Rant Alert

Sorry, but it's "That" time again. Time when the level of stupid reaches the flood gates of tolerance and it spills over all over my shoes...

I've been reading multiple blogs on the spate of anti science legislation that is popping up a couple of states. Both The Bad Astronomer and P.Z.'s Pharyngula blogs have the details but the basic gist of these bills is this; Evolution as described by Darwin is a theory and not fact. Because it's a theory, alternative "theories" should also be taught.

Sounds reasonable enough on the surface except that the people who are backing these are religious fundamentalists who want creationism taught as a science. It comes down to a misunderstanding of what science is. To a fundamentalist, science seems to mean a philosophy akin to their religion. To everybody else, science is a tool or method for of exploring and defining the natural world . The supernatural has no place in science as, by definition, it is beyond the natural world. In science, a theory is a collection of observations, evidence and ideas that model something in nature. Because it's a model, it can be held up and tested to see if it holds true. A good example of this is Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It's been tested and retested over and over again and still holds to be an accurate model of the universe while Aristotle's theory that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun, Planets and stars all revolved around in perfect spheres failed to accurately model what later scientist (particularly one, Galileo) where observing.

This brings up another quality of a theory, it can make logical predictions. Einstein's theory predicted that time would slow (in respect to an outside observer) the closer one approached the speed of light. This prediction was proved correct several times since the 1950s and CERN runs an ongoing Time Dilation experiment currently. Poor Aristotle's theory fell apart because it couldn't explain or predict the retrograde motion observed in the motion of several planets.

So, what does this have to do with original rant? Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a good scientific theory as it cites observations and make predictions that can be tested. The creationist's intelligent design theory makes no testable or observable predictions. Nor does it doesn't cite observations but only hearsay and rumor. It's data source is, in their own words, supernatural and that alone removes it from realm of science.

Beyond the "Teach the controversy" stupidity, these people are trying to stifle the teaching of basic scientific methodology and that can have devastating effects on society. Our society is one based upon science and rational thought. Imagine this, the computer you are using to read this suddenly stops working. Unless you are one of the small percentage of the population that repairs computers, you're out of luck and your machine is going to stay broken. Sure, you could wave a stick over it and maybe say a few words in the hope that it will sudden fix itself but really, you need somebody trained to solve your problem. Now take that example to an extreme and say, oh a nuclear power station suddenly starts to malfunction....you see where this can go.

Not knowing how to fix a computer is not something to be ashamed of (hell I open the hood on my car and immediately curl up into a fetal position) and socially its ok. The problem is that so many fundimetalists don't understand (or worse refuse to try to understand) scientific concepts like evolution and then decide that because they can't understand it, it's beyond understanding. They call scientists snobs or elitist because they use a vocabulary that is not in the everyday lexicon of the general public. They fail to understand that every profession has it's own linguistic shorthand and not everybody is trained enough in that area to understand it. It comes down to a very old saying, "If it was easy then anybody could do it".

Anyway, I'd like to close with a request....Fundamentalist, please stop relishing the ignorance and stop trying to send us back to the Dark Ages....they were called that for a reason folks.

She worked WHERE?!

Just caught up with reading Nicole's One Astronomer's Noise blog and discovered that she did her under grad work on the VLBA. She's got a lot of info on the hows and whys of the VLBA (plus just being a fun read).

So, go over and pay her a visit and tell her that Greg95111 says hi!

But Officer, My speedo said 500,000mph...honest

Do you ever get the feeling that the galaxy is spinning out of control and the best thing to do is just hang on for the ride? Well guess what, that feeling may be more accurate than you might think.

Scientist using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have discovered that our Milky Way galaxy is spinning about 100,000mph faster than previously thought. According to the findings, our solar system is moving through space at a respectable 600,000mph. To give that some sort of perspective, the average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 250,000 miles and it took the Chandrayaan-1 probe took 2 weeks to travel to the moon and the Apollo Astronauts did it in about 3 days.

They also found that our galaxy is about 50% more massive that what was previously estimated. This puts the Milky Way about even with Andromeda in terms of mass. This also means that our chances of colliding with another galaxy has increased as well. Why is that you might ask? Well, remember that gravity is the result of mass. The higher the mass, the more gravity there is and the farther away it's influence is felt (thanks to the Inverse Square Law).

So, where does this extra mass come from? Good question and one that's at the forefront of Astrophysics at the moment. We think it has to do with something called Dark Matter. Dark Matter eh?, sounds like some sort of Star Wars baddie doesn't it? Well, the truth is, it's a place holder. A way of describing something that we can't directly observe. Dark Matter may be something as simple as dust particles that don't emit or reflect very much light. It might also be something exotic and brand new to physics. Scientist can see what Dark Matter does (speeding up the expansion of the universe is one of the results that are being studied) but so far they haven't seen the stuff and until they do, the placeholder name will remain.

As amazing as these discoveries are, the tool that was used is just about as mind boggling. The VLBA is one incredible machine. You may have heard it said that in astronomy, aperture is king. Aperture is simply a measurement of how much information (in terms of the electro-magnetic spectrum) a telescope can collect. The larger the aperture, the more data can be collected and the farther the scope can look. Most research telescopes have apertures described in terms of metres or feet but the VLBA might be described in terms of miles! VLBA is made up of 10 radio telescope dishes spread from Hawaii to St. Croix Virgin Islands. Each telescope dish is 25 metres across and because all ten are linked together and work as a single unit, the aperture of the VLBA is about the same as the diameter of the Earth. It can resolve objects in space about 50 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Pretty cool isn't it?!


Here's the original report!
And to the VLBA

I HATE SINUS COLDS!

There, I got that off my chest (unlike the three pound of mucus that still sitting there). Colds on vacation are only slightly better than a combined root canal/colonoscopy. On the slightly plus side, we're visiting my mother for the holidays so I'm being well spoiled.

Happy Holidays to all!

What happened to Thou Shalt Not Steal?

The state of Washington did a really brave and good thing with the holiday decorations in the Capitol building. In addition to the "Holiday" tree and Nativity scene, a sign was put up promoting Atheism. Here's the story from a local station.

Sadly, somebody who was so threatened by a different viewpoint decided that it was ok to steal the sign and throw it into a ditch. Here's that part of the story from CNN.

Any body who knows me personally has had to endure my rantings on the evils of organized religion and against the fundamentalist christian groups specifically. I can go on for hours about this or that hypocrisy and yet, I try to keep an open mind and understand why these people might feel threatened. They live in a world that's filled will monsters, demons and angels. A world where the unknown is bad and to even question it is to invite punishment upon themselves. They also proclaim to live by a set of laws and that's what bothers me so much when incidents like this happen.

In the United States, there is an ongoing controversy regarding the display of the basic Laws of the christian faith known as the 10 commandments on or in a government building. The Founding Fathers of the United States decided that a separation of church and state was in the best interest of the Republic. They felt, in my opinion, that the rights of one persons religious beliefs can not be held to a higher or lower standard than any other person's belief. Two hundred years ago, these men, who were rational intellectuals who were also religious. They believed that our country would be best served by the rule of law and so, when it became time to set down into history their most heartfelt and important laws, they looked to history. They looked to the Code of Hammurabi and to the English Common Law and to the Magna Carta as well as the 10 Commandments among so many others.

At the heart of all those legal concepts is the idea that an individual's property is theirs and has certain protections under the law. No where is this concept written so well or so directly as the Commandment; Thou Shalt Not Steal. There it is, a simple direct statement with no doubt as to it's meaning. It's easy, don't steal!

So, back to the stolen sign in Olympia. I'm sure the person who stole it would describe themselves as a "God Fearing American" and do so with pride. I wonder how a person who takes such pride can rationalize not only breaking the law of their beloved country but also that most basic commandment that, if you believe in it, was handed down directly from the god that they claim to fear?

I'll take rationality any day thank you.

A change of direction

We, as a species spend a lot of time looking out but sometimes it's nice to look down. I've seen this a couple of times via emails and such but here's a nice Flash movie of the Earth from the High Perspective.

Conjuction Junction

"Did you see the lights last night?"
or
"Hey, I saw the strangest thing last night"

Questions like that greeted me this morning when I found my way to the pile of papers I call a desk. Being the closest thing in my office to an astronomer I tend to get a lot of questions about the sky and was looking forward to the one I knew were coming regarding the Moon/Venus/Jupiter conjunction. I was even (ok, almost) ready for the, "Those had to be UFOs cause you can't see a planet from the earth!" one. Yes, sadly, that is a quote from an associate who also doesn't understand how an eclipse works because, and again I quote, "The moon can't get between the sun and the earth because the sun and moon are both up in the sky and spin around the earth".



I answered all the questions and while doing so, it struck me that more people came to me asking things then ever before. People had actually stopped and looked up. People had actually done astronomy and began the scientific process by asking a simple question to themselves, "What is that?" What a wonderful thing happened to these folks and they don't even realize it.

I wonder how many of them will continue to take a moment out of their day and just look up? More, I hope, than did before.