Adopt a Denier in 2010

21 Dec

Interesting idea from Wallace J Nichols:

If the denial of science weren’t so dangerous, we could leave the topic to Jon Stewart to dissect on the Daily Show. But it is dangerous.

Make it your New Year resolution to quietly and kindly adopt a denier. Over time, explain how science works, share peer reviewed articles, go see films, have long conversations over coffee or beer afterwards. The idea isn’t to “win” an argument, it’s to answer questions and remove the fear or misunderstanding that surrounds advances in scientific understanding of ourselves and our planet.

In a way, that’s what I’m trying to do with this blog.

Fluorescent Oceans

21 Dec

Beautiful photos.

Darwin: Is Creationism Presumptuous?

20 Dec

It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. Further we must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way or degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alteration, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?

- Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Chapter 6 (emphasis added)

A fascinating observation, and one I was not expecting to encounter in On the Origin of Species.

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Terry Pratchett on Religion

20 Dec

From Pharyngula we get this video of Terry Pratchett:

While understandable sentiments, the reference to humans as “fallen angels” makes me think that his theology might be just a bit off.

The assumption that religion and evolution cannot coincide puzzles me. An understanding of religion as socially evolved at least attempts to deal with the issue, rather than simply mocking it.

Homo Sapiens Causing Extinction?

20 Dec

From a new study out of UC Berkeley:

By combining data from three catalogs of mammal diversity in the United States between 30 million years ago and 500 years ago, UC Berkeley and Penn State researchers show that the bulk of mammal extinctions occurred within a few thousand years after the arrival of humans, with losses dropping after that. Although modern humans emerged from Africa into Europe and Asia by about 40,000 years ago, they didn’t reach North America until about 13,000 years ago, and most mammal extinctions occurred in the subsequent 1,000 to 2,000 years.

The question of our ultimate effect on nature remains up in the air, but it would be naïve to assume that humans are entirely innocent or entirely responsible. That said, the circumstances described here don’t sound that dissimilar to what Darwin describes in On the Origin of Species as the result of a more highly-adapted species moving into a new territory.

Put This One On the Reading List

19 Dec

From The Economist’s review of The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures:

Charles Darwin, whose idea of the sacred also came from an English private school, witnessed religion at its most primordial when he went to Australia in 1836. He found it horrifying: “nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony…”

Whatever Darwin’s personal sensibilities, Mr Wade is convinced that a Darwinian approach offers the key to understanding religion. In other words, he sides with those who think man’s propensity for religion has some adaptive function. According to this view, faith would not have persisted over thousands of generations if it had not helped the human race to survive. Among evolutionary biologists, this idea is contested. Critics of religion, like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, suggest that faith is a useless (or worse) by-product of other human characteristics.

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Dark Matter Detected?

18 Dec

One of the really fascinating things about the Internet and modern science is that it has allowed the lay person (to steal a religious term) to share in the excitement of new discoveries. Like this:

In a series of coordinated announcements at several US laboratories, researchers said they believed they had captured dark matter in a defunct iron ore mine half a mile underground. The claim, if confirmed next year, will rank as one the most spectacular discoveries in physics in the past century.

I remember hearing recently about an alternative theory that didn’t require the existence of dark matter. It’s mentioned briefly at the bottom of the article, but extra points to anyone who can send me a better summary of it.

Also, for extra mind-blowingness:

Some dark matter particles could explain why ordinary matter is not radioactive, while others may help scientists understand why time – so far as we know – always runs forward.

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To Mars and Beyond

18 Dec

Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget:

President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft.

I agree with Buzz Aldrin and company that NASA needs to leave low-earth orbit to the developing private industry and head outwards in the solar system. Sounds like Obama wants to do exactly that.

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Venemous Catfish

17 Dec

As the owner of two very beautiful pictus catfish (Pimelodus pictus), this article captured my interest. From National Geographic:

Some catfish species have been known to be venomous—including a few dangerous enough to kill a human. But scientists knew little about how common venomous catfish are or how the fish produce and deliver their venom.

Turns out, the ability is more widespread than anyone realized—extending to about half of the more than 3,000 known catfish species, according to a new report.

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First Invertebrate Documented Using Tools

17 Dec

BBC News, Octopus snatches coconut and runs:

Tool use was once thought to be an exclusively human skill, but this behaviour has now been observed in a growing list of primates, mammals and birds.

The researchers say their study suggests that these coconut-grabbing octopuses should now be added to these ranks.

Professor Tom Tregenza, an evolutionary ecologist from the University of Exeter, UK, and another author of the paper, said: “A tool is something an animal carries around and then uses on a particular occasion for a particular purpose.

Prompting my sister-in-law to comment:

It’s funny, isn’t it, how some Christians want to think stuff like this diminishes us or God… I think it just makes him seem even more awesome.

As for me: “Honestly, thinking we were the only animals to use tools was extremely presumptuous.”

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