural process. More than 99% of everything that has ever lived on the face of the Earth is now extinct, by most estimates. But for a single species to drive that process, with such fervour and apparent lack of concern - when such concern is possible - is the apex of irresponsibility.

Think about it. For more information, you can visit any number of sites, but you might try starting with the World Wildlife Fund. Thanks for taking the time.

Happy Darwin Day!

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:55:00 +0000

I know, I know... it's been over two weeks. What can I say? I've been rushed off my feet and stupidly busy. More insightful - or shallow, depending on my mood - commentary soon.

But I couldn't let today pass unmarked. Happy 200th Birthday Anniversary to Charles Darwin. A little later today, with luck, I'll assemble some links for you. You can start here, at least...

School Boards Take Heed

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:28:00 +0000

One of the random articles that has come to my notice involves a geologist standing for election to the school board in Lawrence, Kansas.

Michael Pomes is a geologist, according to the article, for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and he has a daughter in the Lawrence school system. While the story in the Lawrence Journal World does not detail his position on the teaching of science, unless he's one of those rare geologists who is somehow swayed by the three-card Monte tricks of the intelligent design crowd, this is a good thing. His statement in the article is somewhat nebulous:

“I want to make sure that she has the opportunity to have the best education possible — the best teachers and the best facilities,” he said.

... but this doesn't sound, on the face of it, overtly alarming. Which, in turn, leads me to a question:

Is your local school board spouting any sort of nonsense with regard to curriculum? If yes, then how about getting involved? If you have children in that district, then it becomes not merely important, but crucial.

Yes, standing for any elected office takes time and effort. But these are the bodies on which the trouble with education, and the incursion of unreason into eduation begins to start, thanks to the decentralised nature of educational policy in the United States.

If you're in Lawrence, and can shed any further light on any issues that might be cropping up in this school board election, please drop me a line or leave a note in the comments. I'd be interested to know how a geologist enters into the mix.

Transference of Addiction

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:45:00 +0000

From the things that make you say: "I beg your pardon" file comes this story in the BBC Magazine section.

The headlines "Crystals versus Christ" caught my eye immediately, because I was hoping for a story about mineralogists. No such luck.

At the Mind Body Spirit Fair, held in Telford last autumn, you could consult a clairvoyant, purchase psychic healing, or stock up on healing crystals. You could also, if you wanted, talk to Mark Berry.

Mark is a Christian missionary - although he doesn't like the word much - to Telford, sent there by the Church of England and the Church Mission Society, because Telford has one of the lowest church-going populations in Britain. He's set up a small church, with about a dozen members, which meets in his small house on a modern estate.

When Mark first arrived in Telford, three-and-a-half years ago, he said he wanted to connect with people who were "spiritual but not religious". It's an interesting phrase, and one you hear a lot nowadays.

I love how the writer says that this exponent of missionary zeal "arrived" in Telford, in Shropshire, as though he had a difficult time getting there. Perhaps he took a wrong turning from the M54? But more to the point, why choose Telford in the first place - there are lots of places in the UK with low church attendance - why pick on them? The only things I can think of in relation to Telford are A.E. Housman, the Iron Bridge, and a line in a Fry and Laurie sketch, years ago.

Ah... here's a clue: it's apparently the least religious town in Britain. Frankly sounds a nice place. But not if you're a follower of the big bullies in the sky...

But three years into his mission in Telford, Mark Berry's core community is not spiritual-but-not-religious recruits, but already-committed Christians who use his gatherings to deepen and provide a new perspectives on their faith.

Here's the thing: if you changed over from being all healy-feely and stopped rabbiting on about how they could feel the energy and similarly bollocks-infused drivel, and you went to being all christ-y jebus-y and good, supposedly, tell me: what change did you really make? You changed from one ancient nonsense to another (winking at you, Connie Morris), so how did you really make a change?

I have to give the writer credit, though, where it's due, for his closing line:

There may be a hole in people's lives, but there's not a great deal of evidence that it is God-shaped.

Abso-bloomin'-lutely. Isn't this what we've been trying to say all along?

Truth, Fiction, and Perception in Discovery

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:02:00 +0000

Apologies in advance, this entry's going to be somewhat, well, "meta", as the kids say. In other words, internally and culturally self-referential, picking up several threads and assuming that you already know what's going on. I'll put up some background soon.

In a recent Skepticality podcast (by the time of this writing, it's no longer the latest), Swoopy spoke with Maria Maltseva, a Seattle-based skeptic and lawyer who decided, following a challenge issued by previous visitors to the Discovery Institute's Centre for Science and Culture, arranged her own visit to the Evil Empire ^TM.

The interview gave us a lot of food for thought - much to chew over, as it were. Ms Maltseva takes great pains to stress both her skeptical and pro-evolutionary credentials, and the fact that she was able, without subterfuge or deception, to gain entry to and meeting time with members of the Discovery Institute's CSC staff. I don't have any reason to believe that Ms Maltseva was in fact a mole working under deep cover for the Disco, but something about this interview just didn't sound right to me. I'll try to explain.

I'll start by saying that no, I've never been to Seattle to try to cadge a visit... not yet, anyway. So I don't have personal experience to compare with Ms Maltseva's description of her visit. And there were some fascinating revelations to be had, certainly. The revelation of the existence of "secret laboratories", of which there are apparently two in the Seattle area, in which CSC scientists are attempting to build proof for intelligent design was cause for some mirth. I suspect that the reason why they don't let anybody in is because anyone who understands laboratory apparatus would take a few minutes, look around, and then start asking some very awkward questions. In my mind, these laboratories look like something out of the old Ealing comedy classic, The Man in the White Suit, starring a young Alec Guinness. It would be a cinematic take on what a laboratory is supposed to look like. It would be neither functional nor real. That's just a guess, of course.

Also of interest was that we were reminded of the fact that the so-called Centre for Science and Culture is but one part of the Discovery Institute's policy thrust. Another is the Traffic wing, which, apparently, has received funding from the Gates Foundation to sort out the nightmare of Seattle's antiquated roadways and infrastructure. To some, the patronage of this notably liberal charity is at odds with the Disco's image as a bastion of nouveau Evangelical conservative fundamentalist lackeydom. But perhaps it just speaks to desperation not to spend pointless hours trying to get home?

Perhaps the most astounding statement came at the end, when Ms Maltseva discussed a group audition that she arranged, where she, Luskin, Smith, and Carruthers listened to the earlier edition of Skepticality on which Kate Holden and Tiana Dietz appeared.

Here are the things that were unbelievable about Ms Maltseva's reporting of that audition:

The claim that the people of the Disco had never heard the podcast before. This is, on the face of it, blindingly ridiculous. Whatever else the Disco are, they are media-saavy and technologically aware. It does not take a lot of effort to set up a Google search. I refuse to believe that they had not heard this.

The claim that the people of the Disco laughed good-naturedly at the recording. This speaks, to me, of stage management. History is littered with examples of inhuman monsters who could laugh good-naturedly, even at their own expense. It doesn't mean that they weren't seething and plotting your ugly demise on the inside.

The claim that, upon hearing the venom with which the comtempt for the Discovery's CSC was expressed, they were moved to tears. Again, this speaks to me of stage management. It does so for the simple and obvious reason that if you are an organisation which has to undermine your opposition, wouldn't you do it by trying to appear more cuddly and vulnerable than you genuinely were?

Consider, for a moment, how things might have looked from the other side. Ms Maltseva gets off of the phone, having arranged her visit. What, if you want to make sure that you are in full damage control mode, would be the first thing that you would do? Well, I don't know about you, dear readers, as I'm sure that you are all unique and splendidly eccentric individuals in your own right, but I'll tell you what I would bloody well do: research.

And, on doing some research, you would read Ms Malkova's blog, and you might possibly class her as something of a sentimentalist. Not a bad thing, in and of itself, but which, in turn, would help you to figure out how to deflect some of the damaging criticisms that might be brought against you. Again, I'm playing the role of a devil's advocate here, assuming that, despite their public posture, the Disco is no more to be trusted than a Bush administration official extolling the virtues of privatising your own hurrican relief.

Are the denizens of the Disco human beings? Well, yes, of course, as far as we are aware, they must be. It seems unlikely that they are really an advance force of the armies of the planet Zog, or any other such improbable thing. But the more important question is this: are they capable of taking in the gullible? The answer to that question, we need only look at the roster of people who support them and their aims. We need only read their fund-raising materials. We need only listen to those who are secondarily and tertiarily taken in by their sophistry.

Those who work for the Centre for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute, or whatever else they may wish to call themselves, are not people for whom intellectual dishonesty is a problem. This has been repeatedly demonstrated: by their behaviour with regard to the film Expelled and their wildly dissimilar reaction to Randy Olson's requests for interviews for A Flock of Dodos, to name just two examples. And it is for that reason, more than any other, that I do not feel that finding "common ground" with people and groups who hold a world view that is 180 degrees away from mine is either practical or possible. It may well be fine for some, and each and every one of you must make that choice for yourselves. I won't tell you what to do, I won't presuppose your acceptance of my view. You must make your own decisions for yourself. To think otherwise would be of a wrongness and an arrogance on my part that... well, it would smack of Disco-think. And it is neither my purpose nor my wish to make gains by adopting the dishonourable tactics of the opposition. That's the definition, I think, of a Pyrrhic victory.

So, at the end, I have to think that for whatever reason, Ms Maltseva drank too deeply of the Disco's hospitality. I was immediately suspicious of her descriptions of the people there, and their reactions to the earlier podcast where Tiana and Kate Holden called for the removal of the Disco. It was all a bit too neat. I think that she was carefully managed, spun, and wagged from start to finish. I don't say that this is her fault, or even that her effort was not a noble and valuable one.

It's just that, listening not to my irrational dislikes, nor to my desire to think the best of people, but rather by looking at the facts, I come to the conclusion that I just don't believe that reaching an accommodation with people who cannot be trusted to tell the truth serves any greater goal.

Was Their Flood But a Trickle?

noreply@blogger.com (William Nedblake) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 04:47:00 +0000

"Damn you, science. Can't we even keep our big mythical flood?" (shakes fist at lab coat on peg).

Or so seem to say creationists around the world, especially when the world produces research which flatly contradicts their view of history, geology, and life on earth.

One of the tenets claimed by so-called "young earth" creationists (or YECs) is bible literalism. That is to say, they claim that not only is everything in the bible literally true, but that it provides irrefutable scientific evidence of the creation of the world, and of its subsequent destruction by the Noachian flood, and of anything else that you could ever need to know in a science-y way. Building on the pioneeringly wrong-headed timetable constructed by the 17th century Bishop James Ussher, who determined that, based on biblical chronology, the earth was created at 9PM on the evening of 22 October 4004 BCE, which would have made it... a brisk autumn evening?

On the one hand, sitting down with the bible on one hand and a Big Chief tablet on the other is a pretty impressive feat, when you consider that no one had ever done so before (or, had they done so, they wisely binned the resulting calcuation). Comedic as it sounds, Ussher (called Primate of All Ireland, which just makes me laugh and I'm not really sorry about it) took a tool at his disposal and used it to try to find out how old the world was. Unfortunately, this leads YECs to claim that the world, everything in it, and the surrounding universe are less than ten thousand years old, having rather failed to grasp the concept of "moving with the times". They also maintain, unlike their close ideological brethren in the "intelligent design" camp, that the geologic record - that is, the history of the planet as recorded in the layers of rock around the planet - supports their view without ambiguity.

Usually, the "evidence" of this support is either a wild misinterpretation of available data, or a willful mis-reading of said same data, or a refutation of established parameters and constants in the universe (they simply adore, for example, claiming that the known constant of the speed of light has actually been actively changed by an interventionist deity, apparently with time on its hands); sometimes, they indulge in these three and others in various delightfully mendacious combinations. Radioactive decay? Magic man has changed the known decay rates. Rates of sedimentation? Er...

Yes. The rates of sedimentation, and the resulting fossilisation of a thousand million creatures: that's all down to the flood as well, if you're a YEC.

Unfortunately, in attempting to use their partially-grasped view of science, YECs have made some claims about evidence of past flooding. Specifically, they have said that this Great Flood would have left traces right around the world, making the bible story literally provable and true. From seashells on the tops of the Swiss Alps to the sedimentary layers which led James Hutton to pen the revolutionary, if fabulously unreadable Theory of the Earth, your common or garden YEC has a one-stop shop for answers, and no need to worry about any other pesky "evidence", "data", or "fact". As Robin Ince says, "magic man done it!"

However, the research from the Black Sea, which is considered a candidate source for some of the flood myths, quite possibly including the Noachian one, and as reported at insciences.org, tells a different story. Instead of finding traces of a massive, region-drowing flood, as flood geology-keen YEC types would suggest, the team from the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute have done something novel and looked at the data. And, in short, they suggest that the basin was not as profoundly flooded as original studies, congruent with the Noachian fable, suggested.

In the late 1990s, Columbia University researchers Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman examined the geological evidence and estimated the Black Sea level at the time of the flood was approximately 80 meters lower than present day levels. They suggested that the impact of a Black Sea flood could have forced the movement of early agriculturist groups to central Europe and established the story of Noah and his ark, as well as flood myths among other peoples.

Flood stories are common in the mythologies of nearly all peoples, not the least of which include the mythologies of the various desert wanderers. The Babylonians had one. The Greeks had one. In fact, here's a huge list of them, courtesy of TalkOrigins. They are, to paraphrase the very orange David Dickinson, "cheap as chips and twice as common".

To extend their record back in time beyond 6000 years, in 2007, Giosan and his colleagues drilled a new core to 42 meters depth at the mouth of the Danube River, the largest river emptying into the Black Sea. Their goal was to reconstruct the history of that part of the delta—before and after the flood—through an examination of the sediments. In analyzing the delta sediment from the new core as well as others taken in the region, Giosan’s team discovered fresh water deposits of the newly forming delta dating back approximately 10,000 years, subsequently overlaid by fine marine sediments, followed by the modern delta deposits.

And you can guess the result:

“We don’t see evidence for a catastrophic flood as others have described,” said Liviu Giosan, a geologist in the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department.

The practical upshot of all of this? As with most science, it is progressive, rather than immediately conclusive. More data can lead to new and better conclusions. But at this moment in time, it looks as though - once again, and certainly not for the last time - the YECs have suffered another blow.