Tuesday 14 July 2009
See the new Orion Spur
This blog is no longer being updated. I have my own domain now at orionspur.za.net - hope you enjoy.
Monday 1 January 2007
Why should we care how old that rock is?
As a one-time park ranger, science educator Lauren Becker was told by an irate tourist that a particular rock could not be, as she had stated, 300 million years old. After all, Creationism teaches that the Earth itself is only 6 000 years or so old. "The Devil made that rock look that old to turn you away from God," he argued, and left in disgust.
Ms Becker uses this episode as an illustration of the importance of making sense of the world and the universe by questioning, testing and investigating it rather than mutely accepting what one is told to believe. This is vital if the human race is to behave other than lemmings, blindly trusting in the commandments of an invisible authority figure as interpreted by his/her/its secular representatives.
"Honesty is difficult," she says:
Read the full article.
Also see: "Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees."
Ms Becker uses this episode as an illustration of the importance of making sense of the world and the universe by questioning, testing and investigating it rather than mutely accepting what one is told to believe. This is vital if the human race is to behave other than lemmings, blindly trusting in the commandments of an invisible authority figure as interpreted by his/her/its secular representatives.
"Honesty is difficult," she says:
It requires heroic efforts of introspection and self-awareness. This honest portrayal of reality is at the heart of the conflict between science and religion. While science is a natural response to reality, religion demands that we distrust our senses and our intellect, instead relying on a supernatural explanation. In this way, faith robs us of the best tool we have for learning about our world and understanding our true position within it. Religions, especially fundamentalist religions, get stuck because they are based on an immovable, unchangeable, unquestionable authority. But without doubt and questioning, there is no way to acknowledge, much less correct for errors. That is how a 6,000 year-old rock becomes dangerous.
It also explains the hostility on the hike that day because the danger goes both ways. If we want to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, almost every scientific discovery of the past 400 years has been a real downer. First we find out that the universe, literally, does not revolve around us. Next, we discover that our Sun is really a quite average star and, not only that, we live out in the boon-docks of an average spiral galaxy that is just one of 20 other galaxies (given the appropriately non-superlative name The Local Group) zipping through space outward from the center of the cosmos which, did we mention, is very far away from us. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this planet that was supposedly created for us was hanging out for almost 5 billion years before we even showed up and, by the way, we didn’t look like this when we first got here.
If your sense of self-worth, your purpose in life, is based on the belief that you and the universe were created specially for one another, science is truly a harbinger of doom. You can shoot the messenger, but ignoring reality is no guarantee that it will go away. Like a talk-show celebrity, the significance you desire is, sadly, based on unmerited importance. Truth be told, though the performance was entertaining, your show is just a dot among 6 billion dots on a bigger dot flying around a brighter dot lost amid a billion, billion more dots separated by vacuous space.
But here’s the cool thing: at least you are a dot. I am a dot, too. This means that, though we are insignificant to the cosmos, we are incredibly significant to each other. We and our fellow dots. What should we do? Don’t be afraid. The lack of a deity is not an opening for chaos. It is a call for responsibility. Besides, there are some really smart dots over there that have figured out how to learn and they can teach us how to survive. It’s all really quite amazing. Did you know that this rock is over 300 million years old?
It also explains the hostility on the hike that day because the danger goes both ways. If we want to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, almost every scientific discovery of the past 400 years has been a real downer. First we find out that the universe, literally, does not revolve around us. Next, we discover that our Sun is really a quite average star and, not only that, we live out in the boon-docks of an average spiral galaxy that is just one of 20 other galaxies (given the appropriately non-superlative name The Local Group) zipping through space outward from the center of the cosmos which, did we mention, is very far away from us. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this planet that was supposedly created for us was hanging out for almost 5 billion years before we even showed up and, by the way, we didn’t look like this when we first got here.
If your sense of self-worth, your purpose in life, is based on the belief that you and the universe were created specially for one another, science is truly a harbinger of doom. You can shoot the messenger, but ignoring reality is no guarantee that it will go away. Like a talk-show celebrity, the significance you desire is, sadly, based on unmerited importance. Truth be told, though the performance was entertaining, your show is just a dot among 6 billion dots on a bigger dot flying around a brighter dot lost amid a billion, billion more dots separated by vacuous space.
But here’s the cool thing: at least you are a dot. I am a dot, too. This means that, though we are insignificant to the cosmos, we are incredibly significant to each other. We and our fellow dots. What should we do? Don’t be afraid. The lack of a deity is not an opening for chaos. It is a call for responsibility. Besides, there are some really smart dots over there that have figured out how to learn and they can teach us how to survive. It’s all really quite amazing. Did you know that this rock is over 300 million years old?
Read the full article.
Also see: "Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees."
Wednesday 27 December 2006
Priorities from hell
9/11 was atrocious. But it is puzzling how few people seem to think that the second invasion of Iraq was an inappropriate response. It wasn't as if the Iraqi goverment was working with Al Qaeda (see "Al Qaeda-Hussein link is dismissed"). And hasn't it been proven by now that there really are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? (See "US calls off search for Iraqi WMDs".)
So, why did the US really invade Iraq?
In an article entitled "Ike was Right", Truthdig's Robert Scheer quotes from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the American Nation in 1961:
Robert Scheer points to this quotation as the fundamental reason why America invaded Iraq. It wasn't because of 9/11, he asserts - no-one has shown what Iraq had had to do with that. And a few weeks following the second American invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003 it had already become clear that it wasn't because of the non-existent WMDs.
No, Scheer says, you should rather look at the dollar trail:
Until recently, Halliburton through its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, was one of the biggest defense contractors in Iraq (it had been awarded a series of fat contracts for which it was not required to bid; so-called "no-bid" contracts). According to the Arms Trade Resource Center, these contracts (and added expenses, which Halliburton are never loathe to claim) amassed $8 billion and counting.
Do you remember the name of a former Halliburton CEO? Dick Cheney.
But wait, there's more: At least thirty-two top officials in the Bush Administration are reputed to have served as executives or paid consultants to major weapons contractors before
joining the Administration.
Besides Halliburton, it is claimed that companies that have benefited handsomely from the latest Iraq war include Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Bechtel. (The same company names and more are named here.)
Scheer concludes:
Also see:
So, why did the US really invade Iraq?
In an article entitled "Ike was Right", Truthdig's Robert Scheer quotes from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the American Nation in 1961:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Robert Scheer points to this quotation as the fundamental reason why America invaded Iraq. It wasn't because of 9/11, he asserts - no-one has shown what Iraq had had to do with that. And a few weeks following the second American invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003 it had already become clear that it wasn't because of the non-existent WMDs.
No, Scheer says, you should rather look at the dollar trail:
"A recent study by Nobel Prize-wining economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard University’s Linda Bilmes [estimated] the true cost of the Iraq adventure to U.S taxpayers at a whopping $2.267 trillion.
"The big prize here for Bush’s foreign policy is not the acquisition of natural resources or the enhancement of U.S. security, but rather the lining of the pockets of the defense contractors."
"The big prize here for Bush’s foreign policy is not the acquisition of natural resources or the enhancement of U.S. security, but rather the lining of the pockets of the defense contractors."
Until recently, Halliburton through its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, was one of the biggest defense contractors in Iraq (it had been awarded a series of fat contracts for which it was not required to bid; so-called "no-bid" contracts). According to the Arms Trade Resource Center, these contracts (and added expenses, which Halliburton are never loathe to claim) amassed $8 billion and counting.
Do you remember the name of a former Halliburton CEO? Dick Cheney.
But wait, there's more: At least thirty-two top officials in the Bush Administration are reputed to have served as executives or paid consultants to major weapons contractors before
joining the Administration.
Besides Halliburton, it is claimed that companies that have benefited handsomely from the latest Iraq war include Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Bechtel. (The same company names and more are named here.)
Scheer concludes:
"As Eisenhower warned: “We should take nothing for granted; only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. ... We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
Also see:
- Halliburton Watch
- Is what's good for Boeing and Halliburton good for America?
- The Ultimate Mistake
- The Halliburton Agenda
- How much are you making on the war, Daddy?
- The Iraq War and the Changing Face of Pentagon Contracting
- All Arms Trade Resource Center Reports
Tuesday 26 December 2006
Living in the sky
Orbital stations or even rings encircling a planet are a fascinating option for space colonisation. One advantage, for example, is that you're not encumbered by a gravity well. At the same time, you could be close enough to a planet to make trips for emergency parts, provisions, specialised medical care, etc. Of course, since it would revolve, such a space habitat would have its own gravity (even weather) thanks to centrifugal force. It could even be self-sustaining through solar power, waste recycling, hydroponics, and so forth. Economically, it could also pay for itself through tourism, space-based fabrication technologies, and repairs/food/accommodation/ etc. for near-Earth mining operations and other orbiting stations. Last but not least, it would probably be a more cost-efficient means of relieving Earth's population pressure - cheaper than terraforming Mars, for starters.
Award-winning German 3D graphics artist Alexander Preuss has recently imagineered a tubular "ring world" that takes one's breath away:
Copyright Alexander Preuss. See full version here.
Remember Carl Sagan
More than virtually any public figure, Carl Sagan awakened a generation in the late 20th century to the fact that without science, entire cultures could slide back into the Dark Ages.
For an excellent article on Sagan, read Pat Duffy Hutcheon's "Carl Sagan and Modern Scientific Humanism".
A few choice quotes:
"Our politics, advertising and religions (New Age and Old) are awash in credulity. Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism." Without scientific habits of thought, he said, "we risk becoming a ... world of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who saunters along. [Precious television time is devoted to teaching our children] murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity and consumerism ... What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?"
More than anything, Sagan feared the consequences of scientific illiteracy in the public at large. "When governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic -- however sympathetic we may be for those who have bought the baloney." Elsewhere he quoted an egregious example of what can happen when elite opinion-shapers connive to encourage general gullibility: "A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising, an explanation based on will rather than knowledge. There is no truth in either the moral or the scientific sense." The speaker of these words was Adolph Hitler, but the sentiments had been encouraged for at least a century by the intellectual ancestors of today's "postmodernist" philosophers.
He had little respect for anyone who held to dogmatic claims of any kind about the ultimate nature of reality. 'The idea that scientists or theologians, with our present and still puny understanding of this vast and awesome cosmos, can comprehend the origin of the universe is only a little less silly than the idea that the Mesopotamian astronomers of 3000 years ago -- from whom the ancient Hebrews borrowed, during the Babylonian captivity, the cosmological accounts in the first chapter of Genesis -- could have understood the origins of the universe.
He did not attack traditional religions, but he did chide them for having made a fatal mistake in continuing to assert truth claims about the nature of the cosmos and about the origins and destiny of humankind: claims that are the business of science. He thought that religion could make a positive contribution to modern society only if it forsook myth and mysticism and concentrated on activities having to do with reverence for life, awe at the wonders of nature, ethics and morality, community, the celebration of life's passages and striving for social justice.
The article appeared in a magazine called Humanist in Canada in 1997.
For an excellent article on Sagan, read Pat Duffy Hutcheon's "Carl Sagan and Modern Scientific Humanism".
A few choice quotes:
"Our politics, advertising and religions (New Age and Old) are awash in credulity. Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism." Without scientific habits of thought, he said, "we risk becoming a ... world of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who saunters along. [Precious television time is devoted to teaching our children] murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity and consumerism ... What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?"
More than anything, Sagan feared the consequences of scientific illiteracy in the public at large. "When governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic -- however sympathetic we may be for those who have bought the baloney." Elsewhere he quoted an egregious example of what can happen when elite opinion-shapers connive to encourage general gullibility: "A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising, an explanation based on will rather than knowledge. There is no truth in either the moral or the scientific sense." The speaker of these words was Adolph Hitler, but the sentiments had been encouraged for at least a century by the intellectual ancestors of today's "postmodernist" philosophers.
He had little respect for anyone who held to dogmatic claims of any kind about the ultimate nature of reality. 'The idea that scientists or theologians, with our present and still puny understanding of this vast and awesome cosmos, can comprehend the origin of the universe is only a little less silly than the idea that the Mesopotamian astronomers of 3000 years ago -- from whom the ancient Hebrews borrowed, during the Babylonian captivity, the cosmological accounts in the first chapter of Genesis -- could have understood the origins of the universe.
He did not attack traditional religions, but he did chide them for having made a fatal mistake in continuing to assert truth claims about the nature of the cosmos and about the origins and destiny of humankind: claims that are the business of science. He thought that religion could make a positive contribution to modern society only if it forsook myth and mysticism and concentrated on activities having to do with reverence for life, awe at the wonders of nature, ethics and morality, community, the celebration of life's passages and striving for social justice.
The article appeared in a magazine called Humanist in Canada in 1997.
Monday 25 December 2006
Fundamentalism and intellectual honesty
From an essay by Sam Harris that appeared in the LA Times, read his refutation of the popular view that "Atheists are arrogant":
"When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty."
Read more.
"When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty."
Read more.
Sunday 24 December 2006
Where are we?
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM IS located 26 000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way in a minor arm called the Orion Spur.To learn more about the nature of our solar system and the galaxy in which it resides, take advantage of the excellent learning resources offered free by the Wright Center for Science Education at Tufts University, Massachusetts. You will find extremely well written articles covering the entire history of the universe up to the present moment.
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