Pacific Skeptics

More Thoughts on American Antiscience

2011-07-31T13:40:00.001-07:00

What is American antiscience? Firstly, antiscience is not a well-defined term. Few dictionaries list an explicit meaning. Wikipedia describes antiscience as any kind of general philosophical opposition to science holding a special relationship to the truth or deserving of special reverence in society.[i]
For practical purposes, that abstract definition has little meaning to most Americans, most of whom have never read a book or sat in a class on the topic of the philosophy of science. Outside of explicitly philosophical discussions, antiscience can best be defined as a determined opposition to the methodology of science or the conclusions that a reached via those methodologies, whether it be a general opposition or the opposition to a specific conclusion of scientists.
Antiscientific opposition to scientific methodology and the conclusions reached via those methods must be distinguished from legitimate scientific skepticism. Global warming is a good exegetical case. There is a large movement in the United States determined to deny the conclusions that most climate scientists have reached: that the earth is warming and that warming is increasingly due to the release of manmade greenhouse gasses.
This consensus of climate scientists is relatively new. Thomas Kuhn posited that science often advances in revolutions. After the revolution has occurred, the majority of scientists in a field will accept the paradigm shift. The climatologists who still hang-on to strong skepticism of anthropogenic global warming fit are simply those left behind clinging to the old-model left behind by the paradigm shift. Compare this to the mainstay of the global warming denial movement, led by individuals such as James Imhofe, people with no scientific expertise in the field of climatology who lack a proper lay understanding of the science. These people are not global warming skeptics. They are global warming deniers. Their position is antiscientific, and while not uniquely American, certainly have more clout here than in most other nations.
There are many different degrees of believers in antiscience. On one end of the spectrum are those who generally accept the methodology that scientists use and their conclusion as having a special relationship to the truth . . . except that one thing (evolution, global warming, the efficacy of acupuncture, et cetera). On the extreme end of the spectrum are those who have a basic philosophical opposition to the methodologies and conclusions of scientists having any special relationship to the truth. The post-modernist movement is a prime example of this sort of sophistry.
Most American anti-science falls into the less extreme side of the spectrum. Polls of Americans show that they hold a great deal of reverence for science in general. For instance, only ten percent believe that the harmful results of scientific progress outweigh the benefits and, “more Americans express a ‘great deal’ of confidence in scientific leaders than in the leaders of any other institution except the military.”[ii]
What are the sources of American antiscience? One strongly correlating factor with most specific antiscientific beliefs is political ideology. Literalist interpretation of the bible advocated by more conservative branches of Protestantism (such as the United States’ largest Protestant church, the Southern Baptists) are highly correlated with spiritual beliefs such as creationism which are in direct opposition to evolution. In fact, in its more extreme form, young earth creationism stands in direct opposition to the basic tenets of geology and cosmology as well. Of course, membership in these conservative Protestant churches is highly correlated with conservative political beliefs.
While Europe has its share of creationists, they are a small minority of the population. By contrast, it might be generous to Americans to declare that only half of them believe in evolution. Thus, this is one of the prime examples of American antiscience that Europeans have difficulty comprehending. By contrast, certain forms of antiscience popular in the US among those who tend to be more liberal (opposition to vaccination for example) are not shocking to many in the European Union because they are often more prevalent there than in the United Staets.
Evolution is the most well-known and most written about antiscientific belief. However, the difference in acceptance of evolution between the United States and the European Union is best explained by fundamental differences in religious beliefs rather than by fundamental differences in scientific understanding. This is probably not true of countries such as Japan where public understanding of science is much higher than in either the US or Europe. This was the conclusion of the National Science Foundation when it removed American beliefs in evolution from its report Science and Engineering Indicators. [iii] [iv] While the decision was controversial, the reason behind it should not have been. The differences between Americans and Europeans in their acceptance of evolution are primarily based on differences in religious beliefs.
In the case of the theory of evolution and anthropogenic global warming, reality does indeed have a liberal bias. In fairness though, there are many prominent antiscientific beliefs in the United States which are largely held by those on the left. While conservative Christianity seems to be the root of many antiscientific views held by conservative Americans, belief in the naturalistic fallacy serves as a similar analog on the left.
Alternative “medicine” is one prominent example (medicine being in scare quotes because medicine is defined as the science of healing, of which alternative “medicine” certainly is not). Many proponents prefer the definition of eastern “medicine”, as if legitimate medicine is practiced fundamentally differently in Asia than in the West. Alternative “medicine” practices range from the absurd and disproved to the possible but not sufficiently evidenced. The practices also vary in deleteriousness from benign placebo effects to incredibly deadly pseudoscience.
These alternative “medicine” beliefs are often correlated with new age spiritual beliefs which are correlated with liberal political views. One of the most unfortunate examples of these is the anti-vaccination movement. While many have blamed illegal immigrants from Mexico for outbreaks of pertussis (whooping cough) in places such as California, such vaccinations are actually mandatory in Mexico. The truth is that the responsibility lies firmly on the shoulders of the anti-vaccine movement. Marin County which lies at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge and is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, famous for its liberal politics, had one of the largest outbreaks of pertussis in 2010 and not surprisingly, one of the lowest vaccination rates for children.[v]
Of course, there are many other examples of American anti-science correlated with Americans holding more liberal beliefs. Prime examples include the belief that organic foods possess some special salutary qualities, irrational fears about the dangerous of nuclear power (as opposed to rational fears placed in context of the dangers of other power sources), irrational fears of genetic engineering of foods, the belief of a link between non-ionizing radiation (such as those emitted by power lines, cell phones, and wifi) and illnesses such as cancer, and many others.
Of course, Europeans are more accepting of these anti-scientific beliefs correlated with the American left, so it should shock no-one that do not find them as cofounding as antiscientific beliefs correlated with conservative beliefs. While many books could be written about the dynamics and history of American antiscience, it is important to note that what makes American antiscience different from the rest of the world (and most importantly the European Union) are the unique religious and political beliefs in the United States and the antiscientific beliefs associated with them. Americans are more likely to not believe in evolution and less likely to be scared by genetic engineering of food than Europeans because of fundamental differences in religion and politics, not fundamental differences in education or general support of science.

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience [Accessed 31 July 2011]
[ii] http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c7/c7h.htm [Accessed 31 July 2011]
[iii] http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/ [Accessed 31 July 2011]
[iv] http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/us-national-science-board-tries-to-suppress-knowledge-of-americans-scientific-illiteracy/ [Accessed 31 July 2011]
[v] http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_18568877 [Accessed 31 July 2011]

Cross At Ground Zero

2011-07-29T13:36:00.001-07:00

Any two random beam intersections in a steel-framed building will more than vaguely resemble a cross, the Roman execution device that has become the most prominent symbol of Christianity. Such a otherwise unremarkable remnant of the steel skeleton of the World Trade towers became a symbol of hope to many after the September 11^th attacks.

The cross was scheduled to be moved to the new September 11^th Memorial and Museum, resulting in a lawsuit by American Atheists. At the heart of their claim is that such a display is tantamount to a government endorsement of the Christian religion.

The case resides in a grey area of the establishment clause. The cross inarguably constitutes a Christian symbol. However, there are many legitimate government displays of religious symbols. No one is about to tear the Ten Commandments out of the home of the Supreme Court because of the obvious historical significance.

The argument that the cross has significant historical value cannot be ignored. Nor can the fact that it is clearly a Christian icon. Ultimately, I feel the resolution must be based on the context. If it is placed in the museum, it must be based solely upon its historical value with no tacit encouragement of it being promoted as a religious icon. Placing it in a chapel or room set aside for “quiet reflection” would be a violation of the establishment clause. Placing it in a display area that explains the context of its significance without special reverence would not be a violation of the separation of church and state.

Ultimately, the resolution of the lawsuit will need to depend on the context of how the cross would be displayed. If the intention of the planned display is to promote religious reverence, then it is best left on the church grounds where it now resides. If the intention is to display it in a secular, historical context, then the lawsuit should be dismissed.

Sources:

Atheists Sue to Block Display of Cross-Shaped Beam in 9/11 Museum (New York Times)

A Brief History of American Anti-Science

2011-03-07T18:51:00.001-08:00

A two week old New York Time’s Magazine article does a good job of briefly tracing the current, largely Republican-led movement of climate-change denial as the product of a decade’s old pattern of politicized American opposition to science, engendered by the left during the 1960’s. Climate change denial is, of course, not to be confused with genuine scientific skepticism.

While antiscientific sentiment is not relegated to the right, climate-change denial largely is. Alternative “medicine” and other similar antiscientific modalities seem to have more vociferous adherents on the left than the right; however,the denial of widely accepted scientific knowledge about global warming is largely absent from liberal politics.

The short article is certainly worth a read.

The Way We Live Now-Fact-Free Science

Cellphones and the Brain

2011-02-24T15:12:00.001-08:00

A study funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United Kingdom has found what is reported to be physical evidence of changes caused by the usage of cellular devices. Specifically the study established a statistically significant increase in the consumption of glucose in the region near cellular phones’ radio transmitters. Unsurprisingly, those who claim that cellular phones cause brain cancer have leapt on this study, claiming it supports their hypothesis. However, there is no reasonable interpretation of this study that can support such a link.

Firstly, the number of individuals tested was only 47, and the study has yet to be repeated or the mechanism explained. This is a preliminary study, and the conclusions are interesting enough to warrant further research, but without additional studies using larger sample groups to confirm the results, the study itself is not very meaningful.

Finally, even if future studies do confirm these findings to a high degree of confidence, there is not a plausible mechanism that would link the results of this study to an increase in brain cancer. The only known mechanism for radiation to cause an increase in brain tumor rates is by damaging DNA. The energy level of microwave photons used by cellphones is not high enough to lead to this effect at any flux level a person could reasonably be expected to be exposed to from cellphones or cellular towers.

Since the brain is essentially a dense collection of moving charges, it is not implausible that exposure to low energy electromagnetic sources might have a measurable physical effect; however, even if such an effect exists, there is no plausible mechanism for it to lead to an increase in the incidents of brain tumors, nor is there any good epidemiological evidence of a correlation.

The results are interesting, but have no reasonable connection to the debate on whether cellular phones cause brain tumors. Unfortunately, this is how the issue is being cast in the media. The best science we have available indicates no good evidence of a correlation between cellular phone usage and brain tumors nor does it provide any physical explanation of how the radiation from cellular phones might cause such tumors. To the best of our current scientific knowledge, the hypothesis that cellular phones cause cancer violate everything we know about physics and biochemistry. This study makes no comment on that debate

Links:

Cellphone Use Tied to Changes in Brain Activity

The Pseudo-Skeptics of High Speed Rail

2011-02-21T22:27:00.001-08:00

High speed rail has been a subject of controversy in California and elsewhere, with people (more often on the right) expressing “skepticism” about “trains to nowhere”. For the purpose of full disclosure, I love trains. I have since I was child and might not be the most unbiased commentator, but I think even true skeptics will find a lot of these pseudo-skeptics’ claims regarding high speed rail to be dubious and badly reasoned.

Like the “skeptics”, I can only look at the proposed system at first blush, without the kind of deep insight that a significantly priced study would produce, but I think most of the skepticism is unwarranted.

For instance, the federal government recently funded the construction of a section of track in the Central Valley that critics have dubbed, “the train to nowhere.” This is disingenuous because every transportation system connecting “somewhere” to “somewhere else” is likely to pass through “nowhere”. The interstate highway system started this way, and I think most thoughtful people see through the specious claim.

Another common claim is that it will not be competitive with automobiles or airplanes, but this is unlikely. For instance, according to the Wall Street Journal,

In the year since the Madrid-Barcelona line opened in February 2008, the AVE, costing passengers roughly the same as what they would pay to fly, has snatched half the route's air-passenger traffic. [1]

While this is no guarantee that this will happen in the nation’s second biggest air corridor (SFO – LAX), it is a pretty good indicator. Train travel over these distances is more comfortable, more environmentally friendly, and when factoring in total time from door-to-door, is usually much quicker than air travel.

Another claim of the critics is that Europe, Japan, and China are different than the United States because of their higher population density. However, Spain’s population density is about the same as California’s population density (actually slightly lower than California’s), and high speed rail has been very successful there.

One of my fondest memories was traveling across Europe with a rail pass, and it would be nice one day to travel from San Francisco to New York the same way. However, the “skeptics” often try to conflate individual projects with some kind of grandiose scheme for transcontinental high speed rail. This is a straw man.

I suspect very few in Europe take the train from London to Athens (even though they could), because it is simply not competitive with air travel. However, any route that is more than two hours by car but less than two hours by plane is. Europeans built lines that made sense, which eventually resulted in the stitching together of a transcontinental high speed rail system. It may mean that one day it will be possible to travel from California to New England on a high speed train, or it may not. The end-game is irrelevant to individual projects.

This grandiose system that “skeptics” like to criticize has no bearing on the systems that are being proposed to be built. A plane can beat a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but when you factor in the time spent going through airport security, and the time spent stuck in (possibly commute) traffic getting to popular destinations (downtown LA for business travelers, Anaheim for tourists), the time saved by stepping on a train in downtown San Francisco (we will not count time in traffic there because heavy rail connects downtown to two of the three major airports) and stepping off near your destination more than makes up for the slower ground speed.

The final major criticism is that high speed rail requires government subsidies. This is likely to be true in most cases; however, so do automobiles, so the argument is logically inconsistent unless the “skeptics” believe that roads should not be paid for with tax subsidies.

Now certainly, there may be more legitimate criticisms, like the ability of State governments to successfully construct and operate a system, or of the best routes, technology, et cetera. I will not address them here because there will always be some legitimate questions about any large new infrastructure project. The questions Californians in particular, and Americans in general have to ask is, do we want to invest in infrastructure now and risk maybe making some minor mistakes, or do we want to wait until the point where the need for such a system becomes unquestionable? Imagine the different path our nation might have taken had the “skeptics” of the Interstate system managed to halt its construction for three or four decades.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124018395386633143.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Good News for Simon Singh

2010-04-01T19:12:00.001-07:00

Unlike in the United States, British libel law places the onus of a libel case not on the plaintiff but on the defendant. In fact, the British system is so broken that States like California have passed legislation to protect their residents from libel lawsuits originating in the British court system. For those who have not been following the Singh case, Simon Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association for libel after he correctly claimed that certain chiropractic “treatments” were, “bogus”.

Chiropractic is a type of alternative “medicine” based on demonstrably false principles with no basis in scientific medicine. When Simon Singh pointed out that the myriad of ridiculous treatments promoted by British Chiropractors are absolute rubbish, the British Chiropractic Association attempted to bully him into silence.

Today, the judge in his case noted the, “chilling effect on public debate,” of British libel laws. As can be seen in the video, the British Chiropractic Association, which removed many of the treatments that Singh called bogus from their website, still defend their use of the British court system to attempt to silence their critics.

Hopefully, this case will cause Britons to become more aware at the pseudoscientific underpinnings of Chiropractic treatments.

LINKS:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/british-libel-laws-challenged-by-journalist-who-called-chiropractic-treatments-bogus/

When EM Radiation Passes the Property Line

2010-03-30T11:02:00.001-07:00

A self-diagnosed sufferer of wi-fi induced illness in Albuquerque is suing his neighbor for not keeping her Skyping and Iphoning confined within her property line.

While the lawsuit has little chance of success given the nonexistence of credible medical evidence that electromagnetic radiation emitted from these FCC approved devices can have any measurable impact on the human body (much less cause illness), the story speaks as much to the general lack of understanding of science in America as it does for our overly-litigious society.

Arthur Firstenberg, in using the court system to attempt to intimidate his neighbor Raphaela Monribot into limiting her use of wireless devices, exemplifies a classic case of abuse of the American court system. The threat of a lawsuit, even a lawsuit without merit (in fact, the judge already threw out the claim that Mrs. Monribot’s iphone was causing his illness as States lack the authority over issue and is considering whether to dismiss the entire case) often is intimidating enough of a bully pulpit to coerce compliance. Even if Arthur Firstenberg’s case is unsuccessful (as it most certainly will be), Mrs. Monribot may still be on the hook for legal costs required to defend herself against this frivolous lawsuit.

Unfortunately, the unfounded paranoia over radio wave’s deleterious effects on human health are not going to disappear anytime soon. Despite the complete lack of convincing evidence that there is any correlation (much less a causal explanation) between cellular phone usage and brain cancer, San Francisco Mayor (and potential future Lieutenant Governor) Gavin Newsom is pushing a requirement that all cellular phones sold in San Francisco disclose their radiation emission level.

Asking the public to understand the physics behind devices using EM radiation does not seem a likely solution. The federal government, which regulates the electromagnetic spectrum, should remove the authority from State courts to adjudicate disputes or enact regulations regarding radio-transmitting devices. It should also raise the barrier to filing lawsuits in Federal Court to make it impossible to seek damages for symptoms of illnesses for which there is no strong evidence of their existence.

LINK:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/la-na-hometown-santa-fe28-2010mar28,0,7549400.story

Skeptical about Abstinence-Only Sexual Education

2009-11-08T09:20:00.001-08:00

In a finding that will utterly fail to shock anyone who has ever been a normal teenager,

Sex education programs that encourage teenagers to delay sexual activity but also teach them how to reduce their chances of getting pregnant or a sexually transmitted disease cut risky sexual behavior, increase condom use and lower the chances of getting the AIDS virus and other infections.

Of course, the findings were condemned by advocates of abstinence programs, which is not surprising, because it has long been the suspicion that the advocates of abstinence-only sexual education are more concerned with trying to scare teens into not having sex rather than to actually reduce their level of risky sexual behavior. Some abstinence-only advocates may genuinely believe that not encouraging/teaching those teens who have sex to do it safely will decrease risky sexual behavior, but the suspicion is that many of them are pushing the abstinence-only education program because it conforms to their moral beliefs that teens having sex is bad.

Of course, it will come to no surprise to just about anyone who has ever been a teenager that being told not to do something by a teacher is not necessarily going to be very successful in achieving its aims, especially when that means ignoring hormones are that are raging throughout the body. And while there may be some evidence that abstinence-only education delays sexual intercourse (which is presumably good because older teens are less likely to engage in riskier sexual behavior?) there is no good evidence, according to this review (by the Center for Disease Control’s Task Force on Community Preventive Services), that abstinence-only education reduces teenagers’ risky sexual behaviors. Comprehensive sex education that discourages sex while educating students about how to have safe sex both delays sex and increases safe sex practices.

Of course, if my suspicion that abstinence-only advocates are driven by religious and/or moral agendas rather than by real concerns about increasing the sexual health of teens is true, then the abstinence-only proponents likely will not care what evidence-based evaluations reveal and will continue advocating it no matter how thoroughly it is debunked.

Source:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/07/MNFV1AG9UI.DTL&type=education

John Stewart Takes on H1N1

2009-10-26T11:27:00.001-07:00

The more I watch the Daily Show, a supposedly satirical parody of “real” news, the more I realize how far “real” news, especially the cable-variety, has fallen.

[Apologies to those who live outside the US]

The Swine Flu Vaccine Swindle

2009-10-26T11:23:00.001-07:00

The opponents of vaccines are out if full force campaigning against the H1N1 vaccine, and like usual, their scare tactics consist primarily of patently erroneous claims, combined with absurd hyperbole and twisted “reasoning.”

One popular claim is that the vaccines have not been adequately tested; they have not gone through the normal FDA review process. A bit of research shows this to be a false claim. The seasonal flu vaccine is already approved and extensively tested, as per FDA requirements. When the FDA approved the seasonal flu vaccine, they also approved a method for changing the particular strains of influenza virus annually, without having to go through the approval process required for a new drug; in fact, without this sort of approval, the influenza vaccine would be useless, because the strains need to be changed every year, but it takes a number of years to get FDA approval for a new drug.

The FDA reviewed the H1N1 vaccine, and found that the vaccine itself was already approved under the original seasonal flu shot approval, as it consisted of a simple strain-change. Despite claims by anti-vaccine scaremongers, the distinction between the seasonal flu shot and the H1N1 vaccine is no different than the distinction between the 2009 seasonal flu shot and the 2008 seasonal flu shot. These are just different strains, and the H1N1 vaccine, in addition to all the tests required for FDA approval that were already conducted to approve the seasonal influenza vaccine, has, and is continuing to undergo safety tests.

What does make H1N1 different than the seasonal flu is that this is an apparently novel mutation that developed in a species other than humans, thus there is less immunity developed, and therefore it tends to be more virulent than other influenza strains. This seems especially true among younger people who contract the virus, while healthy older people seem to be fairly immune.

Another point of contention is the use of adjuvants. Adjuvants are chemicals that stimulate an immune response, which improves the efficacy of a vaccine, requiring a smaller dose. Adjuvants have widely been used in vaccines in the European Union for years, and there is no scientifically-supported reason to believe that they are unsafe; however, they have been the focus of a number of anti-vaccine diatribes. On the internet, it is common to find claims that the H1N1 vaccine contains the adjuvant squalene, which is dangerous. This claim is untrue on both counts. Squalene has been approved for use in Europe for years, and the FDA-approved version of the H1N1 vaccine for mass distribution does not contain squalene.

A final claim is that the H1N1 vaccine contains the preservative thimerosal, which has been linked to autism and other claimed medical maladies. Large scale studies have repeatedly disproved the hypothesis that thimerosal is correlated with autism; however celebrities (rarely with any medical credentials) like Jenny McCarthy keep popularizing this false claim. Thimerosal, at the tiny level used in vaccines, is safe. Furthermore, only the multi-dose versions of the H1N1 vaccine contains thimerosal. Americans can obtain a thimerosal-free vaccine by using the per-packaged syringe or nasal mist form, although they should not have to worry about doing so.

The media is also responsible for conflagrating fear, both about the H1N1 virus and the H1N1 vaccine, because fear sells. The bottom line is that the H1N1 is likely to sicken an individual, probably worse than the regular flu, but not likely to kill them. Nonetheless, indicators seem to show that H1N1 is an unusually virulent strain, especially among certain high-risk groups such as the young and pregnant women. As of this writing, the pediatric death toll is around the triple digit mark.

The risk of dying from H1N1 is small but real; the risk of being sickened is extremely high, and the risk from the vaccine is negligible. Everyone who cares about the health and well-being of themselves, their friends, and their family, should be vaccinated, and encourage the same of their loved-ones. Just keep in mind that with the shortage of supplies, those who are in lower-risk groups should wait until there are enough supplies of the vaccine for those at greatest risk.

REFERENCES (FURTHER READING):

[1]http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/vaccine_safety_qa.htm

[2]http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/thimerosal_qa.htm

[3]http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/public/vaccination_qa_pub.htm

[4]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=boosting-vaccine-power

[5]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pandemic-payoff

[6]http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/25/h1n1-a-national-emergency/

Court Bans Ave Maria

2009-09-08T18:04:00.001-07:00

A federal appeals court today banned the Jackson High School woodwind ensemble from playing Ave Maria, a religious piece of music by Schubert based on a traditional Catholic prayer. The court ruled that the district superintendent did not violate students’ first amendment rights by restricting graduation music to secular works.

While it is unclear whether the superintendent made the right decision (there certainly is a place in our school system for religiously derived music so long as the intent of the selection of the music is not to promote religion, and a piece of classical music devoid of English lyrics in this case was probably not violating the establishment clause), it is clear that the court ruled correctly. School administrators must deal with the often-ambiguous border separating the protection of students’ right to free expression and their right to not be indoctrinated by government promotion of religion. In a graduation ceremony where a very small number of musical pieces may be played, there is nothing wrong with ensuring that the repertoire remain secular. The only potential worry is that administrators may take this too far and try to ban high school bands from playing selections with religious antecedents altogether.

Sources:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/08/BAVK19K5EK.DTL&tsp=1

Missouri School Still Stuck in Precambrian Era

2009-09-07T20:22:00.001-07:00

Shirts worn by the Smith-Cotton High School Band were confiscated by the school administrators because they portrayed the evolution of brass instruments. Some parents were upset that the t-shirts made reference to evolution and complained, and rather than defend the creative license of their students, the school administrators demanded that the t-shirts be confiscated. What makes this story more ridiculous is that the school administration justified their decision by claiming that the shirts violated the establishment clause of the first amendment, because they promoted evolution, which they proclaimed as a religious belief.

If the high school is unable to distinguish between school-promotion of religion and a t-shirt that makes a vague reference to the evolution of man (which is science and not religion, for the record) then it has a serious problem with understanding and implementing academic and constitutional standards inherent in running a public school. Any admissions official at a university who is looking over the transcript of an applicant from this Missouri high school has to give serious consideration as to exactly how to weigh an “A” in a biology class from a school district which cannot distinguish between promoting religion and vaguely referencing evolution. In case any readers from the Smith-Cotton High School administration are reading this, science is not a religion, and evolution has served as the keystone of biology for well over a century.

High school marching band can’t wear evolutionary T-shirts,; Tonya Fennel; The Sedalia Democrat; 29AUG2009.

Image Credit: Hal Smith/ Sedalia Democrat

The Apollo Program: The Best Special Effects Hollywood Could Buy?

2009-07-20T19:15:00.001-07:00

On July 20th, 1969, man first set foot on the moon. For many in lab-coats, it represented a triumph for science; for others, humankind’s conquering of the heavens; and for the more nationalistic Americans, a major victory for the United States over the Soviets in the cosmic sport known as the space race.

The first mention I ever heard of the conspiracy theories that held that the Apollo Eleven astronauts did not actually land on the moon was in 2001, with the airing of the Fox television show Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon. Since the airing of that “documentary” (but never before it), I have encountered a number of people who genuinely believe that the Apollo Eleven moon-landings were faked. It is a pretty telling reminder of how mass media exposure of fringe ideas can help popularize them, especially when conspiracy theorists’ claims are not counterpoised by the responses of representative experts.

The conspiracy theories predate the 2001 Fox program, of course. A 1999 Gallup poll found that six percent of Americans believed that the Apollo moon landings were faked, not astonishingly high numbers when compared to the percentages who believe that Oswald did not shoot John F. Kennedy or deny evolution, although perhaps twenty five percent of Britons believe the moon landings were faked. [1]

A quick Google search finds this Apollo Hoax website at the top of the results, with promises of a, huge update to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the moon landings, which, of the 40th anniversary of the moon landings, do not exist. This website (like so many conspiracy theory treatises) does not actually put forward a cogent alternative explanation, but rather presents a laundry list of claimed inconsistencies with NASA’s version of the Apollo Eleven mission. I am not going to bother going into detail with debunking this, as many others have already done so (some links appear at the end of this posting).

The best, simplest, and most consistent explanation (like with so many other conspiracy theories), is the “official” one. The Soviets successfully launched a satellite into orbit in 1957. In 1961, they safely launched, and retrieved a man from Earth orbit. While landing people on the moon was a much more complicated procedure, with a lot more variables, requirements, and chances for disaster, the basic level of scientific competence and technology was not particularly different, although it did require much more complicated calculations and the technology was more complicated, it was not, on a basic level, more technology or scientifically advanced. What it did require was more careful planning, a more complicated technological system, and a lot more money.

One day, tourists may routinely visit the location of the first moon landings, but it may be a long time before men walk on the moon again. Currently, NASA has no concrete plans to ever return. Until then, we will have to be satisfied with unmanned probes, like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that recently snapped these pictures of the Apollo mission sites.

Courtesy NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/369228main_ap14labeled_540.jpg

Sources:

[1]http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Apollo11MoonLanding/story?id=8104410&page=1

Links:

Bad Astronomy does a good job reviewing the Fox program mentioned above: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

Another good debunking of popular myths by National Geographic. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/photogalleries/apollo-11-hoax-pictures/

Lessons of the ‘Fake Moon Flight’ Myth
JAMES OBERG
Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2003, pp 23, 30 http://www.jamesoberg.com/042003lessonsfake_his.html

If Man Landed on the Moon Today

2009-07-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's a shame how accurate this is.

In honor of Walter Cronkite, this is how it happened 40 years ago.

United States, Korean Government Sites Under Cyber Attack

2009-07-08T10:36:00.001-07:00

(By North Korea?)

The predecessor to the internet was created with the intention of decentralizing critical US communication infrastructure, so that, in the case of a nuclear war or other significant disaster that may collapse traditional communication methods, the United States military and government would continue to be able to communicate.

While the United States government is still a major user of the internet, the US economy is now completely reliant on it. While the nature of the internet is such where it would be difficult to completely collapse, a well-executed attack could slow down sections of it into near uselessness.

This is called a denial of service attack, which is generally launched against specific websites, in order to flood them with so much traffic that they are unable to function normally and either crash or slow to a crawl.

In an attack linked with the one in South Korea, 14 major Web sites in the United States — including those of the White House, the State Department and the New York Stock Exchange — came under similar attacks, according to anti-cyberterrorism police officers in Seoul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/technology/09cyber.html?ref=global-home

The US military is struggling to restructure their mission to include not just defending the United States from air, land, and sea attacks, but also to buttress and secure our cyber-“borders”.

The reality is disheartening. We live in a world that is increasingly reliant on technology, technology that is grounded in sometimes classic, sometimes nascent scientific principles. Unfortunately, our increasing reliance on technology (and the science behind it) is not correlated with an increasing understanding of those principles among the general public. This is a dangerous trend.

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time ... when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstitions and darkness. (Sagan, 1995, p. 25)

Further Reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/technology/13cyber.html?scp=1&sq=military%20internet%20cyberattack&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/opinion/02goldsmith.html?scp=7&sq=military%20internet%20cyberattack&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/us/politics/13cyber.html?scp=10&sq=military%20internet%20cyberattack&st=cse

References:

Sagan, C. (1995). The demon-haunted world : science as a candle in the dark (1st ed.). New York: Random House.

Why We Need Science Writers

2009-07-07T17:45:00.001-07:00

Science and technology are essential to almost every aspect of modern society, yet technology, and the scientific principles on which it operates, might as well be magic to a large portion of the population. Science articles can be just an essential contributor to understand of the modern world as understanding developing stories in Washington or the Middle East; yet, science reporting frequently is effected by journalists with minimal background in the fields on which they are reporting, and with no editorial review by experts, much less an accomplished science journalist or editor.

Given how essential good science reporting is, combined with how ignorant most of the population is with regard to scientific facts (including otherwise educated people, like journalists), it is a travesty that major news sources leave science reporting in the hands of journalists that are neither competent to report on the subject nor to explain complicated scientific discoveries, in context with the current body of scientific knowledge, to the general public.

Take this recent example from Fox News's website.

Red giant stars are thought to have short, complicated and violent lifespans. Lasting at most a few million years, they quickly burn out their hydrogen fuel and then switch to helium, carbon and other elements in a series of partial collapses, refuelings and restarts.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525695,00.html [accessed: 07JULY2009]

Red giants are a phase of stellar evolution after the star has moved off the main sequence (id est, exhausted the hydrogen in its core). This article almost implies that Betelgeuse was always a red giant and that it was a red giant before it "burn[t] out [its] hydrogen fuel." Furthermore, the elements that a giant will "burn" depends on its mass. While larger stars may burn "carbon and other elements," less massive stars like the sun will not. While this may seem a minor point of contention with the Fox article, anyone familiar with the evolution of stars would have rewritten this in a more accurate and less confusing manner and given a proper explanation of what a red giant is. Perhaps something such as:

Betelgeuse long ago left the main sequence, or normal hydrogen burning phase of its (existence), and began the giant phase of its existence, which, in the case of a less massive star such as the sun will result in a white dwarf, and in the case of a more massive star such as Betelgeuse, will result in a core-collapse supernova, which is a spectacular explosion which occurs at the end of the fusion life of a large star, leaving either a neutron star or a black hole.