Brian Cox - The Forces of Nature

Philosophically, the idea of forces is kind of shady. While we don't want to outright deny the notion, we also don't want to ignore the danger of possibly believing in what could turn out to be the scientific equivalent of leprechauns. The first problem is that 'forces' are not things experienced directly; rather, they are inferences produced on the basis of other experiences, and as inferences, these could turn out to be misinterpretations of what might be entirely different phenomena.

Take the case of gravity. Before Einstein, it was believed to be a force in the classical sense, but post-Einstein, our understanding is that gravity is not so much a force as an illusion of a force produced by the curvature of space-time.

So, while Brian Cox introduces forces as the 'agents of change" of the universe in the following video clip (and does a nice job of explaining the basic history behind their discovery, understanding an unification), one should still be aware that he's treading in conceptually dangerous territory, and that just like philosophy devoid of science is likely to get itself in trouble, science would be equally foolish to eschew the importance of philosophical analysis. Let's make love, not war :)

I'm kind of curious... whatever dark energy turns out to be, is it possible it might provide evidence of a hitherto unknown (and possibly even unsuspected) new force?

And if you want a fuller treatment of these ideas, check out the Elegant Universe tag, and especially the documentary Atoms, with Jim Al-Khalili.
.

Read More

The Cell - The Hidden Kingdom

We take it for granted today, but there was a time when not only did humanity not understand the nature of cells, we didn't even know they existed. That would all start to change when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a draper and tradesman, would peek into a drop of water through his superior microscope (not to say anything of what would happen when he peeked into a drop of semen) and discovered a world hitherto unknown, full of microscopic life. The baton would then be taken up by luminaries such as Robert Hooke and things would never be the same again...

Progress, however, was slow... had to be slow. Science had to contend not simply with religious dogma and medieval assumptions but with the lack of a proper cell theory, so before we arrived at a proper and basic understanding of what cells are, where we can find them and where they come from, we sort of had to stumble upon a number of dead ends.

That story, as Adam Rutherford makes clear in the following documentary, is absolutely fascinating

And if you want to be fascinated even further, check out The Invisible World.
.

Read More

Jury Selection Proving Difficult in Trial of "The Jury Killer"

You may have concocted some strategy at some point to get out of jury duty, and if you've ever been prosecuted for some crime you (allegedly) committed, your lawyer may have had some say in the jury selection process, but only The Onion can come up with a plan to guarantee that no jury ever dares mess with you :)

Genius... :)
.

Read More

Tim Minchin - Thank You God

Plenty of religious believers believe in God because they've had some personal experience of a 'miracle'; that is to say, they've been confronted with something that (in their own minds at least) could not have happened by any natural means, and so they take this 'mystery' as evidence for a transcendent explanation. That's what I call water-tight logic :)

As we all know, it is impossible for anyone to win the lottery, for a football team to win the Supberbowl, or for people who may have been misdiagnosed to be cured of their non-existence disease... just as it is equally impossible that our judgments may be clouded by cognitive biases, by the power of expectation and by our uncanny ability to reinterpret data to fit in with our beliefs.

So, when some bloke by the name of Sam told Tim Minchin that God had cured his mom's cataracts, Minchin had to admit (with an awesome song) this proved not only God's existence but his benevolent awesomeness :)

Now what I want to know is why God hates amputees :)

If that was somehow too fast for you, you can follow along here:

I have an apology to make.
I’m afraid I’ve made a big mistake.
I turned my face away from you, Lord.

I was too blind to see the light.
I was too weak to feel Your might.
I closed my eyes; I couldn’t see the truth, Lord.

But then like Saul on the Damascus road,
You sent a messenger to me, and so…

I have had the truth revealed to me.
Please forgive me all those things I said.
I’ll no longer betray you, Lord.
I will pray to you instead.

And I will say “Thank you, thank you, thank you God.
Thank you, thank you, thank you God.”

Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum.

I had no idea but it’s suddenly so clear now.
I feel such a cynic. How could I have been so dumb?

Thank you for displaying how praying works:
a particular prayer in a particular church.
Thank you Sam for the chance to acknowledge
this omnipotent opthamologist.

Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum.
I didn’t realize that it was so simple,
but you’ve shown a great example of just how it can be done.

You only need to pray in a particular spot
to a particular version of a particular god,
and if you pull that off without a hitch,
he will fix one eye of one middle-class white bitch.

I know in the past my outlook has been limited.
I couldn’t see examples of where life had been definitive.
But I can admit it when the evidence is clear,
as clear as Sam’s mum’s new cornea.

That’s extremely clear! Extremely clear!

Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum.
I have to admit that in the past I have been skeptical,
but Sam described this miracle and I am overcome!

How fitting that the sighting of a sight-based intervention
should open my eyes to this exciting new dimension.
It’s like someone put an eye chart on the wall in front of me
and the top five letters say: I C G O D.

Thank you, Sam, for showing how my point of view has been so flawed.
I assumed there was no God at all but now I see that’s cynical.
It’s simply that his interests aren’t particularly broad.

He’s largely undiverted by the starving masses,
or the inequality between the various classes.
He gives out strictly limited passes,
redeemable for surgery or two-for-one glasses.

I feel so shocking for historically mocking.
Your interests are clearly confined to the ocular.
I bet given the chance, you’d eschew the divine
and start a little business selling contacts online.

Fuck me Sam, what are the odds
that of history’s endless parade of gods
that the God you just happened to be taught to believe in
is the actual one and he digs on healing,
but not the AIDS-ridden African nations,
the victims of the plague or the flood-addled Asians,
but healthy, privately-insured Australians
with common and curable corneal degeneration?

This story of Sam’s has but a single explanation:
a surgical God who digs on magic operations.
It couldn’t be mistaken attribution of causation,
born of a coincidental temporal correlation,
exacerbated by a general lack of education,
vis-a-vis physics in Sam’s parish congregation.

And it couldn’t be that all these pious people are liars.
It couldn’t be an artifact of confirmation bias,
a product of groupthink, a mass delusion,
an Emperor’s New Clothes-style fear of exclusion.

No, it’s more likely to be an all-powerful magician
than the misdiagnosis of the initial condition,
or one of many cases of spontaneous remission,
or a record-keeping glitch by the local physician.

No, the only explanation for Sam’s mum’s seeing:
they prayed to an all-knowing superbeing,
to the omnipresent master of the universe,
and he liked the sound of their muttered verse.

So for a bit of a change from his usual stunt
of being a sexist, racist, murderous cunt,
he popped down to Dandenong and just like that,
used his powers to heal the cataracts of Sam’s mum – of Sam’s mum!

Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum!
I didn’t realize that it was such a simple thing.
I feel such a dingaling, what ignorant scum!

Now I understand how prayer can work:
a particular prayer in a particular church
in a particular style with a particular stuff
for particular problems that aren’t particularly tough,
and for particular people, preferably white,
for particular senses, preferably sight,
a particular prayer in a particular spot,
to a particular version of a particular god.

And if you get that right, He just might
take a break from giving babies malaria
and pop down to your local area
to fix the cataracts of your mum!

Hallelujah!

And if you want more, check out Tim Minchin's poem Storm, or watch him tell the Pope where to shove it.
.

Read More

The President's Speech

I'm of the opinion, right or not, that anything said with a British accent automatically sounds more intelligent by virtue of that fact alone. Now, if the erudite King George VI of England, confronted by one of the most challenging circumstances of all time, had a really difficult time with public speaking, can you really blame our former hillbilly president for not being able to put two sentences together?

The King had Lionel Logue's unorthodox methods to help him. George W. Bush had someone else...

Then again, there's only so much a single man can do...

Major hat tip to Russ!
.

Read More

Peter Singer - Evolution vs. Ethics

From its very inception, the theory of evolution by natural selection has been misinterpreted by social reformers of all kinds. Opponents argue that it endorses a psychopathic 'nature red in tooth and claw' approach to social problems. Proponents argue the same (they just prefer to use Herbert Spencer's dictum of 'survival of the fittest').

The problem with these interpretations, of course, is that they are both instances of the naturalistic fallacy: taking a description of the world (an is) as if it were a prescription (an ought). David Hume showed, way before Darwin was even on the scene, that this is a logical problem: in an argument, a valid conclusion is supposed to be entailed by its premises, and you just can't reach an evaluative conclusion (one with an ought) based on purely empirical premises (ones with is's). Sorry, not going to happen.

So, taking a scientific view of the world cannot, without the aid of auxiliary hypotheses not themselves empirical, provide the basis upon which our moral judgments ought to rest (no matter what Sam Harris tells you). Evolution explains how things have worked, not whether that's how they should work (from a moral point of view).

Nevertheless, as the following lecture by philosopher Peter Singer shows, there are important and fascinating lessons that evolution can teach us about ourselves and our likelihood of reaching good or bad moral judgments, given our evolutionary makeup. And although these findings don't tell us what choices to make, they should make us aware of the biases we are likely to fall prey to without realizing it.

And if you want to learn more about the trolley problem, you could listen to the RadioLab guys talk with Joshua Greene on the subject.
.

Read More

Lord Robert Winston - How Science Changed Our World

It is just not possible to deny the ubiquitous impact that science has had in all of our lives. The very fact that you're reading these lines on a computer or mobile phone (and are probably addicted to both) attests to the incredible power and influence that scientific innovation exerts on all of us, especially considering that much of the technology simply didn't exist until quite recently.

And while scientific blunders are inevitable, and controversies will always arise for good and bad reasons, the record speaks for itself: we are better off today than our ancestors were in the past.

So, what are the ten most important scientific discoveries or innovations of the past half a century? Well, any list will have some sort of subjective bias built into it, but Robert Winston has a few eclectic and deliciously fascinating nominations, from lasers so powerful they may finally help us finally produce nuclear fusion, to methods of contraception, the world wide intertubes, in vitro fertilization and embryonic stem cell research, microchips, functional magnetic resonance imaging that helps us see the brain in action, bionic prostheses and much, much more...

What else would you nominate?
.

Read More