Good Spoof in The Onion
Topic: Science and Culture
Gravity? How secular!

Thing do fall but it's due to a process called Intelligent Falling.

The Fall of Advanced Civilizations
Topic: Science and Culture
Is this entry about the eventual fall of the west?

Perhaps not directly.

Although wedding plans loom large, the people and places from our last trip to Iberia keep coming back to haunt me.

No this entry is about the demise of the Andalus Caliphate. From an article in today's NY times about Medina Azahara, the summer home of the Andalus Caliphate, whose capital was in the nearby Cordoba:

Medina Azahara, also known as Madinat al-Zahra, was an Islamic metropolis built in the 10th century as a testament to Spain's proclamation in 929 that it was the true caliphate of the Muslim world.

The construction of the city, which began around 940, was a singular moment in history, when the most vibrant intellectual and cultural force in Europe was rooted in Islam, and when the heart of Islam was in many ways rooted in Europe.

And how could the Moors of Spain build this city?

Maria Rosa Menocal, a professor of Spanish at Yale and author of "Ornament of the World," a book about Muslim Spain, said that Al Andalus and its capital, Cordoba, were probably justified in considering themselves the center of the known universe when Medina Azahara was built. "There was no comparison between Cordoba and anything else in Europe in the 10th century - like New York versus well, a rural village in Mexico," she said in an e-mail interview.

Many think of Islam as technologically backwards, but in those days it was the Islamic countries that were tolerant, and technologically advanced.

Cordoba had running water, paved and lighted streets, and, when large collections of books were scarce in Europe, some 70 libraries, the biggest containing 400,000 volumes, according to some accounts.

Al Andalus introduced Western Europe to paper, algebra, advanced irrigation techniques and Latin translations of many of the classic works of Greek philosophy.

But Cordoba, and eventually Granada fell. But was this solely due to the foreign, uneducated, barbarian Christian invaders from the North?

...around 1010, Medina Azahara was sacked by Islamic purists from North Africa who considered the Muslim culture it represented far too liberal in its interpretation of the Koran. The raid effectively wiped the city off the map for a millennium.

Hmm. So the fall of this advanced empire, was due to foreign and inner foes - many uneducated and moved by religious zealotry. What was ironic was that the Umayyad Dynasty that conquered the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Iberia (and eventually used Cordoba then Granada as their Capitol) used religion as a political tool rather than a life guiding philosophy.

Once the Umayyad dynasty was over, religious ideology took over in Spain (in the form of fanatical Christianity) and spread through out the Muslim world (in the form of fanatical Islam). In both places these forces squashed tolerance, education and technology. Spain (despite it's American "empire") became a backwater where prosperity from the New World was funneled out to enrich the other more technological neighbors (such as France and theHapsburgs) ... and the once advanced Islamic world became the technological backwater it is today.

How Marriage Can Change You
Topic: Science and Culture
Well as the wedding day approaches (Aug 21st) I'll be blogging less and less (as I'm being swamped with wedding errands).

So how will marriage change us (that is Jenni and I)?

Well on the personal front - not much. We've been living together for almost seven years and we've been planing our lives together for almost that same amount of time.

So demographically how will we change?

Good question!

-Married people live longer.

-Atheists are less likely to get divorced - than any other religious (or non-religious) group.

-North easterners are less likely to get divorced than any other regional group in the US.

Now why is this?

Note that the original stats are from the BARNA group, a pro-religion "think-tank". The stats are now no longer available from their website, as their conclusions are ...

If you want to see how perplexed they are about these stats read this press release and see how they twist the numbers so that atheists have an apparent divorce rate as high as religious and born again Christians!

Here are the original stats:

Religion, % have been divorced

Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

Perhaps Atheists are just more likely to be open, tolerant and less rigid in their world views than other groups. The same can be said about cosmopolitan (and population dense) Northeast (19% divorce rate). Also Atheists and agnostics are more likely to sample potential mates. In addition many partners actually live together before marriage hence they get to know their marriage partners and better assess compatibility. Atheists also tend to be more educated, and studies (although not listed here) have shown that divorce goes down with education level.

[Update 8/25/05]

I came across the work of Steve P. Martin from the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

He has an interesting power point presentation on how college level education decreases the divorce rate among women. I've copied one figure from his presentation displaying the 10 year divorce rate of women (the % of married woman that get divorce in 10 years), with and without a 4 year college education.

[end of update]

In the end, real world experience, education and tolerance do more to predict happy marriages than religion.

So getting back to Jenni and I, looks like we'll be together for a long happy life.

Refs for stats:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/dvs/mortdata.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923080.html

ID & Dawkins On WBUR
Topic: Science and Culture
I was alerted to this radio program yesterday. Now I had heard of the awesome debating skills of the ID people such as those from that pseudo-academic Discovery Institute (talk about Orwellian!) So I went online and listened to this set of interviews and ..?

Well the ID guy (George Guilder) was horrible - basically he sat there and gave an unintelligible ramble about "information" and how evolution was Lamarck-ism. I could have made a better case for Intelligent Design (ID) than this guy! 20 mins of garbled ideas. What a disappointment. To the credit of the host, Tom Ashbrook, he got George Guilder to admit that ID implies the existence of God. Thus it follows that ID is nothing but creationism (with some advocates of ID throwing a little evolution in the mix).

Then Richard Dawkins came on. I basically agreed with everything he said, but I must say that he could have done a better job of it. Dawkins made the mistake of criticizing ID because it's foundations are based on a creator (i.e. God) and then advocated that ID couldn't be because there was no creator. Richard you are not going to convince the faithful (I not being one of them) using this line of reasoning. It is enough to say that the existence of God is untestable but in any case God does not have to be invoked to understand how diversity and complexity are generated in Nature. I also thought that Dawkins should have glossed over the main axioms, which underpins evolution. Overall, Steven Pinker gave a better critique of religion in this Time Mag. article.

Well if you are still interested follow this link to hear the episode "Debate Over Intelligent Design" on WBUR's (Boston's NPR) show OnPoint.

Tangled Bank
Topic: Science and Culture
Well I'm back. Had a nice time in Iberia, and from a friend at the Pasteur Institute I learned a lot about South Korean research ... (the next day I'm reading about how they cloned a dog for the first time.) I'll have more to say about science in S. Korea on a future post.

As I have nothing further to add (I'm massively jet lagged) here is an alternative morning read. To browse over a large collection of blog entries from various scientifically minded bloggers visit Tangled Bank, a repository for interesting science blogs.



To read the 33rd edition of Tangled Bank click here.

Global Warming Witch Hunt
Topic: Science and Culture
On July 6th President Bush declared:

I recognize the surface of the earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem ...

So why is a certain member of congress on a witch hunt after climatologists?

From the Houston Chronicle:

Late last month, Barton requested mounds of documents from three scientists known for studying global warming. As chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Barton demanded detailed documentation of almost every aspect of hundreds of studies the scientists had penned.

He made a similar request to the head of the National Science Foundation, writing, "The term 'records' is to be construed in the broadest sense ... whether printed or recorded electronically or magnetically or stored in any type of data bank, including, but not limited to ... summaries of personal conversations or interviews ... diaries ... checks and canceled checks ... bank statements."

Barton gave the scientists 18 days to comply with the request, which he has the power to convert into a subpoena.

And why would this Texas Republican try to discredit scientific research that points to a drastic increase in the global temperature? I wonder.

Even the house Science Committee chair, Republican Sherwood Boehlert is calling for an end to this idiotic crusade, stating to Barton:

My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them.

The way science is evaluated is not through politics, but through peer review. I guess we live in a time when people believe only convenient facts, while anything that does not justify our prejudices (or our wishes) is simply thrown out the window.

Catholic Church and Evolution
Topic: Science and Culture
OK there has been a lot of talk about the "new" stance that the Catholic Church has expressed on evolution.

See this entry on the Panda's Thumb, and these entries on Pharyngula: one, two.

If you missed it, here is the OpEd that sparked it off (see below). Now what do I say? Is it even worth replying to this? I do want to point out how Cardinal Schonborn reffers to ... us(?) ... as neo-Darwinists ... I guess it makes us sound evil, like neo-nazis (or the out-of-fashion neo-cons). Anyway ... here it is:

July 7, 2005
Finding Design in Nature
By CHRISTOPH SCHONBORN

Viena

EVER since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was "more than just a hypothesis," defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance - or at least acquiescence - of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith.

But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things.

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.

Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature:

"All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar conclusion. The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator."

He went on: "To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems."

Note that in this quotation the word "finality" is a philosophical term synonymous with final cause, purpose or design. In comments at another general audience a year later, John Paul concludes, "It is clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity."

Naturally, the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees: "Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason." It adds: "We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance."

In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy, neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by mainstream biologists - that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism.

The commission's document, however, reaffirms the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of design in nature. Commenting on the widespread abuse of John Paul's 1996 letter on evolution, the commission cautions that "the letter cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe."

Furthermore, according to the commission, "An unguided evolutionary process - one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence - simply cannot exist."

Indeed, in the homily at his installation just a few weeks ago, Benedict proclaimed: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by Jesus Christ. But in the modern era, the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th century, the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the "death of God" that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know the reality of the Uncaused Cause, the First Mover, the God of the philosophers.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.

Christoph Schonborn, the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, was the lead editor of the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Stem Cell Legislation
Topic: Science and Culture
Illinois became the 4th state to provide funding for stem cell research. They'll be providing $10 million the first year for this type of research. The other three states are:

-California with $3 billion over 10 years
-Connecticut with $100 million over 10 years
-New Jersey with $150 million over 10 years

Other state legislatures that have bills in the works are Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin, New York and Massachusetts.

So what's cooking on the federal level?

Well the GOP, just doesn't get it! In order to counter a bill sponsored by Senators Specter and Harken, Frist and company came up with an alternative bill. They propose that at the 8 cell stage of development (so after fertilization, the zygote [fertilized egg] divides 3 times to produce an 8 cell embryo) at this stage the cells can be artificially separated to form embryonic stem cells (ES cells). Now what the GOP senators are proposing is that rather than use whole in vitro fertilized embryos that are going to be discarded anyway, researcher will carve cells off of an in vitro fertilized egg. Some cells will be used to produce stem cells and other cells will then be implanted in a woman ... I guess to save the embryo's soul???

OK I've heard crazy ideas ... but this is nuts. Imagine you go to an in vitro fertilization clinic and the doctor tells you "we've in vitro fertilized a dozen eggs, we'll carve a chunk out of one and implant that one into you (or into your wife)." I bet that you would exclaim "are you out of your mind!" as specially when other embryos are siting there and will one day BE DISCARDED.

To the GOP, here is some advice: wake up folks.

Terrorism
Topic: Science and Culture
Sorry about the delay in the posts. I've been busy planning a wedding. Incidentally I was back in NY City over the weekend. Being back in the big town, and hearing about the London Bombings brought back terrible memories. In the summer of 2001, Jenni was working at the Federal Building on Church street, just north of the World Trade Center Plaza. We spent much of the summer in this neighborhood (although I confess that I never really liked the twin towers). Fortunately for us when the towers were hit, Jenni was back in Law School, and away from the disaster, although we do know some people who worked in the area (all of them were OK).

So why are they doing this?

This question has been thrown around a lot. And I'm afraid that the answer may not be simple. I'm also dismayed that it's examination from both sides of the political spectrum is flawed.

On much of the left, there are many who claim that much of the hate towards America has been due to our lousy reputation in the world. By mistreating the 3rd world and indirectly enslaving people we foster hate and resentment. There is a kernel of truth to this. Among Osama bin Laden's greatest supporters are the poor. But if one examines those that flew into the planes into the towers, most were educated in the west, and they were middle class, not poor. As for the US international relations, it's true that the US government has had cozy relations with most of their tyrannical dictators, mainly due to our need for oil. It's also true that our biased siding with the hardliners in Israel has not helped us ... but I think that we suffer from not interacting enough (economically) with the Middle-east. If you look at the world map, all the parts of the world that produce terrorists are the parts of the world that are not taking part in global trade. Besides terrorists, all that those countries export is oil. They are not educating or preparing their citizens for international trade. Economic prosperity and the increase in education that comes along with trade produces a middle class, which in turn drives for political moderation and a stomping out of irrational, religious extremism. These ideas are discussed greatly in a fantastic book by Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (right).

On the right, the "neo-conservatives" have been advocating that terrorism stems from a lack of democracy. As our president likes to say, tyranny and repression breeds "an ideology of hate". And to a certain extent, they are right. But how do we fix this? The conservatives believe that these people should get there own elected government so that they can blame themselves and not the west. To do so the west has to exterminate the dictators. One problem with this line of thought is that by acting irrationally (i.e. bombing one Muslim country because a group of unrelated Muslim fanatics terrorize you) the US fuels resentment. From the beginning the right has made the simple minded mistake of grouping all their "enemies" in one camp. But that's what you get when you see the world in black and white (instead of trying to understand the complexity of the situation).

A second problem is that, you can't bomb people into democracy! Democracy requires a stable society. What does a stable society require? Well people have to be educated, they have to be economically viable, they need rules (i.e. laws), and confidence that the rules are to be followed by others too, and they need infrastructure (i.e. hospitals, fire departments, roads, electricity, water ...). Unfortunately although we recked the country, the US government has been unwilling to fix it. Resentment towards the US in Iraq grows. What the middle east now sees more than ever is that after NYC was attacked, the US got revenge on all Muslims. The ranks of the extremists grow...

One problem that both sides have payed little attention, but is probably the greatest factor in instigating terrorism is ... religion. Yes, I've said it, and it's about time that this country has this discussion. Religion is not a force of good (or evil) IT'S A FORCE OF IRRATIONALISM. It alters your mind so that your view of the world is skewed, and so that you cannot properly evaluate the situation. It forces you to be selfish in your beliefs - in other words you believe in what is convenient and not what is true. Thus religious fanatics in the Islamic world see the US as a big Satan, and certain extremist elements in the west see Islam as a great evil (and see the advent of the Rapture). Do we get any nearer to a solution? No. We get closer to religious WAR.

What made the west prosperous and peaceful was not religion ... it was the Enlightenment. Before the enlightenment, Europe was the bloodiest place on the planet. Religious strife was everywhere, and an uneducated populace was manipulated to fight wars to make their rich overlords more powerful. But economic prosperity and secular institutions undermined this system. Rational science helped the leaders of these countries to develop industry, science filtered into society and help to promote questioning and innovation. So Europe ceased it's internal wars and focused it's energies on industrialization. It then basically overwhelmed the rest of the world with it's political, economic and military might(unfortunately often through bloodshed). From an OpEd in the NY Times by Suketu Metha:

Of course I feel a loyalty to America: it gave my parents a new life and my sons were born here. I have a vested interest in seeing America prosper. But I am here because the country of my ancestors didn't understand the changing world; it couldn't change its technology and its philosophy and its notions of social mobility fast enough to fight off the European colonists, who won not so much with the might of advanced weaponry as with the clear logical philosophy of the Enlightenment. Their systems of thinking conquered our own. So, since independence, Indians have had to learn; we have had to slog for long hours in the classroom while the children of other countries went out to play.

But once countries like India get educated and build a middle class, that's when they prosper economically and become more educated and brush off irrationality that holds back societies and promotes hate war and other foolish endeavors. All these four factors go hand in hand. Economics, rationality, education and peace. The left and the right in America don't seem to get this - and the Islamic world is not headed there. Religion is part of the problem! (can I yell it any louder?) And so I still fear what is to come abroad and at home.

Acidic Oceans - Need Time to Evolve
Topic: Science and Culture
A new report in Nature documents how the Oceans are getting more acidic.

(Update)

Someone asked me, how is this happening? Basically as CO2 levels rise, some of this excess CO2, is dissolving into the ocean. In water CO2 reacts with H2O to give HCO3- (carbonate) and H+ (e.i. acid levels rise).

(end of update)

Now there are many out there who pooh-pooh climate change. Often the argument against the importance of rising temperatures (from some in the media's eye) goes along the lines of "one degree, that's nothing!", but it's not how much the environment changes but how fast. If the change is too rapid, species can't evolve to adapt to the change, leading to a collapse of the deck of cards. In other words if the change happens over generations, it give the gene pools time to adapt - but if the genetic complement of a species can't catch up with the change, then whole species are left in the lurch and that's when a whole ecosystem can collapse.

Speaking of evolution and collapse, I saw a link on the Panda's Thumb (blog) about the cartoon, Tom the Dancing Bug that regularly appears in Salon.com.

Enjoy.

Educated Educators
Topic: Science and Culture
As a Canadian living in the US (for almost 8 years now), I've gotten over most of my Canadian-inferiority-complex (not that Canadians are inferior, but most Canadians in the US have the unconscious need to prove the reverse). However, seeing the two sides of the border does give you some greater perspective. So as a pontificating Canadian my biggest complaint about the US is the education system.

From a good Op-Ed piece in today's NY Times:

Not counting those who teach summer school, about 20 percent of the country's teachers have second jobs (often during the school year, too), and the majority of those jobs could not be construed as enhancing universal respect for those who teach.

In Canada, provincial money is distributed to schools equally (based on how many pupils a particular school district has). The US school funding system, where property taxes fund local schools, results in the segregation of society, with wealthy families clustering in certain school districts and poorer school districts holding classes in closets. As a result the disparity between the best schools and worse schools is smaller in Canada than in the US.

In Canada, a teaching position in an elementary, middle or high school is a true career. The pay is high enough to provide for a good standard of living, and thus attracts teachers with high levels of education. How do I know this? In my family alone, my father and mother were teachers; in addition, I have two aunts and an uncle who taught as well. They were all comfortably middle class: my father even had a masters (and almost a PhD) in nuclear physics and still opted to become a high-school (and later an elementary-school) teacher. Due to his love of science, he was a great high-school teacher. On several occasions, I remember as a kid, we would bump into former students who thanked my dad for really explaining physics and giving an appreciation of science to his students, leading them to careers in high skilled areas. When I was a kid, my father would spend the time to answer my million and one questions, not only in physics, but in history, philosophy and millions of other subjects he had read up on. I ended up as a researcher. In Canada, people of his stature (knowledge professionals) are respected and well paid and contribute greatly to society. This is contrary to the situation here in the US.

Here education is paid lip service by elected officials. In addressing educational issues, the local, state and federal governments always look for quick fixes (testing, the latest trendy way of teaching etc...). But what is needed is a fundamental change in how we treat education, and this has to do with educators. This career choice can't be treated as a "last resort job" as it is by many here today. In New York, Jenni and I knew a lawyer(?) who quit her job to become a New York City teacher - not for money, or security, but more as a public service - as if teaching were doing charity work!

We need to pay our teachers more, we need to get people with higher degrees teaching, we need to equalize funding to school districts, and we need to start respecting teachers (and other knowledge workers). Richard Feynman onced remarked that there are many Jewish scientists because Jewish culture respects knowledge. This is true for Asian cultures as well. Will this be ever be true in the US as a whole? If not, the US (and I'm part of this country now) will eventually fall behind Asia scientifically and economically.

Mystery in a shopping mall
Topic: Science and Culture
Here is an interesting finding by Tulula Tenant. Apparently, the marble used for the walkway at the Prudential Center Mall in downtown Boston is full of something ancient and mysterious. Follow this link to Tulula's Blog to see what it is!

Coffee
Topic: Science and Culture
Coffee has a long and interesting history. Isolated from plants that grow wild in the Ethiopean countryside (and also near the town of Mocha in Yemen), coffee has been brewed for ages in North Africa and the Middle East. Its powers to keep individuals awake (perceived first as giving people a surplus of energy) was recognized by the Ottoman Empire. As a result, coffee was seen as a military secret by the Turks and it was a capital offense to trade coffee outside of the Empire's borders. So valuable was coffee that wives could divorce their husbands if they could not supply their household with adequate amounts of the precious commodity. Apparently, the govenor of Mecca was ousted by an enraged Sultan for attempting to ban coffee within his city.

When the Ottomans retreated from the vicinity of Vienna in the late 1500s, they left behind loads of coffee beans which were then discovered by Westerners. Due to Italian merchants, roasted coffee from the Middle East spread throughout Europe, until the Europeans got hold of a single coffee plant. The seeds of this plant were used to start European controlled coffee plantations. Supposedly 90% of present-day coffee plants are direct descendants of this single plant!

A couple of months ago I had a conversation with Julia from my lab, about coffee and planting exotic seeds (Julia had experimented with mango seeds). Coffee beans are actually the seeds that reside in "coffee cherries" that the plant produces.

That weekend a group of us walked into Polcari's (a great place to buy fresh coffee beans) in Boston's North End. There we found unroasted coffee - and just like "Jack and The Bean Stock" we walked out of the place with a handful of beans (although instead of trading in a cow, the guys from the store let us have a dozen of the green peanut-shaped items for free). Reading up on the internet, Julia informed us that the germination of coffee seeds required long sustained periods of hot weather, which Boston experienced 1-2 weeks ago. We seized the opportunity and planted half of our beans about a week ago (towards the end of the hot spell) ... and today we saw two sprouts appear (see image right - blowup of the shoot in the inset)

Our foray into botany has begun!

I'll post updates in the future.

Be a Mad Scientist, Create your own Virtual Life
Topic: Science and Culture
I recently received an email about Will Wright's newest creation ... Spore (see screenshot right). Famous for his "God Games" Sim City and The Sims, Wright now asks players to recreate life itself ... but instead of the lackluster Sim Life, this new game will interact with an online database that will store innovations and creations any one player may create.

From an article in WIRED magazine:

Starting with single-cell organisms, players work on designing life with ever more complexity. As the game progresses, players must figure out how to take creatures from individual animals to small tribes and then to cities, whole planets, solar systems and galaxies.

Wright and his team of about 30 claim to have broken new ground with Spore.

While it's a single-player game, everything players create, from huts to spaceships, can make its way into a giant database, which will be used to populate planets in the online Spore universe.

It's what they call a massively single-player game.

So now we can all take part in a great "virtual galaxy" experiment. These non-goal oriented games which emphasize creation for creation's sake are fascinating and engrossing. I wonder if such virtual worlds can be used to experiment primary tenants on evolution or economics ... in any case the world benefits by people like Will Wright who think outside the box.

William Smith (the Father of Geology) vs. the Upper Class
Topic: Science and Culture
I'm just about finished another excellent book, The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester.

An Oxfordshire orphan in the late 1700s, William Smith grew up to become a self taught engineer who specialized in canal digging. Of course in the early 1800s, canal digging was all the rage in England as it reduced the shipping costs for valuable commodities, such as coal, used to fuel the industrial revolution. Digging throughout the country side around Bath, and talking to many of the local coal miners, William Smith made an incredible discovery ... the rock beneath the soil was composed of multiple layers of strata, which abruptly changed (from limestone to chalk to coal etc.). Moreover, each of these strata were spread out over vast areas and could be recognized and "dated" by their characteristic fossil deposits. armed with this knowledge, Smith became famous for being able to predict the location of coal deposits. Eventually he drew the first small scale geological map of the environs of Bath, and the first large scale geological Map of England and Wales.

With all these accomplishments, you would think that William Smith would rise through the ranks. Wrong.

At that time, the Geological Society of London was formed and refused him membership due to his humble beginnings. Worse, Sir George Greenough, a founding member of the society, stole some of Smith's data to produce his own map. Smith was cheated and humiliated. Fortunately in Smith's lifetime the Society corrected these errors and awarded it's first award (the Wollaston Medal) to William Smith, "the father of English geology."

So does class impede individuals today? Well in science, thankfully no ... although many do consider "Pedigree", as in which lab an individual did his graduate and postdoctoral work, as playing a big role in who gets grants and where work can be published.

In some ways the rich and powerful still manipulate science, although more often this involves manipulating the public appearance of science to advance their personal agenda. Just look at todays' headlines in the NY Times: Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming. And from the article:

But the scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because all agency employees are forbidden to speak with reporters without clearance, said the kinds of changes made by Mr. Cooney [a Bush aid and former oil industry lobbyist] had damaged morale. "I have colleagues in other agencies who express the same view, that it has somewhat of a chilling effect and has created a sense of frustration," he said.

Well what do expect, it's the interest of money vs. scientific based discussion. And unfortunately here it seems like money has the upper hand. What I personally hate, is that it doesn't have to be this way - it's in the interest of people in power to listen to science, or else we will all suffer the consequences of bad judgment. But when people in power are selected by pedigree not by intelligence, can science be influential?

Impressions of Calgary
Topic: Science and Culture
My last day in the wild Canadian west was the only wet one. Instead of staying in Banff to brave showers on some lonely hiking path, I decided to venture into Calgary for a quick visit.

A couple of Canadians I know at Harvard (like me, part of the "brain drain") will probably end up there soon ... So could I live in Calgary and be a happy mad scientist?

Well on the way in to the city, I had a long conversation with this fellow who lives in Lake Louise but comes in to Calgary every two weeks to see a neurologist. Calgary (and the province of Alberta), he explained to me, is booming. The oil reserves in the northern part of the province are estimated to be larger than the Saudi Oil reserves ... except that they are trapped in sand as a tar (but with oil prices so high, it's still profitable to extract that oil). As a result of all this wealth, people are flocking to Calgary and it resembles the large American cities of the west - Calgary has a minuscule downtown, deprived of any high density residential zones, and a huge sprawling suburbia - about 1 million strong and growing at 2-3% a year).



Strolling along the main drag (Stephen street) I noticed a few nice restaurants, many shops, a mall (with a green house on it's top floor) and two museums. I then walked into the Calgary Art Institute to see what's cooking. They have two tiny exhibits, the first featured some contemporary paintings from Native American artists. And the second was an installation containing a collection of a thousand or so letters that Chris Lloyd emailed to the Canadian Prime Minister - accompanied by creative posters and other artifacts. Many of the letters are funny, dealing not only with Canadian relations to the US, the war in Iraq and the current crisis in the Canadian Government (see image left), but also the everyday mundane. For more visit Chris Lloyd's website.

But as far as I could tell, that was it for the local art scene. I strolled up some other avenues (not many in downtown Calgary) ... and nothing. So I guess Calgary would be a great place for the "American Dream" (albeit a Canadian version) but like so many other newer cities in the west, it's unidimensional ... a perfect suburb, but without the cauldron of dense city where people can readily exchange ideas.

Without that extra stimulation ... it's hard to be innovative and creative in my own work.

I guess Calgary is not for me.

Nice Spoof of Harvard
Topic: Science and Culture
Here is a funny ad for Harvard - brought to you by The Onion:

Religious Right Guidlines on Stem Cell Research
Topic: Science and Culture
After hearing reasonable guidelines from the National Academy of Science on embryonic stem cell research, the Bush Administration's panel on bioethics, and Massachusetts's Governor, Mitt Romney, weighed in.

So what were the conclusions of the bioethics council? It's summed up in one statement from their report:

... blastomere extraction from living embryos. We find this proposal to be ethically unacceptable in humans, owing to the reasons given in the ethical analysis: we should not impose risks on living embryos destined to become children for the sake of getting stem cells for research. This approach could, of course, be attempted in animals, but we do not yet see how results from animal experimentation could alter this assessment of ethical propriety in humans. We do not expect this method to become ethically acceptable for human trials in the future.

They then determined that there are a couple of ways that scientists can step around the use of embryonic stem cells.
-Get the stem cells from dead embryos (I guess they 're proposing that scientist patiently wait in the lobby of in vitro fertilization clinics for embryos that poop out before implantation???)
-Implant an adult nuclei into a denucleated egg ... this has been called therapeutic cloning ... and although this is a long term goal of many researchers, just getting from an egg with an implanted nucleus to a viable embryo is quite a feat. Also I thought that these guys were even more horrified with cloning than with embryonic stem cells. I guess their religious backers didn't read the fine print.

Usually when scientist congregate to figure out ethical guidelines, they reach a consensus ... but not this time. From a NY Times article:

The 18-member council's invitation has already been vigorously rejected, however, by two of its three members who are research scientists, and other scientists seem likely to take a similar view.

Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga, a cognitive scientist at Dartmouth College, said in a dissenting statement that the council's four prescriptions for making all-purpose human cells were "high-risk gambles."

Another scientist member of the council, Dr. Janet D. Rowley, a cell biologist at the University of Chicago, said she found "totally baffling" the notion that it was ethically preferable to let healthy embryos die rather than to use them to help sick and dying patients.

In fact Dr. Rowley states in the report:

Because they do not know in advance which embryos will not divide and which will, some portion of embryos (about half) will continue to divide and will be healthy embryos. What happens to these healthy embryos? The proposal says healthy embryos in excess of those to be implanted will be allowed to die while scientists struggle to recoup a few living cells from the dead embryos! This seems to me to be the height of folly.

Hmm ... now lets visit what are local officials are doing ...

Two days ago, Mitt Romney announced that he will add four amendments to a bill circulating in the Massachusetts's State Capital that would provide financial support for embryonic stem cell research.

So what are the amendments?
-Ban in vitro fertilization of human oocytes (eggs) expressly made for research purposes.
-Change the definition of the inception of life, from implantation of a fertilized egg in a uterus, to fertilization of an egg (de facto saying that an y destruction of a fertilized egg is murder).
-Ban the donation of unfertilized eggs for research purposes.
-Restrict the selling of unfertilized eggs for research purposes.

In other words Romney supports funding stem cell research only if is almost impossible to obtain the starting material (i.e. fertilized eggs, embryos etc.). How convenient - he supports it as long as most of it can be banned.

Pheremones and Homosexuality
Topic: Science and Culture
Well in todays PNAS a paper presents more evidence that humans produce and respond to pheromones. Apparently a modified version of testosterone found in male sweat can illicit activity in the hypothalamus, of women and gay men, but not straight men. Another compound (this time an estrogen derivative) found in female urine, can stimulate hypothalamus activity in straight men but not women or gay men.

So not only are pheromones perceived differently in the two sexes, but that the response also corresponds to sexual orientation.

And how about gay women? Well according to a New York Times article:

Dr. Savic said that she had also studied gay women, but that the data were "somewhat complicated" and not yet ready for publication.

Now there are many out there who deny that sexual orientation is innate, but this study clearly demonstrates that there are physiological differences between heterosexual and homosexual men.

It is very frustrating to hear American social-conservatives talk about homosexuality. So for all those social-conservatives out there I would like to point out two items.

First, just because something is found in nature, it does not mean that it is right and that it should be accepted. Humans have been slaughtering each other for millennia, but it's safe to say that murder and rape are not "good" by anyone's standards. This is commonly known as the naturalistic fallacy. Such strong ideological opposition of the innateness of people's desires does no one any good. By the same reasoning, just because something is natural doesn't make it bad either. In sum whether a behavior (or anything else) "is natural" has no bearing on whether it is morally right or wrong.

Second, if homosexuality still bothers you, yet is innate in some individuals and has genetic components then why not leave the gay community in peace? By letting individuals live their lifestyle and letting them pursue their own inner feelings they effectively exit the reproduction pool resulting in less individuals with a predisposition to homosexuality in the next generation. In the end they're happy, (you are happy) and we can all live in peace.

And all this crap about the homosexual agenda ... what is the homosexual agenda supose to be? Do people think that an army of Village People are going to steal their sons (and daughters).

Now personally I'm a strong believer in personal freedom ... and the golden rule ... so if the world has more or less "gays", what difference does it make as long as we are all free to choose our own preferences. Well actually, we all thrive intellectually when there our communities are composed of individuals that have diversity of thought and experience ...

Ref: Savic I, et al. PNAS 102:7014-7019

Evolution on Trial (Again)
Topic: Science and Culture
So it would seem that evolution is on trial in Kansas. So what are scientists doing about it? Well it seems like they're boycotting the whole event, claiming that it's rigged against evolution.

Is this a good strategy?

Well I can't say just yet. By arguing with these ignorant groups, we take their ideas seriously. But by ignoring the problem, we let it grow.

What I do know is that we, the scientific community, need to do a better job of informing and educating the public. We also need corporate America on board, and it wouldn't be hard ... I'm sure that Bill Gates could tell Corporate America why.

If you want to read more on the circus in Kansas:
"A Cry for Help" by Eric Reynolds in Science Mag.
Kansas Citizens for Science.