Chris Hedges is a journalist and author who focuses on American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years. He is the author of What Every Person Should Know About War and American Fascists. His newest book is I Don't Believe in Atheists.
While controversies regarding evolution/ID make a bigger splash, here is a refreshing story about Francisco Ayala - an evolutionary biologist/geneticist and a former Dominican priest (and while we are at it, he is also on the boards of Opera Pacific and the Pacific Symphony and owns vineyards in California! Hey forget about the idiotic evolution/ID controversies, he would be an interesting person to talk to about pretty much any thing). He makes it clear that evolution does not make belief in God impossible (also see his book, Darwin's Gift: to Science and Religion). Again this underscores the fact that evolutionary biologists have a spectrum of beliefs - and all these views should be respected. In fact Ayala, goes a step further and believes that the evolutionary theory can actually provide a solution to the pesky problem of evil:Again, one doesn't have to subscribe to his theistic views, but it is interesting to see him applying evolutionary ideas to religious problems. But he does see a problem when evolution gets linked to atheism:Dr. Ayala, a former Dominican priest, said he told his audiences not just that evolution is a well-corroborated scientific theory, but also that belief in evolution does not rule out belief in God. In fact, he said, evolution “is more consistent with belief in a personal god than intelligent design. If God has designed organisms, he has a lot to account for.”
Consider, he said, that at least 20 percent of pregnancies are known to end in spontaneous abortion. If that results from divinely inspired anatomy, Dr. Ayala said, “God is the greatest abortionist of them all.”
Or consider, he said, the “sadism” in parasites that live by devouring their hosts, or the mating habits of insects like female midges, tiny flies that fertilize their eggs by consuming their mates’ genitals, along with all their other parts.
For the midges, Dr. Ayala said, “it makes evolutionary sense. If you are a male and you have mated, the best thing you can do for your genes is to be eaten.” But if God or some other intelligent agent made things this way on purpose, he said, “then he is a sadist, he certainly does odd things and he is a lousy engineer.”
That is also the message of his latest book, “Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion” (Joseph Henry Press, 2007). In it, he writes that as a theology student in Spain he had been taught that evolution “provided the ‘missing link’ in the explanation of evil in the world” — a defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence, despite the existence of evil.
“As floods and drought were a necessary consequence of the fabric of the physical world, predators and parasites, dysfunctions and diseases were a consequence of the evolution of life,” he writes. “They were not a result of a deficient or malevolent design.”
He said he was saddened when he saw the embrace of evolution identified with, as he put it, “explicit atheism,” as in the books of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins or other writers on science and faith.
Neither the existence nor nonexistence of God is susceptible to scientific proof, Dr. Ayala said, and equating science with the abandonment of religion “fits the prejudices” of advocates of intelligent design and other creationist ideas.
Read the full article here.
Here is a New York Times article about these pictures and an associated slide show. If you are wondering who are these people in the photograph below, or if you want your own nuclear reactor and want to know more about these funny looking tubes, check out this annotated version of this photograph.The sprawling site, known as Natanz, made headlines recently because Iran is testing a new generation of centrifuges there that spin faster and, in theory, can more rapidly turn natural uranium into fuel for reactors or nuclear arms. The new machines are also meant to be more reliable than their forerunners, which often failed catastrophically.
On April 8, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the desert site, and Iran released 48 photographs of the tour, providing the first significant look inside the atomic riddle.
Now I don't know much about Iranian fashion - but these shoes below really don't go well with white lab-coats:
John Shook is Vice President for Research and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry Transnational in Amherst, N.Y. He received his PhD in philosophy at the University at Buffalo and was a professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University for six years. Among his current responsibilities are the Center for Inquiry’s Naturalism Research Project and the expansion of the Center’s Jo Ann Boydston Library of American Philosophical Naturalism.
The New York Botanical Garden has a new exhibit: Darwin's Garden - An Evolutionary Adventure. It runs from April 25-June 15 and here is a write-up on the exhibit:IN 1860, while studying primroses in the garden of Down House, his home in Kent, England, Charles Darwin noticed something odd about their blooms.
While all the flowers had both male and female parts — anthers and pistils — in some the anthers were prominent and in others the pistils were longer. So he experimented in his home laboratory and greenhouses, cross-pollinating some plants with their anatomical opposites. The results were striking.
“He determined that if they cross-pollinate, they produce more seed and more vigorous seedlings,” said Margaret Falk, a horticulturalist and associate vice president at the New York Botanical Garden. The variation is evolution’s way of increasing cross-pollination, she said.
Now the Botanical Garden is replicating this work, and more of Darwin’s Down House experiments, in a stunning, multipart exhibition called “Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure.”
In all, the tour is 33 stops, spread throughout about half of the garden’s 250 acres. Visitors who enter the exhibition through the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory will encounter a replica of a room in Darwin’s house, designed so they can look through the window, as he did, to a profusion of plants and bright flowers: hollyhocks, flax and of course primroses, what Todd Forrest, the garden’s vice president for horticulture, calls “a typical British garden.” On a table stands a tray holding quills, brushes, sealing wax and tweezers, the kinds of simple tools Darwin used to conduct his world-shaking research.
Darwin grew the flowers not just for their own sake, Mr. Forrest said, but as subjects for observation and experiment, work he carried out in his home laboratory and greenhouses, on workbenches like those in the exhibition. The work displayed on the benches is typical of studies Darwin made of pollination, how plants grow, even what happens when a carnivorous plant devours an insect. Orchids on display remind visitors of the varieties Darwin studied, and how his observations and dissections of their blooms led him to conclude that particular species were pollinated by particular species of insects, a conclusion later research confirmed.
The exhibition also includes a “tree of life” map that guides visitors to the garden’s plants and describes where they fit in the natural scheme of things; books, drawings and notes, some in Darwin’s own hand; and an interactive exhibit for children.
This look really good. Plus we are tired of idiotic creationism/ID debates and evolution of flowers may probably draw less controversy (hey Dembski - stay away from these orchids). Plus, plants played a key role in Darwin's work:
It anticipates two Darwin anniversaries next year — his 200th birthday and the 150th of his world-changing book, “The Origin of Species.”Read the full story here. Also check out this audio slide show.Though most people associate that book and Darwin’s ideas generally with his voyage to the Galápagos and his study of finches there, his work with plants was far more central to his thinking, said David Kohn, a Darwin expert and science historian who is a curator of the exhibition.
Even in the Galapágos he focused on plants, said Dr. Kohn, who is general editor of the Darwin Digital Library of Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History. “He did not even label the finches,” he said. “He was fascinated by plants,” particularly the way their variation and sexual reproduction challenged the idea that species were stable, a key idea in botany at the time.
As Dr. Kohn writes in the exhibition catalogue, “plants were the one group of organisms that he studied with most consistency and depth over the course of a long scientific career” of collecting, observing, experimenting and theorizing. But Darwin studied more than flowers. He was intrigued by what Dr. Kohn calls the “behavior” of plants — how they move, respond to light, consume insects and otherwise act in the world.
Is there a way to find the center of the surface of the Earth? This may look like an impossible task - but not if you are a crank scientist and/or if you believe the world is flat. So at a recent conference in Qatar, some Muslim "scientists" and scholars urged the world to replace the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) with Mecca time...because they believe that Mecca is the true center of the Earth. Hmm...ok...wait and lets hope that ships don't fall off from the edge of the world.
Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.
Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.
The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.
What!??! What is annoying here is not just an assault on straight-forward logic, but the fact that this is being discussed at a conference, for which at least somebody has coughed up money which could be used for real education. But its also annoying that these crank statements are considered news worthy. On the other hand, may be it is important to know that influential people (i.e. with media access in the Muslim world) really believe in such crank theories.
One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.
He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.
Ok..so even if one grants the possibility of Mecca being on the equator with respect to the magnetic north pole (which is most likely not the case since the magnetic north pole wanders around quite a bit and has moved 1100 km in just this past century!), you will still end up with two points on the sphere where the longitude will intersect with the equator. Yes, the idea of Mecca being the "center of the Earth" is too bad to even be wrong.
The accompanying figure shows the path of the North Magnetic Pole since its discovery in 1831 to the last observed position in 2001. During the last century the Pole has moved a remarkable 1100 km. What is more, since about 1970 the NMP has accelerated and is now moving at more than 40 km per year. If the NMP maintains its present speed and direction it will reach Siberia in about 50 years. Such an extrapolation is, however, tenuous. It is quite possible that the Pole will veer from its present course, and it is also possible that the pole will slow down sometime in the next half century.
In many European history and art books, oil painting is said to have started in the 15th century in Europe. But scientists from the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo (Japan), the Centre of Research and Restoration of the French Museums-CNRS (France), the Getty Conservation Institute (And they found this through synchrotron spectroscopy (and here is the Wiki entry on Synchrotron - and check out applications):United States) and the ESRF have recently identified drying oils in some of the samples they studied from the Bamiyan caves. Painted in the mid-7th century A.D., the murals show scenes with Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures. The scientists discovered that 12 out of the 50 caves were painted with oil painting technique, using perhaps walnut and poppy seed drying oils.
But who did the paintings?A combination of synchrotron techniques such as infrared micro-spectroscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence, micro X-ray absorption spectroscopy or micro X-ray diffraction was crucial for the outcome of the work. "On one hand, the paintings are arranged as superposition of multiple layers, which can be very thin. The micrometric beam provided by synchrotron sources was hence essential to analyze separately each of these layers. On the other hand, these paintings are made with inorganic pigments mixed in organic binders, so we needed different techniques to get the full picture" Marine Cotte, a research scientist at CNRS and an ESRF scientific collaborator explains.
The results showed a high diversity of pigments as well as binders and the scientists identified original ingredients and alteration compounds. Apart from oil-based paint layers, some of the layers were made of natural resins, proteins, gums, and, in some cases, a resinous, varnish-like layer. Protein-based material can indicate the use of hide glue or egg. Within the various pigments, the scientists found a high use of lead whites. These lead carbonates were often used, since Antiquity up to modern times, not only in paintings but also in cosmetics as face whiteners.
The paintings are probably the work of artists who traveled on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia's desert to the West. However, there are very few studies about this region.Read the full story here.
Darwin's private papers can now be browsed online!For decades available only to scholars at Cambridge University Library, the private papers of Charles Darwin, one of the most influential scientists in history, can now be seen by anyone online and free of charge. This is the largest ever publication of Darwin papers and manuscripts, totalling about 20,000 items in nearly 90,000 electronic images.Here is a news story about the release from the BBC:
This vast and varied collection of papers includes the first draft of his theory of evolution, notes from the voyage of the Beagle and Emma Darwin's recipe book.
While we are on the topic of evolution, check out this list of common misconceptions and myths associated with evolution, as compiled by New Scientist.The online archive about Charles Darwin is so vast it would take someone two months to view it all if they downloaded one image per minute.
"His papers reveal how immensely detailed his researches were. The family has always wanted Darwin's papers and manuscripts to be available to anyone who wants to read them," said Dr van Wyhe.
"The fact that everyone around the world can now see them on the web is simply fantastic.
"Charles Darwin is one of the most influential scientists in history. The collection of his papers now online is extremely important and therefore very exciting.
"This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free."
Shared misconceptions:
Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection
Natural selection is the only means of evolution
Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity
Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment
Evolution always promotes the survival of species
It doesn't matter if people do not understand evolution
"Survival of the fittest" justifies "everyone for themselves"
Evolution is limitlessly creative
Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality
Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution
Creationist myths:
Evolution must be wrong because the Bible is inerrant
Accepting evolution undermines morality
Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide
Religion and evolution are incompatible
Half a wing is no use to anyone
Evolutionary science is not predictive
Evolution cannot be disproved so is not science
Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms
Evolution is an entirely random process
Mutations can only destroy information, not create it
Darwin is the ultimate authority on evolution
The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex
Gallup first asked Americans to rate these religious groups in this fashion in an August 2006 panel survey, and since then, there have been declines in positive ratings for many of the more favorably viewed religious groups. For example, the net positive score for Catholics was +44 in the 2006 survey, compared to the current +32. But there were also declines in the net positive scores of Jews (from +54 to +42), Baptists (from +45 to +35), and Methodists (from +50 to +45).
It is unclear why the net positive ratings for most groups have declined, unless Americans are just less positive about religion overall today than they were two years ago. Groups such as atheists and Scientologists that rated negatively in 2006 are still rated negatively today, with similar scores over time in most cases. One exception concerns Muslims, who saw their net rating tumble from -4 in 2006 to -17 in the current survey.
Read more about the survey here, and here is a link to the 2006 survey. (tip from Framing Science)
NPR today had an interesting story about new and different ethical concerns resulting from advances in stem cells research:Scientists have solved one ethical dilemma by finding a way to make the equivalent of human embryonic stem cells without destroying human embryos. But a new ethical dilemma is looming. It may be possible to derive eggs and sperm from the stem cells. Will a child someday be born to a parent who started life as a stem cell line?Listen to the story here.
Yes, this just in. God has sent a message to Churchgoers in Ethiopia using Sun's refraction off ice crystals associated with cold cirrus clouds, located a few miles up in the atmosphere, in a region scientists call the upper troposphere. Yes, this must be a miracle!A halo around the sun startled people in Ethiopia during Sunday's local elections, with many seeing it as a miracle or a sign from God.But why is God revealing himself here through a Sun halo, when we have a decent scientific explanation for it? Come on, there should be a bit more supernatural element in a divine sign...
...
Churchgoers who had flocked to see the visiting Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope Shenouda, acclaimed the phenomenon as a miracle, or at least a sign of a blessing from God. Pope Shenouda himself believed it was a signal from above.
"We accept any sign from God to encourage us in our way," he said, "and confirm that we are going right in our way."
Abuna Paulos, the Patriarch of Ethiopia, added his voice to those who believe in signs from God.
"If God reveals himself from the sky," he told a press conference, "we believers do not get surprised. We only rejoice and double our efforts to thank God. Thank you, God, for revealing a sign."
But others looked for more secular implications.So...what is the implication here? Whenever ice crystals refract sunlight in the atmosphere few miles above Ethiopia, a military dictatorship falls. Except this time, because the government is simply too strong and can counter this crystal magic from the sky.
Older people in Addis Ababa remember seeing the ring around the sun once before - in the last days of the Derg, the despised military dictatorship, just before its leader Mengistu Haile Mariam fled to Zimbabwe.
But there is little prospect of the government falling in these elections.
At least these archeologists get full points for their effort: (from Science)A small group of archaeologists is hoping to make a difference in one of the world's most divisive conflicts. At a private gathering in Jerusalem yesterday, Israeli academics proposed a plan for divvying up antiquities and control of religious sites between Israel and Palestine when--and if--peace is ever achieved. The idea is to ease political negotiations by taking the controversial issue off the table. But some just learning of the plan are skeptical it will succeed where past efforts have failed.This is very cool. And the plan looks quite reasonable (though, reason rarely feature prominently in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict):At issue is control of archaeological sites and material. Since the 1967 War, Israelis have excavated extensively in the West Bank, removing artifacts to storage facilities controlled by the Israeli government. If a Palestinian state is ever created, the question is whether some or all of that material would be repatriated.
For the past 5 years, Lynn Dodd and Ran Boytner, archaeologists at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles, respectively, have worked on the plan in near secrecy, conferring with a small team of Israeli and Palestinian archaeologists. The two sides have never before "sat down to achieve a structured, balanced agreement to govern the region's archaeological heritage," says Dodd. "Our group got together with the vision of a future when people wouldn't be at each other's throats, and archaeology would need to be protected irrespective of which side of the border it falls on."
The plan calls for a protective "Heritage Zone" around the oldest part of Jerusalem, extending to the city's 10th century boundaries during the Crusades. Archaeological sites in the zone would be made accessible to anyone, regardless of nationality, and any manipulation of sites would have to be done with full transparency. The plan also recommends the repatriation of all artifacts to the state in which they were originally found since 1967. To house all the material on the Palestinian side, new museums and conservation laboratories would be created.This sounds good. But is it going to really work?
Despite the warm reception, the plan faces an uphill battle. "There have been many, many plans, blueprints, and road maps produced over the years," but previous efforts never won consensus on both sides of the divide, says Patrick Daly, an archaeologist at the Asia Research Institute in Singapore who has been visiting faculty at An-Najah National University in Nablus in the West Bank. "When plans supported by the E.U., Russia, and the American president fail to actually change the situation there, I am doubtful that an unofficial document drawn up by some well-meaning archaeologists will make any difference."The skepticism regarding the success of the proposal is justified. But, at least they are making a fair and sincere effort. Read the full story here.
Here is a good example of science & religion cooperation. There are plans to preserve the Bodhi tree - a sacred tree at Bodh Gaya temple, by cloning it (from The Times of India): Worried over the health of the Bodhi tree, Bodh Gaya temple authorities have quietly prepared a plan to preserve the sacred tree, which grew from the banyan tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago.And why worry about the tree now?
The cloning will be done in a laboratory to preserve its origin. The Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee, which looks after the temple, a Unesco World Heritage site, fears that the tree may collapse because of diseases or natural causes.
The plan is part of an agreement signed between the temple committee and Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun, three months ago. According to the agreement, FRI scientists will do a ‘virtual modelling’ using cells of the existing tree through a DNA finger printing exercise. The scientists have also been asked to conduct a health check-up of the tree every six months.
The tree is one of the most important icons of Buddhism. A large number of foreign tourists visit Bodh Gaya to get a glimpse of the tree.
In the last one year, the tree has been afflicted with several diseases. First, it was hit by milibug, a plant disease. Last year, there was an alarming fall of fresh leaves from the tree. During their investigation, FRI scientists found that the tree was suffering because of poor maintenance.Hmm..."poor maintenance"?? Most likely from over watering the tree. In any case, the cloning idea is a good one and this issue is a pleasant departure from the usual cloning debates.
In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Marc Hauser expounds his theory that morality has biological origins while challenging the common view that morality comes from God. He compares the human capacity for morality with Noam Chomsky's notion of a universal grammar, arguing that there is a "morality module" in the brain. He explains how his theory accounts for differences in morality across cultures, and discusses how morality could have evolved and what genetic benefit it might have afforded. He also explores the implications of his theory for the legal system, and for cultural institutions like religion and the family.
As part of Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion, George Saliba from Columbia University gave a lecture on Islam and the Transformation of Greek Science in March. I had posted some thoughts on the lecture soon after the event, and now the full video of the lecture is available online (see below).
