Category: Science

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

[In 1983], five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.

The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.

According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age. One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute.

But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.

This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold.

What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a
meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It
was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media
campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance.

Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be
found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was
characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don’t think these guys know
what they’re talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably
reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It’s an absolutely
atrocious piece of science but…who wants to be accused of being in
favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is
terrible but—perhaps the psychology is good." The nuclear winter team
followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the
editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the
scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views.

A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted
on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter
effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around
the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should
affect the war plans." None of it happened.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

No, his hard-drive is safe (as far as I know), but he’s hacked at the seduction of sciency by agenda. He recently gave a waaay-politically incorrect speech at Caltech in which he lambasted those he felt were passing off phony science as real science.

This is an important speech, in which Crichton says a number of important things about some very important subjects. Unfortunately, he says so many worthwhile things that the sheer length of the speech will prevent many people from absorbing and benefitting from what he has to say.

Therefore, over the next few days I will serialize excerpts from the speech. These will not be the entirety of the speech, and I strongly encourage you to read the original speech in its entirety, but these excerpts will give you a taste of what he had to say.

First up, Crichton comments on the Drake equation for predicting how many communicating extraterrestrial civilizations there may be in the Milky Way:

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we’re clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.

As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith.

The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Down yonder a reader writes:

This doesn’t deal with Crichton per se, but with a cool Idea
harvested from Science Fiction and vastly applicable to the real
world…

Jimmy, have you ever heard of the space elevator?

And on a side side note, Kim Stanley Robison’s "Red Mars" Trilogy is sci-fi WELL worth your time!

Thanks for the sci-fi recommend and the link to the Space.Com story!

For those who may not know, a space elevator is a massive tower that reaches earth orbit, in theory allowing us to ship men and material up into space much more safely, cheaply, and enviromentally-friendlyly than with the current rocketry program.

According to the link provided, some folks are talking about having a space elevator up in 10-15 years.

No word on if Otis will make it.

HERE’S WIKIPEDIA’S ARTICLE ON SPACE ELEVATORS.

Space elevators are a staple of sci-fi. Not only does Red Mars (which I haven’t read) have one, so do many other works. For example, Arthur C. Clark’s (venomously anti-Christian) novel 3001 (that’s three thousand and one) has the Earth of that year ringed by a series of massive equatorial space elevators. (The natives complained about how long it took to get all the satellites and space junk out of orbit to keep them from colliding with these ultra-tall space elevators).

One word of caution about space-elevators, tho. Precedent suggests that the construction process can be plagued with various problems, including sudden-onset massive language mutation.

GET THE SPACE.COM STORY.

Last weekend they had Jurassic Park (#1) on Sci-Fi, and I caught parts of it. Saw it in the theaters when it came out, but seeing it this time underscored for me that–no matter how exciting a dino-thrillride the movie is–the set-up act is filled with implausibilities.

(Like when the heroes see their first dinosaur. I don’t care if it’s a vegetarian brachiosaur–IT’S UNIMAGINABLY HUGE AND NOT AT ALL LETHARGIC AND I’M NOT GETTING OUT OF THE JEEP AND RUNNING UP TO THE THING. In fact, I’ll be demanding that the Jeep be turned around and raced away at top speed, following which I would have a serious discussion with Mr. Billionnaire Dino-Cloner about fatalities and lawsuits and mortal sin connected with driving Jeeps with passengers in the vicinity of free-range brachiosaurs.)

Still, it’s just a movie, and the book is probably better in such regards.

Jurassic Park is only one of Crichton’s novels that have looked at cutting-edge science issues. Another is his just-released book, State of Fear, which deals with global warming.

No, it’s not going to be a re-tread of The Day After Tomorrow (shudder).

Instead, Crichton suggests that global warming has little or nothing to do with humans but is being exploited by activists and scientists to push their agendas.

Scientists, predictably, have launched a pre-emptive strike on the book.

GET THE STORY.

GET THE BOOK.

A reader writes:

Geminid meteor shower tonight, I thought you might be interested in posting on your blog, it’s supposed to be good.

Yes, indeedy! Always love a good meteor shower.

The reader also recommends a CNN story (from SPACE.com) on the shower, which says in part:

(SPACE.com) — If you were disappointed with the meager showing put on by this year’s Leonid meteor shower, don’t fret. What could be the best meteor display of the year is scheduled to reach its peak on Monday night, December 13.

Skywatchers with dark skies away from city lights could see one or two meteors every minute during the Geminid meteor shower. The greatest activity is expected to be visible from North America, Europe and Africa.

The Geminids get their name from the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. On the night of this shower’s maximum, the meteors will appear to emanate from a spot in the sky near the bright star Castor in Gemini.

The Geminid meteors are usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing the famous Perseids of August. Studies of past displays show that this shower has a reputation for being rich both in slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs as well as faint meteors, with relatively fewer objects of medium brightness.

GET THE STORY.

This is going to be Michael Crichton week here on the blog. Before it really gets rolling, I’d like to point out that Michael Crichton has given us some interesting books on cutting-edge science issues.

The Andromeda Strain is one that also became a movie (and a really good movie, at that). It anticipated a coming science issue that I really wish people would pay more attention to.

FORTUNATELY, SOME PEOPLE ARE.

One extraterrestrial bug can ruin your whole civilization.

Yesterday I mentioned a theory that excessive modern hygiene–which is a form of risk reduction–leads to the under- and overdevelopment of different aspects of our immune system. If parents don’t let kids go out and play in the dirt, their developing immune systems don’t get the workout they need to develop properly.

That’s the theory anyway.

Unfortunatley, this is not the only area in which parents are inclined to be overprotective of their children today. In the last few decades, parents have been driven absolutely wild with worry about their children (and the media is in significant measure to blame) and this has led them to take an extraordinarily risk-averse approach to parenting that would have struck prior generations (and which does strike other cultures today) as obsessive.

This is true among devout Catholic and Evangelical parents, as well, including homeschoolers (and I count myself as a BIG fan of homeschooling; should I ever be so fortunate as to marry and have kids, I am determined to do what is necessary for them to have a solid homeschooled education).

Recognizing the horriffic culture rot going on around them, Christians have frequently tried to shield children excessively from the challenges of modern culture (e.g. not letting them see scary movies, violent movies, movies with cuss words in them, etc., etc., etc.).

At times, it seems that modern parents (both religious and non-religious alike) are driven by the assumption that they must protect their children from every possible danger or they are being bad parents.

No.

Quite the contrary.

Their job as parents is to raise children who are able to function successfully as adults in the culture as it is, not to forever shield them from any and all dangers.

Since our culture today poses many risks (to adults as well as children!) that means children must be prepared to deal with these risks. The only way for that to happen is to allow children to be progressively exposed to more and more risk–and feel both the rewards of responsible behavior and the pain of irresponsible behavior–so that they learn how to manage it.

Sure, when kids are first born they are completely helpless and have to be shielded and taken care of in virtually everything, but as they grow they have to be allowed to face risks and dangers, in a very limited way at first but with progressively more self-reliance as they age. (Some things, of course, being things to which parents must never willingly let them be exposed, like porn).

If children are shielded from danger and never allowed to make their own decisions (even foolish ones) as they age then bad consequences will follow.

Certain aspects of their psyche will underdevelop and others will overdevelop.

How many parents have had their kids go off to college and, for the first time suddenly free of direct parental control, go completely nuts? How many other parents have kids who can’t seem to cut the cord of dependence on parents, well into physical adulthood? How many have both happenb? These are consequences of not letting children face risk and assume responsibility as they grow.

Even secularists are noting the phenomenon.

HERE’S AN ARTICLE FROM PSYCHOLOGY TODAY ON THE PROBLEM.

What would happen to a kid  if he got absolutely no exercise at all–just sat (or lay) around all the time?

Well, it’s pretty obvious: Some parts of him (like his muscles) would underdevelop while other parts of him (like his waistline) would overdevelop.

Kids, like people in general, need exercise. God designed us so that we need to work out to grow properly.

That’s why God gave kids the instinct to gain excitement (before the invention of TV and video games) by going outdoors and running around (in packs) and playing and wrestling and rolling around.

In the dirt.

And getting cuts and scrapes.

Which the dirt gets in.

Now this is the part that drives a lot of contemporary American parents wild with worry. Cuts? Scrapes? Dirt? In? Don’t you know that dirt has viruses and bacteria and parasites in it???

But wait: Maybe that’s part of the plan.

God designed children (and the rest of us) to live a rambunctious–and dirty–existence, not to waltz around in a sterile Star Trek-like environment. That’s why he gave us an immune system.

But maybe, just like kids in general need exercise, so do their imune systems. And if their immune systems don’t get the workout they were designed to have, what then? It might seem reasonable to suppose that some aspects of their immune system would underdevelop (leaving them vulnerable to one set of maladies) and other aspects of it would overdevelop–leading to . . . leading to . . .

Allergies.

At least according to one prominent theory, known (unsurprisingly) as the hygiene hypothesis, the excessive (by historical standards) hygiene has been imposed on children of late have led part of their immune systems to overdevelop.

The result is that their immune system is like a bunch of soldiers itching for a fight. When they aren’t given something that’s a real threat to fight, they get trigger-happy and start going after things that aren’t real threats. Hence, non-threatening things like pollen, dust, and mold trigger the same kind of symptoms our bodies experience when it really is sick (like sneezing, wheezing, coughing, being congested, and having to blow your nose).

This is a theory of allergies (and the allergic disease asthma) which is known (unsurprisingly) as the hygiene hypothesis.

It’s no slouch of a theory. It seems that there has been a notable rise in levels of allergies and asthma in the developed world. This appears not just to be an illusion created by greater reporting in recent years, for there is a lesser incidence of allergies in the Third World and in the rural areas of the developed world, where kids have more access to outside play in the dirt than in urban centers.

It’s not 100% certain that the hygiene hypothesis is true. The observed effect could be due to another cause. We’ll probably know in the next couple of decades.

In the meantime, you may want to let your small children run around outside and roll around in the dirt.

Unless they’re already addicted to indoor pursuits, that’s what their instincts are telling them to do.

LEARN MORE.

See the critters on the left? (Click to enlarge photo. IMAGE SOURCE.)

They’re called "sea angels" (obviously for good reason).

They’re also known as Clionidae (a.k.a. Clione).

A related species is called the "Naked Sea Butterfly."

Grow to be about 2 inches long.

Wings flap with an undulating motion.

Related to sponges.

Have shells when they are tiny embryos, then fly free after being born.

Are hemaphrodites and mutually fertilize each other in mating.

Live in the Okhotsk between Japan and Russia.

They and their relatives are an important part of both the artic and antartic ecosystems.

One kind makes a natural fish-repellant (a previously unknown molecule) to keep from getting eaten.

Cool, huh?

LEARN MORE.

ALSO, SEE HERE.

How many are your works, O LORD !
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number–
living things both large and small [Ps. 104:24-25].

Here’s some good news: It appears that giving folks a few minutes’ treatment with a salt spray nebulizer changes the surface tension of the fluids in their lungs so that when they breathe then they don’t exhale nearly as much of contagions such as SARS, TB, the flu, and other baddies. This offers the possibility of a new way of stopping the spread of diseases, particularly in hospitals and homes, where doctors, other patients, and family members may be at risk.

*Very* much hope this pans out.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that are the most effective.

GET THE STORY.