Endeavour's last flight

The space shuttle Endeavour has sadly completed its final flight, landing on 1st June.

This amazing picture from SpaceFlight Now was taken from a plane as it emerged from the clouds on the way to earth orbit.

It is nearly the end of an era that began with so much promise.  Still - before long the Americans will be able to hitch a lift into orbit with China, India, or maybe even North Korea (exagerating a bit perhaps) whenever the price gets too high to go with the Russians.  Russia would be stupid if it didn't cash-in on its temporary near-monopoly on manned space flight.

Sayings of perfidious Albion

In the title of today's post, I quoted from the words of The Erratic Photographer, and unashamedly I bring  you his observations on the topic of working in a vibrant international environment.  .  Click on the link above to read about it.

Of course there is a good reason why the English speak in such veiled speech.  It is a sign that some of us are just naturally very polite. 

Small note:  Also, our international friends speak English so well that we have to find a way to keep a few secrets!

Christopher Hitchens on Mladic

I had a bit of a rant about the (now imprisoned) Ratko Mladic on 28th May, (poor, sick, victimised old gentleman that he might be).  I must have inspired Christopher Hitchens to write something much more informative and erudite. See

Mladic the Monster

was published in Slate on 30th May.  Hitch might be struggling with his voice, but the fire is still there in his words.

Abiogenesis - Jack Szostak's ideas on the origin of life on earth

As promised, here is another fascinating video about the origin of life on earth, based on the work of Nobel Laureate, Dr Jack Szostak.

Evolution video - Jack Szostak

Browing around the Richard Dawkins site on a warm early summer afternoon, (while sheltering from the copious quantities of pollen that have suddenly emerged), I found a thread started by a 17 year old French student, A few questions of biology and the origins of life.

Buried in the dozens of comments and replies (some better than others as usual), there was a link to this amazing video on the work of Nobel laureate Dr Jack Szostak.  He and fellow researchers Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn shared the Nobel Prize for medicine Monday for their research into how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.

If you have nine minutes to spare to see how much science is embedded behind the theory of evolution and disproving new earth creationism this is the most condensed stream of information that I have yet seen.  Click the link below this picture.

The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis - Part 1 - Dr. Jack Szostak

The list of evidence is huge.  Great music too! (I wonder what it was.)  That led me to another Szostak inspired video about Abiogenesis - how life could have come about on the primordial earth due to well undertood chemistry and physics.  A link to that is coming soon

Sustainable hunters

The image of the Native Americans as guardians of the environment, people who lived in harmony with nature, is widespread.  Is it true though? 

The way that bison were hunted might be considered useful evidence.  Entire herds would be stampeded and guided towards high cliff edges, called buffalo jumps, sending hundreds of animals to their death. 

The hunters simply had to go and harvest as much of the meat as they could eat before it went off, leaving the rest to be consumed by scavengers.  The picture is of the surprisingly named "Head Smashed-In buffalo jump"

Harmony indeed.

The Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich manuscript is one of the world's great unsolved mysteries.

It is a handwritten book, 16 by 23 cm and about 5 cm thick thought to have been written in the 15th or 16th century in Northern Italy.  It has about 240 vellum pages, carbon dated (within the last year at the University of Arizona) to the early 15th century.  The author, script, language and purpose of the document remain completely unknown in spite of various conflicting claims in recent years that it has been decoded. For these reasons it has been described as "the world's most mysterious manuscript"

It is named after Wilfid M Voynich who acquired it in 1912 and is currently owned by a Yale University library.  People have speculated that it was written by Francis Bacon (who died in 1294, much too early for this particular volume), or by a young Leonardo da Vinci.

There are many mysteries about this intriguing volume.  For one thing it is written in a unique code which  is statistically plausible compared with known languages, using metrics such as letter frequency, word length and word frequency.  It is consistent from page to page, so it is thought not to be nonsense writing.  If it is nonsense then it is very good nonsense.  It also contains no corrections, and there are no places where the text is squeezed in to fit the space (as is common in hand-written books), so it has been suggested that it is a very well planned copy of an earlier text.  (This is where Francis Bacon comes back into the list of possible authors).

It has (perhaps) six sections.  Most pages in the first five sections are decorated with illustrations.  The first depicts 113 types of plants and flowers that do not actually exist.  The second is on astrological topics, and the third 'biological' section is filled with pictures of frolicking (generally naked) female forms.  After 'cosmological' and 'pharmaceutical' sections, the final part of the book is known as 'stars'.  Containing no illustrations at all, each paragraph starts with a star symbol.

Whatever the purpose of the Voynich Manuscript it is still a mystery.  You can find images of all the pages here.

Roaring bears

Apparently black bears can not roar. 

It reminds me to the tale I heard about how to distinguish between a brown bear and a grizzly.  All you have to do is to climb a tree.  If the bear climbs it to get you then it is a brown bear.  Grizzlies cannot climb.  If the bear knocks the tree down to get you then it is a grizzly.

Ascension Day

Today is the day when christians celebrate the visible part of the invisible magic friend being taken up to heaven.

Sitting in my (surprisingly chilly) hotel room in Barcelona I was musing that at least the first time Jesus went up to heaven it did actually happen, unlike the May 21st non-event when Mr Camping's prophecy failed to materialise.

But then I remembered!  The evidence for the historicity of Jesus is more than a little shaky.  Perhaps it didn't happen that time either, but by the time the bible was written down the story had become much more convincing than the reality.

I am here in Barcelona for a meeting that was arranged before the host realised that Ascension Day is a holiday in quite a lot of Europe.  Rather than change the date, which could have been somewhat inconvenient for those of us with our travel arrangements complete, he has decided to have two separate meetings. 

It reminded me of a recent dabble with optimism.   I  couldn't quite believe it when I was told that this particular organisation takes all decisions for political reasons, not pragmatic reasons.  Now I think I should have believed it after all!  As I often say . . . no smoke without mirrors!

Faithful genius - a contradiction?

How often have you had it pointed out that some famous highly intelligent person has a faith?  Usually it is a polite way to say that this person is much cleverer than you, but they still have faith, so why don't you.  How can you know better than them?  They often reel off a list of names including John Polkinghorne (retired Cambridge particle physicist and now Anglican priest), Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal and the 'compliant quisling' in Dawkins' parlance) and Albert Einstein (who was possibly a deist but fairly obviously not a theist).

Is it a contradiction of terms to be a faithful genius?  Absolutely not.  From time to time I have had conversations with people on this subject, and we all seem to agree.  Atheism tends to increase with education but it is not necessarily correlated with intelligence.  As an example, anyone who is converted or deconverted in their life will experience a complete change in their outlook, as if by clicking an internal switch.  They are still the same person with the same IQ but something has changed in their mind.  Often they don't even know what caused the change to happen.  Other times something like Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" is the catalyst (as it was for me).

At last I have come across a possible explanation.  I have never read any books by Michael Shermer but I think I should start quite soon.  Shermer is a science writer (with a degree in psychology and biology) and the founder of The Skeptics Society.  His book titles have included "Why People Believe Weird Things" (2002), and his latest book is called "The Believing Brain".  His interviews on podcasts are always interesting and informative.  This week I heard him speaking with Robynn 'Swoopy' McCarthy on the podcast called 'Skepticality'.  (I'm never quite sure why Swoopy is 'co-host' when she seems to do all the actual hosting, but I expect there is an explanation.)

It seems to be widely accepted that everyone sees patterns in the world and everyone uses those patterns to decide what to believe.  It is clearly a strong evolutionary trait to infer that certain patterns might imply certain threats and to run away from them.  Those who recognise patterns and run away tended to survive and those who did not were more likely to be eaten by predators.  (This explains the phenomenon of pareidolia, (seeing faces in random patterns etc.)  It does not mean that we are all irrational.  We just have to accept the limitations of our own cognition.  I recommend that you try listening to Episode #157 of Skepticality, to hear the highly rational Schermer's own account of the experience of alien abduction, and his subsequent understanding of the subject.

Shermer's idea is that even brilliant geniuses spot these patterns and are deluded by them as much as the rest of us.  However, the more intelligent the observer, the better they are at creating an explanation to confirm their flawed intuition.  It doesn't mean that they are any more likely to be right about their beliefs but it does mean that it will be harder to argue against them.

This explanation seems to me to be rational and reasonable.  Is it true?  Who am I to decide.  But if there are logical flaws in my explanation, I am sure that someone will comment (perhaps even by using my own page "Delusional Logic" against me).

To the moon! (1961)

I missed the actual 50th anniversary on May 25th, but we are still within the same week, so I suppose I could claim some degree of topicality.

50 years ago this week, President Kennedy announced that America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

What an exciting announcement that would have been.  Does anyone remember whether it sent a ripple around the world?  I don't, but then again I was only 4 months old at the time.  At least I remember Apollo 11 and even Apollo 8's first orbit of the moon.

The burning question for me is whether people actually believed presidents in those days.  If an announcement like that was made today, I think we would all expect it to be canceled again within a few years, usually having wasted half the money with nothing much to show for it.  (Think of the Superconducting Super Collider.)

How long will it be before USA pulls out of the international fusion project ITER (again)?

Only a theory

Opponents of the Theory of Evolution use the word 'theory' as an insult.  Of course in common parlance, we have to accept that there seems to be some uncertainty about things that are 'only a theory'.

However, the scientific equivalent of this terminology is the word 'hypothesis'.  This is when someone has an idea but has not yet gathered enough evidence to show that it is true.  In the case of evolution the evidence is completely overwhelming and every day more evidence is gathered, whatever the opponents might think, or feel, or like to believe.

Just imagine an evolutionary tree with gaps between fossils.  When you find a fossil that fills a gap, it could be said to double the number of gaps.  Whenever you find the fossil of a cousin (thereby not filling a gap) opponents of evolution use it as evidence against evolution when it is, in fact, irrelevant to that particular branch of evolution (albeit interesting and informative).

There are many scientific theories that are accepted as fact by the general public.  For example, very few people still believe in a flat earth.  But it is 'only a theory'.  Most of us accept now that the Earth orbits the sun once a year.  But the heliocentric theory is 'only a theory'.  And the theory of gravitation is quite attractive too.  But yes - 'it is only a theory'.

If anyone asks you whether evolution is a theory or a fact the answer is simple.

Yes. Both!

Delusional Logic

If you are a fan of spotting logical fallacies in the arguments that people use, and you want a one page 'crib sheet' to help you to name them, here's a link for you (taking you to another page on this blog where you can download the jpg). 

Collected over a period of several months, this is a new table of the common fallacies that people use, presented for you delectation.  Share it with your friends.

When this blog post 'disappears' into the archive you will be able to find it from a link at the top of the Something Surprising blog home page.

Enjoy!

Another UK farm gate . . .

Found in Northern England.

Now we know where Nessie has disappeared to!

Mladic - of course!

Of course!  Now that Serbia has nearly handed over Mladic it means that they have nearly done enough to be allowed into the EU!  I should have realised!

Presumably some people in Serbia decided that the price was worth it, although I read comments (here and there) that are clearly defending him and trying to offer justifications for his actions. 

According to The Guardian, at this link, Mladic was indicted by a UN war crimes tribunal on fifteen charges for his role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s summarised as:
Count 1: Genocide
Count 2: Complicity in genocide
Count 3: Persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds
Count 4: Extermination
Count 5: Murder
Count 6: Murder
Count 7: Deportation
Count 8: Inhumane acts (forcible transfer)
Count 9: Unlawfully inflicting terror upon civilians
Count 10: Murder
Count 11: Murder
Count 12: Cruel treatment
Count 13: Inhumane acts
Count 14: Attacks on civilians
Count 15: Taking of hostages

Apart from that then . . . what a nice cuddly grand-fatherly gentle old man! And did I mention that he is not feeling very well at the moment and prefers not to go to The Hague for a 'holiday' while his lawyers delay the course of justice for as long as they possibly can.

Serbia and some of our EU politicians might think this is enough to demonstrate good will, but the rest of us might feel that they need to do a little more before they are deemed to be worthy partners.

Mladic - worse than bin Laden!

Just or not, the killing of bin Laden at Abbottabad was at least quick and conclusive.  (I'm not getting off the fence here, not saying whether I think it was right or wrong.)  But I think we are about to be reminded of the consequences of the alternative approach as we see how the same problem is tackled in the European way.

Could you ever imagine the European president having the courage to sanction the type of action that the American president recently approved?  Of course not, for at least two reasons.  First, do you know who the European President actually is at the moment?  I would be surprised if you do.  Second - it is inconceivable that the EU would ever agree to anything quick or efficient.

As I often say in my own unique mixed metaphor, in EU politics 'there is no smoke without mirrors'.  We never really know what is going on behind the scenes . . . behind the smoke screen.  The way that Europe deals with another (alleged) mass murderer will reveal a lot about what is wrong with Europe, even if it also reveals something about the fundamental humanity, truth and justice that they would like us to see.  Meanwhile our money will be squandered on a show trial that will seem endless.

Not many people would say that Ratko Mladic was a paragon of justice.  Even his supporters would only back him because of his successful efforts to eradicate their mutual enemies.  He was indicted in 1995 of the cold blooded killing of between 7,000 and 10,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica - the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II - a much worse atrocity than the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers where 2,800 died.  In one single event Mladic's forces killed at least twice as many as bin Laden's have killed in total.  Since that time one might speculate that certain Balkan authorities have successfully shielded him from arrest and kept him from facing justice.

At long last he is now in custody.  But the poor frail little old man isn't feeling very well and he couldn't possibly be expected to face the arduous journey to the Hague. No doubt this short flight would be in a private jet, not suffering the hardship and deprivations (!!) of the normal 'cattle class' tickets that ordinary law abiding peaceful people have on scheduled airline flights. 

Dear old, scheming, genocidal Mladic has good lawyers, no doubt handsomely paid out of his ill-gotten proceeds, and they will make it difficult at every step of the legal process, spinning out the trial for years.  The costs will reach tens of millions and justice might never be done.

This is the alternative to sending in a crack squad of soldiers to 'dispatch' him.  The American approach had the additional feature of revealing to the world how Pakistan had kept him 'hidden in open sight', whereas in the European approach nobody would dare to offend another European country by pointing it out. Surely those who deliberately defend and hide indicted mass murderers (whether they are labelled 'terrorist or 'army chief') deserve to be exposed.

Which is the better approach, the lesser of the two evils?  Please comment.  I can't believe that anyone reading this could claim not to have an opinion.

Little note.  In typical fashion, the question about who is the president of the EU has at least three possible answers:

• President of the European Council (since 1 December 2009, Herman Van Rompuy)
• President of the European Commission (since 22 November 2004, José Manuel Barroso) unelected of course, but clearly the most powerful
• Presidency of the Council of the European Union (since 1 January 2011, Hungary)

You see!  Smoke and mirrors!

Friendly Ulster farmers . . .

 At the end of a tranquil farm drive in peaceful Country Antrim, Northern Ireland  . . .

 . . . you find a friendly and welcoming sign!

 

C of E in a pickle!

In the Guardian on 25th May, there was an article Church of England tied in knots over allowing gay men to become bishops.

Apparently, the archbishop of York's office refused to comment, saying the whole process was entirely confidential.

I think it would make little difference whether the Archbishop of York commented or not, as on the basis of his performance on Radio 4  on 14^th January 2010  I can only assume that we would be left wondering what on earth he was talking about on the topic of gay bishops too.

I refer to the 'clarity' brought to the subject during John Humphrys’ interview of the archbishop of York, John Sentamu on the Today programme last year. The subject was the Haiti earthquake. This transcription is as close to the spoken words as I can make it.

H: Why did God allow this to happen?

S: He created a world which is so beautiful, full of power, full of possibilities that at times . . . water for example, a fantastic reality, can at one time be a devastating thing. Is God got a slot machine in which we put in things and good things come out and bad things come out, no. I actually believe that God is fully engaged, and I have nothing actually to say that that makes sense of this horror. All I know is that the message of Christmas, the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus is that he is with us. Rabbi Hugo Green I think said something more beautiful when he was asked “where was God when Jews were being gassed”. And he said “God was being blasphemed and violated” and what makes it more difficult because if you believe that everybody is made in the image and likeness of god, disaster like this actually make it appalling and very difficult because what we are seeing is the face of God being disfigured and that is quite pretty pretty pretty appalling.

H: But we are told two things aren’t we? We are told that God is merciful and all powerful.

S: Yes.

H: How can those be reconciled with happens to a country like Haiti at a time like this?

S: Well . . . for the Christian you have got to see the god who is very much like Christ like and in him there is no un-Christ likeness. You know, St Augustine of Hippo said “He lies in a manger but contains the world. He feeds at the breast but also feeds the angels. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes but vests us with immortality.”

H: Hmm . . . I’m not sure I understand that answer to be perfectly frank with you. I don’t quite see what it has to do with the question.

S: The question is that the god we are dealing with who is merciful and powerful has shown his face to us in the person of Jesus. And if you believe that God is very much like Jesus of Nazareth, questions of power, questions of mercy, ultimately find their answer not in a sort of a slot machine type god but actually in a god who is with us alongside us, and his power is made more stronger not in dictatorship but in terms of mercifulness, in humility and coming alongside us.

H: But what you seem to be arguing for here is precisely the slot-machine type god. Because slot machines are random. The suffering that is imposed, that has been imposed on these people of Haiti, clearly entirely innocent people, many many children amongst them, that is random, just like a slot machine.

S: No no no no no. Jesus was asked a question when there was a Tower of Siloam which killed a lot of people. People were assuming that those who died because they were wicked. Jesus said “No not at all, don’t be complacent, don’t think you can comfort yourself by saying that bad things only happen to bad people. Everyone needs to be aware of their fragility and vulnerability and of their need for one another and for God. You see we are a family, when one weeps we all weep, and I’m afraid the world as it is has got tremendous beauty, tremendous power within it, earthquakes, fire, this can be devastating, and it depends on where you live and you think, well, why did they live in that place? Now with science now for example we know, that the early warning system for the tsunami can actually warn people when this is happening because our world is a world which we are not masters of.

H: So what do you have to say to someone like Pat Robertson the American evangelical preacher, candidate for President of the United States indeed at one point, who seemed to be blaming Haitians themselves, the country he said swore a pact to the devil at its creation. So in other words they deserved it.

S: No. I think anybody who talks like this needs to sit at the foot of the cross of Jesus, where what actually you do is don’t throw stones. I think he is absolutely wrong, Haiti is very close to America, and you would have thought that for these generations when the government nearly collapsed, and the United Nations that giving any sense of it (??) that America would have come to their aid, and I am very grateful that, and thankful that President Obama is taking a more proactive ... erm ... help on their doorstep. So Pat Robertson, I am sorry, he is totally wrong, he should re-read his bible properly and realise that what my mother said, never point a finger because when you do three other fingers are pointing back at you.

H: Archbishop, many thanks.

So now we should have it clear in our heads, direct from the lips of the 'vice-president' of the Anglican Communion. At the time I showed this to a number of people. The Christians say that it makes perfect sense but they cannot explain how. The others seem as confused as me. Perhaps we should offer up 'thanks to the FSM' for sending us an Archbishop who has his feet firmly planted in the air.

Another beautiful rose

More from the garden - and one of my favorite photos from a couple of years ago.  This rose is a variety called Just Joey.

Erosion of freedom

My friend and colleague, The Erratic Photographer, posted an item on his blog a few weeks ago about erosion of freedom in this country. (UK by the way!)  Being a talented photographer, his article was called The War on Photography.  (I reccomend that you follow the link and read it.) 

Maybe things are more general than that.  I agree with everything he said, but I also feel even more strongly.  The laws that have been implemented to combat terrorism in recent years are gradually and stealthily eroding our freedoms.  In this sense terrorism is winning the war against freedom.  Now I am not defending terrorists.  Regular readers will know that.  I also don't discriminate between the islamic kind and the normal 'cuddly' christian or separatist kinds.  But . . .

Imagine that you are an innocent person (which shouldn't be too difficult, being the honest decent person that you are) and that somehow by some coincidence you become a suspect in an anti-terrorist investigation.  You could find yourself arrested and falsely imprisoned for weeks without even being charged.  Your house would be ransacked by policemen and your computer taken away for forensic examination.  Many people who's houses are burgled feel that their property has somehow been defiled, but would it be an less defiled because the action was taken by the police?  I think not!

You would probably lose your job and many of your friends (who might be wary of guilt by association). 

So far as far as I am aware, not a single suspect kept in custody for as long as the law permits has been prosecuted. 

Even medieval laws are not perfect, but in this sense they seem more just than 21st century legislation.