the observers hunch

Greatest Hits of Creation "Science"

2008-04-02T16:10:00.012+01:00

Aprils Fools day seems to me to be far too much work, especially on the internet where whatever you do someone is bound to act up about it, case in point; the Top 10 Creationist Discoveries. This was an attempt at wired to put together a post about the nonsense spouted by creationists, it started off well then rapidly descended to insulting rednecks, from the look of the comments, you can say anything you like about rednecks as long as you DO NOT PUT DOWN NASCAR. My feelings on the post are mixed as its funny seeing people take such personal offense to something clearly so stupid, but I also think it was a great missed opportunity to actually look at the greatest hits of creation "Science". So without further ado here is (possibly) the first in a series of posts on the greatest discoveries of creation science as I see them (in no particular order):

T-Rex ate Coconuts: Apparently the top scientific minds of the creation museum think that the reason T-Rex has extremely large teeth is because they were used to eat coconuts. Why would they feel the need to claim this? Well because they believe that the world is actually only 6000-10000 years old and that dinosaurs frolicked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Even these intellectual giants have worked out that a vicious carnivore weighing in the range of 6 tonnes would bring up major health and safety concerns for Adam and Eve. Lets face it even God wouldn't be happy filling in those risk assessment forms. To get round this problem they fall back on that most reliable of paleontological references: the Bible, where it explains that in the Garden of Eden all animals were vegetarian, they didn't start eating each other until after "the fall", makes perfect sense to me. Apart from the fact that that means God designed them knowing that one day they would need their claws and sharp teeth to eat each other, something that couldn't happen until after "the fall", so he knew that Adam and Eve were going to misbehave, and yet he still freaked. No actually I don't think I get it.

Personally I think there are nuts involved in this idea, but they aren't coconuts.

Dinosaurs were on Noahs Ark: The linked article goes into a lot of detail about how it is possible for 8 people to pack tens of thousands of animals into a single craft, feed, water and keep them clean for AN ENTIRE YEAR! You really did not want to be the poor SOB who had to clean the sauropod cage did you?

Some anonymous internet genius came up with this interpretation of what would have happened in the event of a containment failure:

God was down with a bit of incest: Ever wonder who Cain married? No me neither but these guys have put way to much thought into it. Apparently Cain married either a sister or niece, but don't worry this wasn't considered icky then, after all if you start with only two people what else are you going to do? Extra points for this explanation because they manage to wrangle in a semi-coherent explanation of why people shouldn't marry their close relatives anymore, presumably some people need to be reminded of this.

Human ancestors were actually people forced into caves during the flood:

With that said, the Bible does describe a period of traumatic upheaval (the Flood – Genesis chapters 6-9) upon the earth during which time civilization was utterly destroyed and men were forced to start over. It is in this historical context that some scholars believe that men lived in caves and made use of stone tools. These men were not primitive; they were simply destitute. And they certainly weren't half ape. The fossil evidence is quite clear: cavemen were human (hence the term cave-"men," men who lived in caves).

It goes on to explain that all of the fossil evidence of human ancestors such as homo erectus are not what evolutionists think:

It is almost entertaining the lengths evolutionary scientists go to prove the existence of prehistoric cavemen. They find a misshaped tooth in a cave and from that create a misshapen human being who lived in a cave and hunched over like an ape.

That is one hell of a tooth.

Dispatches From NAM

2008-04-02T14:18:00.003+01:00

As I'm in Munich on a collaborative visit at the moment I haven't made it to the National Astronomy Meeting this year. As well as meaning Durham were unable to retain the 5-a-side football trophy (as if I would have changed that) it means I have missed out on actually being in the room when some really interesting talks are given. Fortunately some people are live blogging the event here, its a good way to keep up with the goings on and to find pretty pictures like this one to steal:

Most of this picture has been around for a few years. It shows data from the SDSS which essentially shows the density of stars across a particular patch of sky, what is interesting is the number of coherent streams of stars visible. Many of these streams have been traced and found to be associated with dwarf satellites or globular clusters of our galaxy which are currently being torn apart by the gravity of the Milky Way. Whats new about this picture is that a team of astronmers (not sure who exactly, though the talk describing the result was given by Dan Zucker of the Institute of Astronomy) have used the original map to discover several new Milky Way satellite galaxies.

This is interesting in particular because its been known for a considerable amount of time that models of galaxy formation predict that a galaxy the size of the Milky Way should have many more dwarf galaxies than are actually observed. The discovery of more dwarf galaxies is helping to fix this discrepancy, the observation that many dwarfs are currently being destroyed by the MW also tends to lend support to the idea that originally there were many more, they have mostly been stripped and subsumed into the halo of the Galaxy. An additional bonus of the work presented at NAM is the observation that the motions of stars in the dwarf galaxies is much too fast to be explained without the dwarf galaxies being heavily dominated by dark matter, another prediction of current generations of galaxy formation models.

Score one complete (predicting the excess DM) and one partial victory (getting closer to the right number of satellites) for current theory then, there is however a final twist in the tale.
The shapes of the dwarf galaxies is apparently irregular, something that doesn't make that much sense if they are embedded in a larger dark matter halo, this should act to damp out external pertubations (say due to the Milky Ways gravity) and to keep the stars in a more regular shape. Whack one mole, another pops up, such is a scientists lot.

Dawkins, Dawin Raise The Roof

2008-03-30T11:32:00.006+01:00

This hilarious video is doing the rounds now:

I love this video because it is so clever that it appeals to both sides of the creationism - science battle. I think it really acts as a mirror to the way of thinking of both sides, both of which seem to think it is supporting them. At the moment no one seems to know who made it, with suspicions that it may be part of a viral campaign for the ID propaganda film Expelled, personally I doubt that, but who really cares its still very funny and as I said it does act as a great mirror into the thought processes of either side.

The creationists opinions of it, on display at such places as Uncommon Descent are that its meant to insult prominent atheist such as Richard Dawkins et al., at a certain level it appears that that is true, they come across as being quite arrogant, especially in the intro. However they (the creationists) never seem to get beyond this, its like they have seen something that confirms their prejudices and their satisfied, off they go happy, this is one for the home team, nothing more to see here.

Over on the pro-science side, almost the exact opposite is true, everyone (myself included here obviously) are over analysing, this has led to some really interesting points that were immediately seized upon by the commenters over at Pharyngula as proof that the video was pro-science, the most important is simply that the lyrics are very forthright and from a scientists perspective, true.

We might have lost at Scopes, beaten down by the dopes,
and the stooges of popes, but in losin' we coped,
becomin' more than we hoped,
creationists slipped on the soap of their own slippery slope.

Not exactly the type of thing a creationist would probably write. You don't tend to denigrate anothers position by writing from their position in (what they would view) a truthful way, scientists do tend to see the scopes trial as an event that despite being lost has proven to in the long run be a great victory for science, sort of a Pyrrhic victory for the creationists. Those on the ID side seem to have totally ignored this, its as if they can't get past the funny video to see the actually content. The scientists do exactly what scientists do however, they look, question, theorize, argue, test and search for evidence ironically precisely the type of things that the creationists claim that the evil "Darwinist" cabal never does.

Then there is the fact that the video uses the word Creationism, something IDists try very hard not to, if this is a viral for ID, its not a very good one, because it ties ID to creationism, by making use of a logo similar to Expelled (the ID propaganda piece) but using the word creationism throughout. The whole point of ID is to circumvent the separation of church and state in the US, by saying the intelligent designer could be anyone/thing, not necessarily the God of the Bible ("nudge, nudge, wink, wink, it is actually God though pastor"), thereby allowing them to teach it in schools. By providing yet more evidence that creationism and ID are one and the same, someone is going seriously off message.

Then some of the other lyrics are particularly good, eluding to the development of the scientific method, which the machine appears to be a metaphor for.

You see, this battle's been ragin' since Zeus was on the bottle,
'tween Science like Democritus and Faith like Aristotle, 
who said the mover was unmovin' like some magic trick,
but that's no good logic, my posse is far too quick for this religious sthick.

I just don't see a creationist/IDist including something like this at all, its far to cerebral, their arguments usually descend to claims about evolution being uprovable or some such nonsense, not a reasonably good description of the roots of scientific thought. How the ID side could think that this is in support of their side is beyond me, I can only presume that either they don't know what it refers to, or that they just didn't really listen.

All in all it could have been made by either side, but I'm tending to fall into the thinking that it was made by someone who is somewhat in the middle. Someone who understands that creationism/ID is non-science and utterly vacuous, but who is uncomfortable with the more forthright attitudes and statements of the more prominent atheists featured such Dawkins, PZ Myers and Hitchens.

Whoever made it congratulations you have real talent. I just wonder what will happen if it is revealed to be the work of a partisan from either side, my guess is nothing if it is the work of an IDist, but if someone pro-science made it I would expect it to be pulled from the likes of uncommon descent rather rapidly.

Pot meet Kettle

2008-03-30T11:15:00.006+01:00

In another example of the rank hypocrisy on display by the pro-ID fringe, Ftk decides to complain that PZ Myers won't engage her in email conversation:

Oh, btw, your experience with emailing PZ sounds very similiar to mine. He basically told me to get lost and he wouldn't respond to me again.

Nice guy that one...

Coming from someone that only allows comments from sycophants, or occasionally from people that disagree, so that she can subsequently block their comments to make it appear she has won the argument this is particularly amusing.

Expelled - No Intelligence Displayed

2008-03-26T11:58:00.004Z

FtK has more dishonesty on display today regarding the PZ Myers/ Richard Dawkins PR coup of the other day :

I hate to say it....

...BUT I TOLD YOU SO.

The Myers/Dawkins fiasco IS TEH BEST THING THAT *EVAH* COULD HAVE HAPPENED!!!

*BIG HUG AND KISS* to both PZ & Richard. You guys are the best! Who da thought you'd help us fill the theatres!!!

Behold...

EXPELLED controversy top issue in blogosphere

Hundreds Turn Out for Seattle Screening of Ben Stein Film Expelled

It is a stellar day for Intelligent Design...

There are a couple of important points/disclaimers about her post that I think she should be more up front about, the first point I made I'll let her off for, it may simply be too subtle to realise that a previously invited crowd of people who already share your beliefs are unlikely to have been affected by the last weeks events. The second just shows her being dishonest, presenting a press release from the makers of the film without commenting that that is what it is. Anyway here is my comment which will probably never see the light of day on her blog.

Following the second link:
A crowd of 350 invited guests attended a pre-screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed tonight in Seattle's Pacific Place.

So how did the Myers/Dawkins incident influence this turnout?

This screening was for 350 invited guests, presumably invited before the terrible PR debacle (from an ID POV) of the other day. It's not like these were people that heard about the incident and thought they would like to see the film, they were just like every other audience for the pre screenings carefully selected beforehand to agree with ID.

The first is a link to a press release from the producers of the film, hardly a balanced view. Go on FtK, why not "teach the controversy" and link to PZ's post where he raises his objections to that bit of PR. This is a chance for you to prove that your not like those close minded evolutionists you dislike so much.

In fact here is the link for you:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/lying_by_press_release.php

Sometimes its not what is said, but what is unsaid that matters.

No Intelligence Allowed - 2

2008-03-24T08:45:00.002Z

Continuing the series, my last post didn't make it through, my latest attempt is at the end of this copy:

Blogger Forthekids said...
Yo, Mark...flipped another one of your posts off into space. Dude, quit repeating yourself, and read the Q&A. The answers to your questions ARE THERE.

Ya blind? Quit making me repeat myself.
3:51 PM

Blogger Forthekids said...
Jon, PT's forum has all kinds of nonsense about the flick.

Start here, and notice also that Kristine gives J-Dog the big "Shhhh", when he mentions that someone should tell PZ about the event. Kinda tellin' no?

Whatever....they've been talking about the movie over there for ages. It's pretty obvious that some of the bloggers and forum regulars have been planning to go to screenings, and obviously many of them have been refered to as "private". That means something in my book, and they know it as well.

Nobody has stopped them from going in as far as I know. Even PZ's group was allowed in the movie.
8:31 PM

I didn't think that that post would make it through, so I took the liberty of copying it on my blog, that way everyone can see that nothing untoward was being said.

I've been through your FAQs and their links, at least as much as I can manage, I don't have a lot of free time. The nearest I got to an explanation of why ID is an inherently fundamentalist Christian phenomenon was this:

Certainly, Christian, Islamic and Jewish belief systems consider this designing source to be "God" or "Allah", but it appears that even pantheistic religions question Darwinism (in it's materialistic definition) as is seen in the views of the Dali Lama.

Notice that this doesn't claim that anyone else is actually working on ID, I also found this link in the FAQ http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1178, the question is:

Is ID just in the US or is it International?

The response is:

FAQ still in progress.

I guess thats a no then.

If you know of some links that show the ID research being done by non-Christians it would be appreciated if you just gave me them, I really don't have time to be trawling the internet if someone else can save me the time.

No Intelligence Allowed

2008-03-23T18:32:00.006Z

Hey all, after a very long hiatus I am back at least for a while, I've got a thesis to write and a fairly tight time frame, so got to crack on.

This post is just a copy of a comments section I have been engaged in for a day or two, the author of the blog, the inimitable FtK has taken to blocking any comments that she can't understand/has no answer for. This I obviously find pretty annoying, coming from a confirmed IDist I find it particularly hypocritical, its no good claiming that scientists refuse to engage with you, then deleting any comments that disprove your points. Now obviously its her blog to do with as she pleases, but if your going to go around deleting perfectly civil comments for no reason then they make you look foolish I think its highly intellectually dishonest. It also has the effect of making it possible to claim that people were being rude or discourteous which is unfair. Personally I only delete comments when they are offensive (very rarely) or trying to hawk some product (much more common).

So from now on, in my dealings with FtK, or others of similar habits, I'll post a copy of any comments I make here as well, then we can all see what it is that they have such problems with.

Here is the comments section in full, its basically all about the PZ Myers being expelled by IDists from a showing of a film they made, which they tricked him into appearing in, oh, and the whole topic of the film is how scientists won't allow open discussion of ID, oh, and although they chucked him out they happened to miss Richard Freaking Dawkins, who was standing in line with Myers. You can read the whole thing, or at least the bits not censored here.

Blogger Jon Voisey said...
I still don't get this harping on the "ZOMG! He didnt haf a tikit!!?!" I keep seeing from the creationist camp.

No one had a ticket!

No one tried to "sneak in" or "gate crash". The signed up for an opening screening to the public with their real names!

This blatant attempt to misportray the engagement really is dishonest.
7:27 PM

Blogger Forthekids said...
I didn't say anything about having a ticket. Makes no difference really. These are private screenings, and they can invite or turn away anyone they want to. I think it's hilarious that all of you think it's a big deal.

Honestly, they seem like gate crashers to me. I mean, come on, PZ and Dawkins showing up to the private screenings of a movie they've been slamming for months? LOL...fun times, but certainly not appropriate on their part...rather sophomoric.

Oh, btw, you said that "No one had a ticket!" Wrong. this guy did.
8:05 PM

Anonymous Mellow Middle Aged Man said...

Why are the Darwinists so upset?

Its just a movie, and their evidence is OVERWHELMING.

Right?

Uh, isn't that right?
1:18 AM

Blogger Jon Voisey said...
I didn't say anything about having a ticket.
Chapman did.

These are private screenings, and they can invite or turn away anyone they want to.
Quite true. But the fact that they waited until PZ was actually in line, and then didn't kick out Dawkins... seriously. WTF?

And it seems that there was more than one method to gain access. It sounds like they probably sent ticked invitations to religious organizations and then offered the rest to the public. But again, tickets were not required. Thus to insist (as Chapman do and so many other creationists covering this) that PZ and Dawkins should not have been there given that they didn't have tickets is an outright lie.

And how is it not appropriate? I knew the movie What the *Bleep* Do We Know? was a load of crock from a basic summary, but I still saw it. Just because I disagree with it means it's "certainly not appropriate" for me to watch it?

Why are the Darwinists so upset?
Because Creationists like this are astounding hypocrites, that lie, abuse ad hominemns, quote mine (but FTK is cool with that), etc.... and yet, the majority of America is so befuddled when it comes to basic science and logic, that they swallow it. We're not upset that we think that our theory is wrong, but rather that we should have to defend reality from such liars.
8:32 AM

Blogger Forthekids said...
Like I said at UD, Jon...

What they did was sophomoric. Obviously, these are private screenings, and it’s also obvious that Myers went in just to be a shyster.

Think about it. If Myers thought what he was doing was on the up and up, he would have blogged about it before hand just like he blogs about everything he’s involved in.

Internet Darwinsts have been joking about getting into the movie by signing up as preachers, etc. They understand that the screenings aren’t meant for the general public at this point. Myers knows that as well.

Obviously, Myers wanted to create commotion by slipping into the flick, and he did. Actually, he created even more than he planned to. Personally, I see nothing wrong with turning a guy like him away, and like I said…this *will* bring more people to the theatres.
8:41 AM

Blogger Forthekids said...
btw, Jon, your little rant about IDers being liars, quote miners, ignorant of science, etc. is so obviously untrue.

Like I said, hopefully the flick will bring people to these on-line debates, and they can judge for themselves in regard to the scientific issues in this debate.

Oh wait, people like you and Myers believe that 90% of Americans are ignorant and border on insane, so I'm guessing that you believe they still won't understand the science. Pity that the grand majority of Americans are such morons. You science "elite" need to hold are hands and lead us away from God and into glories of science.

Gag. You've turned science into a pagan religion. It's disgusting.
8:48 AM

Blogger Larry Fafarman said...
This story has made it into the NY Times and is all over the Internet -- just Google "PZ Myers" and "Expelled." Not surprisingly, the NY Times article was written by Cornelia Dean, who has a long history of bias against criticism of Darwinism.[1][2][3][4]

Sleazy PZ Myers is an unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger who arbitrarily censors comments and commenters. I should know -- I am at the top of his "killfile dungeon" list of banned commenters.

IMO, prescreening "Expelled" was a bad idea. This incident involving Sleazy PZ is being used against the movie, and also a prescreening for Florida state legislators was criticized as violating the spirit of the state's sunshine laws because the legislators got a chance to see the movie before the public gets a chance to see it and comment on it.
10:37 AM

Blogger Forthekids said...
So, Larry, do you think that the general public won't attend the film due to these loud atheists throwing hissy fits?

Personally, I think that will bring the public to the theatres in droves.

If the producers have done their job and exposed the scientific community for the crap they've pulled, then I think the entire episode is beneficial.
11:06 AM

Blogger Jon Voisey said...
he would have blogged about it before hand

Since when does PZ blog about anything before hand except big coffehouse meetups? There's been several occasions where he's written about something after the fact that I didn't know about before hand.

Internet Darwinsts have been joking about getting into the movie by signing up as preachers, etc.

Really? And I suppose you should show me where? The only claims I've seen to anyone "sneaking in as a preacher" was a false allegation from the producers against a reporter who was invited (and later uninvited) with a whole bunch of preachers. But never did he actually pretend to be one.

they can judge for themselves in regard to the scientific issues in this debate.

Are you really that dense? Even those that support the movie have said it's devoid of science. It's just "ZOMG persecution" and "evolution = atheism = eugenics = nazis".

This is not a movie that will inform anyone about the "scientific issues".

You science "elite" need to hold are hands and lead us away from God and into glories of science.

I do my best to make my science posts extremely detailed so that anyone can follow them. But time and time again, I see that Creationists can't even understand or accept the scientific method (which you yourself have rejected because you don't like methodological naturalism). It's impossible to hold anyone's hand or lead them anywhere when they're pulling back, throwing hissy fits going "I DUN WANNA!"

And it's not about leading people from God. I really could care less.
11:45 AM

Blogger Mark Norris said...
It would seem that if ID had anything going for it there would be plenty of people jumping on the bandwagon, after all not all research is done by atheist Americans or Europeans. Where I wonder are all of the excellent Chinese, Indian, Korean etc researchers working on ID? How is the supposed suppression by atheist scientists in the US/Europe preventing them researching ID? Why then is no one working seriously on ID?

Could it be because ID offers no predictions, no testable hypotheses, nothing but a shrug of the shoulders and a "God did it" whenever things get complicated?

If you are forced to admit that to call ID science you have to accept astrology as science then you may as well pack up and go home. I wonder FtK do you think astrology is science?

By the way, regarding the matter at hand even Kevin Miller admits PZ was there legitimately

http://kevinwrites.typepad.com/otherwise_known_as_kevin_/2008/03/i-repent.html

You science "elite" need to hold are hands and lead us away from God and into glories of science.

I don't think anyone is remotely interested in leading you away from your faith, however if your faith requires you to believe something demonstrably false then I think you have problems. There are plenty of very good scientists out there who are perfectly capable of reconciling their faith and science, with the proviso that where the two conflict, the one with the empirical evidence wins. I mean honestly what is the big deal, surely no one is really a biblical literalist anymore.
11:46 AM

Blogger Larry Fafarman said...
Forthekids said...
Personally, I think that will bring the public to the theatres in droves.

I then made a comment here, sorry I didn't keep a copy of it, the gist of it however was to repeat my question as to why ID has no real support from people of any faith other than evangelical Christian. Then I pasted the court transcript where Behe admits under oath, that if ID is science so is astrology. Namely this bit:

Q And using your definition, intelligent design is a scientific theory, correct?

A Yes.

Q Under that same definition astrology is a scientific theory under your definition, correct?

A Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that -- which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and many other -- many other theories as well.

Q The ether theory of light has been discarded, correct?

A That is correct.

Q But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?

A Yes, that's correct. And let me explain under my definition of the word "theory," it is -- a sense of the word "theory" does not include the theory being true, it means a proposition based on physical evidence to explain some facts by logical inferences. There have been many theories throughout the history of science which looked good at the time which further progress has shown to be incorrect. Nonetheless, we can't go back and say that because they were incorrect they were not theories. So many many things that we now realized to be incorrect, incorrect theories, are nonetheless theories.

I don't think she liked it:

You're right, Mark. Your last comment didn't see the light of day. I told you that the responses to your accusations can be found at my frequently asked questions page. Read and enjoy, or buzz off. Thank you.
4:18 AM

Here is my response:
Its good to see that you live up to the ID crowds stated aim of allowing a free and open discussion. We'll leave the matter about Behe's statements then seeing as you apparently believe they are of no import.

How about at least answering my question about why the only people interested in ID are of the evangelical Christian persuasion. Where are all of the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews etc looking for the hand of Brahma, Allah, Vāhigurū or Yahweh? If ID is science, then it is universal, it should be self evident to anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs that it has merit. The fact that it only seems to be of merit to one subset of one peculiarly American brand of religion seems to be a problem for its credibility, do you not agree?

We'll just have to see whether this one disappears.

Happy Birthday BBC News Website

2007-10-29T12:49:00.000Z

The BBC news website is 10 years old this week. I know I and many others would not know how to live in a world where this invaluable time sink did not exist, partly I know this from the cool graph they have produced showing the growth in traffic to the site over time, you can see it reproduced below, click for big.

There are several interesting things about this graph, one of which is simply the number of page loads a month, right now there are over 1.3 Billion page loads per month and there is no sign of the increase in traffic slowing. Although I am probably responsible for about 1% of those, I still find it a huge number and wonder how they will cope in the future.

The second thing I like is the subtle implicatons about peoples behaviour you can see in the data, you may note for example that there are several dips in the traffic towards the end of a year, most obviously in recent years. My guess that this is the effect of Christmas holidays, when people are forced to go home, and no longer bother to check the news every five minutes as they do when chained to their desks. This of course also tends to imply that much of the traffic is still coming from the western world.

Then there is something I don't really understand unless it is simply a artifact of how they have graphed the data, but it appears that traffic had been increasing rapidly in the days leading up to September 11th 2001, before the attacks on World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. My guess is that they have simply plotted monthly totals which have tended to make it look like there was a rise in traffic pre September-11th, I would imagine that if you plotted daily totals you would see fairly smoothly increasing traffic until September 10th, then traffic would spike dramatically on the 11th before tailing off over the next few weeks, with a few superimposed bumps and wiggles related to events such as the opening of attacks in Afghanistan or new information regarding the attacks becoming available.

I'd love to see the daily totals for this period, I think this could really be useful in determining the most important events in modern history, especially when coupled with information on the most popular stories, though I rather fear that various celebrity scandals would dominate the events.

Everybody Is A Crank

2007-10-29T09:54:00.000Z

The New York Times has a short article (free subscription required) about well regarded scientists stepping out of their own fields and becoming cranks in another. This has been spurred by James Watsons (co discoverer of the structure of DNA) cranky claims about race and intelligence last week, for Watson however such claims are not entirely unusual and not entirely unexpected given his age (79). The article includes an interesting quote from Sir Martin Rees:

“With my own advancing years, I’m mindful of the three different ways scientists can grow old,” Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom and president of the Royal Society, wrote in an e-mail message. The first two choices are either to become an administrator or to content yourself with doing science that will probably be mediocre. (“In contrast to composers,” Dr. Rees observed, “there are few scientists whose last works are their greatest.”) The third choice is to strike off half-cocked into unfamiliar territory — and quickly get in over your head. “All too many examples of this!” he lamented

I'm just struggling to come up with too many examples of this (any ideas internets?), there must be some, but there is another more interesting route to crankdom for scientists, one which allows you to remain comfortable in your own field: you are mainstream at some point but stick with a discredited theory long after it was given up as a lost cause by everyone else, Halton Arp is the obvious example from astronomy. I find this the more interesting route because it is the most dangerous, the easiest most seductive route, kind of like the dark side of science where you let your ego get the better of you.

I don't doubt that everyone is a crank in some field, I just wonder what my crank field is. I've known some friends that held what I thought were borderline cranky views on areas such as global warming or biology, but I guess its always difficult to spot where your own thoughts appear unreasonable to others. No doubt someone will enlighten me. Do you know where your inner crank resides?

Expanding Earth or Shrinking Brains?

2007-10-22T13:35:00.000+01:00

DdH has linked to a very amusing video that he has gotten all excited about. I think the fact that Dave is so excited about it really goes to show that if you are cranky about one facet of science you are probably cranky about a lot of others. The video is by someone called Neal Adams, who thinks that the Earth (and other planets) have expanded over time. He basically is not a big fan of tectonic plates, so he as produced animations showing that if you shrink the Earth the continents appear to fit together.

Like any good crank he mixes in a lot of half truths with a lot of absolute nonsense, there are too many problems to look at now, but here are some of the best that just sprung to mind:

Throughout the video he claims subduction and movement of plates are impossible, yet somehow expansion of the entire Earth is fine. Hmm. There is also the fact that we measure the movement of plates, the obvious example being the laser measurement of the movement of the San Andreas fault.

If the Earth is doubling in size where does all of this extra mass come from? If its just normal matter from space we should have noticed the several tons per acre per day!! that should be falling on us (h/t to this video. Not sure I agree with everything he says but its quite fun.), if its due to some strange change in atoms over time then we could certainly measure that with current instruments. So where does it come from? Er that's not made clear. Then again it is very rare for cranks to think through the implications of their theories.

Another interesting problem is that he claims that the Earth has doubled in size in the last 65 million years, this is a bit of problem, as by my rough calculations it would mean that 65 million years ago if there was the same amount of water on the Earth, essentially everywhere would be underwater, oops.

After Neals "success" with geology he moves onto Physics, again proving that if you are cranky in one field of science you probably are in the rest too. Enjoy his explanation of prime matter here (sorry can't get it to show in here). Its been a long time since I've seen such a long stream of nonsense, especially without even a token attempt to provide evidence for his claims, the best one being that electrons wrap around a proton in a type of shell, which appears to leave a hole in it, brilliant. Don't give up the day job. Though I think Dave and him will get a long great, perhaps he can make the animations for the Autodynamics film?

Big Autodynamics News

2007-10-19T12:14:00.000+01:00

It seems that Pharyngula has noticed my favourite bunch of science cranks, the Autodynamicists. It appears that Dave de Hilster is looking for a little help with his anti-Einstein "masterpiece": Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year. The subtitle is now a bit of a misnomer, it was originally called that because it was meant to be following the events celebrating the centenary of Einsteins miracle year of 1905 when he did much of his most important work. I think the plan was that the Autodynamics people would prove relativity wrong during the year celebrating his work, things didn't really turn out the way they were hoping. Here is Daves advert.

Feature Length Doc "Einstein Wrong" Looking for Executive Producer
Two Oscar Winning Distributors Wanting a Rough Cut

LONG BEACH, Calif, October 16, 2007 - Bootstrap Productions is currently looking for an executive producer for it's feature-length documentary "Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year" due out in 2008. The documentary is about a suburban house wife who takes on the icon of 20th century physics to see if in fact relativity is wrong. Shot over the past 3 years, the film has two Oscar-winning distributors interested in the project. The film is directed by David de Hilster who has invested 13 years studying scientists and their efforts to show Einstein wrong. It is co-produced and edited by Andrea Tucker, and Nick Tamburri and is due out in 2008. For more info, go to http://investing.einsteinwrong.com.

Contact:
David de Hilster
Long Beach, California
http://www.einsteinwrong.com

I'm looking forward to seeing the film, even though I know it will be incredibly cringe worthy, the same old canards will undoubtedly be trotted out, that scientists don't challenge relativity because they'll lose funding, that its some sort of conspiracy to hide the truth and that Autodynamics is correct. All of which of course, are false, as numerous posts here and elsewhere have shown.

I'm Back

2007-10-19T12:12:00.000+01:00

After a very long absence I am finally back to blogging. My absence was caused by a combination of telescope applications, travel, job applications, writing a paper, moving house and a whole load of other problems which I won't go into right now. Hopefully I get can get back into the rhythm reasonably quickly.

Education Wins Again

2007-07-20T11:57:00.000+01:00

Some interesting research into what effect marriage has on peoples feelings of happiness has just appeared. Apparently married men are much happier than single men, not exactly a shock I guess, as are married women, though not by the same amount. The discrepancy seems to have something to do with women being happier in general.

Possibly the most interesting finding however is that men with more highly educated wives are happier:

A married man's chances of achieving a high level of happiness - above a score of seven - are improved by 8 per cent for every extra year of education his wife has. But married women's happiness level is unaffected by their husband's years of schooling.

Women do not care how dumb their husbands are - but they feel happier if the men are smarter than they are, the study shows.

So the 8 years of University I have is not doing anything. Dammit. I wonder if the place of education, or the type of study of their spouse has any effect on mens feelings?

On Health Care - Why The State Wins

2007-07-16T10:30:00.000+01:00

A couple of things in the last few days have motivated me to post these musings. The first is that last Tuesday a slight eye infection forced me to visit a GP for the first time in about 6 years, the second is that there seems to be a lot of flap in the States at present over the release of Michael Moore's new film, SiCKO, all about the health care system in the US.

First off I'll admit I'm totally biased, I don't know how any civilized industrial nation thinks they can get by without universal state sponsored health care, the fact that only one such country does so probably indicates that most of the rest of the western world agrees with me here. My perception is also coloured by the fact that whenever I, or anyone I have known has needed the NHS it has been very efficient, this clearly isn't always the case, but its good when as happened to me I walked in off the street and had seen a Doctor within 30mins, no appointment, no problem. It was also reassuring to know that the most I would have to pay would be about £6.90 for any drugs, were they to cost £10 or £10,000.

Now the NHS clearly isn't perfect, it clearly isn't even the best health care system around, but I think it is considerably better than a system which is run for profit. Whats more I would argue that if run efficiently any public health care system is clearly better than any private one. For one simple reason, economics, in a public system you remove several layers which are required to add a profit margin to everything they do. For example, in a system like in the US where health care is paid for by purchasing insurance, you have system where if you are ill, you visit the doctor, he does his job, then marks up the cost by ~20% or more to cover the profit margin of his medical group, he then calls your insurer who may or may not decide to pay for any treatment, in any case your premium includes a ~20% markup to cover their profit margin, you then get moved along to a hospital if you require surgery, they also add their own ~20% markup, so you have three layers where you end up paying more for private health care, just so a bunch of rich shareholders get to get richer.

Now people argue that a private health care system is more efficient so you don't notice these markups, because overall the service costs less than the supposedly inefficient state system. This can easily be shown to be nonsense, the US spends %15 of GDP on health care, to provide them a ranking of #37 in the world for health care, France spends %11 of GDP to be #1. Hmm how is that extra efficiency working out for you. It looks even worse when you realise everyone in France gets anything they need, whereas in the States an appreciable fraction of the population has no insurance, so get little or no treatment. So to take the stats at face value, the private health care systems costs you more to provide a worse service, good job. If your a stat fan, in the UK we currently spend around 8% of GDP, to be placed #18. Which anyway you slice it means that the NHS is both more efficient and provides a better service on average to boot. Its important to note that this is of course on average, I'm sure if you have the money in the States you get a good service, the problem is that most people either don't have the money, or are very close to losing their coverage.

There is of course one other major area that nationalised systems can outperform the private sector, in collective bargaining, it always strikes me as amazing that people that support the idea of capitilism (like me) seem happy to allow large companies, Walmart or Tesco for example, to drive down prices by buying in bulk (like me), however when in the States the idea of a similar approach to buying drugs is mooted you hear howls of disapproval (not like me). Apparently cheaper toilet paper is fine, but more affordable life saving drugs, oh no, you have to pay whatever the drug company feels like. If one buying system exists, as does here in the UK, it is much easier for them to say to the pharmaceutical companies, we are going to pay this much, and we'll take 10 million doses. When you have a series of medical groups all competing and serving (comparitively) small numbers of customers, its much more difficult to drive a hard bargain, the drug companies would rather not sell to you then have to cut the prices across the board.

Anyway musings over for the week. Back to work.

Friday Galaxy - 2 - NGC 720

2007-07-13T14:16:00.001+01:00

This is a real hot off the press Friday Galaxy, the data for this was only taken last night, in Chile, by those very helpful people at the Gemini-South telescope. I'm using the 12 images they took (4 each of g',r' and i', that's blue, green and red to you and me) to pick out Globular Clusters for spectroscopic follow up.

The image below shows the image produced, there are a couple of odd things about this image. The first is that the galaxy itself is very blue, for an elliptical galaxy this is odd, these are usually known as being red and dead, because they don't form stars. At first I thought I had mixed up the blue and red channels, however in the top left corner you can see a very pretty background edge on spiral and this appears to be just the right colour for a spiral, hmm.

If we assume that the colours are correct and that we are seeing a blue elliptical galaxy, then their are two possibilities: Either some fraction of the galaxy is made up of hot young blue stars, which can't have been formed more than a few Gyrs ago (not that common for ellipticals), or else the galaxy must be very old and lacking in metals. This is one of the major drawbacks of using the colours of astronomical objects like galaxies to tell you about them, there is a degeneracy between the age of stellar populations and the amount of elements heavier than Helium that they contain (their metallicity). Basically things can appear blue for one of two reasons, they are either young, or they have a low metallicity (and are old).

To solve this conundrum will require spectroscopy, which hopefully we will be getting in the next few months. One other interesting thing that appears in this image can be seen in the top left, when you look at the spiral galaxy (shown enlarged below) you can just about make out what appears to be a stream of material trailing to the bottom right. This trail, if real, could be a trail of stars produced by a minor merger event, if I get the chance and have the space when I make up the mask for the spectroscopy I may well try and get a sly spectrum of this just to see whats going on.

That just shows you one of the cool things about astronomy, serendipity means you can find all sorts of interesting things in the unlikliest of places. There are loads of interesting things in the background of deep images like this one, if anyone finds anything interesting in the large version of the image, let me know, you never know I may try and get a spectrum of anything you find that looks interesting enough.

Friday Galaxy - 1 - NGC 524

2007-07-06T13:17:00.001+01:00

I've decided to institute a new tradition of posting images of a favourite galaxy on a friday. For the first example I have decided to choose NGC 524, this galaxy is an S0 galaxy that I am working on at the moment.

The images I'm going to show are from archival HST images taken using WFPC2 (PI Brodie project 6554), I have produced a colour image of the galaxy, though I have cheated somewhat, as I only had access to two filters the F555W and the F814W, which I am going to treat as blue and red respectively, I'm then going to use an average of the two as the green channel. The downside is you're pretty much guaranteed to get something that looks red or blue, still this is interesting in itself, as blue galaxies tend to be young and red ones old. So here is the image.

You can see the centre of the galaxy is located towards the top left of the image, the diffuse glow around this is the halo of NGC 524, many foreground stars and background galaxies are also obvious. In this image the galaxy looks fairly boring, a very smooth looking ellipical galaxy, however I had seen some hints of something odd going on in the inner regions in some data I had from the Gemini telescopes and decided to investigate it. What I did was to average the images from the blue and red exposures, as this tends to pick out structures and dust in galaxies, this is because dust tends to absorb different amounts of the two wavebands. What I found was this:

First of all you can see that many objects disappear, this is just because they have similar amounts of flux in the blue and red, the centre of the galaxy however doesn't. You can see that some very pretty spiral structure emerges, so you can see that on closer inspection NGC 524 is being observed face-on, the Milky Way would probably look very similar if you stopped forming stars and then looked at it from above the disc after a few Billion years.

The Dark Sector Revisited

2007-06-21T13:18:00.000+01:00

Over at threesigmaresult.com I have started a revised and expanded version of my dark sector series of posts first seen here.

Galaxies, Lenses, Globulars, What More Do You Want?

2007-06-19T11:34:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my first post for threesigmaresult! I've chosen to redo a post that previously appeared on my other blog, theobservershunch, I've done this because it was one of my favourites, partly because it has a very pretty pictures but mostly because it describes some research done by some of my colleagues. Enjoy.

Click for VERY Big.

The picture above which was released by the Hubble Heritage Project shows a cluster of galaxies called Abell S0740, the data used to make the picture was collected by a team of astronomers including two of my collaborators/friends at Durham, John Lucey and Russell Smith. There are two versions of the image, one without annotations and one showing zoomed regions of interest. See them both here.

See the rest of this post over at threesigmaresult.com.

New Blog - ThreeSigmaResult

2007-06-18T15:33:00.000+01:00

Myself and CMB have decided to set-up a new blog, this one will be a bit more focussed dealing only with science, so no politics or random distractions. The blog can be found at threesigmaresult.com. The first real post will appear some time tomorrow.

My intention is that any science posts by me will get mirrored here, but if you want to see the full effect of CMB in full flow you'll have to head over to the new blog. Apart from this announcements things should continue as before over here.

Blind Cat Challenge

2007-06-15T14:58:00.000+01:00

Wow, I've been busy recently (and ill), work has been hectic what with more telescope time coming our way, conference talks, travel arrangements and writing a paper or two. Now I'm back and getting into the swing of things here is a link to a great time sink that CMB is running over at his blog (and here). The basic idea is that you have to draw a cat in MS paint or the equivalent (using a mouse), but do it with your eyes closed. Its actually pretty damn hard, my effort is below, CMB has now collected over 300 of these efforts and has set up a gallery here, you can submit your own efforts here. The quality is variable to say the least. Enjoy.

What the hell did we do during work hours before the Internet? Seriously, I don't know I'm too young to remember, someone tell me.

Fishing Cats

2007-06-01T13:11:00.001+01:00

Not long ago I was talking with some of the members of the group about fishing cats, a type of cat found in Asia that hunts fish, it is a skillful swimmer and excellent fish catcher, partly due to the fact that its paws are webbed. I'm making this post mostly because several people claimed that this weird but wonderful creature didn't really exist and was some sort of hoax along the lines of the pacific northwest arboreal octopus. Well it does exist, its pretty cool and also very cute. With those obvious adaptions for living and hunting in water its also a nice little example of the effect of evolutionary pressures.

Check out the wikipedia article as well as this one from the smithsonian national zoological park. Head here to see them in action. Oh and because I'm nice here's another youtube video of one wandering about.

Want To Be A Crank?

2007-06-01T10:00:00.000+01:00

I've just run across this brilliant post over at scienceblogs, setting out how to be the most successful crank you can be, it reads like the DdH/Autodynamics how-to guide to crackpottery. Go on read it, you know you want to. I especially love the suggestion that cranks try to get their papers published in scientific journals.

If you want your manuscript (it may make you sound smarter to call it your "treatise" or "monograph") to actually get published, try something like Medical Hypotheses. Journals with an impact factor of less than 1 might actually be desperate enough to publish something cranky, especially if you can jargonize it enough to make yourself sound smart, or create enough fake data to trick the editors. If it has to do with global warming consider a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. The Creation Research Quarterly is perfect for anything disproving some facet of evolution, geology, astronomy, or physics. You don't have to be a creationist for them to like your crank theory, anything that pokes holes in dastardly consensus science is a victory.
Then try journals that don't require real experiments, rigorous trial design, peer review or anything that actually indicates actual science has been done. Other cranks in your "field" may have started just such a journal - like the Journal of 9/11 studies. There are about as many places that will publish crank work as there are crank ideas, don't stop trying! If you get your ideas published in such a journal claim victory! You have mainstream acceptance and a publication record now.

Physics Essays anyone?
Or how about how to deal with dissenters:

Accusation: "You haven't published in a real peer-reviewed journal"
Response: Either say "Peer review is just an old-boys network for peon scientists to pat each other on the back", or accuse journal editors of persecuting you. Compare yourself to Galileo.

Accusation: "You don't have solid proof"
Response: Either restate what you said already, restate it slightly differently, call your accuser a name, or suggest they are part of the conspiracy to hide the truth. Compare yourself to Galileo.

This just reminds me of the autodynamics page where they have a picture of Carezani with Einstein, Newton, and Galileo fading off behind him.

I'm sure you'll all be able to spot some of your favourite cranky behaviour in the post, it certainly saved me the time an effort of going an writing a post along those lines.

Milky Way Behaving Badly

2007-05-31T14:17:00.000+01:00

Head over to Space.comfor a story about the dark side of our well behaved galaxy's nature, its being throwing its weight around and generally being a bad neighbour. The story is all about the streams of stars that are being found trailing around the Milky Way, these trails are thought to be the shredded remains of dwarf galaxies or globular clusters that wandered too close to the MW. Below you can see some of the streams uncovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The streams are detected by looking at the colours and positions of a huge number of stars over as large an area as possible, doing this it is possible to pick out groups of stars with the same sort of colour, implying that they probably formed at the same time from the same material.

Some of the streams have been associated with known GCs or dwarf galaxies, basically these objects lie right in the middle of the stream, in the pictorial representation at the top you can see the original dwarf with its tails of stars which spread out both in front and behind it in its orbit of the MW. Over time the streams will stretch further and further, getting progressively thinner and more tangled, until they form a diffuse halo of stars around the MW.

This kind of research is interesting because the current theories for the formation of galaxies predict that there should be many more dwarf galaxies around the MW than we see at present, one solution is that many of them have simply been torn apart by the MW and their stars spread into the halo of the galaxy. If enough of these streams are found this could help solve this so called "missing satellite problem".

More Unusual Nature

2007-05-23T22:54:00.000+01:00

After yesterdays story about the gay flamingos acting as surrogate parents the BBC seems to be trying to outdo itself, now they have a story about a shark which has undergone (?) parthenogenesis, that's a virgin birth to the more religiously minded. The shark had become pregnant, despite being kept separate from any males for at least 3 years, genetic testing has since proven that the offspring was produced without any genetic material from a male.

It just goes to prove Jeff Goldblums (as Ian Malcolm) line from Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way", or words to that effect.

Flamingos

2007-05-22T13:24:00.000+01:00

The BBC has a great story up now, about a couple of gay male Flamingos acting as surrogate parents to a chick. You can find the story here. Apparently they had been trying to steal other birds eggs to raise, and after seeing a nest abandoned the keepers decided to give them the abandoned egg to raise. In another curious part of the tale it turns out that male Flamingos can also produce milk, from their throats, so they can feed the chick until its beak develops enough for it to filter feed.

Video Round Up

2007-05-19T15:49:00.000+01:00

In a similar vein to the previous video, here is a round up of some videos I have come across recently.

First Bill Maher lampooning fundamentalists:

Next:
Jon Stewart on the latest F*$%-Up by the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez

Finally:
A great video with a nice bit of science, the helicopter blades in this video are rotating with a frequency which is some (integer) multiple of the one that the video works at, so every time the video records an image the blades have made at least one full rotation and appear at the same place, making it seem that the helicopter is hovering without any support.

Comic Interlude

2007-05-18T11:30:00.000+01:00

Crooksandliars had this video up as a celebration of the comics 70th birthday. Being British I have no idea who George Carlin is, but he seems pretty damn funny. If you're of the strongly religious persuasion I would probably avoid it.

Don't Trust Your Lying Eyes

2007-05-17T13:50:00.000+01:00

If you're interested in optical illusions head over here, where they have the finalists from the "Best Visual Illusion Of The Year Award".

The picture above shows the winner, by Frederick Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi and Elena Gheorghiu, its incredibly simple, both pictures are identical (apart from a slight offset due to some dodgy photoshopping I guess) but due to to the way the brain interprets objects receding into the distance it creates the impression that the one on the right is at a greater angle than the one on the left. For a more thorough explanation see here. My head hurts now.

Bear vs. Mear(s)

2007-05-17T11:00:00.000+01:00

Bear Grylls has been at it again, this time paragliding around Mt Everest (the picture is from a practice in the Alps I think), the full story can be found at The Telegraph website along with pictures and a video. To the none Brits this post will probably mean very little, but Bear Grylls is what can probably best be described as an adventurer and all round rock hard guy. At the age of 32 he has already carried out some pretty incredible stunts including climbing Everest at the age of 23, as well as being in the Territorial Army SAS Regiment, just check out the wikipedia article linked on his name.

The point of this post wasn't so much to big up the guy but to relay the somewhat counter intuitive personal feeling that as impressive as his exploits have been, I tend to prefer Ray Mears when I'm looking for a bit of outdoor survivalism. This seems to be a feeling shared by many of my friends and at first glance appears to make little sense, Grylls really does some very risky boys-own type adventuring, whereas Mears is, well, a slightly chubby guy that likes to wander round outdoors learning how indigenous people live.

I really don't know what it is, Grylls seems like a genuinely nice bloke, I just think its almost like he's trying too hard, Mear's shows never seem to be trying to impress anyone, yes he knows a thousand ways to start a fire, but that really is never the point. The star of the show is never Mears, its the place he's in and the amazing things you can find lying around.

Plus, if I was stuck in a survival situation, I'd probably opt for the slightly chubby guy, he certainly never seems to have any trouble finding food when he's out in the wilds.

See It Before The Lawyers Get Involved

2007-05-16T14:15:00.000+01:00

For those who like a bit of schadenfreude, like for instance seeing celebrities as they actually are, check out this site. Its great, its a professional retouching company, I can't link to the actual page, so click on portfolio at the top of the page to see before and after photoshopping pictures of celebrities (just click on the thumbnails and then slide the mouse over the pictures). I'm slightly surprised to find that they put this up there, I would have thought their clients would want this kind of thing kept quiet.

My personal favourite the before and after of Eva Longoria, where they felt the need to make her ass bigger. Just more proof that its impossible for real people to look anything like celebrities appear to.

Dumb Invention

2007-05-15T13:53:00.000+01:00

The prize for the dumbest invention of the week goes to: The Mayo Clinic.

This remarkable invention is basically a treadmill strapped to a desk, its designed to allow obese people to get exercise while they work. The BBC has a story here. The whole thing is so preposterous I had to check it wasn't April 1st, there are so many things wrong with this I'm not sure where to start.

First the practicalities, how easy is it going to be to type whilst walking? I foresee a lot of motion sickness here.

Second, its designed to help people that work in sedentary jobs, the test subjects were obese people who admitted to doing no exercise, which leads to the question who exactly is going to go for one of these? Who in their right mind will choose to do exercise at work if they can't be bothered to do any outside of work? Is the idea that companies will compel their overweight staff to use them, trying to get those health care costs down perhaps. I just don't see who can seriously expect this to be used by anyone.

Third the benefits, a net loss of weight of perhaps 30kg per year is nice, but after spending £1000 each is that really good value for money? The machines run at 1mph and people are expected to use them for 2 to 3 hours per day, why not just walk to work and back at a reasonable 4mph, saves money, and you get some fresh air?

I swear next someone is going to invent a running/cycling machine for use in cars (obviously not when driving), so people who can't be bothered to walk or cycle to work can "get some exercise" on the way to work. In fact I may go an patent that right now.

Note: The BBC has now tried out working at a treadmill, concurring that it is damn near impossible.

Child Of The Eighties?

2007-05-15T11:30:00.000+01:00

To continue the theme of stealing posts from my brother, here is another one that could (if I can be bothered) run and run. If you were born in the early '80s the following should have been an important part of your childhood:

1) That pinnochio cartoon where it goes "Pee Eye En Oh double See aich eye oh, that's Pinnochio!"

2) The Teenage Mutant Hero (as Ninja was deemed too violent for the UK's kids - haha) Turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Raphael and Splinter probably gang banging April O'Neil off camera. Krang was that brain thing in the body of a bouncer, Shredder, Beebop and Rocksteady (can't remember which was the Rhino and which the Hogg).

3) Ghostbuster - duh duh duh duh duh duh duh - Ghostbusters!

4) Thundercats - are on the loose! Liono was blatantly banging Shitara or at least watching her getting changed using the Sword of Omens to give him sight beyond sight.. Snarf probably watched and Panthro was probably jealous so he sabotaged the Thundertank.

5) Pogs - what was the point?

6) Premiership 1993 stickers, people would go through everyone elses stickers and go "need" or "got" and sometimes in the school yard kids would throw them up in the air and shout "scramble" at which point there would be a massive scramble to get as many as possible, worth their weight in gold.

7) That shitty bodger and badger, one of them liked mashed potatoes.

8) Count Duckula and that castle that was able to teleport.

9) Supersoakers, if you had any less than a supersoaker100 you were considered to be a failure of a man, the supersoaker was to many the childhood equivalent of the penis. The supersoaker200 was the best as it combined a decent amount of power so that you could feel it when you got squirted but it wasn't so big that it slowed you down. This lad I knew had the one with the backpack for the water - just pure greed.

10) Tamagotchis - what a load of bollocks. The were the bane of the teachers lives at our middle school as kids would excuse themselves so they could go feed their snake or something, some teachers thought it meant they were going for a tug.

Eurodivision

2007-05-14T17:00:00.000+01:00

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was forced to watch the godawful Eurovision on Saturday night, surrounded mostly by a bunch of drunk astronomers, never has so much jingoism and cultural stereotyping been seen in such a short space of time. I know the whole thing is a joke, but why is the voting so obviously flawed? Malta gets the same number of votes as Russia? What happened to democracy? Well I suppose if Russia is involved, there probably isn't going to be too much democracy really.

Not that an injection of democracy and fairness this would help the UK any, everyone in Europe with the possible exception of the Irish and the Maltese hates us, to win these days you either have to be from a former soviet satellite state, or be one of the 5-6 countries from the Balkans that used to be Yugoslavia. I can see why the former soviet states all vote the way they do, if they don't, no more oil or gas from Mother Russia. The Balkans is confusing though, you would think that they really wouldn't care for each other that much down there, after the recent, unpleasantness. Maybe I should take it as good sign for the future.

Oh and if anyone is interested, here are some sometimes funny, generally offensive, Eurovision top trumps, celebrating Saturday nights, er, spectacle. No I didn't have anything to do with making them, thanks to b3ta.com for pointing them out.

Watching The Watchers

2007-05-14T10:10:00.000+01:00

DdH is back! This time over at sciencewatchdogs.org (aka physicspolice.org). He has returned to form, ranting about his favourite topic; the neutrino. You can read the post in its full glory here. At least this latest effort is a bit more civil and coherent than his last, the magnificently mad "Relativity's Incestual Child Must be Euthanized" or who can forget the amazing scientific rigor he brought to
"Santa Uses Relativity - It's All Magic Anyways!" where he attempted to tear apart a lighthearted Christmas story aimed at encouraging children's interest in science.

This latest story is basically his objections to a UK project (original story here) to try to detect neutrinos by listening for the sound generated as an ultra-high energy neutrino reacts with the atoms in sea water. This is unsurprisingly very difficult, if he stuck to pointing out how hard it is things would probably have been ok. However his main objection is simply his belief that the neutrino doesn't exist, his reasons for this are that his pet theory of Autodynamics (which can be seen to be false here) says it doesn't. If it ended there really his post wouldn't be that interesting, however he does make several foolish statements that reveal his lack of understanding of the theory he is desperately fighting to replace, Special Relativity. For example:
In our lesson for today, let us be reminded that neutrinos exist everywhere SR is applied to decay cases and that the extra energy that appears from nowhere needs to be explained.
This is clearly not the case, the neutrino is only ever involved in decays where lepton number (a quantity that must be conserved in particle physics, in the same way that energy must) would otherwise not be conserved, one example would be the simple beta decay of a neutron to a proton + electron + anti-electron neutrino, the neutron and proton have zero lepton number and the electron has lepton number +1, so for the reaction to conserve lepton number there must be a particle of lepton number -1 to balance things out, that would be the anti-electron neutrino then. Of course because the neutrino is so damn hard to detect when you look at this reaction in an experiment it appears at first glance that all there is being emitted are a proton and electron, this is just because the neutrinos react so rarely with matter. However the energetics of the detectable decay products, the proton and electron clearly demonstrate a third particle must at work, sharing some of the energy of the decay.

This can be seen clearly in the figure below which shows the measured kinetic energy of electrons emitted by the beta decay of a neutron to a proton. Now the input energy must always be the same, because it is always a stationary neutron of fixed mass decaying into a stationary proton of fixed mass. The energy of the electron (and neutrino) comes from the difference in rest mass of the neutron (the heaviest of the two) and the proton. If only one particle was emitted by this decay then it would always have the same amount of kinetic energy, which would be equal to the difference in rest mass of the neutron and proton minus the rest mass of the new particle. The masses can be converted to energy via good old E=mc^2. The fact that we always see a range of kinetic energy for the electron implies that another particle is present and sharing some of the energy, both for its small (or zero) rest mass and its own kinetic energy.

Contrary to DdH's assertion in any reaction where lepton number is unchanged then neutrinos are not required from a theoretical perspective and happily not needed to explain the energetics, an example of such a reaction would be alpha decay, where a large unstable nucleus spits out a helium nucleus. In this case special relativity correctly explains the energetics of the decay products without the need for a neutrino, which is fortunate because all of particle physics says that there shouldn't be one present in this reaction. If you look at the kinetic energy of the emitted alpha particles you will find that they always have the same energy, proving that no other particles are being emitted to share the energy.

The problem with DdHs theory, Autodynamics, is that it predicts exactly the same behaviour for both these cases, so to explain that one type of decay produces a range of kinetic energies but another type produces a single value is impossible. You would think that would be a major problem, well not for Autodynamics, having as it does the amazing ability to totally ignore evidence that disproves it.

So in summary DdH knows nothing about particle physics, but we already knew that.

Another interesting comment, in a, "he doesn't know what he's talking about" kind of way is this:
Yes, we know they don't exist but even so, we better watch out! I always contended that neutrinos if they exist, should have some detremental effect on health given that 5.44 billion solar neutrinos bombard every square centimeter of the earth per second. Something bad has to come out of it. Now they have a neutrino that is similar to the killer asteroids!
He is confusing the solar neutrinos (produced by fusion in the core of the sun) which are incredibly common, but have very low energies, with the exceedingly rare ultra-high energy neutrinos. The solar neutrinos are so low energy they can't do any damage to anything they hit, the ultra-energy ones could conceivably do some cellular damage, but they are so rare that the chance of being hit by one is essentially nil. You'll accumulate much more damage over the year by being hit by cosmic rays than you will from neutrinos.

Another quote:

This sounds very familiar: low-number statistics. Somehow, the neutrino community has convinced the world that low-number statistics is not only viable, but necessary for "scientific" research with neutrinos.

This is another of his favourite canards, he claims that essentially all neutrino detections are false positives from other things such as cosmic rays. The problem is that experiments have been done using neutrino beams produced by particle accelerators, detections of neutrinos are only found when the particle accelerator is on and producing neutrinos, turn off the beam, the signal disappears. You may think that these detections could be other particles produced by the beam, however the detectors are usually located hundreds of miles away, through solid rock, no other possible particle produced in the accelerator could get anywhere near that far without interacting with the intervening material.

It continues to amaze me just how DdH has managed to convince himself he is correct in the face of mountains of evidence that prove he is wrong.

Astronomy In The News

2007-05-13T11:35:00.000+01:00

The washingtonpost.com has a nice little article about the state of astronomy at the moment. Its fairly timely to me as I have just kicked off a few posts about the history and future of astronomy. Its well written and also happily pretty accurate, you can find it here (free registration may be required).

It briefly covers some of the larger discoveries of the last month or so, new exo-planets, the largest supernovae ever seen and the behaviour of Eta Carinae to name but a few. It also gives some interesting insights to the average reader about the replacement for the HST, the James Webb Space Telescope and also happily explains that astronomy is not just about the visible part of the spectrum.

The star Eta Carinae, a large mass star in the Milky Way which could go supernovae at any time.

The author of the piece, Joel Achenbach makes the point that we are in a golden age of astronomy, which it certainly seems to the average non professional astronomer, what with the almost constant announcements of amazing new discoveries. In my series of posts I will argue that we haven't quite reached the golden age, or at least we haven't reached the peak yet, the era of the 30-50m class telescopes and a working JWST would certainly open up whole new areas of research. All of which means that we can look forward to at least as many major discoveries in the next 30 years as we have had in the previous.

Ashingtonese - Part 4

2007-05-12T14:31:00.000+01:00

Continuing our investigation of the linguistic subtleties of the pitmatic dialect here is my brothers latest installment of Ashingtonese. As usual if anyone doesn't understand anything don't be embarrassed, ask away in the comments, I usually seem to spend much of coffee explaining the meanings to my colleagues most of whom have the benefit of having lived in the North East of England for several years at least.

"Doubter" is the English word for non believer, in Ashington this denotes female offspring. "Clewsie got the reverants doubter up the duff"

"Chute" is a tube that a person slides down, in Ashington it means to communicate very loudly. "Tommy seen Jimmy from the club, Jimmy waz deef so couldn't hear Tommy chute"

"Bared" means to uncover a part of the body so that it is naked, in Ashington it means "unpleasant or unwelcome". "Smegsa'z mother knew ee waz a bared lared efta the police caald"

"Berg" is an ice block that floats in the sea in English, in Ashington it is a lavatory. "After a night on the hoy Gregg left the berg in a state"

"Blair" the surname of Tony the Prime minister, in Ashington it means to cry. "Bert came yem efta a neet on the Stella and med Avril blair"

Maps Of The Universe

2007-05-11T13:00:00.000+01:00

I've just come across a nice little site that gives an impression of the scales involved in astronomy. Its starts by showing the position of all the stars located within 12.5 light years of the Milky Way.

Progressive images increase the scale by a factor of roughly ten, until you reach the final one which shows the large scale structure of essentially the entire observable Universe. My personal favourite is the penultimate image which shows the structure located within about 1Glyr of the MW, the large superclusters of galaxies are readily apparent as are the filaments that stretch between the clusters.

There are also several nice pages which describe the Big Bang theory and General Relativity. Go check it out.

The History Of Astronomy - Part 1

2007-05-10T22:20:00.000+01:00

Science nowadays is all about the big, the biggest this, the largest that, all discovered using some humongous new instrument. Astronomy is and always has been a leader in this respect, many of the largest scientific instruments ever built have been telescopes of one sort or another, from the stone circles like Stonehenge, which probably acted as primitive astronomical observatories, through the Uraniborg, built by Tycho Brahe the last of the great naked eye astronomers, to the first truly huge telescope the 72" leviathan of Parsonstown and on up to the modern age of optical telescopes of around 10m in diameter (Keck, Gemini, the VLT etc). Of course for large astronomical equipment you only have to look at the enormous radio telescopes available today, such as the VLA or Arecibo.

The primary mirror of the Gemini North telescope, and yes that is a person in the middle.

The question is what next? The consensus in the US and Europe seems to be to continue a triple pronged approach of larger space based instruments across a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum (especially those regions blocked by the atmosphere), even larger ground based optical telescopes and vastly larger arrays of radio telescopes. The question tax payers are interested in is unsurprisingly, why? These things cost a lot of money, why do we really need them?

A possible next step in optical astronomy: the European Extremely large telescope, with diameter 42m. Car and two people for scale to the bottom left.

Well lets just ignore the philosophical reasoning of whether most of us are interested in exploring the origins of the Universe, and finding our place within it, we'll assume that everyone is sufficiently interested to want to do astronomy. Why do we need to build such large telescopes? This question was raised to me by a student at a school I was giving a talk at and it got me thinking and I think provides a nice way of explaining how the science of astronomy has developed hand in hand with the advances in technology, in fact often driving many of them. In this short series of posts I hope to explain the development of optical astronomy (the bit I'm familiar with), though I should point out that this is not meant to be an exhaustive description I hope it will cover the basics as I see them.

They're Back - 10

2007-05-09T19:52:00.000+01:00

In the latest broadside to the scientific community AK over at the autodynamics discussion board has this to say regarding the latest results from the Gravity Probe B:

Ah, why one has to prove (empirically) a theory which is deductively inconsistent is right or wrong? In either way it is a conspiracy to mislead the public and make them agree to spend huge sum of public money. GR is just an embarrassing nonsense. It was emperor's new cloth and the party is over. Sorry for spoiling the party.

Best,
A.K.

Not really much to say except that I wish I, and any in fact any physicist that has ever looked at General Relativity were as smart as A.K., look as I might, I just can't see the inconsistency in a the theory. The fact that it has been experimentally confirmed every time it has been tested also causes me to scratch my head in confusion, I just must not be smart enough for this game.

Poor Physics Jokes

2007-05-08T17:49:00.000+01:00

In order to manage a post today I'm afraid I'm going to shamelessly steal some jokes, if you have a facebook account feel free to visit the group I got them from here, its basically a list of really poor, incredibly nerdy physics jokes from the some of the undergrads on the Physics course here at Durham. I have omitted to add their names, to protect the guilty, if you're one of them and want some credit grab it in the comments.

Here's a great excuse for forgetting your physics homework:
"I'm sorry sir, I accidentally determined its momentum so precisely that, due to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, it could be anywhere in the Universe."

Two photons are traveling through the universe together until one day one turns to the other and says "Look, I'm sick and tired of your interference".

z=x^2+3xy Walks into a pub, sits down on the barstool and orders a pint.
The barman looks up from the glass he's polishing and says "Sorry mate, you're gonna have to leave. We don't cater for functions".

sin (x), cos (x) and e^x all go to a party. sin (x) and cos (x) are both enjoying themselves, dancing about with all the other polynomials whilst e^x is just sat in a corner on his own.
sin (x) goes over to him and asks "why don't you try and enjoy yourself, integrate a bit more?"
"Is there any point" responds e^x, "it's not like it would make any difference!"

And a few from the internet, which may or may not also be on the group page.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends on your frame of reference

Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says, "Do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg says, "No, but I know where I am."

Q: Why are quantum physicists so poor at sex?
A: Because when they find the position, they can't find the momentum, and when they have the momentum, they can't find the position.

The Ten Commandments of Physics
1. Thou shalt read thy problem…carefully.
2. Whatsoever thou doest to one side of thy equation, do ye also to the other.
3. Thou must use thy common sense, else thou wilt have flagpoles 9,000 feet high. Yea, even fathers younger than sons.
4. Thou shalt ignore the teachings of false prophets to do all thy work in thy head.
5. When thou knowest not, thou shalt look it up; and if thy search still elude thee, thou shalt ask thy All-Knowing Teacher.
6. Thou shalt master each step before putting thy heavy foot down on the next.
7. Thy correct answer does not prove that thou hast worked thy problem correctly. This argument convincest none, least of all thy Teacher.
8. Thou shalt first see that thou hast copied thy problem correctly, before bearing false witness that the answer book lieth.
9. Thou shalt look back even unto thy youth and remember thy arithmetic.
10. Thou shalt learn, read, write ,speak, and listen correctly in the language of mathematics, and verily A’s and B’s shall follow thee even unto graduation.

I am truly, truly sorry. I feel guilty enough that I may manage another post later.

More Electric Universe Bozos

2007-05-07T17:56:00.000+01:00

JEG pointed out an "article" that appeared on slashdot the other day, basically claiming that everything we know about the Sun is wrong and proposing yet more ludicrous electric universe ideas. I seem to run into these types of nuts all the time, they can usually be found hanging around the APOD or badastronomy discussion boards, explaining how everything in the Universe is made and controlled by electricity, and how all of astronomy ignores this (and them).

I've reprinted the post in full below, the original slashdot page can be found here, with a great amount of put downs by people that actually know something about science. It's nice when other people do your work for you, now if only I can get someone to teach that problems class tomorrow.

Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing.

What can you say really? They don't even get the name of St Andrews right for a start, and sadly its downhill from there. I mean what are they actually claiming here? That scientists don't think that the suns corona is a plasma? Er come on it has a temperature of a million degrees and its reasonably dense, of course its a damn plasma. Even the wikipedia page manages to get this right. In case your wondering, yes it is the work of the loons over at Thunderbolts.info (why do all crank sites have to go for a .info page?). I'm going to have to have a bit of a closer look at these cranks and do a more substantial post. In the meantime, slashdot hang your head in shame, how did this nonsense ever get posted?

Political Stupidity

2007-05-07T15:03:00.000+01:00

Does anyone else get the distinct feeling of being on a sinking ship? Its like rationality after 200 years of increasingly calm seas has run up against an island of stupidity and is slowly taking on water.

I'm sure most people reading this have seen the flap around the blogosphere (I hate that term, really need a new one) that 3/10 of the Republican presidential candidates don't believe in Evolution. I've been following it in a distracted kind of way, mostly because it makes my head hurt that people this dumb think that they are suitable material to lead the richest most technologically advanced nation on Earth. Chris Cillizza has a post on the Washington Post about the debate, more interesting I think are the comments people have responded with, they are utterly depressing to anyone that believes in rational thought. Check them out here (a free subscription may be required).

Here are a selection of some of the best, or worst depending on your point of view. Usually the creationists just fall on name calling and threats of eternal damnation (anyone else feel like we're already there?), though sometimes they're not above simply lying about the evidence for evolution. They also seem to like to confuse the scientific and laypersons use of the term "theory", they don't seem to have a problem with the theory of gravity though. Strange that.

How many of y'all evolutionists were there 6,000 years ago? But we "fundamentalists" have an eyewitness account!

Hey evolutionists - get a clue scientifically. It's a THEORY. No transitionary species ever found, and no real proof. Talk about a belief system that requires faith. You folks just don't WANT to believe in the Bible or in the God of the bible.

Break your chains of inculcation; evolution - as a theory of origin - is a fully, scientifically debunked myth. Open your mind, view science as a method and not a religion, and THINK FOR YOURSELF! Evolution is a 19th century false religion that has been completely exposed as such.

Biology DOES NOT rely on EVILUTION Yes I spelled Evolution as EVILution for that is what that deception is when it moves from the Science part (Micro) of small adaptions over time into the belief part (MACRO) small changes over LONG TIME HAD TO give us all this variety.

Because it isn't all bad, here are a few of the better retorts from the reality based community.

God gave you malaria. Science cured it. God gave you polio. Science cured it. God gave you most children dying before adulthood and many women dying in childbirth. Science made both rare. God gave you 99% of mankind starving so 1% could live like kings. Science lets most eat (while that 1% still live like kings). God gave you darkness and exhaustion at night, science gave you a light bulb and a computer and the time and energy with which to rant about the greatness and goodness of God and the stupidity and evil of science.

"The Pope has sanctioned the teaching of evolution in his recent Bull"FINALLY, someone is calling these fiats issued on scientitific questions by these nonscientist tribal chieftains by their appropriate term.

Welcome to the Republican party, please set your watch back 200 years.

I'm sure if you asked the candidates what our economic or military policies should be they would have somewhat informed opinions, but when it comes to making hard decisions they would defer to the acknowledged experts, i.e. Ph.D economists and generals. Yet for some reason when it comes to science and especially biology, these guys have ill-informed opinions and can't even acknowledge that their beliefs go against what the overwhelming majority of the experts believe. Their willful ignorance in this area may never directly influence what they do as President, but it says a lot about their character and their leadership style. The last 5 years are a great example of what happens when you get a POTUS who listens only to God, and ignores the experts.

Amen!

Politics, US v France

2007-05-05T22:27:00.000+01:00

As a penance for all the faux French bashing I do to Maud here is a video she will probably appreciate, its from Bill Mahers HBO show Real Time and shows the difference between American and French politics. Sorry I can't find an equivalent Britain v France version. The clip is very funny, h/t to crooksandliars.com.

Bill Maher on the difference between the French and Americans

The Frustrating World of Games

2007-04-30T23:25:00.000+01:00

I just came across this video at Break.com, it sums up perfectly the utter frustration I felt at many games as a child, many was the time I would be reduced to a quivering, screaming, swearing ball of fury at my inability to jump onto some moving block in one of the Mario Bros games. The commentary is brilliant, and vastly more polite than I would have been. Enjoy.

Super Mario Brothers Is Frustrating pt2

Ashingtonese - Part 3

2007-04-29T21:54:00.000+01:00

Time I think for another examination of the linguistic niceties of my home town, Ashington, I'm sure Ibadairon will appreciate this. To those who have never seen this before below are a list phonetic pronunciations of words used in Ashington with their meaning in English and a brief example of how they may be used in Ashington. The hard work has been done by my brother who enjoys this kind of thing. To those of you having difficulty understanding, I apologise, it becomes difficult to work out what any one sentence means until you have picked up a usable vocabulary. For hints on how the accent sounds think along the lines of geordie (i.e. Jimmy Nail, Gazza, Mark Knopfler etc.).

"Bought" in English is to acquire something with money, but in Ashington it was a Sesame Street character. "Bought disnt like Oarnie nay mare"

"All" - means everything whereas in Ashington it is a title similar to a duke. "The all of Lancaster is a posh prick"

"Herb" in English is something used to enhance the flavour of food, whereas in Ashington it is part of a cooker. "The cooking herbs ahaad."

"Snare" is something used to trap an animal, in Ashington it is frozen precipitation that usually falls in winter. "Ya bugger the snare's starting to torn t' slush"

"Add" means to combine two or more things to get a total, in Ashington it a term used to describe someone in their dotage "Berb started t' gan a bit funny when he got add"

"Term" is an academic time period, in Ashington it is the name of a gentleman. "Term backed fowa winnaz at Cambois dergs yistiduh"

"Torn" in English means to rip something i.e paper in Ashington it means to move or cause to move in a circular direction wholly or partially around an axis or point. "Dennis waasn't able t' torn eez wife owa in bed, she waaz owa muchuva heffa nooa days"

"Born" is the English word meaning to begin living, but in Ashington it means to damage or injure by heat or fire. "Edith had to take *his* leek pudding oot the cooka afore it started to born"

"Claire" is a girls name in English but in Ashington it is the animal equivalent of a finger nail. "That bord owa, yah bugga shiz got sharp claire's"

New Crank On The Block

2007-04-23T21:03:00.000+01:00

While perusing the Badastronomy discussion board I can across a particularly brilliant drive by poster, claiming that the Earth is stationary at the centre of the Universe for the following "reasons":

1. Copernicus never proved otherwise.

2. You are only parrotting this view because, as children you were intimidated and ridiculed to accept that view.

3. You are now adults, you can examine this view.

4. The Earth is NOT rotating because, there is no centrifugal force! You would weigh twice as much in Vancouver, Canada, like on Equator. You could bring diamonds from Peru, and sell it for twice as much in Canada, because they would weigh twice as much.

5. The planets are moving away from the Earth in ALL directions. Proving the Earth was at the center of the start of expansion. Thus, at the center of the universe.

6. Satellites are proving, that they rotate around the Earth without any engine because, the whole space around the Earth rotates. Including the Moon.

7. The constellations are the same for thousands of years since Babylonians came up with that that idea. That's because universe is not chaotic. As watched from the Earth everything rotates in the same way for thousands of years.

8. If the Earth rotated, the resulting winds would be worse than the hurricanes. Since the Earth's density is hundreds of times higher that of the surrounding atmosphere, the atmosphere would NOT rotate with the Earth fast enough to prevent the winds. the Earth is stationary, so is its atmosphere. This can be observed from the space.

9. I'm tired of writing. I just had to speak the truth. It will defend itself over time, no matter how many idiotic, pseudo-scientific, media-supported "arguments" you will post.

10. Live with that.

Wow its difficult to know where to begin, its just all so, wrong. I especially like the claim that if the Earth is spinning (which it is), then people would weigh twice as much in Canada as on the equator, it took all of a few hours before someone posted some maths that show that in fact you weigh approximately 0.2% more in Canada than at the equator. The best bit is that this guy (Pawel Kolasa) has a website, its full of all the crazy kind of stuff you would expect. Its got to be a parody, no one could be that mad/egotistical really, I hope, regardless, enjoy.

NeWiki.org

2007-04-23T12:17:00.000+01:00

Speaking of cranks, it appears that my favourite bunch of cranks has finally got sick of real scientists correcting their wikipedia page. Their response? To set their own wiki up, newiki.org, your one stop shop for crank science, enjoy.

Honestly I don't know how DdH manages it, at my last count he was running at least 5 websites and a yahoo discussion group, no wonder they never get updated and that he never has time to see just how wrong he is.

Real Science vs Crank Science

2007-04-22T23:42:00.000+01:00

I've now returned from NAM (the national astronomy meeting), refreshed and reinvigorated with scientific zeal. I'm planning to post about a topic or two that was discussed at NAM later, for now I'll try to keep this post brief. (Note: It didn't really work out that way, sorry)

After a few drinks this evening at the excellent Market Tavern with my fellow travellers in the world of astronomy, JEG and CMB, the conversation turned (as it is often does), to the topic of cranks. In between the complaints about how little cranks really know about the difficulties of real science and the gall they have to complain that they have it tough I think something profound was hit upon about the difference between real scientists and cranks.

I think it boils down to this: real scientists (a bracket we presumptuously include ourselves in) are never really sure about our conclusions, speaking for myself I always have the nagging fear that I have made some error somewhere. Perhaps I have missed some correction factor, or that I have applied it incorrectly, that I'm extrapolating some models beyond their applicable range, or that I am concluding something at odds with other data. Despite having excellent guidance and the safety net of peer review, perhaps somewhere I just screwed up. After speaking with others in the field it appears that this feeling is not unique, it appears that many if not most scientists are constantly worried about the accuracy of their work. This of course is a hallmark of a good scientist, ensuring that people don't just go about making baseless claims, to make a big mistake can affect your career very negatively.

It seems from my investigations of crank science that this never really afflicts the people that promote crank science, they are always right, they are always sure that they are correct. I'm not sure if this is some form of narcissism or simply because they are bald faced liars that know they are wrong but still want to make a fast buck or two, perhaps it can be either. For those that genuinely believe their theory to be correct it must be nice, to be certain that you are correct, to never fear that your mistakes will be electronically stored, printed, and forever available in the pages of a journal for everyone to see what a fool you were. Cranks can make their claims, safe in the knowledge that no amount of facts will get in the way of their stories.

Real scientists accept that they may be wrong, even accept that when they are acknowledged to be right it is but momentary glory, one day a new better theory will supplant theirs, cranks, in general never see this grand scheme, only that they are right and everyone else is wrong. So which really is the more difficult, to live in the viciously Darwinian world of real science, or the fantasy land of crank science, where to be utterly wrong is no big deal?

NAM

2007-04-19T14:02:00.000+01:00

As you have probably noticed, the blogging has droppped off recently, that's just because I'm at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Central Lancashire for the week. Normal service will be resumed next week, hopefully with a few posts about the meeting.

Science At The Bleeding Edge

2007-04-15T11:27:00.000+01:00

Two new and very interesting press releases to do with Physics have just been released, both of which I'm sure will end up on the ADiots anti-science webpage.

The first is explained much better than I ever could over at the Cosmic Variance blog, the gist of the story is that the MiniBooNE experiment has found some interesting results to do with Neutrinos, they are possibly weirder than we thought, don't look to me for an explanation though.

The second is the first results from the Gravity Probe B, this orbiting satellite is designed to test for the effects of General Relativity as it streaks round the Earth. The results so far are a stunning verification of General Relativity to much higher accuracy than has been possible with this type of experiment before.

To anyone keeping score, that a 0 for 2 for the Autodynamics crowd.

Corporate Greed

2007-04-12T00:10:00.001+01:00

A rather depressing story from the world of business. An electrical goods chain (Circuit City) in the US is firing 3400 of its staff, simply so that it can hire new staff for a lower wage. Wow that place must really encourage success in its staff, stay there for more than a few years, work hard and get a little higher up the ladder and bam you're gone. If I lived over there you can be sure they would never get any of my custom, in fact it would call for a lot of picketing and an attempt to get people to boycott the place.

This op-ed in the Washington Post has more details plus some very interesting, and if your American, very depressing statistics like:

the bottom 90% (in terms of earnings) of Americans made less money in 2005 than 2004. All while the economy was growing steadily.

total reported income went up 9% in 2005, but all of that went to the richest 10%, everyone else lost 0.6%.

From 1947 through 1973, productivity in the U.S. rose by 104 percent, and median family income rose by an identical 104 percent.

Since then the rich have gotten considerably richer, whilst everyone else has been left behind, or even gotten worse off.

It amazes me that in light of this people like Rudy Giuliani can with a straight face support a flat tax rate, the only purpose of which is so the rich pay even less tax, and the already poor have to pay more, all in the name of "fairness".

I'm often confounded by the way things are in the states, people are genuinely being screwed by their employers and the system, with only a future of even less benefits and security to look forward to, all so that the already fabulously rich can afford another yacht or two. You would think that people might try to use their democratic rights to even things out, after all there are a lot more poor people than rich and all their votes are worth the same, yet every election there are millions that would rather vote on nebulous "moral values" issues than on issues that may provide them and their children a better future. Right rant over.

They're Back - 9 - The One In Which DdH Jumps To More Conclusions

2007-04-11T10:53:00.000+01:00

Dave's latest diatribe is quite funny:

Mark has edited himself into the convoluted wikipedia article on
Autodynamics as a "critic".

Mark my man, you have guts! You are setting yourself up for a big
fall and you seem to be totally oblivious to the fact. Why you are
doing this to yourself must be deeply rooted in your emotional side.

Why people set themselves up for disaster is tough to understand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodynamics

The biggest lie besides the misinterpretation and representation of
the velocity sum in this article is Mark's moniker as a "contributor"
to the AD.

You are DEFINITELY not that. I am banning you today given that you
show no ability to understand AD or the basics of physics even though
you write reams on the subject.

Goodbye and good luck and hope that your new name or existing name
hides you well in this group. You will have to now change the wikipedia article
to say you were banned.

Any article that even alleges Carezani's PHD degree is more
of a vendetta from frustrated people than the reporting of the truth
- something there is little of in the wikipedia article on Autodynamics.

But don't worry everyone, we will be revealing our answer to wikipedia
this year. Stay tuned! The real article on Autodynamics will be very different
and Mark and no one else will be able to do anything about it. We will be
giving a paper on the subject at the NPA meeting.

And thanks to all the AD bashers out there! Without you, we would have
less traffic to our site. Your sacrifice of truth, common sense, ability to
listen, study and learn - ALL in front of the entire world to see - is quite
curious and kamikaze-like.

We thank you all - specially the ones that are creating entire new categories
for AD. Props to my favorite kamikazes Ron and Mark!

-David

I especially like the fact that he assumes that I edited the wikipedia link. A quick check of the change history reveals the real culprit, a jg1981, I wonder who that could possibly be? Not Mr (soon Dr) J Geach perhaps? To be found on my links at room311? Thanks Jim, I wondered why I was getting a hit or two a day from wikipedia, now we all know. I agree with Dave though, I've contributed nothing to the AD people except to point out the obvious flaws in their theory, I'm not too happy with the way its worded and have therefore just changed it.

As for setting myself up for a fall what does he actually mean? Is it some sort of threat? Even if the impossible happens and AD was to be proven correct, would that affect me in any way? No, not really, science is all about being wrong, I'm quite happy to change my mind when things turn out to not to be true. Would it affect my career? Again No, everyone else in science would be wrong so its hardly likely that I would suffer any special punishment. So I really am at a loss about what he thinks could happen to me.

It sounds to me like Dave is planning his own wacked out physics wikipedia, a la Conservapedia, can't wait for that. By the way, does anyone know what the NPA is? a Google search doesn't actually turn up anything physics related, could it be something to do with Nuclear Physics A? Or more likely for DdH's crew it could be the National Pigeon Association.

Another post hererants about a question someone has put to them about doing an experiment to show that their velocity sum is correct. He thinks that is me as well. Dave please listen very carefully, I shall say this again, if I am going to talk to you I do it without hiding behind false names or anonymously. I can't talk for others that you may associate with me, but I have no time for those games, I tell what I believe to be the truth, to your face (well as close as you can get online).

I can understand why DdH finds this idea of me being honest and open difficult, back in the day he was quite the terror of the discussion board world, dozens of different names and accounts, always pretending to be a newbie with a question about a theory they just stumbled across (Autodynamics), basically he was just trolling for recruits. So when he looks at me I believe he is simply seeing his own methods and dishonesty reflected.

Oh and Dave, you or any of your band are still more than welcome to discuss things over here, I won't silence a critic, especially on false premises. As long as you keep things polite mind you, so I guess that means asking Lucy to calm down a little.

If Wishes Were Horses

2007-04-09T01:08:00.001+01:00

The Washington Post has returned to form today, with an actual op-ed that doesn't make my eyes bleed, this one is well reasoned and rational. Check it out here (free subscription required).

The piece written by a Tim Watkin deals with that ridiculous self help book "The Secret". This is another one of those books that is so obviously rubbish but somehow still manages to sell millions of copies. Its basic premise is that if you wish hard enough for something it will just turn up. Despite being patent nonsense it has sold millions of copies, in part due to an endorsement by Oprah Winfrey. It amazes me that an obviously clever successful business woman like Oprah would waste oxygen talking about this crap, but then I guess she probably knows her demographic.

The question is where do we start with what is wrong with the main idea of this book? The fact that it basically encourages people to avoid hard work in favour of wishing for a fantasy life that will just fall into their lap? That it doesn't make any allowance for pure dumb luck? Or as the op-ed correctly points out the logical conclusion of its premise is that people that have bad luck, deserve it, because they must have been secretly wishing to sabotage themselves. The book even states:

The only reason why people do not have what they want is because they are thinking more about what they don't want than what they do want.

And

Imperfect thoughts are the cause of humanity's ills

So anyone who has ever been ill has no one to blame but themselves, those people killed in the twin towers on September 11th, it was all their own fault, they should have spent more time wishing for lottery wins and less time worrying about terrorists apparently. In case you don't think I'm serious that they claim this kind of thing, take a look at this quote from the op-ed:

Bob Proctor, author of "You Were Born Rich" and one of the "gurus" Byrne (author of "The Secret") quotes most often, being asked on "Nightline" whether the starving children of Darfur had "manifested" -- that is, visualized -- their own misery. In utter seriousness, he replied, "I think the country probably has."

Italics added by me. It just shows you the kind of madness that people can believe in, actively blaming the less fortunate for their ills, simply because they have turned off their ability for rational thought. I find the whole idea of blaming the unfortunate for their ill luck disgusting, especially when its done simply to line the pockets of snake oil salesmen. The whole idea begs the question does everyone have the same strength wishes? Can everyone combine them, if enough of us combine our wishes can we wish for say bankruptcy for the author? Or are they some sort of super powered wisher, that we couldn't over power? Whatever, tonight I'm going to wish selflessly, wishing that this kind of crap disappears without a trace as soon as possible, before more people throw away $17 needlessly.

They're Back - 8 - The One In Which Mark Totals Up The Scores So Far

2007-04-07T10:09:00.001+01:00

The "debate" with the followers of Autodynamics has been going on for a while now, so I thought it would be time to reflect on the successes of the two contending theories, Relativity and Autodynamics. I think that the best way to do that is to simply list those phenomena that each theory can adequately describe. I'm not going to get into arguments about causative effects here, so gravity counts as a success for GR because GR can more than adequately describe the behaviour of gravity, even if it does not have an explanation for what causes it (i.e. what causes mass to bend space/time). So onto the lists, lets start with the accepted theory first.

Relativity
Maxwell's Equations - through these the behaviour of all electromagnetic phenomena, including everything happening in the computer you're reading this on is explained. I could write pages and pages about what this ability means, but I don't have the patience or the time, needless to say everything in the modern world depends on our understanding of electromagnetism and electromagnetism is a fully relativistic phenomena.

Gravity - General Relativity accurately predicts how mass will influence motion due to gravity to incredible levels of precision. From the motions of the planets to the behaviour of pulsars.

Motion Of Objects - Often overlooked relativity also deals with how moving objects behave, such as the observed appearance of mass increase in moving objects. An important point being that relativity describes correctly the behaviour of objects at low velocities as well as high, its just that this behaviour is exactly the same as predicted by Newtonian mechanics at low velocities.

Particle Physics - Almost anything to do with particle physics requires a deep understanding of relativity, the fact that objects moving near to the speed of light appear to increase in mass means that particle accelerators are set up differently than they would be if this didn't occur.

Nuclear Physics - The fact that the Sun shines, that atomic weapons and fission reactors work can all be traced back to the very relativistic equation of E=mc^2, an equation that drops out naturally any number of ways from special relativity.

There are many others, however most of them would tend to fall within the larger topics above so I'll leave them out, if anyone thinks that I have missed anything out feel free to let me know. Needless to say regardless of DdH's claims to the contrary relativity is essential to basically any piece of technology used in the world, save perhaps the windmill.

Autodynamics
(Think of tumbleweed bouncing down a desert road, with the slight sound of a breeze in your ears.)
No really there must be something it can be used for. Wait for it, wait for it, got it:

Time Dilation - Autodynamics has caused this student to lose a large amount of time over the previous several months.

And...Well that's it actually, there is nothing from the list of things that relativity adequately explains that AD can, and as far as I can tell nothing AD can describe that relativity cannot, save perhaps where all my time went, sigh.

They're Back - 7 - The One In Which DdH Fires Off A Few Ad Hominems

2007-04-05T18:39:00.000+01:00

Check out DdH's latest post over at crank central. The most interesting bit is probably this:

What happens is that a person seems interested, polite, and really
concerned yet when you start arguing logic with them about their
inability to understand the basics of Carezani's work, you quickly
find that they are neither interested, polite, or concerned about
physics truth. This has happened over and over during the last 15
years and it will continue to happen.

It is usually by students of physics preparing themselves to enter the
mainstream. As someone in this fight from Seattle told me, most
people who go into physics are autistic. It is true. They get their
strenght by sitting isolated with themselves or their autistic friends
who consider themselves to be very very smart yet socially, they are
misfits. They find what they think are the weakest kid on the block,
sit at their computer far removed, and pick on this person from an
often anonymous, long-distance. It is very corwardess.

I wonder to whom he may be referring? I think its a bit unfair to claim most physicists are autistic, certainly many may seem to be, especially the more blue-sky researchers, speaking for my own sub field though I find Astronomers to be amongst the most well rounded of scientists. This may well be because I am a socially awkward autistic misfit. I am very very smart though, so maybe it balances out. I could go on for a while pointing out what a well rounded person I am but I think the most interesting question is if I am autistic, what is Dave? Someone that spends all their spare time pushing an obviously flawed theory? The two options I have come up with are; extremely arrogant and self deluding, or, a lying snake oil salesman only interested in selling books or videos.

As for his other claims, well I'm not anonymous, my name is right of the top of the page (to the right if your having trouble locating it Dave), as to the fact that I live on the other side of the world, what am I to do about that? If Americans can't deal with their own nuts (and looking at all the Intelligent Design crowd, they can't) someone will have to speak up for real science. Does it make any difference to the validity of my points that I live on the other side of the world? Last time I checked the same laws of Physics apply in the UK as in California. I'm not picking on any kid, I'm presenting scientific arguments which disprove his theory, if he can't respond in a scientific manner, he shouldn't bother at all. His response so far has been to totally ignore every point put to him, preferring to respond by claiming that we don't understand what he is saying. It is almost impossible to comprehend something fully when it is plain wrong.

His choice of language reveals his lack of interest in debating the soundness of his theory, he is attempting to paint those of us that do argue for real science in a bad light, and himself as a plucky underdog so that he may play the victim and appeal to peoples less rational thinking. He is simply attempting to play to peoples predjudices about what a scientist is like, anyone that knows any professional scientist will tell you he is dead wrong. All this posturing, and that is all it is, is a meaningless distraction, to hide the fact that he has absolutely no evidence to back up what he is claiming. Come on Dave, if your theory is real, then publish some results, in a real peer reviewed journal.

As DdH has decided to get personal I think I can feel free to point out that a linguist such as himself really has no excuse for such appalling spelling, I mean honestly Dave a spell checker can't be beyond your capability can it? Honestly what the hell is "corwardess"? Sigh, even if you spelt it correctly the sentence doesn't make sense. Fool.

As a final thought, near the end he states:

Science is based on observation first, theory second.

I really wish he would take his own advice. We have pointed out many ways that AD just doesn't fit simple experiments, does that alter his thinking? Not one jot. His theoretical approach must be right, despite all the evidence to the contrary, see an upcoming post for more details on that.

They're Back - 6 - The One In Which DdH Links To More Obvious Errors In AD

2007-04-04T21:09:00.000+01:00

Over at ADherent central a positive flurry of messages have been bouncing around, a mini thread has recently developed about the speed of electrons in electronics and related to that Maxwell's equations. For those not au fait with Physics, Maxwell's equations (click here for the wikipedia explanation) are a set of equations that describe the behaviour of electric and magnetic fields and currents. They are essential to our understanding of the behaviour of any electronic systems, or any electromagnetic (such as light) phenomena.

Dave de Hilster was asked in a post if AD could derive Maxwell's equations, the obvious answer is no, Maxwell's equations are clearly relativistic equations, it was problems understanding them that led Lorentz to come up with his transforms that Einstein subsequently used to postulate relativity in the first place. Dave however chose to link to this page on the Autodynamics site. Why is this interesting? Well because of two sets of equations and the legend at the bottom of the page which states:

These two equations (the SR and AD forms of a particular Maxwell equation) are conceptually equal with the exception that in the SR equation, the coefficient Z divides the equation and in AD, the coefficient multiplies the equation!

The italics added by me by way of explanation. What he is stating is crazy. He is saying that in one equation (the SR one) the terms are divided by the factor Z and in the other (the AD one) they are multiplied by it. He adds the explanation mark as an attempt to make you think this is great news, that the two equations are actually equivalent, which of course they cannot be for any value of Z other than 1 (Erratum: it originally said "or 0" as well here, but that's rubbish, the product of writing posts in the dead of night. Thanks Marc.). What this actually boils down to is that AD cannot describe the Maxwell's equations as we know and use them, so AD is entirely incapable of describing any electromagnetic phenomena. Chalk up another great success for AD!

They're Back - 5

2007-04-03T20:59:00.000+01:00

DdH has posted a reply to the email I sent earlier, you can see my original post here. Here is his response in full, my comments which take the form of an open letter to DdH are at the end.

Mark:

I would take your statement of feeling better serious if you showed
that you can take the time to understand AD. But your civility is a
war tactic, not sincerity. Do you think for one minute I believe you
are here to learn about AD? That amazes me more than your
non-willingness to take the time you need to understand what Carezani
is saying. That is expected. But you can't fool anyone by saying you
are glad I'm better because we know you are not. So I will not accept
your false kindness. That is a simple tactic used over and over here for people
who say we don't listen and are not civil and use that as "proof" we are
inconvincible.

You call us ADiots and you care about my health???

Here is just a small part of what you don't understand:

The velocity sum problem as described by AD forces you to understand
that movement is not for free in the universe. Newton gave us
equations for movement but did not say where movement came from.
Einstein says inertial frames exist and they don't and therefore SR is
moot and what he says about movement and acceleration are therefore moot.

Mass increase is not treated as real by particle accelerator
scientists and yet you and others say SR is correct.

Space-time is vacuous as stated by Feynman himself yet we call
Einstein's theory of gravity a theory of gravity. It is not.

You and the establishment make one fatal mistake: you ignore the
crumbling and failings and flailing of theoretical physics and you
don't STUDY DEEPLY Carezani's work and try to find some simple
Hollywood movie ending where you can defeat a superior enemy as Will
Smith did by imagining one bullet in the right place will kill the enemy.

The truth is just the opposite. Many people around the world have
shown E=mc^2 to only work for very specific cases. Two people in the
world how have gotten the raw data for the atomic clock have shown it
wrong. Where is the proof?

One of the sponsors for my film is one of the brave GPS guys to have
the balls to say that relativity is not used in GPS. Where is the proof?

The experimental physicist in my film at SLAC says mass increase is not treated
as real. Where is the proof?

You, scientists, textbooks, and journalist, repeat statements over and
over and over again that "relativity is one of the most tested
theories in science".

WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE??? Search the internet. Where are the
practical applications? GPS and particle accelerators are not examples.

You try and fool everyone with the details of something you don't
understand trying to be the Will Smith of your physics fantasy world.
You are dragon slayer 23 in a long line of people who for some reason
or other feel superior by picking on tiny David (not me, but the
biblical one). That makes you Goliath. He loses in the end.

If Einstein is right, why have ALL the physicists we've talked to
declined to talk with us? What are the afraid of? They really just want to keep
status quo. They are intersted in their job security first, truth second.

As for publishing in reviewed magazines, that is a circular argument.
If you understand philosophy 101, you would understand that you can't assume
what you are trying to set out to prove. In order
to get published in peer-reviewed publications, you have to be
accepted by the establishment. To be accepted by the establishment,
you have been accepted in peer-reviewed publications. That is a circular
argument.

In conclusion, we will only answer questions from those who are
interested in learning about AD because trying to show where you are
wrong is a circular problem also: you have to understand AD before
you would "supposedly" be able to "bring it down".

You have shown, like the establishment, to not study AD deeply.

What can I say? You either take the time, or pretend to be the
Hollywood hero in a fantasy world and be reliaged to the masses in
history who swallow whole what is told to them.

-David

First off David, my civility is not feigned or a tactic, Science should not be an arena of personal grudges and arguments, I genuinely do not wish you any harm, I don't know you and have no reason to dislike you, you have always seemed genuinely polite. As I have pointed out before I do not hate you, pity is the best word to describe my feelings towards you. There are many people in Astronomy I disagree with in a professional sense but have no personal animosity with. I would have to admit that I do actively dislike Lucy, she is rude, offensive and attempts to belittle those that disagree with here, she is most definitely an ADiot, I would hazard to guess that any PhD she may have is not in any science, as her attitude would not get her very far.

The velocity sum equation for AD does not force me to accept that motion is not "free", if you are admitting that AD cannot describe the motion of macroscopic objects in a way that we all can observe in our everyday lives, then you are admitting that AD is wrong. Like much of AD the claim that mass decreases as a particle moves is contradictory, the change in the mass clearly depends on the observer, because it depends on the relative velocity between the two, so how is this change any different from the change in mass predicted by relativity, except of course for the different sign of the change?

This of course is related to your misunderstanding of what people tell you about mass increase in special relativity. I'm not sure if you deliberately misunderstand or if you simply are incapable of seeing the subtleties, regardless lets see if we can try one more time. Yes SR says that moving objects appear to increase in mass, now is this increase real? No of course not, because the amount of mass increase depends on the relative motion of the observers, so different people will measure different masses for the same object if they have different relative motions. This is just another manifestation of the different observables appearing different in different reference frames, its exactly the same in AD as I have pointed out except you have got it the wrong way around, you then desperately try to explain it as the energy being used to move the object, if that is the case why do I have to impart energy to move a ball? So in SR while an object may not physically increase in mass it behaves exactly as if it has, so to make things simpler physicists treat it as a mass increase. Despite your claims particle physicists use this every day when calculating parameters for interactions, if you have a "particle physicist" who claims otherwise he is either no such thing or not involved in anything to do with actual experiments. Sorry to disabuse you of this but that just the way it is, even the electrons in a CRT have a measurable different mass to ones at rest.

Einsteins theory of gravity is not a theory of causation it is a phenomenological description, one that happens to work incredibly well in every circumstance it has ever been tested. GR is undoubtedly a excellent description and any full theory of gravity, such as quantum gravity must reproduce the predictions of GR. Your theory of gravity which is actually an ad hoc attachment to AD, which has no real connection to the main theory was disproven on thermodynamic (as well as many other) grounds more than a century ago.

I have absolutely no misconceptions that I can convince you that you are incorrect. I really don't care if I do, as long as people like you are around, there will be people like me explaining what the real science is. So no I will not give up, these pages will be here as long as possible, at the rate they are climbing up the Google searches they will soon be on the first page just below your site, ensuring that everyone gets to have a balanced read.

I am not aware of any evidence that E equals anything other than mc^2, and has already been pointed out, from a dimensional analysis point of view, it must. For you to claim that it can be anything other than that for the energy of motion shows just how ignorant of physics you really are.

I don't know who your GPS guy is, but I do know that GPS and the Galileo system have corrections for relativity built in. I have seen many explanations of what effects are included, here is one. There are plenty of people that seem to claim that GPS doesn't include relativistic effects, always people that would have no connection with the actual programming of the corrections.

I don't doubt physicists would want nothing to do with you, asking them to appear in a documentary that is clearly cranky, with no editorial control over how their words are used. It's a recipe for humiliation. Does it really surprise you that they want nothing to do with your project? Especially when a simple Google search brings up so many examples of you and your behaviour, I'm particularly thinking about your discussion board days. Add that to the fact that it is up to you to prove that your theory is correct not the other way round, and to date you have nothing to back up your claims. Physicists are generally very busy people, they don't have time to spend potentially ruining their credibility with any loon with a camera.

Your comment about peer reviewed shows that you don't know anything about the process. Your hate figure, Einstein, published his first papers without any qualifications other than a standard degree and without a position at an academic institution. You can submit papers to any journal you like, they will be treated fairly by an expert in the relevant field. If your theory has any potential the reviewer will be more than willing to help out, if you think you are being treated unfairly you can ask for another reviewer. You won't get any sympathy from professional scientists with your whining about not getting published, we all have to work through the same problems. We use the scientific method for a reason, because it works, if everyone that had an idea started their own mini cult with websites, documentaries and books we wouldn't progress at all.

Oh and as a response to your post here, I am doing a PhD, there are no majors, hell there aren't even majors in undergraduate degrees in the UK you spend all of your time studying the subject you signed up for, which in my case meant 4 years of Physics. My PhD is research based and I like what I do, so I think I'll stick with it.

They're Back - 4 Grandma Luce Strikes Back!

2007-04-03T17:30:00.000+01:00

So Lucy Haye has decided to reply to my previous comments, here it is in its brilliant unedited glory. Watch out for razor sharp observations and stunning scientific insight, or not.

Dear Mark:

You confirm that you are really very ignorant, when you talk about the balls. From where the energy come from?

In AD it expend more energy when the velocity is bigger (20 m/sec) but with the same GIVEN energy the ball will travel at 14.14 m/sec. Tell NASA how to do your brilliant idea given by Newton and Einstein!!! to get energy from nothing.
(Of course I know that you don't understand the problem. Is needed to be a no fanatic ignorant to understand it. You don’t understood the problem in the referenced PAGE)

You NEVER will understand AD because you are an ignorant believer of Einstein mistakes and living in the ancient caves.

As always thanks for your commercial. The smart people will see the difference, THANKS

Regards.
Lucy Haye.

Lucy is confused, but lets see if the rest of us can learn something today.

Lets set the scene, we have a man on a train, the train travels at 10m/s in some direction, the man then throws a ball in the direction of motion of the train, the ball travels at 10m/s relative to the man. The question is at what speed does a stationary observer by the tracks see the ball move at?

The answer is simple, the ball appears to the stationary observer to be moving at 20m/s, simply the sum of the two velocities, now, however much Lucy bleats and whines this is a simple fact of nature, observed whenever objects move in relative motion at speeds a lot less than light speed, the fact that AD says this is not the case simply proves that AD is a crock.

Now why is Lucy whining about energy? You see AD has the strange idea that when an object moves it becomes less massive, this is in direct contradiction to both the predictions of Special Relativity and all experimental observations. ADherents claim that this loss in mass is used to push the object along. So when she asks "From where the energy come from?", she is confused about where the energy moving the ball comes from. Of course those of us in the sanity based world are not confused, the ball received kinetic energy from the train, and then even more from the man throwing it, of course the amount of kinetic energy depends on who is measuring it, the man on the train measures the ball having less kinetic energy than the man by the track. This is simply to say that the kinetic energy is not an invariant quantity, how much KE you measure an object to have depends on the relative motion between yourself and the object, it is surely easy to accept that this is the case, think of it this way, what does more damage a crash where one car is stationary and the other hits it at 30mph, or one where both cars drive at each other at 30mph?

This simple and obvious fact about the Universe, is a big problem for ADherents, they have so confused themselves about the nature of frames of reference that they have concocted a theory where kinetic energy has become so confused that it cannot be used in the real world. Hence the problem that they are unable to account for even the simplest relative motion experiments.

So what is the standard response to any criticism that points out ADs manifest failings? Either stony silence or a barrage of Ad-Hominems and claims of scientific bias. I really don't care personally whether Einsteins Relativity is correct, it doesn't really impact much on the work I do, I thoroughly believe that at some point a new theory will supplant it, its just that AD clearly isn't that theory. Any theory that wishes to replace relativity, must first be able to explain all the observations that relativity so successfully has, AD can't do that, it can't even reproduce the observations of the low energy regime that Galileo and Newton managed.

I'll repeat my challenge, to Dave, Ricardo or Lucy, if AD is a scientific theory, then publish something in a real peer reviewed journal, if you would like a list of reputable ones feel free to email me and I'll try to let you know which would be most appropriate. Now if you don't mind I'm off to do some real science.

Note: To those not familiar with the topic, AD has been published in a journal once, it was a paper, co-written with the creator of AD Ricardo Carezani, which described the results of an experiment carried out at the Stanford Linear Accelerator which completely disproved the theory, finding that all the results were perfectly in line with the predictions of Special Relativity. You can find the paper here if you like.

They're Back - 3

2007-04-03T10:21:00.000+01:00

So its all kicked off over at the SAA. DdH started with this post:

Well put.

Here is an example of those you speak of. We have found that the ones
who attack AD and it's proponents know very little about basic physics
and almost nothing about AD. Most of them are full of themselves
opinion and are positioning themselves for jobs in the acedemic world
where truth is less and less important than simply finding am a place
to eek out a living in the university system.

http://theobservershunch.blogspot.com/2007/04/theyre-back.html

It is truly amazing how they cannot and do not understand the basics
and like children, shout back that we don't understand the basics.
It's truly sad.

Amazing. And we're in the 21st century. I'm not sure if we can say
physics is though. Physics in my opinion is over 100 years behind and
stopped at and made a u-turn at the turn of the 20th century.

-David

Which elicited a response that chills the blood of anyone that values real education.

As a homeschooler, David, how can I teach my children the real "basics"? Is
there a "basics" textbook that parents can use with confidence for teaching
real physics to their children when they aren't scientists themselves?

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Aderet

I honestly feel terribly sorry for the poor child that is educated by someone that thinks the SAA is a reliable source of scientific knowledge, to be honest if I understand the home schooling done in the states its fairly likely this kid is being told the Earth is 6000 years old or that Evolutionary theory says Humans evolved from monkeys. Sigh.

DdHs response is to be found here, its very long so I won't post it. Its full of the usual rubbish, but some claims do bear reprinting.

It's funny that the high school teacher of advanced physics at the school where I filmed did not teach relativity. He said he didn't teach it because it simply didn't motivate or interest students. To me, that shows that it is a dead end. After 100 years, there is nothing that has come of it.

That's funny a high school teacher doesn't teach relativity, what a surprise, to appreciate relativity fully you have to understand maths at a higher level than is taught in school. I wonder what other scientific theories aren't taught in school? You know I never really was taught quantum mechanics in school, that must be a dead end too. Or nuclear physics, the lessons we had were very cursory, probably nothing to be gained from understanding how atoms work, or how to generate power from fission. Or what about genetics, we learned that there are 4 base pairs and that they can be arranged to form the DNA code, but not really that much else, I guess genetics is a dead end beyond that.

DdHs next post was aimed squarely at me, enjoy, I know I did.

The effort this guy goes through is quite amazing. Too bad he like
most others stop in the middle before they really understand AD and
pretend to slay the dragon.

http://theobservershunch.blogspot.com/search/label/Autodynamics

A lot of stuff! Misguided, but C+ for the effort!

One example of how these people run right over the truth at the speed of light
and skip the most important point:

"It was observed that the energy contained in the observed decay
products (electron and proton) did not add up to the amount of energy
contained in the neutron, so Pauli postulated that an unobserved
particle (the neutrino) must be carrying away some of the energy."

Problem here is, the energy DID add up without the neutrino. It is exactly as
predicted without the neutrino. Pauli
applied the relativistic KE equation to the eletron and that created the extra
energy. Looks like our basher skipped that important part. First mistake is
that you can't apply KE to decay.
Second, there isn't missing energy if you don't apply relativistic
equations to decay. in the first place.

Two mistakes skipped over by future PHD in the UK and then he goes off into more
and more stuff with just as many conceptual errors.

There is case after case of this guy getting things wrong. One thing we have
learned through the years: it is useless to point out their mistakes to them.
They are incapable of learning because they are convinced AD is wrong no matter
what you say. The only time we spend time to explain where these sad-sacks go
wrong is for those who truly are interested in learning about AD and it serves
as an example for others to see where the shallow logic AD bashers use goes
wrong.

Just think if this guy actually shut up and studied AD more, he might just get
it!

;-)

-David

Only a C+?, for all this work?, damn he is tight marker. I thought at least a B. Needless to say its all posturing bullshit. It wouldn't matter how long I studied AD, I couldn't get it because its a pile of contradictory nonsense. I posted a reply to their board but I don't doubt it won't get posted, so here it is in all its unedited glory.

Hi David

Glad to hear you're feeling better. It's nice to see that you have taken the time to read my post at last. I wonder however what your response to the most problematic points I raised are, namely that there is absolutely no way that E can equalmc^3, and that this shows the lack of scholarship involved in your entire theory. People in glass houses should not throw stones especially when you make a mistake no competent high school student would.

The other being that the Autodynamics equations do not form a group and therefore cannot be used as transforms as you so happily do throughout. This I'll be more forgiving with, a slightly competent first year University physicist would probably pick this one up.

I'll ignore the bit about you being unable to reproduce anything sensible without having to fudge results.

As I don't doubt that this message will get blocked I'll ensure it appears on my blog, thanks to your linking to my blog on your message board at least other members of theSAA will get to see it now.

You keep feigning confusion as to the motives of people like myself, well your last few posts adequately show why people like myself take the time to point out your mistakes. To think that someone schooling their child would think that you are a reputable source of scientific information is beyond me. Then I realise I'm fortunate, I work surrounded by people that use relativity every single day in their work, something I'm sure your deluded parent doesn't have the benefit of, so no wonder it seems odd to them. I know its a fact, I see the results of it everyday, the version you peddle is a cartoon version of relativity, in the same way that creationists caricature evolution and bears little relation to the real theory.

I am here because when scientists don't share their knowledge to people, charlatans and cranks like yourselves start peddling nonsense like AD, or intelligent design or the healing power of crystals, to the benefit of no one but themselves.

If AD is really a scientific theory then publish some papers, in a real peer reviewed paper (and don't try to count Physics Essays, peer reviewed means checked for factual accuracy, not spelled checked). If as you claim your maths is right it must be incontrovertible (that's the way maths is), the fact that you have never published anything that has been properly been reviewed shows the vacuity of the theory. I don't doubt you will claim scientific bias here, but the fact is if your maths is right, it can't be argued with, the fact that even I can show where it goes wrong doesn't really bode well.

Thanks

Mark

Serenity

2007-04-02T20:45:00.000+01:00

After the silliness of the last few posts I think its about time to turn to weightier matters. In this case which Serenity character I am most like. This post is fairly well timed as it turns out that Serenity was voted the most popular Sci-Fi film in a poll by SFX magazine. I have to say the film is great, though I wouldn't go as far as saying it was the best Sci-Fi film ever.

If you want to have a go yourself try this link.

My results which I'm pretty happy about (except the 10% Reaver bit, unless it means 10% Border Reiver which could be true) are in the figure below.

They're Back - 2

2007-04-02T16:56:00.000+01:00

They're Back!

2007-04-02T12:05:00.000+01:00

That's right every ones favourite crank science troupe the ADiots/ADherents have returned. See IbaDaiRons posts here and here for more details. I think something he said must have stirred them into action because I received the following email from Grandma Luce, regarding my long post on why Autodynamics is bogus (see here, its also a good place for people not familiar with Autodynamics to start).

Dear Mark:

Thanks you very much for you commercial on AD, event though it is absolutely false all what you said about AD. You didn't understand a word about it.

Your AD Sun Velocity Equation is absolutely wrong:
The AD's equation is:

Bn = (1 - ( (1- B1^2) ...... (1- (Bn-1)^2)))^1/2

Regarding the Kinetic Energy is needed to be very ignorant or a big liar to say that AD say that the energy is invariant.

Regarding System in Relative motion you didn't understand a word on what AD say and never you will understand it because you are not a scientist: You are a person poisoned by poison and hate.
It is your problem, no the AD's problem.

It is painful to see an English Gentleman plying so bad role.

My best regards, and thanks again for your propaganda.

Lucy Haye Ph. D.
SAA's member
Books's Manager.

I'm not sure why she didn't just post the reply to comments section of my post, my guess is that she didn't want anyone else to see it. Oops. As you can see she has not bothered to try to make any comments that actually refute my points, apart form claiming that I have got the wrong velocity sum equation, all I can say to that is that I put up the equation from the AD website, the AD website has a page with questions on where the velocity sum equation is given in the form I provide, the answer agrees that this is the correct form of the velocity sum equation. So which is it? right or wrong? To be honest it doesn't really matter the equation Luce gives doesn't reduce to the Galilean one anyway so its still wrong.

To say I'm disappointed is an understatement, I had expected better from them, they claim that their theory is an improvement on GR and after over a month this is the best they can come up with to refute my objections? I at least thought they might try to explain away the fact that they claim Energy might be equal to mass times the speed of light cubed, which isn't even dimensionally allowed!

Come on ADiots, you really have to make a better show for yourselves. This is frankly just embarrassing.

Scientific Rivals

2007-04-02T11:37:00.000+01:00

Over at cosmicvariance they have a post about a topic we have discussed in the group before, scientific enemies/nemesis, those people that work in your sub-field and for whatever reason you don't get on.

The cosmic variance article gives some handy hints on how to choose your own personal scientific nemesis, I myself already have one, it only took one chance meeting for me to decide on them, I'm sure that in all probability they are a decent person, just something about them rubbed me up the wrong way. I'm looking forward to many years of run-ins at conferences to come, in all probability without them ever realising I dislike them.

Does anyone else have any professional enemies?

Science of Ugliness

2007-03-28T11:48:00.000+01:00

The BBC has an interesting story about a potential explanation to a paradox of evolution. The paradox to be put bluntly is that there are still ugly people around, if females select their mates on the basis of looks then over time evolution should favour the genes that give rise to better looking people. Eventually everyone should be beautiful. Some of that noisy band of idiots that try to refute evolution like to use this argue that evolution is false.

This "paradox" seems to me to be inherently wrong anyway, it makes the assumption that women have always been free to choose who they marry, which of course is blatantly not the case. It also of course neglects the impact of women choosing to marry for reasons other than looks, money being the obvious example.

Regardless of this, the researchers Professor Marion Petrie and Dr Gilbert Roberts of Newcastle University believe they have found a mechanism that explains why we are not all models.

The scientists claim that since genetic mutations can occur anywhere in the genome, some will affect the DNA repair kit possessed by all cells.

As a result, some individuals have less efficient repair kits, resulting in greater variation in their DNA as damage goes unrepaired.

This variation leads naturally to a variation in looks, it probably has other effects which are more beneficial to the population, like providing a wide range of mutations some of which could be useful in fending off disease for example. In other words it looks like there is a balance in a population between everyone looking good and having a wide enough variation in the population to be able to resist changes in the environment. Exactly as natural selection would predict.

News From Home

2007-03-21T21:29:00.000Z

Every once in a while a story comes along that reminds me of home. Its rare however that a story about my actual home town appears. This is one such tale from the Metro...

A dim-witted teenage burglar left footprints in fresh snow this morning, which helped police track him down, a force spokesman said.
A homeowner from Ashington, Northumberland, rang police at 1.30am to report that two bikes had been stolen.
The thief climbed over a fence in Hindmarsh Avenue, broke into a shed and wheeled the bikes away, said a spokesman from the Northumbria Police.
'However, due to the fresh snowfall in the area, officers were able to follow a set of footprints in the snow, which led to a house a few hundred yards away,' the spokesman said.
The police located the culprit and found the bikes.
The spokesman continued: 'A 16-year-old boy from the Ashington area was arrested and is currently in custody on suspicion of burglary.'

... and yes there are people just that dumb back home.

Science Takes A Stand

2007-03-20T11:57:00.000Z

As many people may already know, there are big changes going on in the US at the moment because of the Democrats success in last years elections. This success has meant that they now have the power to hold hearings and basically stick their noses into all the rotten recesses which the present administration has been stashing bodies in. One of the trends that has gotten the Democrats rightfully vexed is the issue of the Administration censoring science that it finds problematic. In particular anything about climate changes or reproductive health comes in for major scrutiny, and usually any conclusions are dramtically toned down.

The latest example of this actually made me laugh. James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (a NASA organisation) was called before a federal panel to describe how he is followed by a government lackey whenever he gives interviews about climate change and that this lackey has the ability to modify his statements about his work. This lackey in particular, Philip Cooney previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, a fund set up to attempt to discredit climate change. What made me laugh though was that he was sat beside Hansen as he gave testimony, I'm not sure if he was called to give testimony, or was simply doing his job of trying to prevent the Hansen saying something the White House wouldn't like. Personally I'd veer towards the latter, because he had edited a statement Hansen was to give to the panel, changing the word "will" to "may" in reference to describing the impact of human activity--particularly the burning of oil and coal--on the Earth's temperature.

Something about the image of an indignant respected scientist giving evidence about White House interference in front of a panel of Democratic representatives scenting blood, all the while having this WH yes man sat beside him trying to control him made me laugh. Check out the full story here.

Science In Pictorial Form

2007-03-18T14:14:00.000Z

I've just come across a cool image that encapsulates the level of interconnection within science. It even appears Astrophysics has some connections to other sciences, who would of thought. The full article can be found at Seed. The description is fairly interesting.

This map was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 published papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as pale circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved black lines) were made between the paradigms that shared papers, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation forced every paradigm to repel every other; thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers; node proximity and darker links indicate how many papers are shared between two paradigms. Flowing labels list common words unique to each paradigm, large labels general areas of scientific inquiry.

Click on the picture for a very big version (< 5Mb).

Cool Google Maps Applications

2007-03-07T20:02:00.000Z

Ever wondered how sea level rises due to Global Warming could reshape countries? Well you damn well should have. Anyway, check out this cool little applet to find out. Fortunately I don't think even the most pessimistic predictions for sea level rise are above 1m, unfortunately this is still enough to flood most of Holland, parts of Bangladesh and many Pacific Islands, displacing hundreds of millions. Still think a 5-litre SUV is a good idea?

On a lighter note here is a nice little applet that lets you use Google Maps as a Pedometer. So don't claim the internet is the reason you're unfit, get off your ass and go for a run! Or a brisk walk, or use it to work out if the walk to the corner shop is enough to burn off the calories from the Mars bar you're going to buy. Fat ass.

Note: Not exactly sure where the tone of this post came from, probably just absolute frustration at the idiocy of all those Global Warming deniers.

The Scale Of Things

2007-03-06T10:56:00.000Z

Wow, check out this composite picture of the moon partially occulting Saturn. Even as an Astronomer my mental image just didn't have Saturn appearing that big relative to the moon, click for the big version.

Here is the description from LPOD:

In England on March 2nd, 2007 the Moon slowly moved past Saturn. From Pete’s observing site in Selsey the Moon just barely nicked the planet itself but pleasingly covered about 40% of the rings. Here are Pete’s words on how he captured this event: The difference in brightness of the Moon compared to Saturn was huge at the time and in order to get both objects imaged simultaneously, one must suffer. In this case I exposed correctly for Saturn which meant that the Moon’s limb was burnt out. A number of shots were taken at 30s intervals (10s movie captures at 60fps, fixed on Saturn) which gave me the positional information I needed to build the composite you see here. The RGB image of Saturn was captured just before the occultation and the lunar limb just after (this is a three frame mosaic). The interval positions shown are separated by 90s in time. South is up in the image and the Moon would be moving towards the upper right.

Popularity Contest For Nation States

2007-03-06T09:44:00.000Z

The BBC has an interesting article on world opinion on countries. There are no real surprises, except that the UK is generally seen as a positive influence on the world, even after the Iraq debacle. Oh and that Iran is marginally more of a "Great Satan" than the US. The figure below shows the details on selected countries. Head over here for the full article.

Friday Lunchtime Talks - MOdified Gravity

2007-03-06T09:37:00.000Z

On Friday we had the latest of the Durham Astronomy groups Friday Lunchtime Talks, these usually consist of two members of the group (which consists of over 50 members including students) giving a half hour talk, either about their own work or a paper that has appeared recently in which they have some interest. Last Fridays was something different however, it was an hour long talk by Professor Emeritus John Moffat of the Perimeter Institute on the subject of his own version of modified gravity, MOG.

I always have a lot of respect to someone that comes to Durham to talk about modified gravity, it really can be like entering the Lions den. Tinkering with gravity is usually done in an attempt to explain astrophysical phenomena without the need to demand that most of the mass in the Universe is invisible and can only be detected through its gravitational influence (the so called Dark Matter). Durham is world renowned as a centre of research into Dark Matter, as such some members of the group could be expected to be particularly partisan on the issue. I think its a great credit to the people involved that things never seem to get too heated, in fact in this Fridays talk, most of the difficult questions were directed from the one Professor in the group who has never been too happy with the current Cosmological Paradigm. He's generally good value for entertainment, and important in keeping everything honest.

Anyway, onto the talk itself. John Moffat has been working on modifying the gravitational laws for many years and has produced several different models. These models differ from most of the work on MOND (MOdified Netwonian Dynamics) in that from the beginning they were specifically chosen to be relativistic, that is that they are modifications to Einsteins General Relativity and not Newtons law of gravity. Essentially in MOdified Gravity (or if you prefer, MOffat Gravity, MOG) the gravitational constant G (also called Newtons Constant) is not in fact a constant, but can vary both in time and in space, so that the G that relates the force between two masses separated by one distance R1 is not the same G that relates the force between the same masses if they are separated by distance R2, similarly for time T1 and T2. These changes in G have to be negligible for objects within the solar system otherwise we should be able to detect deviations from the GR predictions which so far have not been observed, but they can become significant over galactic scales.

The speaker showed several examples of where his proposed changes would allow us to fit astronomical observations without the need to invoke Dark Matter. In particular he mentioned fitting the rotation curves of dwarf galaxies, spiral galaxies and clusters of galaxies (for clusters its technically not a rotation curve but the principle is the same). This in particular interested me as rotation curves are something I have personal experience with, both in my MSci project and the first paper I have published. Below is an example of a spiral galaxy rotation curve, it simply measures the speed at which stars at different radii in the disk orbit the galaxy, the data is the black circles (with error bars) the various dashed lines show the amount of velocity provided by the mass of various components of the galaxy including a DM halo. MOG allows you to explain the observed rotation of the galaxy without this DM component, by assuming the influence of the other two components is stronger than you would naively expect using Newtonian (or GR) gravity.

For me the first and largest problem that appeared during the talk appeared when JM was talking about these fits to the rotation curves. It seems it is possible using his model to fit all spiral galaxies using the same values for two parameters, as far as I could tell these parameters deal with the scale over which G begins to diverge from a constant value and some sort of normalisation of the size of the divergence. The problem was that when he fit the rotation curves of dwarf galaxies, or of clusters of galaxies the values of these two free parameters were different, all dwarfs had the same values, all clusters had the same values but different from the dwarfs or the spirals. This would appear to mean that there has to be yet another effect going on, meaning we need more free parameters to explain everything in terms of one unified gravitational theory. If this is true it would seem to be a problem. I have to go and look at the actual papers and see if in fact this is the case, or if I simply misunderstood something, it could be that the values he was quoting were actually telling you something about the scales involved, i.e that dwarf galaxies are smaller than spirals which are smaller than clusters.

The second major part of the talk dealt with JM's attempts to explain the results from the Bullet Cluster without the need for Dark Matter. This cluster is so far unique and very exiting. Its unique because it is actually two clusters, one of which has passed through the other, during this interaction the hot gas that resides in the clusters hit each other and slowed down, the gas from the smaller cluster having shocked and formed a bullet like shape as seen as the red triangle on the right of the image below. In the image below you can see the hot intracluster gas as the red regions. This is interesting because the hot intracluster gas has been separated from the galaxies of the clusters (seen in the blue regions), normally there is around 10x as much mass in this hot gas as there is in the galaxies of a cluster. By crashing through each other the two clusters have managed to separate the collisional material (the gas) from the collision less material (the galaxies and any Dark Matter).

It is possible to use gravitational lensing of background galaxies by the clusters of galaxies to work out the mass that must be contained within the galaxy clusters. This cluster is so important because it can be convincingly shown that even though the vast majority of the visible mass (the intracluster gas) has been removed the effect of gravity is still very strong, considerably stronger than can possibly be explained by the visible mass contained in the galaxies in the cluster. The traditional explanation is therefore that there must be some invisible mass (DM), which from this cluster we can see must be collision less, otherwise it would have piled up where the intracluster gas is. In MOG the explanation for the extra lensing, above what is predicted by GR for just the normal mass is that the gravity from the galaxies is stronger at larger distances, and also I believe that there is some lensing caused by the gravity from the intracluster gas.

If this is the case then there is happily a way to test which approach is correct, MOG or DM, the intracluster gas is much more massive than the mass contained in the luminous matter of the galaxies, but it is also located on one side of the cluster. Therefore it would seem that if MOG is correct there should be an increase in lensing on the side of the cluster nearest to the gas, of course the size of the effect would depend on many factors, but may in principle be measurable. If MOG is incorrect and DM is really at work, then the lensing should be more symmetric around the cluster, both because the DM is by far the largest mass contribution but also because the gravity of the gas is much less at larger distances than predicted by MOG.

Whatever the result of work such as this, we are really going to learn something fundamental about the Universe. Either most of the mass of the Universe is in some really exotic form, or else the force of gravity is even stranger than we have ever dreamt.

Unfortunately time caught up with us and we didn't get to find out much on the implications of this modified gravity on Cosmology, for example whether it could explain the mysterious Dark Energy at the same time that does away with Dark Matter. Many other interesting questions were raised however, it appears that MOG doesn't allow for singularities, so no black holes, though objects observationally indistinguishable from them probably can exist. This led one prominent member of the group to spend the time to see if the Metric for MOG is compatible with these condensed objects having a "last stable orbit", apparently it doesn't seem like it can, and as these are thought to be observed around BHs this is probably a problem for the theory.

All in all a very interesting talk, a perfect example of the kind of research that is ongoing in Astronomy. I don't think anyone is going to be packing in the DM work anytime soon, but if the DM particles continue to remain so illusive, its good to see that there are concrete alternatives being formulated.

New Blogroll Entries

2007-03-05T10:41:00.001Z

I have two new entries to the blogroll this week. I heartily recommend both for your perusal.

I stumbled across the first Strange Paths while looking for a picture of the Sun as seen in neutrinos. It combines descriptions of science and philosophy with some of the most amazing scientific pictures I have ever seen. The pictures below give a taste of whats on offer, click for them in all of their glory.

The second is the blog of (relatively) long time commentator on here, Pete, its called the view from underhill, I like it a lot because he has already picked up on several topics that I had in mind for future posts. In particular the post about the current road safety TV adverts in the UK, the statistics given always had me curious, I just could never get round to checking where they come from, well Pete has a link to someone who has done just this, its pretty interesting reading. Check it out.

Sunday Comic Round Up

2007-03-04T14:34:00.000Z

Dispatches from the War On Science?

Joy Of Tech.

More Joy Of Tech.

Manned Space Flight

2007-03-02T09:33:00.000Z

It's not that often that I am totally surprised by something, but today when I had a browse over at washingtonpost.com I almost fell of my chair. It turns out that I actually agree with Charles Krauthammer on something for the first time in my life. For those of you who aren't familiar with his writing he's a pretty strident right wing nut as far as I can tell, big fan of Bush, Iraq, Tax cuts for the rich etc. In essence not at all the kind of guy I would ever expect to agree with.

The op-ed in question found here (free registration required) deals with the idea of manned exploration of space. It basically comes down to examining the two arguments against manned space flight. The first is that there are many expensive pressing problems on Earth that need fixing, this is true but of course there always have been and there always will be, Earth is not Utopia and never will be, what else are non essential uses of money? Any recreation, TV, non essential travel? How many people argue we should be giving these up? Also the expenditure on space research is tiny by comparison to almost any other government expense, NASA costs about $17 Billion per year out of a total US budget of around $2.5 Trillion, so that works out about 0.7%. Though maybe when 20% of the US budget is currently paid for in debt it doesn't seem that good a deal.

The most compelling reason for abandoning manned space flight is from scientific purists who claim that robotic missions are far more cost effective, this is definitely true, it is many times more expensive keeping people alive in space than it is keeping a robot ticking over. This argument I think overlooks a fundamental need of human nature to explore, to put feet down on new lands and to gaze at vistas no one has seen before. If we ever lose that desire we may as well send machines in our place because we will have become them.

Why Autodynamics Is Wrong, Totally, Utterly And Most Importantly Demonstrably

2007-03-01T12:13:00.000Z

WARNING: Long Post
WARNING: Some Maths (not essential to understanding)

I think its about time I wrote a semi-complete critique of the whole Autodynamics theory. My reasons for doing this are that I think it provides an excellent opportunity to discuss the successes of the Special Theory of Relativity whilst also illuminating many of the common mistakes made by people attempting to present their own "alternative" theories. For explanations and examples of the theory I have mostly used the two main autodynamics websites, autodynamics.org and autodynamicsuk.org.

If anyone has any points to add feel free to email me, the address is in my profile. I should point out that most, if not all of the points I raise were not originally raised by me, hey, the theory has been around for sixty years, people have had plenty of time to point out the obvious (and less obvious) problems. If anyone recognises anything they think they may have originally come up with feel free to claim some glory in the comments. I especially credit Tom Roberts whose "A Physicists Refutation of Autodynamics" I came across while almost ready to post this entry, for certain mathematical explanations I have decided to use his methods, they were essentially identical to the ones I had, but were much simpler to follow. Hey I'm an Astronomer not a Mathmagician dammit.

History of Autodynamics
Lets start at the beginning. What is Autodynamics? AD is the result of an error made over sixty years ago by a young Argentine Physicist studying special relativity. The physicist, Ricardo Carezani believed that he had spotted an error in the derivation of Einstein's Special Relativity (SR). This perceived "error" became a life long obsession for Carezani, who set out to formulate his own theory, with which to supplant SR. Personally I would have been slightly worried if I thought I had spotted something that had eluded many of the greatest minds of twentieth century science, clearly Carezani had a pretty good opinion of his own abilities.

Now I personally feel some sympathy for Carezani, he was making his "discovery" at a time before most of the experiments that proved SR had been undertaken, for example the experiments that measured the energy spread in certain decays proving the neutrino existed had not been done yet. By the time these experiments had been done, it was probably too late, he wasn't going to be able to accept that he was wrong. He is after all not the first scientist to have sacrificed his career and credibility because of arrogance (I won't name names here, you probably know of a few). He has continued to work on his theory and with the help of a small band of cheerleaders led by a David de Hilster has attempted to publicise it. More recently day to day work on the theory appears to have been ceded to DdH, in fact it appears that Carezani has essentially been sidelined (he is getting on yuo know) in favour of promoting DdHs take on the theory.

AD In Brief
The main conclusion of Autodynamics, is that the derivation of Special Relativity is incorrect, that there is a superfluous reference frame (don't worry we'll look at what these are later) in the derivation and that removal of this frame leads to a simpler theory. This simpler theory predicts very different behaviour for objects travelling near the speed of light, for examples see this page. In particular while SR predicts that objects travelling near the speed of light appear to increase in mass (observed in particle accelerators), AD predicts the exact opposite, that moving objects physically decrease in mass leading to equations for the kinetic energy and momentum of moving objects which similarly display behaviour in the exact reverse of those predicted by SR (and observed in experiment). This change in mass is supposedly what supplies the energy for motion. AD also apparently predicts that electric charge is not conserved, and that "if a charged object decays its charge gets smaller" leading to obvious problems dealing with any particle physics phenomena. From this set of equations AD attempts to explain a wide range of phenomena, from particle interactions, gravity, motion of bodies etc.

It hardly needs stating at this point that SR as been proven time and again to be an accurate description of certain phenomena, therefore if AD is to have any usefulness it must reproduce the predictions of SR for those situations where both apply. In much the same way as SR simplifies to Newtonian Physics at low velocities, AD must predict the same behaviour as SR where SR has already been shown to be correct. As we shall see this is simply not the case.

Autodynamics Treatment Of Frames And Moving Bodies
The central claim of AD is that SR includes a superfluous reference frame and that while the mathematics are correct this frame is physically meaningless. This reverse of this can be shown to be true trivially, taking the equations of SR and AD side by side we can begin to see why this is. The equations on the left are the standard Lorentz transforms used in SR, the ones on the right the simplified Lorentz equations (the so called Carezani equations) used in Autodynamics.

Figure 1. The Lorentz and Carezani equations.

To get anywhere explaining the problems with AD it will be necessary to give a very brief description of the use of coordinate systems in Physics and in particular what the different symbols in the above equations mean.

Imagine that we have two people, Joe and Moe, who are observing some phenomena at a point P some distance away from them, further imagining that Moe is moving in the x direction (in the line between Joe and P) with uniform velocity u (see Fig. 2). Moe sees the distance between himself and the point P as distance x', Joe is at rest relative to the point P and measures the distance between himself and P as being x. The transformation equations above are simply some clever mathematics that allow Moe and Joe to agree on what they are measuring. In the example given if the two coordinate systems (Joe and Moe) were originally at the same point, then the relation between x and x' can be trivially seen to be x' = x - ut, y'=y, z'=z and t'=t (for simple Galilean Relativity), in other words it is possible for both Joe and Moe to reconcile what they have measured.

Figure 2. Two coordinate systems in uniform relative motion along the x-axis.

The description above deals with the results for classical Galilean mechanics, it can be shown that Newton's laws when transformed between the two systems are exactly the same, that is they are invariant, in other words there is no way to use a mechanical experiment to determine who is moving and who is at rest. This is the principle of relativity, that physical laws should be the same in all inertial reference frames (those frames where there is uniform motion), note it does not apply if there is an acceleration acting on one of the frames, this is the root of the infamous twins "paradox".

This was the situation until the mid 1800's when Maxwell formulated his equations describing the behaviour of electromagnetic fields. It was soon noted that Maxwell's equations did not appear to obey the principle of relativity, they were not the same in Moes frame as in Joes, this of course was a major problem. It was H. A Lorentz who first worked out that the transformations on the left side of Figure 1. would allow one to transform Maxwell's equations whilst preserving relativity, an interesting consequence of which was the observation that light appears to travel at exactly c (3x10^8 m/s) no matter how fast the observer or emitter is travelling. This leads to the first problem with AD, the Lorentz transforms are the only mathematically allowed transforms that preserve relativity for Maxwells equations. We know Maxwells equations are observed to be true in any reference frame they have been measured, therefore AD must be wrong. This would be a pretty short critique of AD if we ended there however, plus there is plenty of bad (and good) science/history left to be described.

Einstein took the observations of Lorentz and postulated that it wasn't just electrodynamics that these transforms applied to, but mechanics also, and that by replacing the m in Newtons standard equations with m = m0 / SQRT(1 - u^2/c^2) then the new theory of Special Relativity could be reconciled with the older laws of mechanics. An important point regarding the implications of special relativity is that differences between SR and classical mechanics only appear when objects move very close to the speed of light. In other words at the low speeds (v lt c) we are used to in everyday life then the SR equations reduce to the simpler Galilean ones we expect. SQRT(1-u^2/c^2) only becomes measurably different from 1 when u approaches c.

So now for another glaring problem with Autodynamics, it is the one that essentially kills of the theory at the start. It can be shown that the standard Lorentz transforms form what is known as a group, if you successively perform the transformations you produce another transformation. What this means physically is that there is some mathematics that different observers can apply so that they can bring their observations into agreement. This is essential, relativity means that no two observers will ever measure exactly the same event exactly the same way, but there is at least mathematically some way that both observers can agree that the same physical laws have applied to the phenomena. Without this property Physics and its ability to explain the Universe is impossible, different laws of physics apply to different observers and there is no way that they can ever be reconciled. We can show here that the AD equations do not form a group, that different observers of a phenomenon if they use AD can never agree on what they have observed, not even in principle.

Starting with AD equations 1 and 4 which we will renumber 1 and 2. x and t are measurements in reference frame F (i.e Joe), x' and t' are in reference frame F' (Moe), u1 is the velocity of F measured from F'.

To have any real physical significance it must be possible to introduce a third observer, after all the Universe wouldn't limit us to only two possible frames from which to observe any event right? Well of course not, think of any real life situation and you can see that there are essentially an infinite number of possible reference frames to choose from. So we can introduce a third observer to the system, this observer (Bo?) has reference frame F'', their reference frame must have some relation to the two others, in fact it can be shown that it is simply related in the following way:

where u2 is the velocity that F'' (Bo) measures for F' (Moe). This equation must hold true for any arbitrary choice of u2. There must also of course be some way to convert between reference frame F (Joe) and F'' (Bo) directly, it can simply seen that this situation is described by the following equations, where u3 is the velocity that F'' (Bo) measures for F (Joe).

This also should hold for any choice of u3. Now substitute 1 and 2 into 3 and 4. Giving us:

For the transformations to form a group equations 7 and 8 must be the same as equations 5 and 6, due to repeated transformations leading to transforms that are also group members. So we simply equate the two sets of equations to get:

Substituting 9 into 10 leads to:

Now Substituting this back into 10 gives us:
Which can be rearranged to solve for u1 to get:
Oops. We started out with an arbitrary choice of velocities u1 and u2, but have still ended up with u1=0, this is mathematically a contradiction and shows that the AD equations do not satisfy the conditions of being a group. The composition of any two AD equations does not produce another transformation, falsifying the theory as a practical theory describing real world events. Its is impossible for two observers to agree on anything they see or do using Autodynamics except in the rather boring case of u1=0, i.e both at rest. Needless to say this is not a problem that afflicts SR, I leave it as an exercise for the reader to attempt a similar procedure using the SR equations.

Now how do the ADherents deal with this pretty damning problem? In one of two ways, the first was simply to ignore it, looking at the discussion forums where this type of problem was pointed out to DdH is quite illuminating. After first being made aware of this problem he produced a new newsgroups policy for the SAA (Society for the Advancement of Autodynamics) which prohibited discussion of AD in forums by members, he or one of his sock puppets would then occasionally post some message extolling the virtues of AD whilst refusing to discuss the problems (in an attempt to attract new converts). I have only seen one argument from the ADherents disputing this type of analysis which is simply to claim that the Carezani equations are not transformation equations and that they never claimed that they were, this however spectacularly fails the credibility test when they use them exactly as transformation equations when deriving their equations for kinetic energy (and others) you can see some examples here (specifically where they go from equations 19 to 21). I could essentially end the discussion here, theory disproved end of story, but there are plenty of other examples of poor science to find in AD, some of which are quite amusing and instructive on how not to formulate a theory.

Figure 3. Illustration of the velocity sum.

Velocity Sum
A simple example of where AD predicts something obviously incorrect in real world situations can be seen by how AD relates the summation of velocities. We will use a simple example here to demonstrate the problem. Imagine we have a situation similar to the one described above, where we have someone on a moving body, say a train, the train moves with velocity V1, the person then throws a ball in the direction the train is moving, with as he sees it velocity V2. The question is, what velocity does a second observer, one stationary on the side of the tracks see? What velocity do they measure for the ball? Well in simple Galilean physics the answer is simple, the velocity observed by the person at rest is the sum of the velocity of the train and the ball. In SR the answer is similar, the derivation is trivial but I'll omit it in the interests of brevity, the SR equation for the velocity sum is:

As we can see an extra factor has appeared V1*V2 / c^2, this factor means that it is impossible for anything to appear to travel faster than the speed of light. Try it, if you pick a velocity for the train of 0.55c and one for the ball of 0.55c, the velocity of the ball observed by someone at rest is only 0.845c not 1.1c. The important point however is the behaviour of this formula at small values of V1 and V2 like we see during our normal lives, in this regime where V1,V2 lt c, the equation above reduces to the simple case V = V1+ V2 exactly as is seen in everyday life. Things are not so rosy in AD land however, their equivalent to the equation above for V1,V2...Vn lt c is:

So in our simple example above, the ball appears to anyone at rest to be travelling at SQRT(10^2 + 10^2) = 14.14 m/s. Oops. Clearly this is nonsense, it contradicts simple experiments you could do yourself at home.

The people at the SAA have many reasons for this problem, none of which is actually true, the real reason seems to be that they derive this relation using the assumption that kinetic energy (the energy due to the motion of an object) is invariant. Of course kinetic energy is not an invariant quantity, how much energy you measure an object to have depends on the relative motion between you and the object. This is another major contradiction in AD, it claims that only the motion between an object and an observer matters then ignores the fact that other observers will have a different relative motion and therefore measure a different kinetic energy for the object. Clearly we can again see that the supposed greatest strength of AD (its single reference frame) is actually its greatest weakness.

E=mc²
Perhaps the most egregious and obvious contradiction in all of the AD literature (read website) is the way they treat Einstein's most famous equation E=mc^2, which relates the amount of energy contained in mass to the speed of light squared. Throughout much of the website they consistently denigrate E=mc^2, for example check out the poster for DdH's much delayed documentary about AD:

Notice that it says that E does not equal mc^2. Which is good because in AD, E does not equal mc^2. Unfortunately for AD, in the real Universe E does equal mc^2.

Now E=mc^2 is not something that was chosen by Einstein to fit observations, it falls out naturally of SR, the fact that the relation has been measured to be correct time and again is pretty good, because it again provides yet more evidence that SR is right. The problem AD has is that we know E=mc^2 (or something so close we can't tell the difference) is true. For AD to be correct it has to be able to derive E=mc^2 from its own principles. It seems it can't do this, the changes they have made to the Lorentz transforms make this impossible as far as I can tell. To try to hide this fatal problem the ADherents try several tricks such as saying things like:

Carezani is working with some ideas (slowly and sporadically) with energy equal to E = moc^3. (See here.)

and

So, does the famous equation "E=mc^2" survive in Autodynamics? The answer is, currently, yes. Carezani discovered the Autodynamic equations using the same steps as Einstein, simply with a correction. He assumes this equation to be true for now. It may be that the equation for energy and mass equivalence is something different where E = m K where "K" is some constant other than c^2. But for now, it is assumed to be correct. (Here.)

You can't do this! It so obvious its crazy but they still try and get away with it. E=mc^2 is a natural result of SR, AD cannot reproduce it so if AD is correct then E=mc^2 must be wrong, but its not, we know from any number of experiments that it is true. You cannot say you have a theory that replaces and improves on SR and then say that your theory cannot predict how mass and energy are related so you'll just use the result from the theory you have supposedly disproven because you don't have anything better!

But it gets worse, they actually do just this, using E=mc^2 whenever they need to relate mass to energy, they then claim that AD manages to match observations! Its not AD, its SR that's doing any matching!

You may wonder as I have done why after 60 years no one has managed to come up with an AD relation for mass and energy, its certainly one of the most obvious things to do, the answer I suspect, is that they ran into the same result I did, I have had a very brief try at deriving an AD mass energy relation and ended up with a result that appears to be physically meaningless, which could be down to either my maths (hey, astronomer) or the fact that AD is physically meaningless. I will let the reader decide which is more likely. I suggest a challenge to those of mathematical abilities beyond mine (i.e. 12 year olds), can you produce a derivation for the relation between mass and energy in AD? I tend to think that if one existed that wasn't meaningless Carezani would have it by now, without having to resort to laughable guesses like E=mc^3.

NOTE: Thanks to CMB for pointing out a blindingly obvious problem with E having any dependence other then mc^2 is shown by dimensional analysis. The SI unit of energy is the Joule, which happens to have dimensions of kg m^2 s^(-2) which of course is exactly the same dimensions of mc^2. Carezani's guess of E=mc^3 is of course dimensionally impossible proving yet again how ignorant of basic physics the people at AD are.

This I think is where AD is most easily seen to fall into the crank theory bracket, making one of the most fundamental mistakes you can make in a theory, contradicting yourself. Stating that something is not true (or knowing that it cannot be true according to your theory), then using the fact that it is true elsewhere because you don't have anything better or even worse because you know it is in fact true from experiment. If AD wants to be taken seriously it has to be able to derive E =mc^2 or something like it itself, if as Carezani claims, AD is formulated similarly to SR then it should be simple to show that E=mc^2 is either true or false in AD, why hasn't any of the ADherents done this?

The Neutrino
Ah the poor neutrino, most innocuous of all the ADherents figures of hate. Yes that's right the ADiots really have it in for the poor neutrino, why? you may ask. Well because the neutrino was first postulated by Pauli to explain beta decay, where a neutron decays into a proton and an electron (and neutrino). It was observed that the energy contained in the observed decay products (electron and proton) did not add up to the amount of energy contained in the neutron, so Pauli postulated that an unobserved particle (the neutrino) must be carrying away some of the energy.

It seems that the irrational hatred of the neutrino shown by the SAA is a historical hangover of the formulation of AD. AD was originally claimed to have been formulated to explain beta decay without the need to postulate a neutrino. Unfortunately for Carezani the neutrino was first observed in 1956 about ten years after he came up with AD, the neutrino is now convincingly detected everyday in dozens of different experiments leaving the ADiots with one of two routes, to accept that the neutrino exists and try to salvage their theory or the route that they have (after much deliberation I'm sure) chosen, to stick their fingers in their ears and go "la, la, la I'm not listening to you". They ignore all of the vast quantities of data that clearly and convincingly show that neutrinos exist, instead claiming that the detections of neutrinos are either mistaken or fraud. This is of course laughable and ludicrous, some of the experiments done with neutrinos are incredible, they have been detected from the Sun (if you're wondering what that shows, its a picture of neutrinos from the Sun that have passed through the Earth), from nuclear power plants, particle accellarators and even supernovae in other galaxies for Jebus' sake.

Explain this to the ADiots and they simply claim that all detected neutrinos are other misidentified particles, this just doesn't hold water. Especially since experiments such as MINOS, in this experiment neutrinos produced in a particle accelerator are detected at two locations, one very close to the source of the neutrinos, the other 735km away and 716m underground. Guess what, if you turn off the particle accelarator beam, the signal stops, at both detectors, so what could travel 735km through solid rock without interacting with anything? Hmm, also very fast, near the speed of light, hmm, oh yeah and has the correct properties of spin (as in particle physics spin), charge and lepton number, predicted by looking at the reactions that create the particles? Oh yes thats right the Neutrino.

In simple laymans terms, evidence for the neutrino is now incontrovertable, the fact that AD can apparently explain the energy of one particle reaction, beta decay, without the neutrino must therefore be seen as yet another nail in ADs coffin. This is without even needing to go on and point out that without the neutrino most of the conservation laws of particle physics (spin, lepton number) would not be valid and the entire of particle physics would come crashing down, damn looks like I did point it out.

Conclusion
So there you have it, only a few of the myriad of ways that Autodynamics fails to reproduce anything that even remotely matches observation. We haven't even touched on the rank hypocrisy of its ADherents yet, accusing SR of inventing particles that don't exist (the neutrino which does), then inventing two of its own (pico-graviton and electro-muon which don't). Any visitor to the AD literature will see many examples of fuzzy logic, misunderstanding of SR, downright contradiction (repeated statements that AD only applies to decay cases, then an entire page on how everything can be thought of as a decay case). To me the theory stands out as the most complete of crank theories, but crank theory it is.

AD probably made some sense back in the 1940s, if you ignored the fact that it is physically meaningless in the real Universe, its unfortunately a theory that has far outlived any possibility of it being of any use, existing now as far as I can tell only to sell more copies of books on the subject or memberships to the SAA.

Conservapedia - 2

2007-02-28T09:49:00.000Z

More Conservapedia gems. It's really hard to figure out which articles are real and which are satire. Not that it really matters because they're both funny. I'll actually post the relevant bits because I'm sure they won't be around in their original form for long, all bold is mine, all poor spelling is theirs.

Second Estate

The Second Estate was a social level in pre-revolutionary France. It consisted of the nobility, about 2% of the population, yet it controlled 20% of the land and paid very little taxes, much like welfare mothers in modern America.

The Battle Of Hastings

The Battle of Hastings was in AD 1066. William the Conquerer disguised himself as the Duke of Normandy and invaded England. He established himself as king, and ruled until 1086.

Er, he was the Duke of Normandy.

Delaware

What a hole.

There's not much I could add to that exhaustive description is there? And yes that is the entire entry.

Spartan Soldiers

The most famous battle involving Spartan soliders was that of Thermopylae where, in 480 BC, a force of 300 hoplites under command of King Leonidas held back a massive Persian army under command of Xerxes. With nothing but spears, shields, and sweaty loincloths these soldiers fought off the following:

Armored Rhinos
Mutants
Guys with Grenades
War Elephants
Orcs
Goat-Man

Wait a minute Rhinos and Elephants, well maybe but Mutants,? grenades?, Orcs and Goat-Men? Say what now?

Homeschooling

Homeschooling is not new, and a disproportionate number of high achievers have been homeschooled throughout history. Here is a list of Christian homeschoolers:

You will notice if you check out their list of homeschooled Christian high achievers that the majority of them had one major advantage that more than explains their supposed high achieving status. They were born to rich families, generally in times when organised schools didn't really exist, so the fact that they got any education was a vast improvement on what most people at the time got. If your born to a rich family and can be educated at a time when very few others are, is it really a surprise you do well? Again a very poor example of confusing correlation with causation. But hey, we already know they aren't really up to scratch with their scientific methods right?

Possibly the saddest thing I have seen so far is in the entry for James Buchanan, it has the time and date of last editing.

This page was last modified 00:14, 1 January 2007.

I actually feel pretty sorry for the people involved now, go on, have fun, enjoy yourself, at least take New Year off. There will still be plenty of things to distort, lie about or otherwise mangle when you get back.

South Pole Telescope

2007-02-27T15:44:00.000Z

High time for some real science I think, the South Pole Telescope has just seen first light.

This telescope, located as the name suggests at the south pole is designed to look for small changes in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) caused by the influence of clusters of galaxies. The south pole was chosen to site the telescope because the cold, dry (little moisture in the air) conditions are perfect for astronomy at the sub-millimeter wavelengths being used by this telescope.

The telescope will make use of an effect known as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect to search for large clusters of galaxies. The SZ effect occurs when photons from the CMB interact with energetic electrons found in clusters of galaxies, some of the CMB photons are boosted in energy by the electrons through the Compton effect. By accurately measuring the CMB you can see regions where the CMB appears to be slightly hotter than it should be, these regions generally correlate with the position of clusters of galaxies. It should be noted that the CMB (see pic below) naturally has fluctuations in its temperature, these were the "seeds" that led to the formation of structure in the Universe after the Big Bang, so to determine which fluctuations in temperature are due to SZ and which are due to inherent fluctuations is actually slightly tricky. There are also other effects that need to be taken into account but you get the picture, its pretty hard.

By mapping the distribution of clusters it is possible to learn something about the elusive Dark Energy, particularly it may be possible to determine between the two competing explanations of Dark Energy, the Cosmological Constant and Quintessence.

Best. Conservapedia. Article. Ever.

2007-02-27T10:33:00.000Z

I've just come across the best conservapedia article ever, its for the Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus, I guess it goes to show if you believe Dinosaurs roamed the Earth at the time of Jesus, or that unicorns were real and a type of dinosaur, you truly will believe in anything, even an octopus that lives in trees.

At least I should be pleased that its one of their few pages lacking any sign of bigotry or intolerance.

Evolution Cartoons

2007-02-24T19:16:00.000Z

For this roundup of cartoons I decided to try and stick to a theme, the theme was decided when I came across the first of the cartoons below. All of today's collection relate somehow to evolution, some even date from the 1920's, showing that evolution has essentially always been under attack by fundamentalists.

This one comes from a great site called Russells Teapot, as in Bertrand Russell's famous china teapot floating between Earth and Mars.

Click here for a slide show of classic cartoons printed in the Journal Evolution between 1927 and 1938.

Conservapedia

2007-02-23T12:54:00.000Z

The blogging world (well the sentient part of it) has been all over Conservapedia this week making some hilarious discoveries. For those of you that have been under a rock for the last week Conservapedia is the wingnuts attempt at making an "unbiased" version of wikipedia, by which they mean a version which is totally biased towards the right-wing creationist fundamentalist Christian demographic. For various other blogs on the subject try, here, here, here and here. Unfortunately the site is running extremely slowly, probably because so many bloggers are now causing mischief by editing the entries. Beware when reading it though, not only is it often (unintentionally) funny but its also incredibly difficult to read, the entries generally read like a 9 year old wrote them for a school project.

Some of the entries are very funny, it must be pointed out that its difficult to know how many of these articles are legit and how many were actually put up by people taking the piss. For example here is part of the entry describing a Democrat, as in a member of the Democratic Party:

According to leading conservative thinkers, no good Christian would ever be a Democrat. Catholics identify as Democrats more than Republican, but the opposite is true for Evangelicas. The major tenets of the modern Democrat platform include cowering to terrorism, cocaine presidents, corporate profits, and establishment of an aristocratic, faux-religious state. However, contempt for all the founding principles of America is not yet an official prerequisite for entry into the Democrat party.

Or how about part of the entry on Charles Darwin.

While often regarded by the majority of modern biologists (who accept evolution) as "the father of modern biology," Darwin himself was aware that some aspects of his work were not as scientific as he wished. However, this theory is promulgated by extremely biased groups not recognized as real science, or, truly, advanced critical thought.

This part from the entry on Bill Clinton is clearly a piss take. I guess they have been too swamped to change it yet.

Bill Clinton managed to serve two terms without botching the prosecution of two wars, manipulating intelligence, engaging in a systematic program of torture, or mishandling the federal response to flooding of a major American city. Obviously, he is the devil incarnate. Clinton also attempted to use the American military to kill Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, an action which was properly seen as a mere attempt to distract the nation from the Monica Lewisnky scandal.

Some entries are well somewhat lacking in content, take this one, which is the entire entry for France.

A country in Europe. Thrived during the middle ages. The capitol is Paris, France, which was founded in the Middle Ages.

Thrived during the Middle Ages, thats it? Or how about Germany? Again this is the whole entry complete with spelling mistakes.

A country in central Europe that was blamed for both Wolrd Wars and claimed to be the dominate race of mankind.

So there we have it the conservative view of everything you need to know about two of the most powerful countries on Earth. Kind of explains US foreign policy for the last 6 years doesn't it?

You can see how the site descended into a free for all as there we're people being banned at a rate of about 1 every ten minutes, in fact they have suspended new accounts now. Surely they could see that this was always going to be the outcome? Their ideas can only survive because they are so insular (its meant to help home schooled kids), any technology that allowed free discussion and presentation of the facts was clearly going to lead to articles that were reality based and hence not at all what they were looking for.

The British Space Program

2007-02-22T10:56:00.000Z

I finally found a video of Top Gears most outrageous stunt yet, turning a Robin Reliant car into a space shuttle. Alright it was never technically meant to make it into space but just watch the video. I'm amazed it got off the ground.

I love it, its just so totally English, a bunch of guys turn a crappy three wheeled car into a semi-working rocket. It also has the right ending for this type of story, remember Beagle 2 anyone? Click here for the full segment.

Any Room At The Trough?

2007-02-21T10:46:00.000Z

Damn I'm glad I don't live in the states, my head would have exploded by now with the utter craven greed of the current political leadership. Check out this post for what set me off this time.

The short version is that Bush is attempting to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent whilst repealing the estate tax (which also only affects the rich). One set of figures to remember, amount of money this could save the Walton family over ten years (Wal Mart owners) = $32.7 Billion, amount cut from healthcare for everyone else = $28 Billion.

The Philosophy Of Science

2007-02-20T12:46:00.000Z

The Philosophy of Science is not something I have really given any thought to, it always seemed so obvious what Science is that it didn't really need defining. In light of those damn Intelligent Designers/Creationists I've come to realise that this isn't the case. The people that push ID in the states are making a consistent attempt to redefine the definition of Science so that it can include supernatural explanations, which is clearly utter bullshit. Their main aim is simply to redefine Science so broadly that they can get past the requirement for separation of church and state in the US and begin to teach Creationisms bastard offspring, ID, in schools.

My own personal view on what Science is (and is not) is fairly simple. Science is the pursuit of knowledge of the natural world through purely natural explanations (no magic thank you). For a theory to be scientifically valid it has to do two things, it must make predictions about phenomena, and importantly those predictions must be falsifiable. It is on this second point that Intelligent Design falls down, this paper which is fairly short (6 pages) and can be understood by anyone (no maths at all) makes very interesting reading for anyone interested in why Intelligent Design will always remain non-science. Its also fairly good at elucidating just what Science is about. Note: As is this blog post which contains the excellently succinct definition of Science favoured by Richard Feynman: "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

I would personally put the Scientific Method as one of the pinnacles of human achievement, leading to a level of knowledge and control over the natural world incomprehensible to our less enlightened ancestors. To think that people want to change that because they see it as a challenge to their faith is beyond me. Get over it, why should the Creation story in the Bible interpreted literally when other parts are interpreted allegorically? How many Creationists that believe you will go to hell if you don't believe the literal truth of Genesis, also follow all of the commandments in the Bible, including ones like:

Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19) (Presumably in case you start to wear clothes that look a little bit fruity, if you know what I mean.)

If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.(Leviticus 20:9) (I imagine they would die out quickly if they were putting their kids to death for a little bit of back chat.)

Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed (Leviticus 21:17-18) (Doesn't sound very Christian does it? But there you go, the disabled are clearly not allowed to worship at the altar of God.)

Its the selectivity of their arguments that drives me nuts, some parts have to be believed without question, but the actual commandments of God, well you can pick and choose which of those you like the sound of.

Many people worry that the wingnuts are attempting redefine the things they don't agree with to gain more control and brainwash more people into their frankly ludicrous outlook, this may be true, but I always tend to look at why people are really doing this, fear. Inside every Creationist is the constant gnawing fear that they are wrong, they hope for certainty in numbers, after all if everyone believes what they do then they must be right, right? Their actions are not driven by any perceived rightness of their beliefs but by their obvious weakness in the face of real evidence. They cannot win on a level scientific playing field (hey we have the fossils) so they attempt to alter the rules to improve their chances.

Possibly The Saddest Thing I've Ever Seen

2007-02-20T10:41:00.000Z

A truly horrifying video. A tip of the hat to Ben Goldacre's Bad Science.

What's so scary is that most of those kids really never had a chance, they will never be able to think for themselves, from age 0 they have been reduced to living automatons. If it is this easy to indoctrinate people to believe stuff that is clearly nonsense, just how difficult must it be to have them believe anything? This is why a rational outlook on the world is so important, it really is one very small jump from believing this kind of anti-factual rubbish to justifying absolutely any of the worst things humans are capable of because some old book tells you its ok.

Just look at some of the bullshit they are being taught, dinosaurs and men living together, the world is 6000 years old (so God has just set it up exactly so it looks older?), the good old lie that evolution says people are decended from monkeys, I don't know about you but the guy giving the talk looks a bit ape-like to me, so maybe there is something in that one.

Durham: Echoes Of Power

2007-02-19T10:54:00.000Z

Rich has a post on his blog about a map of London made just after the great fire of 1666, the map itself is pretty cool as you'll find if you follow the link above, but I came across something much more interesting (for those of us with a connection to Durham) whilst wandering around the British Library archives online.

Click for link to a mini site on Durham: Echoes Of Power, the site has a selection of pictures and manuscripts from the last thousand years of Durhams history. My favourite is a picture (which unfortunately it won't let me link directly so click here) of the New Inn pub as it was in the second half of the 18th century. For those of you not in the know, the New Inn is a pub that its practically possible to spit on from the roof of the Physics department. To me its also rather misnamed as it is now around 250 years old.

Other cool sections detail the politics of the region in the early part of the last Millennium, in particular in the powers and intrigues of the Prince Bishops that used to rule the North with powers almost equal to the King himself. There are also many pictures made throughout the last Millennium of Durhams most famous building, its spectacular Norman Cathedral (seen above).

Practical Science

2007-02-19T10:50:00.001Z

In a similar vein to the experiments carried out by the excellent cmb (see here for hobowine and Hero's fountains) I feel quite a temptation to get back to some actual backyard science. I'll have to be a lot more careful then when I we're a lad though, it appears that most of the bangers and grenades I used to make as a kid could get me 20 years for terrorism offences these days. So does anyone have any suggestions for fun, simple and relatively inexpensive experiments that won't end up with me becoming some guy called Dazzas bitch?

On a similar theme I came across this brilliant site, testing how fast you can spin a standard CD before it simply disintegrates. Trust me it is funny, and somewhat educational.

Life On The Edge - Part Two

2007-02-18T10:59:00.000Z

In the comments section of the previous post someone called Pete (thanks Pete) has made some good points that I think deserve response, I would insert this as a comment but I have the feeling that this post may run a bit long for that. So here are Pete's points on my previous post, my comments will follow.

Hi Mark,

Depressing indeed, especially because its a totally manmade situation.

But why is the land situation (as it was) "clearly ridiculous"? I don't doubt that white people originally got the land in, ahem, a less than sporting manner, but we have to deal with the world as we find it now. Is a land distribution that adequately fed and employed Zimbabweans really ridiculous - especially given the effects of changing it so drastically?

Further, how can land reform be "handled properly"? By necessity it requires compulsion which will lead to owners not investing in land, improvements, equipment etc because they fear it will be confiscated. Are there examples of land reform not leading to neglect, other problems etc (genuine question - not rhetorical!)?

Generally, we should be wary of seemingly "good/fair" ideas e.g. land reform that are fine in theory but have the massive caveat of "if we can actually get it to work". I'd rather be landless but have a job and cheap food than have my very own 60millionth of the UK and be starving!

I am being a bit of a devil's advocate - probably in agriculturally dominated countries more equitable land distribution could be more important, but its only a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Cheers,
Pete

My problem with the land situation in Zimbabwe, and in fact much of sub-Saharan Africa is simply one of practicality. I agree that there is no moral reason to punish farmers who most likely themselves have done nothing wrong, at least in the sense that they themselves did not steal the land, the land was most likely appropriated by their great great grandfathers. My point is simply an observation of human nature, when there are some people who are so clearly rich and privileged making up a tiny fraction of the population, and when they are so clearly "different" from those that they appear to disadvantage it is clearly going to lead to major tensions within any society. This is not to say that these tensions are fair or warranted, simply that this is just how human nature works and whilst we should aim for the best in human nature we should also acknowledge and plan for the worst. The way that the situation was in Zimbabwe simply made the current outcome almost inevitable, some unscrupulous politician was always going to be willing to exploit the situation for their own political gain, as Mugabe has done to shore up his rural support in the face of a more educated urban population rejecting his other policies.

The question of how to reform the situation more equitably is of course very difficult, there was however until 1997 a fairly good process set up to do this. Until 1997 the UK government provided money to pay for land reform in Zimbabwe, under a "willing seller, willing buyer" scheme, which of course is really the only "fair" method. This approach while obviously much slower naturally leads to a redistribution of land as farming families either die out or leave the industry. It also has the benefit of allowing time for people on a waiting list for land to be trained on all the intricacies of modern farming and because the situation is also of mutual benefit to both parties it is much easier to allow for smooth transitions between owners. This of course means that as long as the farms themselves are not broken up into small uneconomic blocks then the level of production should remain the same.

This scheme was shut in 1997 by the incoming Labour government who rightly thought that they had no obligation to pay for a scheme that was caused by the actions of their ancestors. This decision was however possibly one of the least far-sighted decisions they have made, considering the small amount of money being expended (£44 million) and the fact that the money would probably still be being paid as development aid anyway it would seem with hindsight to have been a much better idea to keep the scheme running. Of course they had other reasons for making the decision, chiefly the suspicion (later borne out) that most of the land was going to Mugabe's cronies. It is interesting to wonder what would have happened if the scheme had kept running, whether or not the land reform would have preceded in a less chaotic manner. I tend to think not, I think Mugabe was always going to abuse the situation, he needed the land issue to hold onto the less educated rural population, to counter the rise of an organised urban opposition.

The tragedy as you say is that the situation is totally man-made, you would think that Robert Mugabe who by my count holds at least 3 degrees in Economics should have realised what would happen. I guess the imperative to stay in power simply became more important than the needs of his people.

Life On The Edge

2007-02-17T11:01:00.000Z

The BBC has another one of their series of stories about life in Zimbabwe. It makes really depressing reading, it really beats me how people can continue to live with inflation above 1500%, where soap costs the equivalent of $80 when bought legally or $4 on the black market.

The real shame is how in less than 10 years Zimbabwe has gone from one of the most advanced countries (literacy rates over 90%) in Africa to the country with the worlds lowest life expectancy (37 years) and highest inflation (1593% at last count). All because of botched land redistribution which anyone could have predicted would have led to this. Now before anyone jumps on me, I'm totally agree with redistribution of land from white farmers to the landless black populations of Africa (it is clearly ridiculous that 1% of the population held 70% of the agricultural land), but it has to be handled properly. Zimbabwe was a country that depended almost entirely on Agriculture for its income, the industry was modern and used all the latest machinery on efficient farms, in a stroke the farms were broken up into small sub plots and handed to people that in many cases had no experience of farming and no idea of how to use all the equipment required to do it efficiently. The farms that weren't broken up were given to cronies of the President, who had little interest or skill in farming. The result? Plummeting output, massive inflation, starving people and a country on the brink of disaster for the past 6 years. Would it really have been difficult to see this coming? Surely its a case of major mismanagement that should be enough to get any government kicked out of office.

Of course that's not what has happened, a series of power grabs by the Presidents party, a few murders to keep the opposition cowed and a total lack of any independent media means that Zimbabwe's President Mugabe is looking forward to his 30th year in power in 2010. What still seems crazy is that some people still support the government after this disaster, see this story for a truly sad tale of faith over reason. Robert Mugabe is a perfect example of why no-one should be allowed to stay in power for too long, the retention of power becomes the prime concern, turning a man once lauded as a freedom fighter into a caricature of a tin-pot African dictator who has destroyed everything he ever worked for.

Internet Destroying The Planet?

2007-02-16T13:07:00.000Z

A mildly interesting report has just come out which looks at the power consumption of computer servers in the US, the report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds that severs and all the paraphernalia required to keep them working, (refrigeration etc) uses up 1.2% of the energy used in the US. The figure outside the US was 0.8%. This is actually a lower limit it as it doesn't include custom built servers like the ones Google has thousands of.

I can well believe that kind of number having visited the room where they store the supercomputers used by the Astronomy group, most of the power actually seems to be spent trying to keep the damn things cool, there must be some way to use this energy more usefully. Perhaps using the waste heat from the supercomputers to heat the buildings or something. Does anyone have any bright ideas for how we could profitably use kilowatts of waste heat? I promise not to steal and patent the idea. (Unless its really good.)

Best Paying Jobs!

2007-02-15T17:09:00.000Z

CNN has an interesting article on the best paying professions in the US, well its interesting if you're in my line of work, here is the rundown:

1. Surgeons: $177,690
2. Anesthesiologist: $174,240
3. Obstetricians and Gynecologists: $171,810
4. Orthodontists: $163,410
5. Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons: $160,660
6. Internists, General: $156,550
7. Psychiatrists: $146,150
8. Prosthodontists: $146,080
9. Family and General Practitioners: $140,370
10. Chief Executives: $139,810
11. Pediatricians, General: $139,230
12. Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers: $135,040
13. Dentists, General: $133,680
14. Podiatrists: $111,250
15. Lawyers: $110,520
16. Air Traffic Controllers: $105,820
17. Engineering Managers: $105,470
18. Computer and Information Systems Managers: $102,360
19. Marketing Managers: $101,990
20. Astronomers: $101,360
21 Natural Sciences Managers: $99,140
22. Sales Managers: $98,510
23. Petroleum Engineers: $97,350
24. Financial Managers: $96,620
25. Law Teachers, Postsecondary: $95,570
26. Optometrists: $95,500
27. General and Operations Managers: $95,470
28. Computer and Information Scientists, Research: $94,030
29. Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates: $91,500
30. Physicists: $91,480
31. Actuaries: $90,760
32. Nuclear Engineers: $90,690
33. Industrial-Organizational Psychologists: $89,980
34. Human Resources Managers: $89,950
35. Pharmacist: $88,650
36. Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents: $87,990
37. Health Diagnosing and Treating Practitioners: $87,630
38. Computer Hardware Engineers: $87,170
39. Public Relations Managers: $85,820
40. Aerospace Engineers: $85,450
41. Political Scientists: $84,820
42. Physical Scientists: $84,380
43. Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software: $84,310
44. Personal Financial Advisors: $82,970
45. Health Specialties Teachers, Postsecondary: $82,450
46. Chiropractors: $82,060
47. Industrial Production Managers: $81,960
48. Construction Managers: $81,760
49. Purchasing Managers: $81,440
50. Advertising and Promotions Managers: $81,250

All I can say is yes! Boo to all the snooty "proper" physicists, you can keep your hard work and real science, I'm buying a Ferrari. No doubt things are not as rosy this side of the pond, however I am prepared to travel.

Bloody Greenpeace

2007-02-15T11:32:00.000Z

Sometimes I get really frustrated at people that most of the time I tend to think do a pretty useful job. This is just one such case, Greenpeace has managed to get a Judge to rule that the British Government has to rethink its plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants. The reasons for Greenpeace's objection are the usual, nuclear is bad, mountains of waste, cost etc. The BBC has a story about it here. Now before everybody jumps on me, I am not particularly pro-nuclear, I am however very much anti-turning-the-world-into-a-giant-f*£$ing-desert-through-global-warming.

Greenpeace's attitude in this is particularly irksome, its just so black and white, the world isn't black and white its shades of grey. Yes it would be great if we could cut our green house gas emissions through renewables and energy savings but this just isn't practical, especially in Britain where about 20% of our electricity is currently generated from nuclear power. This fraction is going to decrease over the next 20 years to zero as the old plants are decommissioned, leading to the building of even more coal and gas fired power stations. All of the cuts that could have been made by using renewables and energy savings will be offset by the need to replace the carbon-neutral nuclear plants with fossil fuel burning ones. Nuclear is costly, it is a pain to have to deal with the waste, but it is much easier to deal with the waste from a nuclear plant than it is to try and contain all the C02 from a fossil fuel fired plants.

Get a clue Greenpeace, yes nuclear is not ideal, but it is the least worst option, at least until ITER manages to demonstrate that fusion is a practical method of energy generation on Earth. Oh I've just noticed that Greenpeace objects to fusion power as well apparently, a project that could cut out all greenhouse gas emissions is not worth the effort, what a bunch of short sighted fools.

Bumper Stickers

2007-02-14T16:49:00.000Z

I've just come across a huge bunch of great bumper stickers. Check them out here. My favourites are below. Now all I need is a car, dammit.

Intelligent Life?

2007-02-14T11:31:00.000Z

IbaDaiRon has come up with this great graph that shows the level of interest in the Autodynamics discussion board, its just the number of posts per month for the past year. In case your wondering the "Wow" signal is the signal of intelligent life that occurred when myself, jps and a few other rational people joined to ask a few questions. As opposed to the usual situation where DdH, Travis and Lucy sit around and feel victimised, or momentarily excited when some experiment is done which they don't understand but hope might provide some evidence to bolster their beliefs. I think we will see next month that the number of posts returns to a normal level of about 4-5 a month, seeing as anyone who agrees with DdH is not banned.
In case anyone cares I am still working on the monster post disproving AD, but it is going slowly due to the incredible amount of things to say, and its quite fiddly to make up the equations so that they are readable. It should be ready in a few days.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

2007-02-13T10:04:00.000Z

Check out this site and see how many badges you qualify for. Mine are below, with reasons why I deserve them. As for the above average physique, well that may be a bit of a stretch, though my bmi is a pretty good 21.6, so no visits from the Awful Poo Lady Gillian McKeith, I hope.

Yes I admit it my research has absolutely no practical applications.
I have been known to freeze many objects in liquid Nitrogen, including, but not limited to: a Cadburys cream egg, banana, a pen, paper and a 3 1/2 in floppy disk.
I can get fairly annoyed and offensive towards the odd crank, see any of my posts on Autodynamics for details.
I think its our duty to fight all quakery and crankery we find.
Clearly I have a blog.

I have been known to shout about science.

More Cartoons

2007-02-12T14:04:00.000Z

More great cartoons from Joy Of Tech.

Doctor of Perjury?

2007-02-12T13:39:00.000Z

Over at Pharyngula there is a story that caught my eye. See the post here for more details but in brief the important points are the following: That a young Earth creationist has been award a PhD in Geosciences from the University of Rhode Island, his dissertation apparently deals with fossil sea creatures that died out 65 million years ago, this despite his avowed belief that the world is only 10,000 years old at most. So he has spent 4 years writing a thesis which he has then defended to a group of his peers, despite not believing a word of it. Wow the world is nuts.

I mention this story because I remember a similar situation when I was an undergraduate, we had one YEC on our Physics course, he sat through the lectures on Astronomy/Cosmology with a smirk that signified that he knew something the rest of us didn't, no doubt satisfied that all of the observational evidence that the Earth and Universe are vastly older than 6,000 (or whatever he believed) years was made up as some sort of prank by God. I really can't get my head round the type of person that would spend 4 years studying a degree that they believe to be totally wrong, someone that would go into a area of research already certain that anything they discovered that disagreed with their own worldview must be wrong. Its a total anathema to what science is meant to stand for.