Appeal to Authority

Logical fallacies are viewpoints brought up during arguments which appear logical on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper are in fact mostly unfounded. One common fallacy is the appeal to authority, where you assume that just because someone is an "authority," that they have to be right. For example, "Pope Urban VIII said that Galileo's views were wrong, so since I trust the Pope I'm going to agree with the Pope and say that the universe is actually geocentric." Sometimes the flaw is that the "authority" isn't actually authoritative in the topic in question - the Pope isn't an astronomer, the President of the US isn't a meteorologist, etc. But even if the "authority" is actually an authority, that doesn't make him/her automatically correct. Even authorities make mistakes - look at Tycho Brahe for example. This is also the entire point of peer reviewed journals, to give the authorities the chance to duke it out.

So that said, when the NY Times Magazine devotes a 28-screen-long article to singing Freeman Dyson's laurels as a motivation for us to listen to his arguments about CO_2 levels, I find myself quite disappointed. Dyson is an authority on quantum physics and sci-fi concepts (such as the Dyson sphere, which led to Larry Niven's Ringworld concept/series); he is NOT an authority on environmental science. I don't care how many people think he's a genius, he isn't a genius in this field. And even if he were, even authorities can make mistakes. It is NOT appropriate for the NY Times to promote an individual's ideas based solely upon that individual's reputation. If the article were billing itself as a biography of Dyson's life, it could be an excellent one, but the article is trying to give us a view of Dyson's ideas and as such it is a remarkably poor one.

I guess in the end by expecting the NY Times to live up to its reputation, I too am guilty of putting too much faith in authority.

Evolution in the classroom

An interesting NY Times article follows a science teacher who worked on evolution standards throughout a few days in his classroom. There's also a bunch of links to graphics and more information, such as the infamous 10 Questions About Evolution - and answers!

Another Pop Quiz

This one by Dr. Richard Mueller of UC Berkeley and "Physics for Future Presidents" fame, and brought to you by the NY Times. If you enter there, I'd be curious to hear your answer here as well.

Plant sensing

Plants may not have brains, but some new work shows that they may have a sense of smell that can let a parasitic creeper pick the most hospitable host from others surrounding, and let other plants choose to invade the root space of "unrelated" plants within the same species while not competing with their "relatives." Bizarre.

First steps of US on Global Warming

After a week of heated argument (and "boos") with other countries in Bali, US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky finally agreed to an amended compromise statement. According to the NY Times,

The agreement notes the need for "urgency" in addressing climate change and recognizes that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required." Still, it does not bind the United States or any country to commitments on reducing greenhouse pollution.

CNN:

The EU wanted an agreement to require developed countries to cut their emissions by 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. The United States opposes those targets, along with Japan and Canada. The latest draft of the agreement removes the specific figures and instead, in a footnote, references the scientific study that supports them.

BBC:

The US and the EU earlier agreed that industrialised countries would not set firm emissions targets at this stage. The "Bali roadmap" initiates a two-year process of negotiations designed to agree a new set of emissions targets to replace those in the Kyoto Protocol.
...
The document coming out of the meeting, the "Bali roadmap", contains text on emissions cuts, the transfer of clean technology to developing countries, halting deforestation and helping poorer nations protect their economies and societies against impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels and falling crop yields. The roadmap sets the parameters and aims for a further set of negotiations to be finalised by the 2009 UN climate conference, to be held in Denmark.

So as far as I can tell, this is again an agreement with no teeth. The US has agreed to no tangible results whatsoever. It's progress in that we've agreed that Something Needs To Be Done and therefore are acknowledging that global warming is taking place, but all we've agreed to so far is to continue talking. Well, better that than nothing.

Asteroid Deflection

I find it intriguing that the best ways to deflect an asteroid from a collision with Earth always involve the Sun's light. NY Times reports on a new (to me) idea of sending a swarm of small spaceships with parabolic mirrors. These mirrors would focus sunlight on one spot on the surface of the asteroid - much like a child using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight on an ant. And just like the ant starts smoking, the spot on the asteroid would start vaporizing, and the gases coming off the asteroid would act as a rocket to push it away from its current trajectory. One benefit of this method that the Times points out is the only difference between a small and a large asteroid is how many mirror ships you send.

My favorite oddball technique is still painting half the asteroid reflective, and half absorptive - the dark side would absorb the momentum of photons from the Sun, while the light side would reflect them, and it would act like a single vane of a radiometer and the trajectory would be changed. The drawbacks to this method are that if the asteroid is spinning the trajectory change would be less, or erratic since the direction of thrust would be continually changing - and pretty much everything spins some. And painting it of course is a pain in the butt.

The mirror ships method has another advantage now that I've mentioned direction of thrust changing - the spot on the asteroid that they aim at can be changed. If the asteroid is spinning, the mirror ships can still always point at the side away from the Sun, for example. If you need to make adjustments to its trajectory, like it's moving a bit too fast, aim for the front side, and when it's going a bit to slow, aim for the back side.

Science and Faith

This NY Times article is an interesting look at the basic assumption of science: that the universe is governed by rational laws. This in and of itself is an assumption - or a belief - that we are not yet capable of proving. The author alludes to the fine-tuning of universal constants and the anthropic principle, but in the end challenges science to not only find the laws, but find the ultimate reason behind those laws, and find them within our own universe - or else we are taking things on Faith.

A first for women!

The first US astronaut to be fired is a woman. [CNN, NY Times/AP, NY Times/Reuters]

A search of the NASA webpage on "lisa nowak" does not yet reflect this. It really is historic, not only is this the first time a woman has done such-and-such, but a woman was the first to do it at all. I think I'm going to cry.

Science *union* Creationism

This NY Times article gives an interesting perspective of a scientist who is also a young Earth creationist - Dr. Marcus R. Ross (PhD from URI Geoscience dept) says the two are different paradigms, different ways to view the universe and one's place in it. The article also brings up an ethical quagmire, about whether it's legitimate for people to study something they don't believe, using their degrees to undermine science, and so on...

Go read.