Book Review of Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer

Robert Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction write and despite his having written 21 books, I never heard of him before.  And I thought I liked science fiction books.  Most amazingly, I had to find out about him through Mary Ann. She, who dislikes science fiction, was in the middle of reading this book when I found it on the table.  Somehow I lost Mary Ann's place marker in my rush to finish the book.  She chose it because it was the Waterloo selection for "One Book One Community" for 2005.

http://oboc.ca/past-years/hominids/

I won't get into the plot of the book, so this review will not contain any spoilers.  There is a comparison between the world we live in, where Neanderthals are extinct, and a parallel universe where Neanderthals became the only sentient species, and Homo Sapiens went extinct instead.  It seems to me that Sawyer comes up with a lot of ideas about how Neanderthal civilization might have evolved, based on his research, or his knowledge of our own history and science.  For example, he writes that if humans had not been warlike, we might never have reached the moon, as those rockets were originally invented as a weapon of war.  How would technology evolve if we did not use fossil fuels?  These are all interesting questions from a scientific viewpoint. Additionally, Robert Sawyer tackles religion and philosophy.  How would a society evolve that did not believe in a father-figure God who punishes and rewards us in the afterlife?

There was one topic in the book, that was particularly timely, about surveillance.  In the Neanderthal world, everyone's actions are recorded all the time by implanted devices.  There is no privacy, but hardly any crime either.  This topic foreshadows the current 2013 scandal where we find out that the NSA is recording all kinds of phone calls and emails.  Similarly to what happened in "Hominids", NSA is not necessarily looking or listening to all these recorded messages, but in case of a crime, can go back to see what happened.

In the political climate of today, Robert Sawyer comes off as extremely left wing liberal. This book will insult many conservative readers,  who have tired of hearing about everything that is wrong with our warlike, environment destroying species.  In fact the book already has insulted many, judging from comments on this website.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/264946.Hominids


To me (the Lost Motorcyclist), who is now officially a 60's liberal, "Hominids" reads like a science fiction story from the fifties, except with bit more sex, as censorship has loosened over the years.  In other words, the book's philosophical underpinning is science, reason, peace and tolerance.  I have this feeling that some of modern science fiction has been replaced by religious, magical, and warlike fantasies posing as science fiction.

The change from old style science fiction to magical war fantasies may have been started with the very successful movie "Star Wars".  The title tells you about all you need to know about the pacifism in this movie, and then "May the force be with you" tells you what you need to know about the attitude toward miracles and magic.  Star Wars had very little in the way of real science.  It was more like a typical war movie, only this time set in space.  As the space ships passed by, they made quite a bit of noise even though they were in a total vacuum.  Sorry, Star Wars fans, but there is no noise in space.  Little errors like this generally disqualify a movie from being real science fiction. Actually they are probably not even errors as much as a clear sign from the director that this movie is not intended for real science fiction fans.

"Hominids" took me back to an interesting time where real science fiction was better appreciated, in a world where science itself was respected, and evolution was taken for granted.  A time before the right wing backlash against science had begun its last ditch effort to take us back to the dark ages of superstition and witchcraft.

And so, just as much as the conservatives are tired about hearing what's wrong with religion, pollution, and exterminating species; I am also tired of arguments as to why we need to use up all the Earth's resources as fast as possible.  So to me this book was a comfortable read.

Another Kick at the Horsepower Can

One of the most popular internet motorcycle blogs "The Kneeslider" recently attempted to answer the eternal question "Horsepower or torque?"

http://thekneeslider.com/what-is-horsepower-and-torque/

At the conclusion, it was stated:

"Both terms are important but they represent different things. Torque measures a force being applied while horsepower is a measure of how much work the force can do."

Now just a cotton pickin minute.  Didn't I write a blog explaining horsepower and torque in December 2008?

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.ca/2008/12/story-of-horsepower-vs-torque.html

Now, apparently I will have to explain it again and I obviously must do a better job this time. I need to prove the point in a nice simple way, once and for all, that torque is not a good indicator of engine performance, but horsepower is.

The fallacy in the torque argument has to do with where the torque is measured.  Torque numbers are always taken at the engine, but it actually needs to be measured at the rear wheel, because (1) it is only at the rear wheel that the torque produces thrust that drives the vehicle. And (2) torque is multiplied arbitrarily in the gearbox, that lies between the engine and the rear wheels.

The problem, restated, is that torque measured at the crank in the engine is not meaningful, because it can easily be multiplied, or divided by the gear box, or a chain or belt drive with sprockets, or any place the shaft speed changes before it arrives at the rear wheels.  You can increase or decrease torque infinitely, simply by changing the gear ratios or sprocket sizes.

It is true that horsepower, too, is always measured at the crank.  However, that's OK, because you cannot multiply or divide horsepower with gears.  Horsepower stays constant no matter the gear ratio. (allowing for minor friction losses)

Only comparisons at the rear wheel are meaningful in real world performance.  Measurements inside the engine are of academic interest only.  In spite of the gear ratios, crank horsepower is a fairly good indicator of rear wheel horsepower, while crank torque all by itself is not a good indicator of rear wheel torque, unless both vehicles are forced to run at the same number of revolutions per minute, and have the same gearing.

Now for some math, real easy this time

Vehicle 1 Final drive ratio: 2:1
Crank torque: 300 ft-lbs.   Rear wheel torque: 600 ft.-lbs.  (not allowing for friction)
Crank power: 150 hp.        Rear wheel HP: 146 hp.  (allowing for friction)
 
Vehicle 2 Final drive ratio: 4:1
Crank Torque: 250 ft.-lbs.  Rear wheel torque: 1000 ft.-lbs. (not allowing for friction)
Crank Power: 250 hp.        Rear wheel hp: 243.5 hp.  (allowing for friction)

So looking at the numbers, you might call foul.  Why does the high horsepower vehicle get to have a 4:1 drive ratio, while the high torque vehicle has a final drive of only 2:1?  That's because the high horsepower vehicle generally has a high speed engine, and it can (in this case) run at twice the speed of the high torque/low horsepower engine.  That allows you to run a higher overall gear ratio.  And that is how gear ratios are decided on in the first place.

So the secret of high torque, but low horsepower engines, is that if you do not measure speed, then high torque sounds good.  But when you do measure speed of these types of engines, you invariably find that they have a low rev-limit.  i.e. they are slow, and cannot be driven with  higher gear ratios.

The kneeslider article had a lot of comments, and one of them was in the form of a video.  The video showed a drag race between a 70 hp Harley chopper, and a 170 hp sport bike. The chopper won easily, supposedly proving that torque was more important than horsepower in a race.

http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=4a88a935f5f0

As I watched the drag race between the chopper and the sport bike, I was struck by how the cards seemed to be stacked against the sport bike.

-The race was extremely short, just down a back alley.  In a short race, reaction time is almost as important as horsepower.  And it's quite obvious in the video that the chopper gets the initial start a few lengths ahead of the sport bike.

-A sport bike rider has to be fairly delicate about launching quickly off the line.  Sports bikes are high and short, and with enough power to lift the front tire, or even flip completely over backwards.  Sports bikes are not made for standing start drag races.  The chopper actually looks more like a drag bike, with a long wheelbase and low seat.  You would not have to worry as much about wheelies off the line.

-There are important unknowns, for example the type of tires being used, and the experience/skill of the riders.

-An engine like the Harley V-Twin has a large flywheel.  You can store extra energy in the motor by revving the engine up before the start, then dumping the clutch.  With a sticky rear tire, heavy flywheel, and a long, low bike, it is almost like getting a running start at the line.

In other words, the video has too many random variables other than the horsepower/torque numbers of the engines.

In any kind of actual race, you want horsepower, and you don't need to be concerned if your torque numbers are not the highest.  If you are just driving slowly, and you will rarely run your engine at high rpm, then buy a slow engine and don't worry about power.  You can probably also not worry about the torque either, unless you literally cannot get up the hills or keep up to the speed limit.

Here is an explanation that is about as close to reality as any I have seen.
http://www.automedia.com/Torque_Rules_Horsepower_is_King/pht20040601hp/1

Picture: Cat and horsepower, from Lovemeow.com
http://lovemeow.com/2010/02/cats-and-their-horse-and-deer-friends/

Social Consequences of the Theory of Evolution

There will be gradual changes to the broader civilization as we move away from the religious ideas of biblical Creationism and toward scientific ideas of Evolution.

The Bible has a story of creation that you can believe literally, or allegorically.  Either way it has the power to influence our behaviour. To begin with, it tells us that Men are the dominant sex, and that women were an afterthought, taken from man.  Also, man was created by God in the image of God, once again giving us the idea that men are more important than women.

Another aspect of the creation story is that Man is different from all other animals. In the the story of creation, only man was made in the image of God.  All the other creatures were crafted to look different from God. We are also to understand that Man's morality comes from God, as told in the story of Adam and Eve.  Furthermore we are told that man actually has no innate morality, and is born a natural sinner who needs to obey God, or will suffer punishment.

There are a few other ramifications to this religious story.  It becomes easy to believe that God prefers men to women, and it is also a small step further to believe that one type of man is preferred over other types of men. For example, white men over black men.*   And there is also a very strong support that whoever believes in the "true" Biblical account has the support of God, and anyone of a different faith should be converted or enslaved or killed.

* Although it is not specifically stated in the Bible, white people seem to believe that God is also white.  I can't really prove that of course, but just how many movies, paintings, drawings, have to be made before it's quite clear?

Now what happens to a civilization that is based on such a story of creation, when it finds out that humans were not directly created by God?  That maybe we are not so different from the animals.  Does it mean that now we have no morals any more?  That there is no punishment for being bad?  That our culture and race have no claim to a god-given superiority over any other culture, race, or religion?  That we can't even insist that men are superior to women?

Some people, without fear of a magical all-seeing being overhead, may get a little (or a lot) crazy.  For the vast majority of people, though, I think we will gradually find out that is was not really religion that was stopping them from becoming mass murderers, it was something else built deep inside the human brain.  You can say God put it there, if you wish,or that it evolved that way if you are more scientific.

If you need some proof of this, you should look at animals more closely.  You will notice that animals are capable of kindness.  But you do have to look carefully, as animals, of course do not have exactly the same sense of morality as humans.  But nature is full of heartwarming stories of animals doing good.  And human history has enough examples of religiously motivated people doing unspeakable evil.

Can we predict what will happen to individuals and societies as these scientific ideas spread?  I suspect that we may indeed have more killings and bad behaviours, but I think it is tied more to increasing populations, and new technologies facilitating mass murder, and greater access to information.  I suspect that there is not much real difference in the amount of bad behaviour today or in the future, from what there was a thousand years ago.  No matter what desperate religious conservatives have to say on that subject.  (for example blaming Darwin and the evolution of species for the Nazi holocaust)

But as these ideas of science spread, we will probably find that there will be less religious conflict in the future.  Much more freedom of religion and free thinking.  More equality between women and men.  Less racism.  More kindness to animals, and possibly more care for the natural environment.  Fewer missionaries trying to convert people.  And not a whole lot of difference in average levels of cruelty and violence in society- because it seems more and more apparent, that good and kind behaviour never was a function of religion alone.

Modern Waterproofing Technology for Dummies

One more area of technology that is not so simple any more is waterproofing.

The first thing to understand is that "waterproof" does not mean what it used to mean.  It used to mean "water will not get through this material, ever". Unless you tore the material, or unless the water came in through the open neck or cuff, or front zipper.  It was not completely idiot-proof, but the idea had remained the same for hundreds if not thousands of years, so the human mind could grasp it.

Today, we still have that type of old-fashioned waterproofing, in plastic material.  You can also get it in fiber material (cotton, or man made fibers) if the material is treated with oils, waxes, or tar.  Rock and steel can be  waterproof too, but we rarely make waterproof clothing out of them.

In the good old days, if you wanted to go for a walk or ride in the rain, you put "waterproof" clothing over your other clothing, and went out in the rain. If you still got wet, you at least had a chance to understand why.

So what technology do we have today to make our lives more complicated?  Now we have a new type of material called "waterproof breathable".  The problem with the old fashioned "waterproof" was that it did not breathe, meaning that if you didn't take it off when the rain let up, you would quickly be soaked in water condensing on the inside of the garment, and almost as uncomfortable as if you had simply let the rain hit your normal clothes (which were breathable).

Unfortunately "waterproof breathable" is often called "waterproof", which obviously is the first step in the road to confusion.  Actually, something that is breathable is never truly "waterproof" in the old sense of the word.  Because if you add enough pressure to the water, it will get through a "waterproof breathable" material.  Also, the level of waterproofing decreases with time, so as you get the material dirty, or wash it, the amount of pressure required is reduced.  In a relatively short time (say one season), the waterproof pressure may be so low that rain hitting your jacket at 50 kph can be enough pressure to get through.  Or even just falling rain.

Understanding how this can happen may help you stay dry, but it's complicated.  So I'm going to skip all the mathematical formulas that I don't understand anyway, and say it's due to some kind of magnetic repellency.  In other words, some materials repel water (or vice versa), and other materials attract water.  Some repel really strongly, other weakly.  So your breathable garment is either made of woven fibers that naturally repel water (rare), or the fibers of cotton, polyester, leather etc. are coated with a material that repels water.  These water-repelling substances are called "hydrophobic" which means they are scared of water, or water is scared of them, I'm not sure which.  But you will see water ball up and roll away on a very hydrophobic material, just as though it had seen a ghost.

About ten years ago, there was a spray called Scotchguard that would make ordinary fabrics waterproof-breathable.  It apparently has been withdrawn from the market.  The maker decided that it did not biodegrade in a safe manner, and so stopped promoting and selling it.  The leading sellers of waterproof breathable today are Gore-tex and Nikwax. (and others like them)  I guess their formulas are secret or something, so I don't know any more about them.  Goretex is a specially woven material, which apparently is treated or embedded with hydrophobic material, and the Gore-tex layer is sewed into the garment.  So you probably cannot add Gore-tex to a given garment after it is manufactured.

Nikwax is a spray on, or wash-in material that will work on ordinary non-waterproof fabrics.  For example, Nikwax can work on a polyester shell, ordinary leather boots and gloves, or a pair of cotton jeans, down feathers, or even a paper map.  Now some of these fabrics are not very waterproof to start with, like cotton.  So when you treat a pair of jeans with Nik-wax (even using the proper procedure), they will not be truly waterproof.  But they will not absorb water anywhere near as quickly, and they will dry out faster than natural cotton.  Nikwax is more waterproof on materials that have some degree of natural waterproofing already (like tight weave, or small spaces)

One neat feature of Nikwax is that it is water-based, not oil based.  So it smells better, and feels better when dry.  It's easier to clean and less toxic, much like water based paint vs. oil based paint.

Nikwax has developed a whole range of products that can be quite bewildering, and make you suspect this is all a scam to get more money.  It's not a complete scam as you can actually see that the water will bead up and run off your jeans or boots, for example.  But in the real world, if you are riding in a rainstorm on the 401 with only Nikwaxed jeans, you will get wet.  Also, this treatment wears off quite fast, so you may treat your jeans, then never encounter a rain storm before it wears off, which can happen if you need to wash them again.

Picture: An insect walking on water using hydrophobic feet.  This is not a trick or a miracle, I'm sure you have seen this on many ponds in the summer.  http://www.asknature.org/product/4feddb09a84cb65ac0ed01d2109fa731

Again the Question, Why are Universities so Liberal?

Why are university professors mostly liberals?  If this question is being asked at all, that may be a sign there is something wrong with our thinking patterns.  I always thought it was pretty obvious.  But not so obvious to someone who does not understand the traditional role of a University, or the traditional role of liberals in society.

Here is an article in the National Post, where again this question comes up.  Why so many liberals at universities?
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/09/marginalized-and-on-the-defensive-university-conservatives-forced-to-grow-tougher/

Let's just go over the basics again.  Liberal is not a dirty word, at least not before Rush Limbaugh and Fox News made it so.

Definition of liberal

lib·er·al  (lbr-l, lbrl)
adj.
1.
a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Now lets just check what a conservative is:

con·ser·va·tive  (kn-sûrv-tv)
adj.
1. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
2. Traditional or restrained in style: a conservative dark suit.

Finally, can I let someone from the early part of the twentieth century explain the traditional role of a University?

Essays: English and American.
The Harvard Classics.  1909–14.
The Idea of a University. I. What Is a University?

John Henry Newman

IF I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could, what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studium Generale, or “School of Universal Learning.” This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot;—from all parts; else, how will you find professors and students for every department of knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can there be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this description; but such as this a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country.

Based on these definitions, and the idea of a university being people of diverse backgrounds coming together to exchange ideas and/or learn new ideas, I think I can come up with a theory.  A liberal is, by definition, a person open to new ideas, a person wanting to learn.  A conservative is by nature a person opposed to new ideas.  The highest aspiration of a University is to encourage new ideas.

All through history, every time people who were interested in learning came together to form a university, ideas have been exchanged, new ideas have flourished.  Sometimes the authorities did not like what they saw, and shut down the universities.  Sometimes the authorities were tolerant of new ideas, and allowed the university to exist. Sometimes they even gave money to the universities.  History provides a number of examples where societies supporting free-thinking universities flourished in arts, social justice, and in technology. Those that suppressed freedom of thought in universities tended to be held back in those areas.

A modern North American conservative's idea of higher learning is really either "job training", or a place for indoctrination into some religion.  Conservative places of learning tend to have predefined goals, and encourage conformity.  For example, a conservative think tank, or a bible study college.  Conservatives are more interested in money, so they are more likely to go straight into business, using their father's connections to guarantee a good job.  If they do go to a free-thinking traditional "University" it is often just a recreational interlude, with spring breaks, wild frat parties, drugs, football and such.  After four years of being wasted, then they collect their degree and get a high paying job using their father's business connections.

So that is the answer to the question "Why are there so many liberals at university?"  It is because a true university favours the open minded approach to learning new things.  It is not because universities deliberately try to exclude Republicans, the very wealthy, the conformists, the racists, the bigots, and the religious fanatics. It is because the basis of higher learning is to be open minded, and that's the only way to have a true university. Conservative "universities", rarely generate any new ideas.  In fact their entire raison d'etre tends to be the opposition to new ideas. (Like Evangelical universities, still fighting to suppress the Theory of Evolution.)

The picture is from the University of Minnesota at Duluth, the Unfair Campaign against racism.  This (very likely liberal) poster has drawn criticism from white conservatives in the U.S.A., who do not think that white Americans are racist.  An example of how liberals seem to dominate university campuses.
http://unfaircampaign.org/resources/see-it/

Can We Agree the Earth is Old

There is an argument about the age of the earth.  On one side you have many scientists claiming it is millions of years old, based on observations of the world around us, and you have some religious fundamentalists who claim it is less than 10,000 years old, based on reading the Bible.

In the USA, people are split on the age of the Earth. Also the question of the age of the Earth is connected to the issue of evolution (as proposed by Darwin).  I thought that almost half Americans believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old, and also believe Evolution is a hoax. There may be other ways to interpret poll data, but even if only 10% of Americans believe in the young Earth, it's still a very high number for a modern secular state.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2680/nearly-half-the-u-s-population-believes-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old

This summer, while travelling in Montana I came across a large, new, and I assume well funded, museum that claimed to prove the Earth was not old and there was no Evolution.  There are 16 such museums in the US, and a few in Canada too.

In a recent development, Pat Robertson, a well known TV evangelist, has said on his TV program that the Earth may be much older than 10,000 years.  A video of Pat making his statement is here (starting at 1:21).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Htf9ylcwQc

Pat Robertson, in his TV show, apparently also calls for an end to this fight between science and fundamentalist religion. I feel kind of strange about it, but just this once I think that Pat Robertson and I agree on something.  Unfortunately, people are already starting to defend their beliefs against Pat Robertson's call for reconciliation.

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/12/the-truth-about-dinosaurs-and-why-pat-robertson-is-wrong-2510316.html

On the other hand, some other people that I usually don't agree with are defending Pat Roberston's stance.  Here is Michael Savage's take on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky38mU_KHiM

The next link is a website that tries to reconcile religion and science, and I think does a convincing job without ridiculing either side.  Ihe website takes a second look at the Bible, to see if it really does say the Earth is less than 10,000 years old (which apparently it does not). Then Godandscience.org  re-examines the work done by James Ussher, Bishop in the Church of Ireland, about 200 years before Darwin's theory of Evolution was first proposed.  They find several flaws in Ussher's reasoning.

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/age_of_the_earth.html

I have been trying to make the same point for a couple of years now, and so I consider it a step forward that an influential public figure has come out with the statement that people are not going to hell for believing the Earth is millions of years old.

So now I have my answer to the question "When God created the Earth, did He create the icecap in Greenland?"  Because if you drill through that icecap, you can find layers of ice much older than 10,000 years.   Seems kind of mean to send people to hell for believing the Earth is older than the bottom layer of ice in the Greenland glacier.

Scientific advances are made in little steps that usually take a lot of background preparation.  The theory of evolution is an example of one of those steps. Now, about 150 years later, Pat Robertson publicly rejects Bishop Ussher's theory on the age of the Earth.  I guess Pat has had quite a few years to think about this question.  After all, we know of his involvement with diamond mining, which I assume would mean contact with scientifically trained geologists, and most of them believe that diamonds were not made in less than 10,000 years.

I hope that before long, we can get a little more movement in this direction.  Then the young Earth theory can join the flat Earth theory, and the Fixed-Earth-at-the-centre-of-the-Universe theory that we no longer have to teach in public schools.

Picture: I think this is in a Young Earth Creationist "museum".  From this website
http://www.policymic.com/articles/9604/creationism-uses-dinosaurs-to-lure-kids-into-radical-ideas-but-scientists-should-not-care-too-much

Is a God Gene More likely than a Scientific Gene?

I looked up "God Gene" in Wikipedia, and I'm kind of puzzled about why it got the name "God Gene", unless God Gene is just a catchy name which helps get people thinking.
As the author admits, even if a God Gene exists, it is not proof God exists.

Looking for a God Gene is based on an incorrect, unspoken assumption, which is that humans are rational.  So apparently we need a genetic code to explain why some humans have faith in God.  The simple fact is that most humans are quite irrational in many ways, driven by their passions, habits, and desire to impress others, that our senses are not only imprecise but often totally wrong.  Our memories are fallible, and we sometimes cannot distinguish dreams from reality, or even hot from cold.  All these things should be considered before we start talking about a "God Gene".

It is true that religion has been part of many, if not all human cultures through history.  This can easily be understood if we realize that humans are not perfect thinking machines, and are subject to illusions and distractions. In that case, do we really need a gene to explain why people believe things that other people tell them without any proof?

From Wikipedia, here is what the God Gene is supposed to do.

" the God gene (VMAT2) is a physiological arrangement that produces the sensations associated, by some, with mystic experiences "

The mystic experience can be

•  feeling the presence of God
•  tendency to be totally absorbed in some activity such as reading
•  a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe
•  an openness to believe things not literally provable, such as ESP

And there are also some other religious phenomena such as faith healing, miracles, visions etc.

Maybe we should be looking for a "Scientific Gene" instead of a "God Gene".  For one thing, it would be much easier to define.  A Scientific Gene would predispose people to ask questions, to know the difference between truth and delusion.  An ability to look at the world and see things as they really are. The ability to see both sides of a story, and shades of grey in the middle. It would include the ability to compromise and use reason and logic.  I believe the scientific gene is much more rare than the God Gene.  Actually, it is logical that if the Scientific Gene exists, then so would the God Gene, in that the God Gene would simply be the off state of the Scientific Gene.
 http://blog.beliefnet.com/astrologicalmusings/2009/11/jupiter-and-the-god-gene.html
Picture from and of course, Time Magazine

Can Higher Speeds Save You Gas?

Getting better gas mileage at higher speeds goes against my intuitive understanding, which has been reinforced by many years of experience. Apparently some new research indicates that going faster can save you money at the pumps, that the optimum speed for fuel economy is over 100 kph.

I thought this might be similar to the campaign a few years ago to convince drivers that using a car air conditioner could save them gas. At that time, I looked into it and concluded that it was baseless.

In that blog the Lost Motorcyclist (me) said "Here is another debate pitting science and reason against vested interests and wishful thinking." I found this idea had already been written up in Wikipedia, with references. It was on an entry called "Fuel Economy in Automobiles", subheading "Speed and Fuel Economy Studies".

Quoted text

"The most recent study[16] indicates greater fuel efficiency at higher speeds than earlier studies; for example, some vehicles achieve better mileage at 65 mph (105 km/h) rather than at 45 mph (72 km/h),[16]"

I read the reference given "[16]" and found the graphs and charts started on page 27. The report itself referred to other reports, and so I went back to Wikipedia for another research tack.

Two graphs were also given in this Wikipedia section. Interestingly, each graph seemed to give a completely different result. One graph showing the fuel economy vs. speed of eight different cars, and in every case, fuel economy was better at lower speeds. The other graph was completely different, showing peaks of fuel economy for every vehicle in the range of 50 to 60 miles per hour. The source for this second graph has disappeared. The source for the first graph is available at

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/fuel_consumptio.html

There is a possible explanation for this difference in fuel economy vs speed. Years ago, I believe most scientists and researchers were working with cars that had standard transmissions, and were left in high gear during the test. A standard transmission's efficiency does not vary much with speed. However, it seems that now many tests are being conducted on automatic transmission cars, which brings up a whole new set of variables.

Automatic transmissions do not have constant efficiency at various speeds, and the type of automatic transmission with an oil fluid torque converter may indeed be more efficient at high speeds. A torque converter decouples the engine from the rear wheels, and all power is driven from a turbine which turns at engine speed, which spins the oil in a housing that in turn spins another propeller driving the rear wheels through a gearbox. That is why manual transmissions are more efficient than automatics with torque converters (i.e. 99% of automatics). I don't know for sure what the efficiency vs. speed of these torque converters would be but I do know that some cars have a device that bypasses the torque converter at a higher speed, to achieve similar efficiency to a manual transmission. That could be one factor leading to new results that cars get better gas mileage at higher speed.

But there is another major factor, and that is the gear selection. In the past it was simply assumed that the car would be run in high gear, and that it would not be shifted to a lower gear at lower speed, as this downshift would result in lesser fuel economy. I'm not so sure today that these cars are run in high gear only, in fact the multiple peaks seem to indicate downshifts taking place as the car slows down.


Here is a thread on the Ecomodders blog, debating this point.

In that forum is a link to another blog by "King of the Road" where he has all kinds of mathematical equations and test results from his own vehicles. The results seem to indicate maximum efficiency of 50 mph. But to me the most telling point is later when he answers a comment with

"Yes, those calculations are run based on numbers gathered on (nearly) level ground, with the transmission using whatever gear the engine map assigns in cruise."

Do people really think an automatic transmission shifting itself is not worth mentioning, even with detailed explanation of experimental methods?

My conclusion is that this story may indeed have some truth, but only if you are using an automatic transmission, and the automatic is doing certain things at arbitrary speeds - which to me seems to be unscientific, and yet it also appears acceptable to many people.

I drive a manual transmission, but a few months ago I was driving my mother's car (an automatic with torque converter). I forgot to pick up gas at the last station on the 401, and with the needle on empty, decided to drive the remaining 40 km. to her home on back roads at a very low 60 kph. I don't think her transmission shifted down on me, as it is only a three speed (not the six speeds like some newer cars). I thought for sure at the time I was getting exceptionally good gas mileage, but in her 15 year old Chevy Cavalier I had no instant MPG display like many newer cars have. In the end, we did make it home without running dry.

Picture: Some ultra low speed driving from http://blog.coredump.ca/2009/06/03/photo-friday-high-speed/

Time to Reopen the Climategate Debate

Most Americans now believe that global warming is a hoax. Not only that, but many also believe that science itself is unreliable, and believe that most scientists in any field of research will fudge figures in order to obtain research grants. Most of this ill-will came about because of the controversy around global warming, and specifically the stolen emails from climate researchers that seemed to indicate they were using underhanded methods to "fake" global warming. (A.K.A.Climategate).

Making things worse, science itself seems to still be locked in mortal combat with the religious fundamentalists about the theory of evolution, and the fundamentalists are lending their financial resources and publicity to the fight against real science. (I use the term real science because the fundamentalists' latest tactic is to claim to be an alternate, "honest" type of science where the Earth is only 6,000 years old)

It is really sad to see popular opinion turn against science. I can understand my sister, who is a fundamentalist Christian, thinking that science is evil. I have a harder time accepting that a friend I made in Africa with CUSO believes the same thing. Even harder to believe that old college friends, from the science program at university, also believe that global warming is a hoax. These are just the people I know personally who believe the Climategate scandal. I assume the public opinion polls are right, and that many more people believe the same way.

But apparently last week there was a bit of a breakthrough. An independent voice took another look at global warming data, to see if the Climategate scandal was true. A report came out by Richard Muller, who is a scientist who in the past was skeptical about global warming. Richard Muller obtained funding (some from oil companies, apparently), assembled a team, and embarked on a project to find out if the data from Climategate did indeed indicate warming or not.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/chilling-news-for-climate-sceptics-20111027-1mm5d.html

The above article indicates that his independent effort corroborates exactly what global warming scientists have been saying.

Does this mean the end of the controversy? Of course not. This report has been given almost zero air time, compared to the massive publicity that was given to the stolen emails. In fact it was given almost no air time even compared to the coverage of MacDonald's new McRib, according to Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (Oct 26, 2011). Also, Forbes Magazine ran an opinion piece by James Taylor "The Birth of a Straw Man" that basically said Richard Muller had not done any new research and that Global Warming was still a hoax.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/10/26/the-death-of-global-warming-skepticism-or-the-birth-of-straw-men/

The Forbes article, if you choose to read it, claims Richard Muller's research is a failure, because it does not turn up anything new, and because it does not answer the question of whether or not global warming is man-made. Well, of course not. It was intended to only look at climate data from weather stations - because that was issue of the Climategate controversy. It was a very comprehensive study to see if the data had indeed been fudged to get grants, as was claimed by the press. And it found the climate scientists not guilty. Too bad people like James Taylor are given so much space in influential magazines to air opinions that a fifth grader should be able to rebut.

Of course, Richard Muller's study is only a small part of the huge amount of research being done on Global Warming. True, it brings no new information to light, but it is an independent fact checking on the scientists who were accused of fudging their figures to obtain grants. They didn't. Now can we resume an intelligent conversation about Global Warming, or is it too late?

OK then, while we wait, how good is that new McRib burger?

What Can We Learn From Monty Hall?

There is game show called "Let's Make a Deal". Although this show has no pretensions of intellectualism, it has created a logical puzzle that fools nearly everybody. I heard about this puzzle on TV a few days ago, where a university professor presented the problem, and gave the correct answer, but he did not have time to explain fully. I was sure he was wrong, and continued to try to figure it out most of the night. By the morning, I was even more convinced he was wrong, so I decided to look it up on Wikipedia. You can find it in this entry "The Monty Hall Problem."

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

This entry goes through several different mathematical proofs, only a few of which I understood. And now I realize I was wrong. I had thought it didn't matter, but when Monty offers to let you change to a different door, you should always take the offer.

But why do well educated, mathematically trained humans almost always get fooled by this problem, when apparently even a pigeon can typically figure it out with time? In my opinion, the deceptive part is that Monty Hall is consciously trying to help you, while every normal human instinct would be to fear that he is trying to beat you.

Here is the problem. You have three doors. One door has a car, the other doors have gag gifts. First you are asked to choose a door, and you can win what is behind the door you choose. Monty then opens a door with a gag gift, and offers you the choice of switching to the remaining (still closed) door. Should you switch or not?

Most people (including mathematical wizzes and "The Lost Motorcyclist") instinctively figure that the odds of winning the car are exactly the same, whether you switch or not. Au contraire, your odds of winning are 66% if you switch, and 33% if you don't switch.

This is all explained, with several different proofs in the wikipedia entry. If you wish to figure it out for yourself, take a few days before continuing to look at the answer.

Now are you sure it doesn't matter whether you switch or not? This is an explanation of why you should switch in my own words. You have a 33% chance of winning when you pick your door, but that leaves Monty with a 66% chance of getting the car behind one of his two doors. Then Monty gets a chance to look behind the other two doors, and he eliminates the gag gift. Then he offers you the chance to switch with his best door, even though it contains a car 2/3 of the time. That's why you should take it.

What I think we should learn from Monty Hall is that strangers are not always out to win. In some extremely rare situations, they want you to win. But it's probably pretty rare, so most of the time you'd still be better off being suspicious of "generous offers". And that includes leasing a car vs. buying, in case you don't win the car on "Let's Make a Deal".

Tigers and Pigs Living Together Does Not Disprove Darwin

This is a public service for creationists, who want to give up the story of Adam and Eve as literal truth, but have a lot of trouble understanding evolution, because of all the misconceptions they have been fed.

For Born Again Christians who would like to become more integrated in mainstream western society, here is an explanation of why tiger cubs in a zoo being fed by a mother pig does not disprove evolution.

http://creation.com/tigers-and-pigs-together

One of the supporting stories of the Born Again Christian creation story is that before the fall of Adam and Eve, none of the animals ate each other. Every creature was in harmony.

"The Bible teaches that the original diet of both humans and animals was vegetarian (Genesis 1:29–30). Thus there was no death of humans or vertebrate animals, which the Hebrew Bible calls nephesh chayyāh (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה). Plants and invertebrates are not described that way, so are not ‘living creatures’ in the same biblical sense. It was only the Fall of Adam that brought death and suffering into the world (Genesis 3:19, Romans 8:20–22) when God cursed the whole creation."

http://creation.com/skeptics-challenge-a-god-of-love-created-a-killer-jellyfish

Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, which stated that animals had evolved their size, shape and most other characteristics, in order to better survive. In other words, every characteristic of an animal was in some way to help either get food, to avoid being food, or to reproduce efficiently. Most animals have very little that is not needed for survival. Almost everything is fine tuned for hunting or defence. This would tend to support the idea of evolution, rather than creation as a vegetarian creature.

However, there are cases in nature where animals help each other, or do not try to kill each other. And that has been taken as proof that before Adam and Eve wrecked everything, God actually intended for all these newly created animals to live together in vegetarian peace and harmony.

So let's take an example of a mother lion, not killing and eating all her young. If the theory of evolution says that the strong must eat the weak, then the lion mother, being strong, would normally eat the weaker lion cubs. But that's not really what the theory of evolution says.

Darwin did not say that the strong must kill the weak. He said that the species would evolve according to which animals' young survived best. By the way, survival of the strongest was not Darwin's idea either, it is a simple observation that did not take a giant intellect to figure out.

A second example, two wolves help each other to hunt and kill a caribou, instead of one wolf trying to kill and eat the other wolf. Again, any wolves that have a stronger instinct to kill and eat each other than to join forces against a Caribou, will not survive very long. The big wolf, eating the smaller wolf, gets a meal but then may starve to death. So both wolves die, probably before even having any young. But two wolves teaming up will be able to hunt Caribou more successfully for the rest of their lives. So therefore wolves with an instinct to hunt together will survive better, and so will their young.

Now that the basics are understood, it should not be too hard to figure out that inter species cooperation sometimes can happen too, based on exactly the same principles. There are so many different cases, I could not explain them all, but anyone should be able to, once their creationist misunderstandings of "Darwinism" are cleared up.


quote: http://creation.com/skeptics-challenge-a-god-of-love-created-a-killer-jellyfish

"From this biblical framework, Christians can present a logical answer to any scoffer’s challenge. Any specific case is likely to fall into these general categories of explanation:2

(a) Those things that are now used as DAS (defence-attack structures) may not have been designed for this purpose, and had a different function before the Fall. They reached their present function by degeneration, e.g. mutations.

(b) The design information for DAS was already present before the Fall, perhaps in latent or masked form. God foreknew the Fall, so it’s likely that He preprogrammed creatures for the information needed to survive in a fallen world."

From the previous quote I would simply ignore point (a), once you know that (b) is "God foreknew the fall", and so built in all these defence and survival systems. To me, the explanation of God planning ahead for the fall is opening another door to a convincing case that God was not really too serious about the Garden of Eden. Apparently His anger at Adam and Eve, and His "cursing all creation" was not much more than acting with mock anger about something he knew would happen and had actually planned for.

So that's one more problem cleared up for Christians tired of arguing against scientists, and looking to be more integrated in modern society.

Picture: A tiger not eating a pig. From here: http://www.savincent.com/today/2004/07/20040726.html

Bird Designs and Intelligent Designs

Last night I was at the monthly meeting of the Kitchener Waterloo Field Naturalists Club (KWFN). I am a member of the club mostly because of Mary Ann's interest in bird watching and nature. But I have to admit that I am not as highly interested in birding as she is. However last night three people from "Wild Ontario" did a presentation at the monthly meeting that even got my attention.

http://www.kwfn.ca/meetings.html
http://www.ourwildontario.ca/

They brought four live birds to the meeting, a Kestrel, a Broad Winged Hawk, a Great Horned Owl, and a Turkey Vulture. These birds had been rescued, but because of permanent injuries it was not possible to release them back into the wild. So the group has a public education program that uses the birds to teach people about nature. I certainly learned a few things from their talk, which seemed to be geared to hold the interest of anyone from five years old up, and I'm thinking even the most avid birders at the club meeting must have learned a few things too.

Some of the things I learned?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Falcon
http://earthsky.org/biodiversity/fastest-bird

I was especially interested in the adaptations that give the birds advantages in finding food. For example, the Peregrine Falcon is the world's fastest living thing at 349 kilometers per hour.

Peregrines use their dive speed to catch flying birds. And no it is not considered "cheating" to achieve this speed in a 45 degree dive. In nature there is no cheating, there is only catching food or not being caught for food.

The Kestrel uses its ultraviolet vision to see vole tracks. I never heard about this before, but apparently this discovery was made in about 1995. The Kestrel can also hover in one place, which not many birds can do.

The Great Horned Owl has three dimensional hearing and binocular (or 3D) vision. Humans also have 3D vision (useful for going to movies like Drive Angry 3D), but many birds have eyes on each side of their head which give a wider field of view, but give up binocular vision to do it.

The Turkey Vulture has quite a few adaptations that allow it to feed on the intestines of dead animals. While the Owl has no sense of smell, and therefore can feed on skunk, the Turkey Vulture can smell ethyl mercaptan, a gas produced when bodies begin to decay. This ability has been used to test gas pipelines for leaks, as vultures will gather if the line leaks and ethyl mercaptan is being pumped through it.

This presentation was an extraordinary opportunity to observe close up some birds I would rarely be able to see in the wild. Staring face to face with a Great Horned Owl, guess who blinked first? I have to admit that standing outside in the cold hoping to see a Spotted Wood Thrush a hundred meters away is not as much fun for me as having these birds inches from me in a warm, well lit room. I am obviously not a natural at birding.

But during the talk, my mind was wandering a bit. I was also thinking about comments I have seen on the Internet about "Intelligent Design". I'm sure many Fundamentalists would consider these birds further proof that it would take God's own intelligence to design all these wondrous abilities. I see it as quite the opposite. If God designed these birds, I would give him an A+. If he produced the bible, that would be about a D-. Unlike studying the bible, when you are studying nature, the more you learn, the more impressed you have to be. And sooner or later, I hope this could result in humans starting to have more respect for the environment than for an old book.

Picture: A Turkey Vulture. This is not Socrates, the one-winged Vulture from the show, it is a picture from this site. Socrates lost a wing in a car accident 23 years ago, and was the original bird in the Ontario Wild program.

The Storytelling Tradition: Creation Stories

Most, if not all societies, have creation myths. Yes, we call them myths because they are made up. I know that Christian Fundamentalists would be upset at the suggestion that their creation story is also a myth, so for the sake of avoiding an argument, I will leave their story out of it for now.

Last night I went to the Historical Storytelling Series put on by the Friends of the Waterloo Region Museum. It is on every Tuesday night, and last night it was "Oral Traditions Along the Grand" by Aaron Bell, an Ojibway storyteller. Among other stories, he told two different First Nation stories of the creation, and not only that, tried to tell what purpose was served by these stories in popular culture. I had supposed that it was people wanting to know answers to questions like "Why are we here", "where do we come from". I forgot that there may be another more important purpose to creation myths.

http://www.ojibwaystoryteller.com/Storyteller/osindex.htm

Although creation myths are common to almost every primitive or advanced culture on Earth, it is not because of any need for a scientific explanation of creation. They are universal because they all basically teach respect for elders, and for ancient wisdom.

There are certain common elements that pop up in creation stories. Not every creation story is the same, but for example all the North American Indian (or First Nation) stories feature the character of the "trickster". This is the character who introduces an element trickery to creation. To the Haida, it was the crow. To the Chippewa it was Nanabush (who could take any form he wanted), to others it was Glooscap, the spellings and names vary a lot.

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

Immediately, I thought of the trickster character in the Judeo-Christian creation story, the talking snake, who tricks Eve into eating the apple, which gets humans kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and explains pretty much all the evil in the world.

I am not trying to make the point that there is any kind of moral equivalency between the Haida and the Fundamentalist Christians. The point I'm trying to make is that creation stories are not told to educate us about science. They are not there to challenge our knowledge of the world, or to be debated and dissected, or to be proven right or wrong. They are there as a means of teaching respect for elders, and for ancestors. They are a way to teach respect for the environment, respect for God, respect for ancient customs and knowledge.

At their very most basic level, creation myths are stories, told by the elders to the younger generations. Only stories that get the attention and lodge in their memories of the younger generation will succeed. Those stories are passed on for many generations.

It seems very natural to me that younger people would turn to their elders and ask where they came from. After all, the elders were there before the younger people were born. The story of their birth is itself essentially a story of creation that is as interesting as any other. From there it is not too far a stretch for the elders to recount the stories they were told from one generation further back. And then, (why not?) since the youngsters are in a listening mood, give them the ultimate story of the creation of the very first human. Just to complete the picture.

One other thing all the creation stories have in common (almost by definition), is that they tell how the first humans were created. The creation stories do not focus on where other things came from, in almost every story something is there already. In some cases, the beavers, crows, muskrats are already there when man is created. I guess in the Jewish story, God and Satan and the angels are there already. Not much time is taken explaining the origin of the rest of the universe, very little time in the story is taken explaining the creation of other animals. Naturally, a creation story tends to focus mostly on the creation of the humans.

Stories of creations are first and foremost a part of the human storytelling tradition. These stories lose much of their traditional function in society when they are copied into a book. That function is to bring elders and the new generation together in mutual respect.

Picture: The Storyteller by Howard Terpning, I got it from this blog:
http://robertmilliman.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/and-the-most-effective-teachers-are-storytellers/

The Cambrian Explosion was not the Garden of Eden

Charles Darwin wrote that there was an event called the Cambrian (Cam-bri-an)** Explosion that he found difficult to explain in terms of evolution. And here we are a hundred and fifty years later, with websites and youtube videos from creationist groups stating that the Cambrian Explosion positively disproves Evolution.



http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/timeline/gallery/slide_43.html

Why did Darwin bring this on himself? Why not just pretend it doesn't exist, just not mention it. I guess that's where scientists have a flaw compared to religious people. Scholars and scientists need to look at both sides of an issue, because their reasoning is based on evidence. Other scientists would already know about the Cambrian Explosion, and so Darwin had to at least address the issue even if he didn't have all the answers at the time.

Unfortunately, creationists point to Charles Darwin's mention of the Cambrian Explosion, and call it his admission of defeat. Creationists do not think like scientists, and to them, any admission of weakness is a red flag. To a fundamentalist, strength lies in unwavering faith, and the ability to overcome evidence and logic.

The fundamentalist websites usually overstate the suddenness of the Cambrian Explosion, and also suggest that many present day animals appeared at this time, with no previous fossils. This amounts to a deception. Many Fundamentalist bible believers mistakenly think the Cambrian Explosion happened in one day, and in that day all current animals abruptly appeared. But to a scientist studying evolution, ten million years is sudden, or "abrupt". And can be referred to as an explosion. I've said before that scientists do get misunderstood by ordinary people. Ordinary people have their explosions in a matter of seconds, not millions of years.

But I personally don't see how a Creationist could claim a win, even if the Cambrian Explosion was a one day event (which it wasn't). The Cambrian explosion did not produce Adam or Eve, it didn't even produce monkeys. All that business about man (supposedly) descending from the apes happened long after the Cambrian Explosion. The first primates appeared a hundred million years ago, so that leaves 400 million years of evolution after the Cambrian Explosion, and before the first monkey-like animal evolved.

The way I see it, the entire argument about the Cambrian Explosion by the creationists is like a rear guard action. For a comparison, consider a retreating army blowing up bridges. Sure it's nice for them, it gives them more time to retreat and maybe regroup and counter attack. But blowing up bridges is not winning, it is trying to slow down the enemy, and sometimes it is very effective.

Since Darwin's time, all new evidence has supported and extended the theory of evolution, and in fact other lesser "Explosions" were found such as the Avalon explosion.
ttp://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/2580/the-avalon-explosion

So the Cambrian Explosion cannot prove that Eve ate the apple and then Adam and Eve were both kicked out of the Garden of Eden 4000 years ago. But distorting it may help slow down the scientists by misinforming people, and obstructing public education. It gives more time for a campaign to convert as many people as possible to Fundamentalism. At the same time, Biblical people accuse the Darwinians of helping Hitler to Kill the Jews. That's how fundamentalists fight against the forces of Satan and his black magic.

** CAM-bri-an sounds funny to me, because I live near a city called Cambridge that is pronounced CAME-bridge. Good thing I'm not doing a youtube video.

Time line picture from http://www.myspace.com/roiscience/blog/349951677 (originally Encyclopedia Britannica)

T-shirt Picture: The anti-Cambrian Explosion argument fits on a T-shirt, but not on a bumper sticker.
http://www.idofcourse.com/tshirts.html

You Can't Handle Demoting Pluto

By: The Lost Motorcyclist, February, 2011

Science is not a natural way of thinking for humans. You would think the human mind would be able to grasp such an apparently simple concept as science. After all, how hard is it, really, to make judgments based on evidence, observation, logic and testing, with no human bias? When you consider the alternatives, it becomes a little bit more obvious why scientific thought remains an alien concept to the average human. Before science came along, decisions were made based on tradition, habit, superstition, conformity, and peer pressure. And most assuredly were influenced by prejudice and bias.

The Pluto controversy is a perfect example of scientific thought versus traditional thought. A scientist would look at Pluto, in light of all the recent discoveries of asteroids in our solar system, and make the scientific observation that Pluto was actually more like an asteroid than a planet. A scientist would say that, to be fair, either Pluto gets demoted to an asteroid, or we promote every similar object to planet status, and apparently there are a lot of similar objects to Pluto. To a person who can think scientifically, without bias, the answer is obvious. Pluto is not a planet.

But scientists don't think like humans. I asked Mary Ann how many planets there were. She said ten. What? She counted them off for me. "Men Very Early Made Jars Stand Up Nearly Perpendicular." I was floored, I never heard of those planets before. Then I started to recover. "That's only nine." She said "I heard they found another one a few years ago."

Mary Ann is not a scientific person. She does not like Star Trek. She does not like most science fiction. I'm guessing that most people who understand scientific reasoning would like science fiction. Mary Ann does not enjoy speculating as to what might happen in the future based on scientific discoveries that might be made one day. She is already suspicious of scientific discoveries we have right now. Cell phones, Facebook, 52" HD TV's, Surround sound, leaf blowers, and just about anything that can be found at Wal-Mart.

So I informed Mary Ann that there were eight planets, that Perpendicular had been demoted to an asteroid. She seemed resigned, but not terribly worried. Maybe she thought I was talking about a science fiction movie and none of this was real.

But other than Mary Ann, this demotion of Pluto caused considerable controversy, even within the scientific community. I was reading about it in "Unscientific America", a book by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. This is taken from their book:

"even as scientists get up each morning and resume the task of remaking the world, the American public all too rarely follows along. This alienation leads to recurrent flare-ups like the Pluto episode, in which people suddenly catch wind of what scientists have been doing and react with anger, alarm, or worse."

Very few people think in a true scientific way. Most people's thought process is about the same as it has been since the beginning of the human species. We seek the "truth" and then we hang on to that "truth" no matter what. It is uncomfortable, even painful to have to change our "truths", when it turns out the truths do not hold up to further investigation. It is painful for humans to change their truths, and they will do anything to stop that pain. In the old days they used to lock up, stone, or burn scientists at the stake. Now we are apparently in a scientific age, we can't do that any more. But it does not mean people have to listen to the scientists. A modern alternative to burning at the stake is to look for selected scientists who have more comforting truths for us. Or to just not think about it at all, or react with anger when we are told that Pluto is no longer a planet.

Darwin Did Not Inspire Hitler

One idea proposed by the Born Again Christians is that without Charles Darwin, Hitler would not have started World War 2, and would not have tried to exterminate the Jews.

Of course, the reason they want to show this connection is that Hitler is considered so evil, that if you can somehow connect Hitler to your enemy, your enemy becomes as evil as Hitler. And therefore your enemy's logic will be disproved.

Well I intend to prove the exact opposite. Charles Darwin could not possibly have inspired Hitler to exterminate the Jews. On the contrary, Hitler drew much of his inspiration from the very Christian southern USA slave holding states, including the tell-tale use of the word Aryan.

But to get back to Charles Darwin. It is true that Darwin preceded Hitler, thereby making it possible for Hitler to have read the Origin of Species, and natural selection. But the idea that "only the strongest survive" was not invented by Charles Darwin. The idea of "the strongest survive" has been with us ever since humans have been able to think. It is the idea that has fuelled wars since the beginning. I'm pretty sure Genghis Khan operated on the theory of "the strongest survive". There has never been a battle in history where the defeated leader ever said "well, by golly who would have guessed that the weakest would lose the battle. Next time we will make sure we are the strongest."

I think the confusion exists between the inputs and the outputs of Darwin's thought process. One input to Darwin's theory was the well known law of "survival of the strongest". The output (and here was Darwin's original thought) was that evolutionary changes result from survival of the fittest. What Darwin was saying was that by eliminating the unfit, that a species would begin to morph into a different form.

Born Agains argue that Hitler wanted to "evolve" the German race by purifying it of its bad elements (Killing the mentally handicapped, the genetic mutants, the Jews, etc.). And the way to purify it was to kill the non-pure members. Again, this was not an idea that Darwin thought up. Long before Darwin, humans had learned to modify a species by killing or breeding it selectively to achieve the traits they wanted. Dogs, horses, pigeons, seeds. This is called "Selective breeding", and has been known almost as long as "survival of the strongest".

So Darwin did not invent either "survival of the fittest" or "selective breeding". And those are the two ideas that Born Again Christians accuse Darwin of inventing that lead directly to Hitler. But because both those ideas had existed long before Darwin, that logically refutes the connection between Darwin and the Nazi holocaust.

But there is more. Hitler also needed a something else to be able to go ahead with the holocaust. He needed a moral justification, which he would never get from Darwin. And he needed an example of some other country that had benefited from genocide and racism. He needed to look no further than the Christian USA, which used the Bible to effectively argue for the moral goodness of slavery and racial superiority during the time of the conquest of the Indians and the enslavement of the Africans. And, it seemed to Hitler that the USA had achieved remarkable success following this path of religiously sanctioned genocide and racism.

I forgot to mention one other thing Hitler needed and that was maybe just a touch of insanity.

In any case, I wish the Born Again Christians would let up on their endless attacks on Darwin. It is far more likely that, without the USA, Hitler could never have thought up these ideas of genocide leading to wealth and power. Charles Darwin had absolutely nothing to do with it.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/markwmann/kirk-camerons-darwinhitler-connection-e5y
http://www.darwinistdictators.com/articles/hitler.html

Luddites of the Future

Things change in our modern world. If you think about sailing ships from 1000 AD to 1800 AD, there was very little change in those 800 years. A sailor from 1000 AD could have probably figured out a sailing ship in 1800 AD without too much trouble. But in the last 100 years, the changes have been enormous and its mainly due to technology driven by scientific discoveries.

Human societies have not naturally evolved in to keep up with such a fast pace of technological change. People are more comfortable with gradual change, where people can raise their children with more or less the same values, skills, knowledge that they had themselves. When change occurs too rapidly, parts of society retreat mentally into the past.

How can we tell when and if we are retreating into the past? I'm guessing that religion can be in indicator. People who convert to religions that oppose scientific advances would be an indication that science is moving too fast for them.

Just as people in the early 20th century opposed electricity in general, today people oppose new green energy wind turbines.

I am not trying to pass judgment and say just how fast science is supposed to advance. I agree that at times it goes too fast, and I can think of some examples: The atomic bomb, drilling for oil over a mile under water, the technology for cloning humans, cell phones in cars, nuclear power plants, genetic engineering, the AK47 assault rifle, poison gas, biological warfare, air travel. All seem to exceed human civilizations ability to control them properly.

Today, we can see evidence that some people think things are changing too fast. There are religions and political movements in the USA that would like to take us back to America's golden age. (Probably the cowboy era)

• Opposed to new immigrants coming in
• opposed to restricted gun use
• opposed to destruction of the environment (pesticides and clear cutting for example)
• Opposed to equal opportunity programs for minorities
• Opposed to finding alternate green sources of energy
• Opposed to the theory of evolution proposed by Darwin
• Do not believe in Global warming
• Opposed to gay marriage
• Wants a return to the gold standard for currency.
• Opposed to modern contraceptive methods and abortion.
• Need a return to old time religion, before people challenged the words of God in the Bible.
• Opposed to modern culture, such as movies, dance, immodest dress, long hair.
• Then again, some believe that the world is going to end soon anyway, and none of this really matters.

The above points generally define conservatives.

Luddites is another word for people who resist change. Named after Ned Ludd, these people were scared of losing their jobs as weavers, and so destroyed the new mechanical looms in England, that could be operated by unskilled labour to do the work of many skilled craftsmen.

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

It could be argued that technology was moving too fast in Britain at the time of the Luddites, and that's why the Luddites appealed to so many people. At some point during the Napoleonic wars, there were more British soldiers fighting Luddites at home, than fighting the French in Europe. Speaking of which, there was also a war going on, increasing the economic stress on the country.

Just to be fair to Luddites, here is a paper that argues the point that Luddites were not opposed to technological change per se, just opposed to reductions in their economic situation. (being laid off, having the prices of cloth undercut, wages reduced, etc.) And they broke machines to enforce their bargaining power with the factory and mill owners.
http://libcom.org/history/machine-breakers-eric-hobsbawm

You could probably argue that there are Luddites among liberals and among conservatives. I do not own a cell phone, and I have wind-up windows in my car with manual door locks, and I generally call myself a liberal these days. Change will surely come, and some people better get used to it faster than the currently are.


Picture Dog sled (but I photoshopped the GPS): http://wanderlustandlipstick.com/wander-tales/adventure/hike-up-modern-dog-sledding/

Picture Modern Igloo http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=271162

Problems With the Peer Review System in Science

I have been reading a book by Mark Bowen, "Censoring Science", with the subtitle "Inside the political attack on Dr. James Hansen and the truth of global warming." I have to confess I have not read much of it, and that is partly because what I see in there is simply too disturbing to an innocent person such as myself, to read in big chunks. But while I have been randomly trying to make headway in the book, several related stories have caught my eye.

The first is a study in a peer reviewed Journal, with the hypothesis that remote prayer can help infertile couples conceive. According to the study, fertility rates are boosted 100%.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/health/vital-signs-fertility-a-study-links-prayer-and-pregnancy.html
http://www.ebm-first.com/prayer/columbia-prayer-study-controversy.html

The second "The Truth Wears Off: Is there something wrong with the scientific method" by Jonah Lehrer, in the New Yorker Magazine, December 13, 2010. This article refers to something called "The Decline Effect". Which means that when a new scientific study is made it's effect decreases with time. To give a simple example (and this is made up, so don't look for it): If a scientific study on ESP finds that there is a person who can predict the next card off a deck 50% of the time, (compared to the average of 2%), then in future studies on the same subject, that figure of 50% will most likely decrease, and possibly drop down all the way down to 2%, thus eventually contradicting the results of the first study.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=1

It has been proposed that despite the efforts to eliminate bias in peer reviewed science, the bias still exists. But it drops with time, and not only that, but the bias reverses itself with time.

Why is that so? I think the Decline Effect is fairly easy to understand. Scientific studies that produce no result are rarely submitted to peer reviewed journals. For example, take the remote prayer study. If, say 100 independent studies had been made, and only one showed a positive effect, the one with the positive effect would show up in a Journal of Medicine, the other 99 would not even be submitted. That is the first level of bias. Then, if the study is kind of uninteresting, very few other scientists will attempt further tests on it. The peer review system does not compel other scientists to immediately duplicate any experiment to confirm or deny its hypothesis. So basically we have another level of bias, based on how interesting the experiment is to other scientists. Then, if an experiment leads to a general consensus, the bias swings the other way. That is, if remote prayer was accepted by the scientific community as more or less proven, more scientists would be encouraged to submit experiments proving that it was not true.

Many of these Decline Effects have to do with built in biases in the peer reviewed system. But I would imagine that the more important a study, or the more it makes sense, then the more scientists are attracted to it. And statistically, the more scientists that are interested, the better the peer reviewed system works. That is, you would have more studies submitted. Then you can better eliminate statistical outliers and mistakes. And with more research and debate, the better the understanding of the subject becomes.

We have some noticeable random glitches in the scientific peer reviewed process, when it comes to studies of low interest. I guess we can expect a "Decline Effect" with scientifically repulsive or uninteresting topics such as remote prayer. But with topics of extreme high interest such as global warming and evolution, the mass of research, and related experiments being done should help eliminate statistical aberrations in the system. Especially when those aberrations are directly related to the interest level.

Considering the general assault on science being conducted by the anti-global warming people and by Bible Literalists, all shoddy peer reviewed science is liable to be taken as a weakness of the entire structure of science. Any system, no matter how good, has weaknesses. And as it is exposed to attacks, those weaknesses will become more critical.

Recently we have seen leaked documents from global warming scientists, who seem to be expressing their frustration that science is being gradually undermined by outside forces. We are also starting to see pseudo-scientists finding ways to state that their experiments have been peer reviewed, even though they have not. No, it's not outright lying, it's simply twisting words around, half-truths, and looking for weak links in a complicated system.

For example, a person self-publishes a scientific experiment, then sends their book to an eminent scientist (albeit in another field) and asks for that scientist's opinion, then getting the opinion that "it looks interesting", calls it "peer reviewed". That is not peer review. But is it a lie?

The Peer Review system will probably need to set up a legal defence department one day to protect their good name against infringements. And scientists need to rigorously eliminate statistical anomalies like ESP experiments and Remote Prayer studies.

Just like Disney Corporation protects their Mickey Mouse character, and the Hell's Angels protect their death head logo, I think scientists need to protect their "Peer Review" brand. The world is changing, and science needs to keep up.

Another article about what's wrong with the peer review process and wondering how it can be improved.
http://whitehead.mit.edu/news/paradigm/spring_2008/peer_review.html

Picture: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/p/peer_review.asp