A world lit by science

HD 278942: The "Wreath" nebula.

In Ross Douthat's idiotic op-ed on Hitchens' death, duly eviscerated by many bloggers, he used a phrase I've heard before. It's wingnut phrasing, meant to disparage atheists:

". . . the bloodless prophets of a world lit only by Science."

I love how they call reliance on science "bloodless" or "hollow". These people are so totally confused that they think scientists miss out on the awe factor, something they say their religion provides in spades. Indeed. How strange are these people?

Bad science names

I'll give two bad names, and then a fun one: 

Rhinoplasty. Seriously, guys. Did you have to call nosejobs rhinoplasties? And after someone chose this name, why didn't others call it back? It's mean.

Smilodon. That's him on the left. I just don't like this name for a sabretooth tiger. It's creepy. I don't want to think of a smile as that mouth comes at me. I just don't. I always have a negative reaction when I see the scientific name for these cats. Yuck. 

Draculin. This one I love. It's the anticoagulant factor in the saliva of vampire bats.

There are tons of silly names in science. Sometimes I applaud them, as in the case of draculin. But people should be very careful when they name things because names live on, and they have effects. Rhinoplasty indeed! The name is an extra burden for everyone who undergoes the procedure. Thoughtless twits.

See if you can tell the difference

Here are two short news items from today:

Science:

"Researchers develop method to identify fleeting ordered structures from intrinsically disordered protein."

America:

"Sarah Palin’s request to trademark her name was denied after the former Alaska governor failed to properly complete her application."

See the difference? Good. 

Cool stuff on physorg this weekend

The weekend is usually dull over at physorg. Not this time.

First up, "A Fizzy Ocean on Enceladus". It seems there may be life on Saturn's moon, right in our own local neighborhood. And you know what this means with respect to life elsewhere in the universe -- if it's on Earth and on Enceladus, a much different world, then life is common throughout the universe.

Next, "Researchers Find Smoking Gun of World's Biggest Extinction". I always believed the late Permian extinction was caused by volcanic eruptions. Now we know it was. This event wiped out 90% of life on Earth. There have been numerous mass extinctions of life on our planet -- and we're heading into another one now as a result of human activities.

There's also a great physics story that I don't even pretend to understand. But I love it anyway -- Time-like entanglement!

And finally, a depressing note from an article entitled, "High School Biology Teachers Reluctant to Endorse Evolution in Class". Here's a quote from it:

". . . only about 28 percent of [biology] teachers consistently implement National Research Council recommendations calling for introduction of evidence that evolution occurred . . ."

People have to stand up for truth, especially in these mindless times, yet it seems even biology teachers won't say it loud and clear: evolution created us and all the living things on our planet. Why am I not surprised? It's just the American decline again. I see it as a skull grinning madly back at us and hoping for the time when darkness will engulf everything for all eternity. This is what religion also seeks, and that is no coincidence. Knowledge is the mortal enemy of these people.

Anyway, check out the great sci-stories and mourn the facts revealed in the last one. And rest assured: no matter how many people try to stop it, science will always march forward.

Science via Dean Koontz

In 2000, Dean Koontz wrote a great book called From the Corner of His Eye. If you haven't read it, pick up a copy. It's right up there with his best five books. (How many has he written? About a thousand or so, right? So being in the top five is saying a lot.)

After presenting a wild idea in the book -- that there are other universes where we also exist -- and carrying it off beautifully (they need to make a movie out of this one) he ended the book with a note saying that there was actual science that said this wild idea might be true, that we might have zillions of duplicates, living lives as real as our own in other universes.

I couldn't get over it: this was real? So I followed up by reading science books. Little did I know that science would soon take over my life. I cannot believe how gorgeous physics is. It's one of the main highlights of my mental existence. I revel in physics. On the tiniest levels there is so much is going on. And those itsy bits are what our reality is made of. The macroscopic world is built on a wild framework of active, constantly moving, sub-microscopic ingredients. We don't think about what's "down there" but it counts.

One of the best things I ever did was read Brian Greene's Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. It's not light reading but it's well worth the effort. This author has an uncanny knack for explaining things. With his help you can pretty much understand everything. Because that's what physics is about: everything. There is nothing in the universe that doesn't obey the laws of physics (at least, as far out as we can see).

I followed Greene's book up by reading Daniel Dennet's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". He's a philosopher of science, which means it's his job to put together the understanding that emerges from science. While scientists discover the facts, Dennett talks about what it means, what science is telling us. One of the most intriguing things he taught me is how our minds work. "Consciousness Explained" is another of his books and I highly recommend it. Fair warning: the book will immolate your concept of "self". It's like having the rug pulled out from under you -- but it's exciting because you can feel that it's true -- he's talking about what goes on in your head all the time. We are not what we think we are.

My science reading went on and on for years. I read just about everything I could get my hands on. Where before I devoured fiction, now I would read only science books. At the tail end of this process, I now have a tall bookcase completely filled with science books and I've read almost every one of them. The understanding I obtained from these guys -- as well as from Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose and Janna Levin and Victor Stenger and David Deutsch and a ton of others -- served to define reality for me. I can never see things the old way anymore. Post-science, I'm aware of the splendor all around me. Each instant seems like a perfect, eternal thing (and it actually is; more on that in a later post).

Science transformed my life and I guess I've got Dean Kontz to thank for it. I did, too. I wrote him a nice email telling him that he'd altered my life in a very positive way. He did and that's the truth.