Dec 25 2009
Wishing all curious minds/freethinkers/skeptics, a day of joy. Which depends on ancient myths not a bit.
Family and friends, gifts, festive food and drink, colorful decorations: these are the real reasons people embrace the season.
Dec 24 2009
On the eve before Christmas
some biologists gave to me –
A new bird species found in distant trees.
The ScienceDaily article tells it:
A diminutive, colorful bird living in the rocky forests of Laos and Vietnam has been discovered by a team of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, Lao PDR Department of Forestry, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Swedish Museum of Natural History, BirdLife International and other groups.
Named the “limestone leaf warbler” because it breeds in Laos’s limestone karst environments — a region known for unusual wildlife — it is similar to other warblers in this area of Southeast Asia, except for its distinct vocalizations and slight morphological differences. [source]
I love it! For this bird-watcher, the discovery is waaaaay better than a six-pack of tube socks.
[photo by Peter Davidson]
Dec 24 2009
While I am a huge fan of the anthropology and primatology fields, and I have no qualms with tentative parallels drawn between other species’ behavior and our own (evolutionary psychology), I am first and foremost a skeptic. And so the news of some recent chimpanzee research first piqued my interest, then got me grunting in disapproval.
The title: Wild Chimps Have Near Human Understanding of Fire
You may wonder how it was determined that wild chimpanzees have near human understanding of fire. Were the chimps given #2 pencils and a fire fighter proficiency test? Joking aside, here is how chimpanzee understanding was gauged:
Data on the chimps’ behavior with seasonal fires was collected by Pruetz during two specific encounters in March and April 2006.
Field observations on two occasions? Poor quality and quantity of data, I’m afraid. From that information we get the claim, as a subtitle reiterates it –
Chimps have calm understanding of wildfires
A report of the events includes this:
The researchers interpret the chimpanzees’ behavior to the wildfires as being predictive, rather than responsive, in that they showed no signals of stress or fear — other than avoiding the fire as it approached them.[bold added]
That one bold word says a lot. It also highlights why a finding/claim such as above should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
While the interpretation of field observations reported in this piece might be spot-on, it might also be significantly off-the-mark. For the interpretation of observed behavior can be something like the interpretation of inkblots and other fully or relatively vague stimuli/events.
Dec 23 2009
Shrimp plants (Justicia brandegeana) are currently blooming in our Florida yard. Or at least they were. I am now in the north country, where I will be spending my holidays. I just returned from a hike through snowy woods where I encountered not a single plant in bloom.
Why don’t flowers blossom in the snow (sure, there are probably a few tundra species that do). I imagine part of it has to do with what inner ice crystals would do to the fragile tissues of flowers. There are likely a number of sensible, biological reasons for the lack of blossoms in winter.
Are there any sensible, theological reasons why flowers don’t unfurl during blizzards and cold snaps? If a priest could find one in a “holy book”, or make one up, should it be taught alongside the biological reasons for things in school science classrooms?
Of course not.
Keep religion out of science. Because science it isn’t.
Dec 23 2009
My childhood memories of Christmas include the decorated tree, the presents, playing in the snow. And food.
In the center of our Christmas dinner table was a baked turkey with ground pork stuffing. (Can you guess my heritage? For an additional hint, check out my last name.) The first time I encountered a bread stuffing I found it odd. Though now I prefer it.
In this season of holidays I enjoy learning about the customs of others. And because I tend to think with my stomach, here’s brief sampling of some of the interesting, traditional dishes that people in other nations serve during this time of year (courtesy of Wikipedia).
I think I’ll stop at Hungary cause I’m getting hungry. More later.
What are holidays but good excuses to eat, drink and be merry?
Care to share what special food you are looking forward to stuffing in your piehole in the coming days?
Dec 22 2009
The comet Hyakutake as photographed in March of 1996. I love this bit of commentary about it found on the NASA pics site.
During its previous visit, Comet Hyakutake may well have been seen by the stone age Magdalenian culture, who 17,000 years ago were possibly among the first humans to live in tents as well as caves.
Cool.
How will future humans look back upon us and our culture (if there are any)? My guess is they won’t be terribly impressed. Of course, from our own relatively lofty vantage point provided by humankind’s ongoing accumulation of knowledge, we’re brilliant. At least by today’s standard we are.
Dec 22 2009
I guess I have a bucket-list of sorts: there a number of experiences I’d like to have before I “kick it.” High on the list is traveling to Africa to walk the soil of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. By the time I can afford it, I’ll probably have to bring an aluminum walker. But what the hey, just to be there and imagine the lives of my “deep ancestors” — that would be something.
Further down the list are destinations such as Alaska and Belize. Absent from my bucket list, however, are physical challenges such as sky-diving or planting my flag atop Everest-sized mountains. Though I do enjoy climbing mountains.
That said, I do have some challenges I’d like to confront and possibly overcome in my remaining decades (if all goes well). These are intellectual goals. And although I have no formal 1-2-3 of these, the other day I was made aware that I do have an intellectual bucket-list of sorts by this article:
Entropy Alone Can Create Complex Crystals from Simple Shapes; Tetrahedra Packing Record Broken
In specific, these two sentences prompted my formal commencement of keeping an intellectual bucket-list:
Entropy is a measure of the number of ways the components of a system can be arranged. While often linked to disorder, entropy can also cause objects to order.
In terms of the physics, the hard science of it, entropy is a fully comprehended and documented phenomenon. Yet in terms of how we think about entropy, the language we use to speak about it in general, the philosophy or metaphysics of it, well, the concept is still largely a puzzle. At least to me it is.
I first got to thinking about entropy when chasing the what I would designate as the number one element on my intellectual bucket list: a satisfactory understanding of the nature of time. Entropy is considered one of primary “arrows of time,” one of the reasons why there is a uni-directional flow (so the wording goes) to time.
But what is entropy? For years the working definition of entropy consisted of the measure of disorder in a system. It is a pillar of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which states that in any closed system, disorder can only increase, it cannot decrease. Concentrated energy will always becomes more diffuse over time.
Other understandings of entropy include concepts of energy distribution, probability measures, and even our knowledge of a system.
What is entropy? As a pure physicist might say, “I know it when I measure it.” But what more can we say of it?
The measure of disorder in a given system. Yet, as quoted above, in some cases entropy can increase the order of a system. How can something cause what would actually refute or negate it?
I clearly have some reading and thinking to do before I can cross entropy off my list.
Dec 21 2009
While the above image began as a photograph, I can no longer call it one. After modifying it with Photoshop, what I now have is . . . an image? A doctored photograph? Were I to reduce the filtering degree by degree, what would be the point, I wonder, I could refer to it as a photograph, period? Seems to me that photo editing software has introduced a whole lot of grey area into what we present as reality.
Consider this NASA photo.
There is no mention at the source of image manipulation. We do learn what captured the image of cosmic reality: the “Wide Field Camera peering though the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.”
But I sense some grey in the above. Not in color, but in the beautiful light diffraction of some of the stars. How much was the image doctored? Does it matter?
Dec 21 2009
Want fit and trim kids? Maybe you ought to buy a house near a park. That would help, right? Your children would get more exercise and maintain a healthy weight.
Maybe not. New research on 632 Montreal children, begun in 2005, has advanced this preliminary finding:
“Access to convenience stores seems more relevant in obesity than access to fast food restaurants,” says senior researcher Tracie Ann Barnett, a professor at the Université de Montréal Department of Social and Preventive Medicine.
Thus the title:
Proximity to convenience stores fosters child obesity
As for choosing housing near a park . . .
The research also revealed that “access to green spaces may have little influence on the size of 8 to 10-year-olds.”
Kudos (très bien) for that bit of science writing. “May have little” is appropriately tentative. Nothing has been established as rock-solid fact. And “the size of 8 to 10-year-olds” is the specific population they studied; the writer was careful not to prematurely generalize the finding.
Of course, there are many potentially confounding variables. How many of these did the researcher(s) adequately control for is a very good question. Until more/better research comes in, I would make this conclusion: Montreal parents, when choosing a living location, and all other things being equal, should not choose the place near a convenience store. Particularly if the store sells those delicious chocolate snack cakes filled with peanut butter and covered with a crispy chocolate coating. That could be asking for trouble.
Dec 20 2009
If there is a culture war today, the weapons of that war are not swords, spears, and arrows, but keyboards and video cameras. This is a much more civilized way to battle opposing forces.
Speaking of civilized, is it just my personal experience, or do the vitriolic comments and emails from individuals expressing opposition to theism have less violent comment and threat of bodily harm than those from individuals expressing opposition to atheism? Seems to be the case to me. I could be wrong, but in the culture wars those armed with religion seem a more threatening lot. A less civil lot.
For more words by individuals on THIS side of the current culture war, I recommend checking out the new editions of these two blog carnivals:
1) Carnival of the Godless #131
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The above photo was taken in a Sicilian place of worship. At times “church” has readily embraced and utilized the forces of “state.” And even glorified those forces. This is a huge reason to keep church and state separate.
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