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If you’ve been following the news over the last couple of days, you may have heard about Gary Goodyear, Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, and his strange remarks regarding evolution. On Tuesday it was reported that he was asked whether he believed in evolution, and his response was, “I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate.” This created a bit of a stir, naturally, and he has since changed his answer – now saying that he does believe in evolution, but that the question was irrelevant.

Irrelevant, Gary? No matter what your beliefs, evolution is currently one of the most contentious points between religion and science – and as you are the Minister for Science, I’d say it is pretty clear what side you should be on. The question is as relevant as ever, and your wishy-washy answers have got a lot of rationally-thinking people feeling uneasy. I’d like to note that I personally am fine with Mr. Goodyear being a Christian. Despite what my personal feelings are on the compatibility of his religion with science, the fact is that many brilliant and successful scientists in the past have been religious in one way or another. But the way he drags religion into a question that should be purely scientific, quite frankly worries me. It’s not too hard to picture him promoting so-called “intelligent design” as a valid alternative to evolution. This is a road that we as a country do not want to go down. We’ve done a good job so far of keeping religion out of our government, and I’d like to see it stay that way.

Well, the Large Hadron Collider has not destroyed the world yet, a fact which many are looking upon with disappointment. We’ve all seen movies; the apocalypse always looks so awesome. But for now, the scientists working at CERN seem to be the only ones who really get to enjoy the LHC.

Not anymore. The folks over at io9 have made a drinking game of it. I wholeheartedly support this particular use for multi-billion-dollar scientific equipment.

This article was linked to on Digg recently, and there has been some misunderstanding of its content. It concerns a discovery of a new catalyst that could make it possible to use sunlight to directly split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This might turn out to be quite important in the future (if we start using hydrogen as fuel, and if this turns out to be more efficient than other ways of producing hydrogen, etc.), but you can’t mention “water” and “energy” in the same sentence without certain people assuming that the useable energy is in the water itself. I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: water is already in its lowest chemical energy state. You cannot extract energy from water using chemical* means. That means no water-powered car engines, no water-powered batteries, etc.

Of course this discovery is interesting enough in itself. Storing solar energy for later use has always been a bottleneck in this particular form of alternative energy, so if you could store it as chemical energy in hydrogen, it could potentially surpass the standard lead-acid or lithium-polymer battery solution. However, this remains to be seen. For the time being, this technology is still in experimental stages.

*Other forms of energy are routinely extracted from water in order to generate electrical power, for example kinetic/potential energy in a hydroelectic station, or thermal energy at a geothermal plant. The hydrogen in water could also be used as fusion fuel**, thus releasing nuclear energy.

**Note that a fusion reaction would far surpass (by several orders of magnitude) the energy required to split the hydrogen and oxygen apart, thus avoiding the problem that makes it impossible to get a surplus of chemical energy from water.

It seems every other day that someone comes up with a way to extract useful chemical energy from water. The fact that it’s physically impossible is less important than the fact that one can always find gullible people to fork over large quantities of money for these so-called “inventions”.

But this guy is really taking it to the next level. 25 employees, 60 MILLION dollars in venture capital funding, and a 2000-page book describing his new theory of quantum physics; I’m almost impressed by the amount of effort he’s put into this scam. He even put a new twist on the usual process for getting energy from water. From the article:

Mills’ theory, which he expounds upon in his self-published 2,000 page book, The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics, rests on what he describes as his discovery of the hydrino – an altered version of hydrogen that has an energy level lower than its ground state, or the baseline energy level. These modified atoms, he argues, are the stuff that comprises dark matter, the invisible material that many scientists believe composes more than 90% of the universe. The mechanism that creates hydrinos – a chemical reaction whose released energy can allegedly be harnessed for power – is what Mills calls the BlackLight Process.

What the article doesn’t say is that this is a pretty stardard explanation of zero-point energy – the kind found powering starships and death-rays in science fiction, not the actual scientific concept. The crux of the matter is the supposed “energy level lower than ground state”, which is impossible by definition.

It is true that nobody has ever created a new theory of physics without first questioning the old theories. In fact, scientists are encouraged to look for flaws in established theories in order to better understand the universe. But for a new theory to supplant an old one (for example, relativity superseding Newtonian mechanics), there needs to be quite a body of repeatable experimental evidence, and the theory must bear the closest scrutiny by other scientists. Dr. Randell Mills (note that he is a physician, not a physicist) has only the results from his laboratory, and responds to academic criticism with the same old crap about how science is hostile to anyone who would try to think differently, etc. His exact quote is “As long as you’re in the mainstream, you’re fine. But if you’re doing something paradigm-changing, you’re proving that academics have been going down the wrong path,” which quite frankly makes me angry. He is nothing more than a con artist, and to see him accusing people who are doing real science is infuriating.

As for whoever gave him $60,000,000 to develop a free energy machine, well, I hope they weren’t counting on recovering that investment. (Seriously, where can I find such stupid and naive people with so much money to give out? I’ve got a lovely Brooklyn Bridge here to sell them…)

Now on the BBC

I can’t help but think that whoever wrote this article had their tongue firmly planted in their cheek. It’s the picture captions that really do it for me. “A flying saucer” succinctly describes a very obviously computer-rendered scene (including the obligatory Photoshop lens flare), and “UFO over house” underscores a picture of something that looks impressively similar to the Goodyear blimp.

Regardless, it is clear that interviewee Mr. Timothy Good believes in aliens visiting Earth, and even claims that they have their own terrestrial bases and are in contact with governments around the world. Also, western militaries have classified “advanced technology” to deal with some unspecified alien “threat”. I’m not so naive to think that the military doesn’t conduct top secret research into futuristic weapons systems, but it seems a bit far-fetched to imagine that the enemy is not of this world (cynical note: we seem to have plenty of use for weapons right here against other members of our own species; why drag aliens into it too). I must also say that if there are aliens who for some reason are hostile towards humans, there is nothing we could do that would prevent a civilization with technology for interstellar travel from destroying us completely. It would be like cavemen with sticks and rocks trying to fend off a modern army.

My response is still the same to all believers: where is the proof? Extraordinary claims and all that.

SETI@Home status: still running…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1037471/Apollo-14-astronaut-claims-aliens-HAVE-contact–covered-60-years.html

And not only have they made contact, this has been going on for at least the past 60 years! They have been consorting with various governments who have conspired to keep it a secret for this long. But now, the word is out. Unbelievable, you say? Well, I have proof. Hard evidence. I have… wait, no, I just heard this third-hand from some old guy. But hey, it must be true, because he was an astronaut on Apollo 14! He walked on the Moon! Which of course automatically makes him a reliable source; after all, there has never been any cases of astronauts being at least slightly crazy. Okay, so maybe that’s a low blow. But is there any evidence anywhere to suggest that aliens have been here?

No. Besides some blurry faked photos and CGI videos, there is not a scrap of proof of alien visitation. Crop circles are hoaxes. Abductions are psychological tricks. Supposed “wreckage” from crashed UFOs has remarkably similar properties to man-made amorphous metal. Not to mention that to cover up something as monumental as contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence for 6 decades would require a degree of competence in “the government” that frankly strains credulity. Although on the flip side, they don’t seem to have done that great a job, since a frighteningly large number of people believe aliens have visited Earth, and apparently our artistic depictions of aliens as small humanoids with big heads is completely accurate. I won’t even get in to the discussion of how incredibly unlikely it is for a species to evolve on a different planet and end up looking pretty much the same as us.

But, of course, I can’t prove a negative. So I can’t state with certainty that we are not being visited by beings from another world. But I *can* say that for me to believe in something as extraordinary as this, it is going to take more than some grainy photos of flying hubcaps and the word of a former NASA astronaut to convince me. In honesty, I would love to see evidence of the existence of alien life. It would be just about the most exciting scientific discovery of all time. But for now, I’m just not seeing the proof.

Side note: I still run SETI@Home on my computer though…

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when people take science and corrupt it for their own political ends. In recent years, global warming has been – pardon the pun – a rather hot topic; hardly a day goes by when you don’t hear about it in one form or another. The environmentalists have championed the theory, the right-wingers have dismissed it as propaganda, and everything in between. For every Inconvenient Truth (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/) there’s a Great Global Warming Swindle (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020027/). We have to be more energy-efficient. We have to drive hybrids. There’s not a scientific “consensus”. Etc., etc., etc.

It wears on one’s nerves. And though I’m surely to be labeled a “global warming denier” or something equally as asinine, I’d like to explore what it IS, and what it IS NOT.

Global warming was originally an extrapolation from a predictive climate model. Depending on how you tweak the parameters, the same model will predict global cooling, or global temperature-not-changing-at-all. Granted, it does make logical sense. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and levels are elevated due to human activity, therefore human activity is causing the Earth’s temperature to increase. But overly simplistic, albeit rational, explanations such as these have no place in an essentially chaotic system such as climate. (Side note: some models will predict that heating actually causes cooling in the long run: more heat causes more water vapour in the air, which causes more clouds, which reflect more sunlight away from the Earth, which causes the planet to cool)

Global warming is not something that can be tested scientifically. One big problem is that we only have one planet to “experiment” on. Even if we could somehow test multiple Earths in the laboratory, there are far too many variables to be able to pin down the effects of a single one. At the end of the day, it comes down to what is statistically likely. To put it more bluntly, the idea that humans are going to cause a significant increase in the average temperature of the planet is a guess. An educated guess, to be fair, and one that is backed up by historical data such as graphs of atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature:

So I’m certainly not trying to say that it is a “myth” or that it is “impossible” or anything of that sort. There is a clear correlation in that graph, which lends support (but certainly does not prove) to the idea that man-made cardon dioxide can increase Earth’s temperature.

But even if it turns out to be wrong, the rest of the environmentalist message is still absolutely correct. Use less electricity. Drive more fuel-efficient cars. We KNOW that pollution from car exhaust and coal power plants kills tens of thousands of people annually; there would be no downside to getting rid of that. And maybe global warming alarmism is what we needed to give us a kick in the “green” direction. Hell, if all it means is the demise of the hideously obnoxious Hummer H2, then it is absolutely worth it.

Just… seriously… it’s not a political platform, it’s not a news headline attention-grabber, it’s a bloody computer model. It’s not even scary anymore; sorry, fear-mongering media, you’ll have to find something new to frighten us with.

A little while ago I was talking with my friends, and the subject of asshole drivers on the highway came up. I jokingly suggested that this was due to velocity having a negative effect on human IQ. This would explain why the stupidest drivers always seem to be the ones going the fastest. I was going to leave it at that, but I was curious to see what other phenomena my “theory” could explain. The Overview Effect (discussed here previously), where astronauts are dumbfounded by looking at the Earth, is one. I then tried to see if there was any evidence showing a decrease in intelligence as one moves towards the equator (which is moving faster due to the Earth’s rotation). Obvious jokes about “the South” aside, I gathered some data on the importance of religion in various countries and the latitudes of their capital cities. (Before you write an angry post, remember that this is just a joke, and I am not actually trying to conflate “being religious” with “being stupid”. In fact, I wouldn’t have mentioned this except that there IS a striking pattern in the graph)

Even ignoring the trend line that MS Excel drew through it, you can see that as the latitude increases, on average the importance of religion decreases. So what does this mean? Have I stumbled across some amazing new scientific discovery?

Of course not.

This whole “theory” is rubbish. I chose only to include observations that supported it, and left everything else out. I conveniently omitted the fact that I’m using a different reference frame for velocity in each case. And Einstein himself showed that it is *physically impossible* to detect absolute velocity; one can only sense acceleration. The correlation on the graph is either pure coincidence or due to some other factors (for example, it is possible that poor countries are more religious, and countries near the equator tend to be poorer). The only reason why I put this here is to illustrate how easy it is to make a theory that sounds reasonable, and how wary you must be of claims that something is “scientifically proven” (especially if it’s by someone trying to sell you something). Even if they have pretty graphs and staistics that are based on cold hard data and seem to be supporting the claims, you still need to think critically and make sure for yourself that everything fits together, and isn’t just a bogus theory like this one.

Sometimes, due to my silly and naive notion that humans are mostly decent and good, I let myself think that 9/11 conspiracy theorists are well-intentioned (despite how deluded they are).

This article which I stumbled upon is good evidence to the contrary: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06218/711239-85.stm

Accusing a faceless “government” of conspiring against its own people for whatever ends is one thing; attacking an innocent woman who was lucky (or unlucky) enough to get a picture of the crash of Flight 93 of being a liar and a fraud is completely different. Furthermore, these “truthers” have shown blatant disregard for her privacy and even safety, by providing her personal information including phone number and home address to people whose intentions might be hostile. It honestly sickens me that these people who claim to be on the side of “truth” and “justice” would do this, but it serves as a good reminder that they are in it for the attention and nothing else.

Another post on Digg that caught my eye:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/26/atheist.soldier.ap/

Some select quotes that are rather disturbing

Known as “the atheist guy,” Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and — just as severe to some soldiers — gay, none of which, he says, is true.

I see that ignorant people continue to be ignorant.

The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, a superior officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists in Iraq. Welborn has denied Hall’s allegations.

So apparently it’s illegal to be an atheist now. Good to know.