So that was interesting

In preparation for the Ravi Zacharias event at UPenn, I wrote an opinion column laying out some of my concerns about Ravi's style and beliefs. Apparently it struck a nerve.

Here's the full text of my column:

Not ready for Ravi
The Devil’s Advocate | Ravi Zacharias may be an evangelist to the intellectuals, but he's no intellectual evangelist 

Pastor Aaron Campbell of Philadelphia’s Antioch of Calvary Chapel has been independently planning the upcoming Ravi Zacharias lecture for over two years. According to Campbell, Ravi’s talk will be “one of the most intellectually stimulating lectures you have ever been to.”
I’m sorry, Aaron, but intellectually stimulating is not the same as mentally taxing. 

It concerns me greatly to see so many intelligent Penn students praising Zacharias as an intellectual heavyweight. Ravi is an expert rhetorician and apologist, but his views and arguments hardly deserve the term intellectual. 

Let us start with his reasons for rejecting the theory of evolution:
“The ascending of biological forms into more complex and superior designs also comes into conflict with the Second Law of Thermodynamics in Physics,” Zacharius wrote in his book, “The Real Face of Atheism.” This is an embarrassing and egregious misunderstanding of science propagated by anti-science organizations like the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. 

While he has repeatedly made clear that he does not accept evolution for this and other equally ridiculous reasons, accounts vary regarding what he does believe. In private correspondence he is reported to be “firmly committed to a young earth” and to have “always held to the literal six day creation.” His ministry takes no official position (usually a sign it wishes to avoid embarrassment) but apparently considers it an important enough question to put first on its website’s Q&A page. 

Not content to stop at science denialism, Ravi goes on to promote a sinister revisionist history:
“Hitler’s point was that the destruction of the weak is a good thing for the survival of the strong … as is taught by atheistic evolution’s tenet of natural selection. …We have been down the atheist road before, and it ended in a holocaust,” he wrote in “The End of Reason.”
Elsewhere in his book, he puts abortion morally on par with child pornography and claims “atheistic philosophy is having its way with our children” on both counts. The connection seems obvious to him, but escapes me.
When asked about homosexuality, Ravi said, “Sex is a sacred gift of God. I can no longer justify an aberration of it in somebody else’s life than I can justify my own proclivities to go beyond my marital boundaries.”

It pains me to realize many still consider Ravi a great moral teacher. 

However, unless someone specifically brings up these topics in a question, Ravi is unlikely to address them in his talk. He surely knows his positions will not endear himself to the Penn community at large. 

What you can expect at the lecture is Ravi routinely distorting his opponents into vile straw men. 

For example, famous ethicist and animal rights activist Peter Singer put forward an argument against animal testing which includes a thought experiment directly comparing the suffering of intelligent animals and young children of below average intelligence. Ravi twists this nuanced and clever argument into “[Peter Singer believes] that a pig is of more value than a child with a disability.” Not even a Princeton professor like Singer deserves such malicious misrepresentation. 

Ravi has similarly shown his lack of intellectual integrity by distorting the views of thinkers such as Sam Harris, Sartre, Nietzsche, Descartes, Buddha, Gandhi and others. 

As for the Q&A session, one of Ravi’s favorite toys is the red herring. When asked a difficult or uncomfortable question, Ravi will begin telling a seemingly unrelated (and usually apocryphal) anecdote. By the time he reaches the point of the story, if there is one, so much time has elapsed that most have forgotten the original question, allowing Ravi to instead answer the question he would have preferred. 

I am still planning to attend his lecture, but that’s because I have a tendency toward mental masochism. If you choose to attend, keep any questions you ask him short and memorable. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to move beyond Ravi’s rhetoric and search for the substance. 

As of this writing, the column has 272 comments, which is a new record for me and possibly the Daily Pennsylvanian. The vast majority of the comments are a few people defending Ravi's ridiculous claims that atheism caused the holocaust or arguing that homosexuality is in fact immoral.

A few comments broke the mold and instead tried to save my soul.

Find Jesus and you will understand every word Ravi says, Mr Collins Boots. People who do not have Jesus in their hearts can not understand the Word, which will teach, for one, not to judge others who do not share your beliefs. He has SAVED people's souls. Evolution is nowhere near as important as that, if that's where you are going to base your argument against Ravi. As an intellectual, which you claim to be, you should be open to all arguments rather than oppress them. Why do you feel his lectures are such an attack on your own self, enough to print such a critical review. Mediocre as well, might I add. If you feel so strongly towards Ravi's lectures, I suggest you stand up and debate him yourself. Many profound men before you have done so and found themselves wanting.

...

I ache for you then, Mr. Boots and pray you will find your way back home. God be with you.

- Link

I also received a couple direct emails to the same ends:

It is by no surprise that you appose his viewpoints and presence on campus. In fact, the unadulterated Word of God says that the "natural" man cannot understand the things of the "spirit". So, it is really not your fault that you can't see the intelligence and brilliance of the sound doctrine that he speaks. You simply have rejected the Holy Spirit, which is a requirement to fully understand the relevance and power of His Word.

What I truly give you kudos for however is that it is apparent that you proclaim to be the devils advocate and your philosophies as partially articulated in your article, substantiates that you are a servant of the devil. The Word says that He would prefer for people to be either HOT or COLD towards Him, but those that are lukewarm will be spewed out of his mouth. So, you are actually in better grace with the Lord than those that are not quite sure what side of the philosophical spectrum they sit on. ...

If you attend the event from the posture of the curious student, I strongly believe and pray that your heart can be touched by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Saul, was also a devils advocate and lived of life that persecuted the Church, but when he became Paul his life was turned around and he ended up being responsible for penning 2/3 of the new testament.

God Bless you Collin, and I pray that you enjoy your evening and that the Lord has an opportunity to be invited into your heart.

Thanks, I guess?

Another emailer was much more succinct:

I will listen in and cannot wait to hear the question that you pose.......just to see if you hold sand or like the hourglass! You have had over two years to prepare. It is sad when one can be a critic while quoting from books written by others! I like a good debate.

Actually I only had about a month, but to be fair I never stated that publicly.

My article also garnered many prayers for my soul and for Ravi on facebook:

So apparently not everyone is a fan of Ravi Zacharias... we're in Philly for an open forum at University of Pennsylvania, and Ravi's visit is causing quite a stir on campus!

Check out this column in The Daily Pennsylvanian by Collin Boots of the Penn Secular Society... in which he argues that Ravi is "no intellectual," "promotes a sinister revisionist history," and "routinely distorts his opponents."
"It pains me to realize many still consider Ravi a great moral teacher," he writes. http://bit.ly/LR73YD
This column demonstrates the intense campus environment we're going into... and we'd love your prayers for Tuesday's event as our team seeks to operate with grace and truth. #RaviUPenn" 

-Link 

This post is interesting for several reasons. First, she seems surprised that not everyone is enraptured by Ravi's sermons. I hope I'm not reading that correctly. Second, my one column apparently constitutes an "intense campus environment" and "quite a stir." The persecution complex is strong with this one.

What's more concerning though are the follow up comments.

"These pseudo-intellectuals amaze me. They don't even make sense. How can morality be immoral? I guess when it's not based on their particular view. No absolutes and no boundaries." 

"“The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?” Jeremiah8:9 Praying!!!" 

"Wow. Lord have your way in that room tomorrow night! You are mighty to save!"

"It's a shame there's no freedom of speech in America, for some people! Everyone can say anything, but once you say something about Jesus, you have no freedom to speak anymore."

I shouldn't need to explain to my likely audience what is wrong with these comments.

Apparently, Ravi himself read my column and his ministry posted a link to it and the companion letter to the editor on his website.

“I have been made aware of some of the antipathy and anxieties over our presence on campus,” remarked Zacharias. “I earnestly hope that as civil and meaningful discourse prevails, all the fears and concerns will be put to rest. Thank you to the organizers for giving me the privilege of speaking here.”

He even spent the first 5 minutes or so of his talk addressing his "critics" and the "hostile campus," making explicit references to my column 3 or 4 times. He even took the time to straw man my critique and make a glancing ad homenim. He said I decried his style for being anecdotal, and said I would have to throw out most of western culture and history if I didn't like anecdotes. Classic Ravi: fitting a straw man and an appeal to the consequences in the same breath.

What I actually said, as you can read above, is that Ravi frequently uses anecdotes as red herrings to distract from the fact he didn't answer the question. That was clearly in evidence Tuesday night.

As an aside, Ravi's website made this false claim in support of their "hostile campus" argument.

For example, posters advertising the event have been taken down, and there have been numerous articles in the campus newspaper as well as posts on social media reflecting the hostility and confusion on campus when it comes to discussing different worldviews.

What actually happened was the Ready for Ravi team violated the poster rules for several of the college halls and they were taken down for being posted in violation of house policy. That's not a hostile environment, that's not following the rules and crying "help help I'm being repressed" when you get caught.

Several people have suggested to me that my column had a mediating effect on Ravi's rhetoric. I have a knee jerk reaction against my writing being that directly influential and doubts about Ravi being so easily dissuaded or thrown off message by < 700 words. Still, it was clear on Tuesday that he put a lot less emphasis on stating his beliefs and a lot more on obscurantist rhetoric than usual. When he was specifically asked about homosexuality, he spent what felt like 10 minutes explaining why he couldn't answer that question.

I was saddened to see that the questioner seemed to think her question was in fact answered. Ravi did mention that "[homosexuals] will stand before God in judgement one day," but that was easy to miss.

Overall, I'm amazed by the response. I don't think anything I've ever written has been so widely circulated and discussed. It's been a very tiring week, but if I got nothing else out of it I have this screenshot to cherish forever:

I welcome brother Ravi into the fold, along with his 128k+ followers he tweeted my article to.

Bill Nye vs Ken Ham Debate Retrospective

I did not go into the debate last night with high hopes. In fact I said publicly that Ken Ham had a very good chance of winning the debate. Ever since the debate has been announced I was one of those naysayers who argued scientists shouldn't debate creationists because it gives them a platform they don't deserve.

Bill Nye may have just changed my mind last night.

I had never seen Nye participate in a formal debate before, but he surprised me with how well he managed it. Perhaps my favorite moment of the night was the start of Bill Nye's 30 minute presentation, where he said

"Thank you very much, and Mr. Ham, I learned something. Thank you. But lets take it back around to the question at hand. Does Ken Ham's creation model hold up? Is it viable?"

 This was the perfect response to Ken Ham's presentation, which can be summed up as:

• There is a difference between historical science and observational science
• Here are a few scientists and engineers who are young earth creationists that do good science
• Secularism/atheism are "hijacking" the words science and evolution in order to indoctrinate children with their naturalistic atheistic evolutionist religion.
• This chart showing Ham's version of evolution (the "orchard" of life):

Note that dinosaurs apparently survived the flood event (presumably on Noah's ark)

Of Ham's 30 minutes, perhaps 5 of them were dedicated to showing what the creationist view was. The rest was devoted to saying creationists can still do science and be a creationist.

Bill then went on to provide a Gish Gallop of evidence, including some simple math demonstrating the absurdity of the flood account. For example, if there were only 7,000 or so "kinds" on the ark and they branched out into all the 16,000,000 or more extant species today (not to mention all the extinct species) in 4000 years, we would be expecting around 11 new species per day on average. 

Ham later suggested Nye was wrong and there were only about 1,000-2,000 kinds on the ark, which Bill pointed out only makes the problem worse. This sort of belief in hyper-evolution is rather remarkable.

Now let me give a few points of critique on Bill Nye's performance.

First, Nye made the mistake of letting Ham have all of the film rights to the event. Nye was paid expenses plus a speaking fee (which was undisclosed, but his usual fee is $50,000-$75,000). That's a decent sum if that's what he got, but Ken Ham is going to be selling DVDs of the debate, reusing clips out of context, and making money off of Nye's celebrity for as long as his creation museum stays afloat, perhaps longer. Fortunately, the live stream was available on youtube unedited so a full unedited version of the event does exist on the internet for comparison and analysis.

Second, and more importantly Bill Nye showed his inexperience with debating creationists when couldn't efficiently rebut a few very common creationist claims. If Nye only had the talkorigins.org Index of Creationist Claims open during the debate he could have found the claim's details in seconds.

Ham made several claims straight out of the index:

Claim CD011.5: A piece of wood was fossilized in the Hawkesbury Sandstone, Australia, which most geologists date to the middle Triassic, about 225 to 230 million years ago. The wood was dated by Geochron (a commercial dating laboratory) using the carbon-14 method. Geochron determined its age to be only 33,720 +/- 430 years before present. Contamination by recent microbes or fungi cannot explain the discrepant age.

The general rebutal to this claim is that Carbon-14 dating isn't effective past 50,000 years so it makes no sense to try and date a sample in that layer and expect accurate results. Talkorigins goes into more detail about potential sources of contamination, the question of whether or not the sample was actually wood, and the fact that the creationists told Geochron nothing about the sample that would have led them to test the sample appropriately.

Unfortunately, Nye spit-balled that the layer moved over the trees, which is not true. Ham will capitalize on debunking that hypothesis, I guarantee it.

Claim CD013.1: The conventional K-Ar dating method was applied to the 1986 dacite flow from the new lava dome at Mount St. Helens, Washington. The whole-rock age was 0.35 +/- 0.05 million years (Mya). Ages for component minerals varied from 0.34 +/- 0.06 Mya to 2.8 +/- 0.6 Mya. These ages show that the K-Ar method is invalid.

Once again, we have a sample that is being tested outside the accuracy range of the method. Creationists routinely use dating methods incorrectly to show they are inaccurate. All they have shown is that dating methods don't work when they aren't supposed to.

Claim CD410: Ice cores are claimed to have as many as 135,000 annual layers. Yet airplanes of the Lost Squadron were buried under 263 feet of ice in forty-eight years, or about 5.5 feet per year. This contradicts the presumption that the wafer-thin layers in the ice cores could be annual layers.

Greenland has a snowfall rate of about 2m per year. More than enough to account for the rate of cover. Also it's warmer than the arctic so it can have multiple thaw/freeze cycles a year.

He made a lot more claims on the index, but these were three that Nye specifically addressed and clearly wasn't familiar with.

Overall, I think Nye took a good strategy: don't try to go into Ham's version of "science" and debunk his claims there, marginalize his "science" as unique and always speak of science "on the outside." It feeds right into Ham's paradigm of secular censorship and his followers will see that, but I think it will have a strong impact on the middle of the road creationists out there. Nye did a good job of demonstrating how outside the mainstream of both science and religion Ken Ham really is, and that alone may make the debate worth it.

Nature is Beautiful

Amazing photography from National Geographic

Photo by OLIVIER GRUNEWALD

That is electric blue lava on the slopes of Kawah Ijen crater in Indonesia.

The effect is caused by sulfur burning on contact with the atmosphere. Since sulfur burns blue, we get amazing shots like this. Please go check out the original images and more here.

XKCD Nails "It's Cold Out" Global Warming Trolls

I love the XKCD for today.

It so perfectly summarizes all of my frustrations when it comes to climate change.

Beck says Compares Creationists to Galileo

I'm sorry for sharing this. I'm so, so sorry.

But when Beck claimed that Bill Nye is on the wrong side of history for attacking creationism, I couldn't just keep that to myself.

Not only did Beck knock common core standards and refer to fighting creationism as "segregat[ing] a group of people" and "eradicat[ing] a type of thought," but he equated Bill Nye's "Big Think" video on creationism to the Catholic Church's attacks on Galileo.

CUDA Raytracer Project

I just wanted to share what I've been working on this week. I've been slaving over this CUDA ray tracing engine for days and it looks BEAUTIFUL!

Check out the github project if you're interested in learning more: https://github.com/cboots/Project1-RayTracer

Arctic Sea Ice Increases by 60%, "Exxccellent" Say Climate Deniers

The past 24 hours have seen a slew of news reports trumpeted by climate change deniers indicating that sea ice cover in the Arctic increased by 60%. I first came across the story this morning when Craig Rucker of CFact.org sent out this info-graphic and accompanying message via email.

It seems not a day goes by without a new stunning fact emerging which contradicts the UN's global warming predictions.
The Daily Telegraph and others report that a cold Arctic summer has led to a record increase in the polar ice cap, leading some experts to now predict a period of 'global cooling.' 

Marc Morano has full details at CFACT's Climate Depot.  Click here to get the facts.
You'd think that with climate science being "settled" and all, that the global warming folks would be right at least half the time, wouldn't you?  

Would coin toss accuracy be too much to ask? -Craig Rucker, CFact.org 

The two most commonly sources are the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, two UK papers known the world over for their great science reporting; the Daily Mail even got an award for it. But just to be safe, let's review the data ourselves again.

Statisticians have a saying: "torture the data enough and eventually it will confess." Climate denialists have transformed this into an art form. This graphic, created by Dana Nuccitelli at The Guardian, is the most wonderful demonstration of this technique I've ever seen. By reporting trends over small windows of 6 years to a decade, it is trivial to create a series of trendlines that all show global temperatures decreasing over time.

Checkmate scientists!

Average of NASA GISS, NOAA NCDC, and HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature anomalies from January 1970 through November 2012 (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes Jan '70 - Oct '77, Apr '77 - Dec '86, Sep '87 - Nov '96, Jun '97 - Dec '02, and Nov '02 - Nov '12. Via the Guardian

Dana put together another fun little chart with sea ice extent on a similar theme:

Arctic sea ice extent data, 1980–2012. Data from NSIDC Via the Guardian 

In accordance with the scientific method, I should be able to replicate these findings myself. So I went and downloaded the entire dataset from NSIDC myself and did a little number crunching. Here are just a few of the plots I created:

Side by side view of ice extent each month over time. Y-axis is a normalized index from the dataset. Notice the overall downward trend, especially in the summer months. Not a single month has an upward trend over the entire timespan.

It can be hard to see the trends in this 1000ft view of the data, so let's compare apples to apples and go month by month.

June Ice Extent over Time. Compare the "recovery" this year to the trend and previous recovery years (1985, 1990, 1995).

Even back in June we could see a clear recovery in ice sheet extent and area. The magnitude of the recovery is comparable what we will see in August, but expressed as a percentage it is only a 10% increase. As the ice continues to melt through the summer, the difference in ice coverage remains roughly the same but because there is less ice overall (and because we're comparing to an all time record shattering low in 2012) by the time we reach August the percentage has reached 50% by my math. Variation in data sets makes the reported 60% still a reasonable number because we're dealing with such small values.

July Ice Sheet over Time

August Ice Cover by Year including the reported recovery.

So yes, the fact is there is a larger ice sheet than last year (the 60% number even seems right), but remember that we are comparing it to a record low in 2012. 

Statisticians refer to this phenomenon as regression to the mean. A common example is the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx, an urban legend that claims players and teams pictured on the cover of the magazine are doomed to fail in the near future. Given that the players featured on the cover are usually the ones that are already outperforming expectations at the time, it's reasonable to predict that in the near future their performance will drop back to their average.

Looking at the data we can see repeated cycles of recoveries which denialists have repeatedly pointed to as trendbreakers or evidence of global cooling. Once again the importance of zooming out on your data for context. Doing anything else is just irresponsible anomaly hunting.

Robots at Tesla

I just came across this really cool video about the factory robots at our sister company Tesla Motors. I was especially impressed by the "smart carts" that carry the car frames throughout the factory using magnetic strips instead of guide rails or conveyors like most factories.

Why Go to Space?

In the depths of the recession, and even in fair economic weather, many people continue to raise their voices in protest to America's investment in space travel. Today, one of my coworkers forwarded a letter from Ernst Stuhlinger, former Associate Director for Science at NASA. Though written in 1970, the letter is equally as powerful today. For those who don't want to read the whole thing, xkcd summed up the sentiment admirably.

May 6, 1970

Dear Sister Mary Jucunda:

Your letter was one of many which are reaching me every day, but it has touched me more deeply than all the others because it came so much from the depths of a searching mind and a compassionate heart. I will try to answer your question as best as I possibly can.

First, however, I would like to express my great admiration for you, and for all your many brave sisters, because you are dedicating your lives to the noblest cause of man: help for his fellowmen who are in need.

You asked in your letter how I could suggest the expenditures of billions of dollars for a voyage to Mars, at a time when many children on this Earth are starving to death. I know that you do not expect an answer such as "Oh, I did not know that there are children dying from hunger, but from now on I will desist from any kind of space research until mankind has solved that problem!" In fact, I have known of famined children long before I knew that a voyage to the planet Mars is technically feasible. However, I believe, like many of my friends, that travelling to the Moon and eventually to Mars and to other planets is a venture which we should undertake now, and I even believe that this project, in the long run, will contribute more to the solution of these grave problems we are facing here on Earth than many other potential projects of help which are debated and discussed year after year, and which are so extremely slow in yielding tangible results.

Before trying to describe in more detail how our space program is contributing to the solution of our Earthly problems, I would like to relate briefly a supposedly true story, which may help support the argument. About 400 years ago, there lived a count in a small town in Germany. He was one of the benign counts, and he gave a large part of his income to the poor in his town. This was much appreciated, because poverty was abundant during medieval times, and there were epidemics of the plague which ravaged the country frequently. One day, the count met a strange man. He had a workbench and little laboratory in his house, and he labored hard during the daytime so that he could afford a few hours every evening to work in his laboratory. He ground small lenses from pieces of glass; he mounted the lenses in tubes, and he used these gadgets to look at very small objects. The count was particularly fascinated by the tiny creatures that could be observed with the strong magnification, and which he had never seen before. He invited the man to move with his laboratory to the castle, to become a member of the count's household, and to devote henceforth all his time to the development and perfection of his optical gadgets as a special employee of the count.

The townspeople, however, became angry when they realized that the count was wasting his money, as they thought, on a stunt without purpose. "We are suffering from this plague," they said, "while he is paying that man for a useless hobby!" But the count remained firm. "I give you as much as I can afford," he said, "but I will also support this man and his work, because I know that someday something will come out of it!"

Indeed, something very good came out of this work, and also out of similar work done by others at other places: the microscope. It is well known that the microscope has contributed more than any other invention to the progress of medicine, and that the elimination of the plague and many other contagious diseases from most parts of the world is largely a result of studies which the microscope made possible.

The count, by retaining some of his spending money for research and discovery, contributed far more to the relief of human suffering than he could have contributed by giving all he could possibly spare to his plague-ridden community.

The situation which we are facing today is similar in many respects. The President of the United States is spending about 200 billion dollars in his yearly budget. This money goes to health, education, welfare, urban renewal, highways, transportation, foreign aid, defense, conservation, science, agriculture and many installations inside and outside the country. About 1.6 percent of this national budget was allocated to space exploration this year. The space program includes Project Apollo, and many other smaller projects in space physics, space astronomy, space biology, planetary projects, Earth resources projects, and space engineering. To make this expenditure for the space program possible, the average American taxpayer with 10,000 dollars income per year is paying about 30 tax dollars for space. The rest of his income, 9,970 dollars, remains for his subsistence, his recreation, his savings, his other taxes, and all his other expenditures.

You will probably ask now: "Why don't you take 5 or 3 or 1 dollar out of the 30 space dollars which the average American taxpayer is paying, and send these dollars to the hungry children?" To answer this question, I have to explain briefly how the economy of this country works. The situation is very similar in other countries. The government consists of a number of departments (Interior, Justice, Health, Education and Welfare, Transportation, Defense, and others) and the bureaus (National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and others). All of them prepare their yearly budgets according to their assigned missions, and each of them must defend its budget against extremely severe screening by congressional committees, and against heavy pressure for economy from the Bureau of the Budget and the President. When the funds are finally appropriated by Congress, they can be spent only for the line items specified and approved in the budget.

The budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, naturally, can contain only items directly related to aeronautics and space. If this budget were not approved by Congress, the funds proposed for it would not be available for something else; they would simply not be levied from the taxpayer, unless one of the other budgets had obtained approval for a specific increase which would then absorb the funds not spent for space. You realize from this brief discourse that support for hungry children, or rather a support in addition to what the United States is already contributing to this very worthy cause in the form of foreign aid, can be obtained only if the appropriate department submits a budget line item for this purpose, and if this line item is then approved by Congress.

You may ask now whether I personally would be in favor of such a move by our government. My answer is an emphatic yes. Indeed, I would not mind at all if my annual taxes were increased by a number of dollars for the purpose of feeding hungry children, wherever they may live.

I know that all of my friends feel the same way. However, we could not bring such a program to life merely by desisting from making plans for voyages to Mars. On the contrary, I even believe that by working for the space program I can make some contribution to the relief and eventual solution of such grave problems as poverty and hunger on Earth. Basic to the hunger problem are two functions: the production of food and the distribution of food. Food production by agriculture, cattle ranching, ocean fishing and other large-scale operations is efficient in some parts of the world, but drastically deficient in many others. For example, large areas of land could be utilized far better if efficient methods of watershed control, fertilizer use, weather forecasting, fertility assessment, plantation programming, field selection, planting habits, timing of cultivation, crop survey and harvest planning were applied.

The best tool for the improvement of all these functions, undoubtedly, is the artificial Earth satellite. Circling the globe at a high altitude, it can screen wide areas of land within a short time; it can observe and measure a large variety of factors indicating the status and condition of crops, soil, droughts, rainfall, snow cover, etc., and it can radio this information to ground stations for appropriate use. It has been estimated that even a modest system of Earth satellites equipped with Earth resources, sensors, working within a program for worldwide agricultural improvements, will increase the yearly crops by an equivalent of many billions of dollars.

The distribution of the food to the needy is a completely different problem. The question is not so much one of shipping volume, it is one of international cooperation. The ruler of a small nation may feel very uneasy about the prospect of having large quantities of food shipped into his country by a large nation, simply because he fears that along with the food there may also be an import of influence and foreign power. Efficient relief from hunger, I am afraid, will not come before the boundaries between nations have become less divisive than they are today. I do not believe that space flight will accomplish this miracle over night. However, the space program is certainly among the most promising and powerful agents working in this direction.

Let me only remind you of the recent near-tragedy of Apollo 13. When the time of the crucial reentry of the astronauts approached, the Soviet Union discontinued all Russian radio transmissions in the frequency bands used by the Apollo Project in order to avoid any possible interference, and Russian ships stationed themselves in the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans in case an emergency rescue would become necessary. Had the astronaut capsule touched down near a Russian ship, the Russians would undoubtedly have expended as much care and effort in their rescue as if Russian cosmonauts had returned from a space trip. If Russian space travelers should ever be in a similar emergency situation, Americans would do the same without any doubt.

Higher food production through survey and assessment from orbit, and better food distribution through improved international relations, are only two examples of how profoundly the space program will impact life on Earth. I would like to quote two other examples: stimulation of technological development, and generation of scientific knowledge.

The requirements for high precision and for extreme reliability which must be imposed upon the components of a moon-travelling spacecraft are entirely unprecedented in the history of engineering. The development of systems which meet these severe requirements has provided us a unique opportunity to find new material and methods, to invent better technical systems, to manufacturing procedures, to lengthen the lifetimes of instruments, and even to discover new laws of nature.

All this newly acquired technical knowledge is also available for application to Earth-bound technologies. Every year, about a thousand technical innovations generated in the space program find their ways into our Earthly technology where they lead to better kitchen appliances and farm equipment, better sewing machines and radios, better ships and airplanes, better weather forecasting and storm warning, better communications, better medical instruments, better utensils and tools for everyday life. Presumably, you will ask now why we must develop first a life support system for our moon-travelling astronauts, before we can build a remote-reading sensor system for heart patients. The answer is simple: significant progress in the solutions of technical problems is frequently made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a goal of high challenge which offers a strong motivation for innovative work, which fires the imagination and spurs men to expend their best efforts, and which acts as a catalyst by including chains of other reactions.

Spaceflight without any doubt is playing exactly this role. The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry. However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spin-offs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation.

Besides the need for new technologies, there is a continuing great need for new basic knowledge in the sciences if we wish to improve the conditions of human life on Earth. We need more knowledge in physics and chemistry, in biology and physiology, and very particularly in medicine to cope with all these problems which threaten man's life: hunger, disease, contamination of food and water, pollution of the environment.

We need more young men and women who choose science as a career and we need better support for those scientists who have the talent and the determination to engage in fruitful research work. Challenging research objectives must be available, and sufficient support for research projects must be provided. Again, the space program with its wonderful opportunities to engage in truly magnificent research studies of moons and planets, of physics and astronomy, of biology and medicine is an almost ideal catalyst which induces the reaction between the motivation for scientific work, opportunities to observe exciting phenomena of nature, and material support needed to carry out the research effort.

Among all the activities which are directed, controlled, and funded by the American government, the space program is certainly the most visible and probably the most debated activity, although it consumes only 1.6 percent of the total national budget, and 3 per mille (less than one-third of 1 percent) of the gross national product. As a stimulant and catalyst for the development of new technologies, and for research in the basic sciences, it is unparalleled by any other activity. In this respect, we may even say that the space program is taking over a function which for three or four thousand years has been the sad prerogative of wars.

How much human suffering can be avoided if nations, instead of competing with their bomb-dropping fleets of airplanes and rockets, compete with their moon-travelling space ships! This competition is full of promise for brilliant victories, but it leaves no room for the bitter fate of the vanquished, which breeds nothing but revenge and new wars.

Although our space program seems to lead us away from our Earth and out toward the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars, I believe that none of these celestial objects will find as much attention and study by space scientists as our Earth. It will become a better Earth, not only because of all the new technological and scientific knowledge which we will apply to the betterment of life, but also because we are developing a far deeper appreciation of our Earth, of life, and of man.



The photograph which I enclose with this letter shows a view of our Earth as seen from Apollo 8 when it orbited the moon at Christmas, 1968. Of all the many wonderful results of the space program so far, this picture may be the most important one. It opened our eyes to the fact that our Earth is a beautiful and most precious island in an unlimited void, and that there is no other place for us to live but the thin surface layer of our planet, bordered by the bleak nothingness of space. Never before did so many people recognize how limited our Earth really is, and how perilous it would be to tamper with its ecological balance. Ever since this picture was first published, voices have become louder and louder warning of the grave problems that confront man in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban living, food production, water control, overpopulation. It is certainly not by accident that we begin to see the tremendous tasks waiting for us at a time when the young space age has provided us the first good look at our own planet.

Very fortunately though, the space age not only holds out a mirror in which we can see ourselves, it also provides us with the technologies, the challenge, the motivation, and even with the optimism to attack these tasks with confidence. What we learn in our space program, I believe, is fully supporting what Albert Schweitzer had in mind when he said: "I am looking at the future with concern, but with good hope."

My very best wishes will always be with you, and with your children.

Very sincerely yours,

Ernst Stuhlinger

Associate Director for Science

Quadrotors are Awesome

In case I never mentioned it enough before, quadrotors are awesome.

I've seen most of these tricks before and know how they're done, but maintaining control with 2 failed rotors blew my mind.

Evolution in Action

An article published in Current Biology shows a fascinating example of evolution happening right before our eyes. The results of a 30 year study on cliff swallows along Nebraska roads indicates that the birds quite likely have evolved adaptations that help them avoid becoming road kill.

From the summary:

An estimated 80 million birds are killed by colliding with vehicles on U. S. roads each year [1], and millions more die annually in Europe [2] and elsewhere. Losses to vehicles are a serious problem for which various changes in roadway design and maintenance have been proposed [3]. Yet, given the magnitude of the mortality reported for some species [4], we might expect natural selection to favor individuals that either learn to avoid cars or that have other traits making them less likely to collide with vehicles. If so, the frequency of road kill should decline over time. No information is available for any species on whether the extent of road-associated mortality has changed [2]. During a 30-year study on social behavior and coloniality of cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) in southwestern Nebraska, we found that the frequency of road-killed swallows declined sharply over the 30 years following the birds’ occupancy of roadside nesting sites and that birds killed on roads had longer wings than the population at large.

In effect, swallows with larger wings were less maneuverable and were more likely than average to be killed by passing cars. In contrast, swallows with shorter wings (even by a few mm according to the article) may be more able to dodge oncoming traffic.

This puts a very strong selective pressure onto birds with shorter wingspans in bird colonies that nest on bridges and roads. The researchers hypothesized that over a long span on time the number of road kills would decline as the birds adapted.

What they didn't expect was that the change would take only 30 years! The change in wingspan was the only noticeable adaptation that the researchers reported, but it's quite possible that more subtle adaptations are involved here as well.

Score:
Evolution-4,500,000,001
Creationism-0

Via Science News

Harvesting Space Junk

DARPA is toying around with the idea of trying to salvage space junk and re-purpose old parts on dead satelites. Appropriately code named Phoenix, the project is in early planning stages and I'm interested to see how well it works out.

It makes a certain amount of sense, because when a satellite fails it's usually just one or two crucial components that become non-functional or it runs out of fuel. That means that most of the components are still fully functional, so being able to reuse the tech without launching an entire new satellite would be a big help.

I have no problem believing that they can capture, dock with, and salvage the parts. I'm skeptical though about their ability to reuse them given the complexities of wiring them together. Old satellites aren't exactly plug and play.

Wingnut Folder: Cherry Picking Edition

Once again it's time to immerse myself in the bin of ineptitude that is my wingnut folder. Running for the Worst Thinking from a Think Tank award this week is CFACT.org, an advocacy group nominally dedicated to proving that "the power of the market combined with the applications of safe technologies could offer humanity practical solutions to many of the world’s pressing concerns."

Sounds good right? Well, read on at your own risk. (Some Emphasis Added)

Collin,
The scientific evidence continues to mount against the global warming scare.
Last week even Rachendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, finally acknowledged that there has been no global warming for seventeen years.

Yet President Obama, who wouldn't utter a peep about global warming throughout the long campaign, resurrected it election night and then featured it prominently in his inaugural and state of the union addresses.

The facts are against him, yet President Obama is going all out:

• He appointed radical climate change alarmist John Kerry as his new Secretary of State.

• He has instructed EPA to impose new, draconian carbon restrictions on power plants certain to raise energy prices and cost jobs.

• And he even said in his State of the Union address he’ll stop at nothing to push the Green agenda -- “if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations [from global warming], I will.”

CFACT's friends and supporters see right through the President’s radical agenda. And if you’re like us, you may ask yourself, “who could possibly fall for this global warming hooey?” 

You're not going to like the answer.   

The President's new global warming push is having a powerful impact on public opinion. Polls show, believe it or not, more and more people coming back into the climate fold. It's not like it was at the beginning of the scare, but every backwards nudge to public support is cause for real concern.    

So what to do about it? We know we can't rely on the establishment media to get the true facts out. Not without a good hard shove anyway. 

But CFACT will not stand idly by. We're taking action.

I'll start with a point of agreement, we can't trust the mainstream media to get out the facts on climate change.  According to MediaMatters, the major news networks combined devoted less than 8 minutes TOTAL in 2012 for Sunday news to coverage of climate change. Add to that nightly news and the number rises to only about 65 minutes. That is an appalling lack of coverage for such a major issue.

I also want to thank CFact for citing their source for the graph on their billboard (despite not labeling axis, denoting scale, reference or anything else but two labeled data points). That citation made it so much easier to find out exactly how misleading their chart is.

To make things easier, here is the same chart from that paragon of accurate science reporting the Daily Mail with axis labeled (albeit incorrectly). 

There are a couple of inconvenient facts about this chart. The data actually shows tenths of a degree above and below the world temperature average of 1961-1990, so the chart already shows a 0.5 C increase in average global temperatures since that time period.

But more importantly, they left out the rest of the HadCRUT4 data from before 1997.

HadCRUT4 data from 1975 on, start of CFACT chart is the dotted line.

Interesting how they only showed the second half of that chart. This chart starts at 1975 because that does actually indicate a change in the trend with statistical significance.

Let's zoom out some more.

From HadCRUT4 Report. Start of CFACT chart shown by Green Line

Well would you look at that! Amazing how a little context changes the meaning of a chart isn't it?
So how did the Daily Mail pick the start date of that chart to be 1997? Here's David Rose's explanation.

A Some critics claim this newspaper misled readers by choosing start and end dates that hide the continued warming. 

In fact, we looked at the period since 1997 because that’s when the previous warming trend stopped, and our graph ended in August 2012 because that is the last month for which Hadcrut 4 figures were available.

At least he's honest about intentionally cherry picking the data. But he goes on...

In April, the Met Office released figures up to the end of 2010 – an extremely warm year – which meant it was able to say there had been a statistically significant warming trend after 1997, albeit a very small one. However, 2011 and 2012 so far have been much cooler, meaning the trend has disappeared. This may explain why the updated figures were issued last week without a media fanfare

So two years of "much cooler" global temperatures is all it takes to completely negate a 35-100 year trend?

Well let's take that trend from 1975-1997, extrapolate it, and see where we should be right now.

Thanks to Tamino for the data crunching

As you can see, the apparent plateau in the data is actually an artifact of the temperature increasing much faster than the trend line between 1996-97. The downtick in temperature rise from 1997-2012 has just now balanced the uptick from 1975-97.

I'm no climate scientist, but that still looks like a rising trend to me.

Scientism and other Straw Men

Ian Hutchinson is participating at a Veritas Forum event here at University of Pennsylvania tomorrow and I've been doing a fair amount of research in preparation for the discussion afterwards.

Hutchinson typically has only one issue that he talks about: "Scientism."

Scientism as Hutchinson defines it is "the belief that the only meaningful knowledge is science." Even though he readily admits that almost no one says that's their position, he still believes it is pervasive in our culture.

But Hutchinson, as an applied physicist, clearly defines science to be only the "hard" natural sciences like Physics and Chemistry. Defined this way, clearly there is knowledge beyond science and believing science can explain everything is absolutely ridiculous.

But whenever Hutchinson gives an example of "scientism" they invariably means something entirely different by "science." Usually when a freethinker or skeptic refers to science, we mean science in a much broader sense: a systematic method of discerning knowledge while accounting for cognitive biases. Psychology, history, and sociology for example (fields at which science is incompetent according to Hutchinson) are systematic academic disciplines that produce experimental results that can be externally verified just like any hard science.

Even then, most skeptics wouldn't say science is the only way of knowing (though we'll often say justifiably that it's the best we've come up with so far).

It seems to me that Hutchinson is setting up a strawman in all sincerity. I accept that he believes scientism is a big problem in our society, but I also think he is completely wrong and attacking a boogieman.


So why is he doing it? What's his motivation? Why continue to push this one issue to the exclusion of all others?

To understand, I think we have to look more broadly at attempts to reconcile faith with science. In general, I've observed five different approaches to this problem that fall roughly on a spectrum.

1. Faith should be discarded outright (Harris, Dawkins, etc)
First is the common view among the New Atheists that in the conflict between science and faith, science should always win. Moreover, since this is always the case and science is getting better and better, why preserve faith at all?

2. Science's presumption of naturalism is too restrictive. We should allow supernatural explanations into science (Behe/Intelligent Design)
Proponents of this reconciliation argue that science restricts itself unnecessarily to naturalism and should begin to include supernatural elements. "If the actual answer is beyond the natural world," they reason "why should science be forever forbidden from accepting that?" This is a ploy to capitalize on the popularity and success of science. While they still privately hold to faith as the primary source of their knowledge in these realms, they believe that science would justify their faith if only it where not constrained to what we can observe, test, and falsify. 

3. Science and Faith are Non-Overlapping MagisteriA (NOMA/Gould).
Steven J Gould is the most well known popularizer of NOMA, arguing that faith deals in realms science can't touch (the supernatural) and at the same time faith doesn't touch the natural realm where science is king. On this view, questions of faith can't be formulated scientifically so they cannot be in conflict.

4. Shrink science with accusations of scientism and restrict it to the hard sciences (Hutchinson)

People taking this track will hold up science as a paragon of human ingenuity and progress, but only in very narrow specific fields. Meanwhile, they will paint every other field as inaccessible to science. They claim that science has exploded the boundaries of its validity when it tries to address historical claims (like can a dead man come back to life), sociological claims (like is religion purely a product of culture), psychological claims (like is glossolalia meaningless babble).

See the pattern here? Hutchinson is an extreme example of this because he narrows science so much, but many religious scientists make valiant attempts to keep some gap in scientific knowledge available for God to act in the world. Ken Miller for example leaves the randomness of quantum mechanics up to God's will, by which he can control all of reality through subtle undetectable methods.

5. Discard science altogether (Answers in Genesis) 

This is the young earth creationist approach of decrying science as a flawed human endeavor and holding up faith and revelation as the only valid path to knowledge.

Except for the first and last approaches that completely reject one or the other, each of these tries to rectify the apparent conflict between faith and empiricism without destroying either. Why has Hutchinson gone with option 4? Because he recognizes that including supernaturalism into science (a la Behe) would destroy it utterly, and as a scientist he doesn't want that. Instead, he wants to leave room for Purpose in a world that could potentially be described in a completely deterministic and purposeless way. 

By barring science from touching on any human characteristics such as imagination, judgement, morality, free will, or meaning of life, he intends to leave the door open for God to enter in with those answers.

In Soviet Russia, Universe Bomb You

In yet another episode of DAMN UNIVERSE YOU SCARY, Russia edition, a giant 11-ton meteor exploded over the Chelyabinsk region. This amazing dashboard cam caught the entire entry vector and the disintegration.

Hundreds are reported to have been injured by the shockwave, which was LOUD:

We were incredibly lucky for several reasons. First, the area is not too densely populated. If this had happened over Moscow, we would be seeing reports of major casualties. Second, our atmosphere disintegrated the mass before it could impact, causing major damage on the ground and potential dust fallout. 

And the last reason we were lucky? The whole thing is caught on tape! Unlike the infamous Tunguska event, there is no mystery to be explained.

That hasn't stopped conspiracy theorists though. Russia Today suggested that the meteor was shot down by Russian Air Defense. Look for anomaly hunting videos to be coming out in the next week "proving" the existence of the missile.

Watch Revisionaries Online

In case you missed it on PBS or won't be at your local viewing, the full documentary "Revisionaries" is now available online at PBS.

If you haven't heard of it, it follows the drama of the Texas textbook controversies when Don McLeroy tried to rewrite both science and history in public schools around the country.

Texas is the second largest single adoption state in the nation, but with California having budget issues they are the single largest buyer of textbooks in the nation. As a result, textbook publishers are unlikely to release books that do not conform to Texas standards. This gives the Texas board of education almost unilateral control of science, health, and history education for the next few decades.

Watch The Revisionaries on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

I can't believe this actually exists!

Why does Australia get all the coolest animals?

This is the Lyrebird. Not only does it have beautiful plumage resembling its namesake, it is an incredible vocal mimic. To attract it's mate it gives the most elaborate vocal performance possible, recreating all the sounds it hears in the forest, from other birds like the the kookaburra call to camera shutters, car alarms, and chainsaws. You have to watch the video all the way through to believe it. If it wasn't narrated by David Attenborough, I probably would think this is a fake.

Former Anti-GMO Crops Activists Turns to Science

One of the issues I have been frustrated with in the past is GMO crops. Because environmentalism and the organic/natural/local food movements have been traditionally left wing, I tend to hang out with people who are diametrically opposed to genetically modified organisms. I puzzle at why so many pro-science people can be against scientific improvement in this one area.

No matter which side of this debate you fall on, please watch this video of formerly anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas about his discovery of science.


07 Mark Lynas from Oxford Farming Conference on Vimeo.

This Isn't the Post You're Looking For

The WhiteHouse.gov petition forum has not been the most successful platform for social change, but it has generated a lot of...umm...interesting petitions.

Take this recent example:

Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.

Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016. 

By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

This petition received over 34,000 signatures which is enough to require an official statement from the white house in response.

The response is now up and I absolutely love it. It was just too good to not share the whole thing so here it is. (Emphasis added for my favorites)

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016. 

This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For
By Paul Shawcross 

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

However, look carefully (here's how) and you'll notice something already floating in the sky -- that's no Moon, it's a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We've also got two robot science labs -- one wielding a laser -- roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet. 

Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo -- and soon, crew -- to space for NASA, and are pursuing human missions to the Moon this decade. 

Even though the United States doesn't have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we've got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we're building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe. 

We don't have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke's arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers. 

We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn because he knows these domains are critical to our country's future, and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing big things. 

If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force. 

Paul Shawcross is Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget

The force is strong with this one.