TODAY is Carl Sagan Day: www.carlsaganday.com/
Carl Sagan auto-reblog/RT!!
To celebrate his legacy at the 76th anniversary of his birth (November 9, 1934), and to increase public involvement in the excitement of astronomy and space exploration, a local coalition of science and reason-based organizations announces the SECOND ANNUAL CARL SAGAN DAY, NOV. 6 2010.
Oh and:
Live Streaming beings at 12:00PM Eastern.
Click to join us!
All right religious folks, time to start editing your holy books! We found another Earth-like planet!
From the friendlyatheist:
So much for the fine-tuning (teleological) argument. Our world is just one on a scale of many, many varying degrees. Nothing magical about it.
Well, it IS magical, but like Steve Jobs uses the word—sure, nothing spiritual about it, but FUCK dude, we should stop all this bullshit fighting with each other about religions (you know, Israel/Palestine & terrorism in general) and focus on BUILDING A LIGHT DRIVE!!
This planet is surprisingly close. Check out this cutting from the MSNBC article Friendly Atheist links to above:
Astronomers say they’ve found the first planet beyond our solar system that could have the right size and setting to sustain life as we know it, only 20 light-years from Earth.
“My own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” Steven Vogt, an astrophysicist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, told reporters today. “I have almost no doubt about it.”
So, LET’S GET TO THAT TRANSLUMINAL ENGINE GOING!!
Don’t you get what this means? It means we no longer have to share this planet with each other!! Assuming we can get off of this planet to that planet, if we have major strife with each other, we can JUST LEAVE!!
SWEET!!
But, I swear, if anybody tries to name this planet “Pandora” I’m going to kick them out the airlock on the way.
HUGE news in a post from unknownskywalker:
Laws of Physics Vary Throughout the Universe, New Study Suggests
A team of astrophysicists based in Australia and England has uncovered evidence that the laws of physics are different in different parts of the universe.
The report describes how one of the supposed fundamental constants of Nature appears not to be constant after all. Instead, this ‘magic number’ known as the fine-structure constant — ‘alpha’ for short — appears to vary throughout the universe.
After measuring alpha in around 300 distant galaxies, a consistency emerged: this magic number, which tells us the strength of electromagnetism, is not the same everywhere as it is here on Earth, and seems to vary continuously along a preferred axis through the universe.
The implications for our current understanding of science are profound. If the laws of physics turn out to be merely ‘local by-laws’, it might be that whilst our observable part of the universe favours the existence of life and human beings, other far more distant regions may exist where different laws preclude the formation of life, at least as we know it.
The researchers’ conclusions are based on new measurements taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, along with their previous measurements from the world’s largest optical telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
The Keck telescopes and the VLT are in different hemispheres — they look in different directions through the universe. Looking to the north with Keck a smaller alpha is seen in distant galaxies, but when looking south with the VLT a larger alpha is detected. It varies by only a tiny amount over most of the observable universe, but it’s possible that much larger variations could occur beyond our observable horizon.
The discovery will force scientists to rethink the understanding of Nature’s laws. The fine structure constant, and other fundamental constants, are absolutely central to our current theory of physics. If they really do vary, we’ll need a better, deeper theory. While a ‘varying constant’ would shake our understanding of the world around us extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This finding is extraordinary, no doubt about that.
Image: Illustration of the dipolar variation in the fine-structure constant, alpha, across the sky, as seen by the two telescopes used in the work: the Keck telescope in Hawaii and the ESO Very Large Telescope in Chile.
In short, from what I could understand of the above explanation, there seems to be variations in the laws of physics—where, if the Earth was the universe, if you walk along the equator, you might way 100 pounds, but if you were to walk north you’d get lighter but heavier if you went south. What this means, in a nutshell is that there may be no way to conjure a universal theory of physics—aka figure out exactly how the universe works. On the plus side, Star Wars just got more realistic! ;)
You may now return to worrying about whatever petty shit you’re dealing with in life (which completely fucking pales in comparison to this new problem facing life in the universe).
Why Neill deGrasse Tyson is one of my favorite people on the planet. Thanks @neiltyson!
Here’s a text version for easy copy/pasting:
Likely source of all conflict in world: believing what you want or what feels good, rather than what is objectively true.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
I’d go gay for Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Can we get a Neil deGrasse Tyson auto-reblog going?
Stanford researchers’ analysis: Scientific expertise lacking among climate change ‘doubters’
An analysis of the scientific prominence and expertise of climate researchers shows that the few who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change rank far below researchers who are convinced. Most news media accounts fail to include that context when reporting claims from the doubters.
The media failing again, all in the pursuit of ‘both sides of the story’ even when there is really only one side plus a collection of kooks.
Big surprise here.
Isn’t this a little like saying you’re shocked that Phillip Morris execs don’t believe smoking is bad for you?
Got this from contrararian, who, normally, I agree with, but militant orthodoxy of any kind is dangerous, IMHO:
Would You Like Fries With That Theory? | The BioLogos Forum
“Anti-Darwinists love to ridicule the concept of “scientific orthodoxy,” suggesting that it represents the unsupported collective opinion of many scientists who are basically just “voting” on things. Going against it is considered to be evidence of independent thinking and even courage.
< snip>
To confront scientific data “on our own” would imply that we have scientific training and experience in whatever area we are looking at. If you say you can interpret fossil data on your own, for example— as biochemist Duane Gish and legal scholar Phillip Johnson tried to do—I would like to give you a brief quiz on fossils: Where might you find a fossil if I asked you to go fetch one? How much of a fossil skeleton is typically present? How do you figure out the age of a fossil? What exactly is a fossil? What parts of a skeleton are most likely to be missing or incompletely fossilized? How do you decide if bones found together are from the same organism?
If you cannot answer simple questions like these then you cannot confront fossil data “on your own.” And fossils are the simplest part of the evolutionary picture. Interpreting genomic data, with its complex biochemical, statistical, and historical underpinnings is not remotely possible without the relevant expertise.”
But what if I can answer those questions but haven’t had any actual training? What if I’m not, a moron and read books and learn things?
Because I don’t have a degree and “scientific colleagues” or “peer reviewed papers,” my opinion should be ignored?
Trusting financial “experts” hasn’t seemed to help our economy at all—in fact—it’s what got us here.
How is trusting science (or any other single discipline) completely any different from trusting the high priests of an ancient religion? In their day, they were the experts.
I’m not saying we should trust everything any moron without a degree says, but either side of the above argument is in the wrong. You can’t summarily dismiss the opinion or judgment of a religious zealot or a scientific one.
It’s all about the provable facts and short of those, it becomes about the most logical explanation (if there is one). Isaac Newton was definitely not an atheist (in fact, he was kind of a nutbag for God) but do we blow him off just because he thought he was chosen by God to decipher the true meaning of scripture?
To suggest all issues boil down to “it’s a science thing, you wouldn’t understand.” is just as bad as saying “because God works in mysterious ways.”
I think Pons and Fleischman would have been big fans of this attitude.
“DON’T QUESTION US! WE’RE SCIENTISTS!!”
Thankfully, other scientists questioned them—but if they hadn’t, would it have been OK for someone else to?
Found this while looking for information (ANY INFORMATION) on Ponds and Fleischman*:
Without scientific progress the national health would deteriorate; without scientific progress we could not hope for improvement in our standard of living or for an increased number of jobs for our citizens; and without scientific progress we could not have maintained our liberties against tyranny.
— Vannevar Bush, presidential science adviser in Science: The Endless Frontier, 1945
via time.com
I’m sure I could write something huge about how unbridled capitalism/free marketeering actually stymies the progress Vannevar Bush said is so necessary—what with Apple, lauded as a hub of innovation, consistently hobbling their mobile products, seemingly as part of a plan to give us something else to buy next year.
Yeah, I could write something huge. ;)
Of course, Vannevar Bush was one of the minds behind the Manhattan Project and he also envisioned one of the earliest versions of the Internet.
And no, he’s not related to George W, George HW, or Prescott Bush—I looked hard for a connection, I really did but ironically only discovered a family connection of my own to one of his best friends. Yep, a distant cousin of mine was involved in the bomb. :( I would have so given him crap at the next family reunion… you know, if he was alive and if I went to family reunions.
*UPDATE: yeah, I figured out that the reason I couldn’t find anything on “Ponds and Fleischman” was because it’s actually “Pons and Fleischman” but when I Googled the first phrase, Google didn’t ask me if I meant “Pons and Fleishman”. GOOGLEFAIL!
I ended up digging through old Time Magazine cover stories to find an article I remember reading back in 1989 to find out how B. Stanley Pons spelled his name.
HA! As if SCIENTISTS never made a mistake before!!
Phew! RT @AMNH: Neil deGrasse Tyson assures us there will be no apocalypse in 2012 nyti.ms/csWXqU @neiltyson
SCIENCE GETS IT WRONG AGAIN! Stupid science. This is like that time they lost a WHOLE PLANET. I think I’ll read the Bible now. It hasn’t changed in two thousand years!!! THAT’S HOW RIGHT IT IS.
/ sarcasm
Right, so this story popped up in my Tumblr stream and like an addict to crack, I can’t not reblog it since it’s right up Website666.com’s alley!
Found via brentbillock:
Wow. Wow. Wow. This is not only a very well written critique of the way this story has been misinterpreted. It’s also a cogent examination of the way nearly all news is now consumed. The headline IS the story, because no one has the attention span to click through and read what the facts behind the poorly-written headline really are.
Case in point, the Time cover, suggesting abuse of women would be the consequence of our leaving Afghanistan. Even though the abuse pictured took place during our stay there. Even though the story itself does not predict greater or lesser abuse of women based on our presence or absence.
Puppies Never Existed!
So this little item made me mad all day yesterday, and continues to do so, so I’m just going to get this out here.
Let’s get this straight. Triceratops existed. It totally did. That’s why we have all those fucking bones. I’ve seen them. They are real. The news is that there is evidence that Triceratops was not a distinct species, but a juvenile form of Torosaurus. As illustrated so convincingly above, bitty, sweet puppies can turn into massive, drooly, jowly dogs. But that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as puppies.
This is not hard to understand. Nor is it hard to explain. Which brings me to my point.
The way popular media report on science, even simple and relatively trivial stories like this, is entirely fucked.
The headlines to these stories are not borne out in the actual content in any way. In this particularly egregious example from the consistently egregious Daily Mail the ‘Triceratops never existed’ bit is included in the headline to look as if it’s a quote from a source in the story. Of course that quote doesn’t appear in the story, and isn’t attributed to anyone. As far as I can tell, no one connected to the story has made any categorical pronouncements about the non-existence of Triceratops. But that’s the part anyone reading it will retain. “Oh, now these “scientists” say my favorite dinosaur wasn’t even real. What the fuck, science?” It might as well have been written by a Juggalo.
And what’s sad is that a really interesting opportunity to explain how science actually works has gotten trampled by a stupidity stampede. What really happened is that scientists have taken a look at existing evidence and have come up with a hypothesis that may better explain what they are looking at. So now ideas are being adjusted, and other scientists will look at the evidence and see if what’s been hypothesized can be disproved or explained in a more compelling way. And there will be some disagreements, and new facts will come to light, and there will be further hypothesizing and we will eventually end up closer to the truth than we were before.
BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT SCIENCE DOES, BITCHES.
But instead the idiotic report on this has only led to confuse and irritate and, worst, give stupidly false ammunition to science-deniers. Creationist whackaloons are going to be shouting “what about the Triceratops that never existed?” going forward for years now. And they’ll just confuse the issue for the general public who doesn’t have time or inclination to think this shit through and then we have endless “teach the controversy” school board bullshit and the whole world gets stupider again. (And if you don’t believe me, I dare you read even a small sample of the comments on that Daily Mail story.)
In other news, Pluto also still exists.
Sure, sure—Pluto still exists, but Pluto the planet does NOT.
Speaking of which, the brain dead HuffPo headline isn’t inaccurate—it’s just not specific enough. What they should have said was “Triceratops species never existed.”
But that’s HuffPo for you—pretending to be a real news source just like Drudge and Fox News—only with 90% more celebrity cleavage.
The rest of the reblog is spot-on, though. The media is a joke.
