June 26, 2005
June 25, 2005
June 23, 2005
June 19, 2005
This is exactly how I feel
Found this while browsing American Samizdat. Its from Phil Plait's badastronomy.com, one of my favorite all time sites.
This passage captures a bit of the frustration daily.
"In April, I was asked to give a short speech to a group of local students who participated in a science fair. I wasn't sure what to say to them, until I saw a newscast the night before the fair. The story was some typically inaccurate fluff piece giving anti-science boneheads 'equal time' with science, as if any ridiculous theory should have equal time against the truth. I sat down with a pad of paper and a pencil and scribbled down this speech. I gave it almost exactly as I wrote it:"I know a place where the Sun never sets. It's a mountain, and it's on the Moon. It sticks up so high that even as the Moon spins, it's in perpetual daylight. Radiation from the Sun pours down on there day and night, 24 hours a day — well, the Moon's day is actually about 4 weeks long, so the sunlight pours down there 708 hours a day. I know a place where the Sun never shines. It's at the bottom of the ocean. A crack in the crust there exudes nasty chemicals and heats the water to the boiling point. This would kill a human instantly, but there are creatures there, bacteria, that thrive. They eat the sulfur from the vent, and excrete sulfuric acid. I know a place where the temperature is 15 million degrees, and the pressure would crush you to a microscopic dot. That place is the core of the Sun. I know a place where the magnetic fields would rip you apart, atom by atom: the surface of a neutron star, a magnetar. I know a place where life began billions of years ago. That place is here, the Earth. I know these places because I'm a scientist. Science is a way of finding things out. It's a way of testing what's real. It's what Richard Feynman called 'A way of not fooling ourselves.' No astrologer ever predicted the existence of Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. No modern astrologer had a clue about Sedna, a ball of ice half the size of Pluto that orbits even farther out. No astrologer predicted the more than 150 planets now known to orbit other suns. But scientists did. No psychic, despite their claims, has ever helped the police solve a crime. But forensic scientists have, all the time. It wasn't someone who practices homeopathy who found a cure for smallpox, or polio. Scientists did, medical scientists. No creationist ever cracked the genetic code. Chemists did. Molecular biologists did. They used physics. They used math. They used chemistry, biology, astronomy, engineering. They used science. These are all the things you discovered doing your projects. All the things that brought you here today. Computers? Cell phones? Rockets to Saturn, probes to the ocean floor, PSP, gamecubes, gameboys, X-boxes? All by scientists. Those places I talked about before — you can get to know them too. You can experience the wonder of seeing them for the first time, the thrill of discovery, the incredible, visceral feeling of doing something no one has ever done before, seen things no one has seen before, know something no one else has ever known. No crystal balls, no tarot cards, no horoscopes. Just you, your brain, and your ability to think. Welcome to science. You're gonna like it here."
June 14, 2005
June 13, 2005
USA Today Proclaims Global Warming is Real!
Whew! Cuz I was beginning to have my doubts :P
The debate's over: Globe is warming
The administration was on the defensive last week when The New York Times reported that a staff lawyer has been softening scientific assessments of global warming. White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended such action as a routine part of a multi-agency review process.
The thing is, the Bushies have never been ones for facts, or truth, or anything that rational. You know what I think? They're actively trying to bring about the End of The World, in all its biblical majesty. Bunch of raging lunatics...
And... I know I've given up much of my moral highground by becoming a two SUV (probably soon to be 3) family, but rest assured my tortured soul feels guilty enough. And I take the train as often as I can, ok? OK?
June 09, 2005
Deer going for a swim...
Swimming deer!
UPDATE: this one needs some explaining, I guess - we were sailing with some friends on Memorial day, and decided to pull in to Ayala Cove for some sandwiches. Ayala cove is a popular beach on Angel Island, which is in the SF bay. The island is a National Park, previously occupied by native americans, then used as the west coast equivalent of Ellis Island. Today, it's populated by deer and cycling yuppies.
As we were circling around looking for somewhere to tie up, one of the kids noticed two deer swimming around, looking for a way to get to the beach. What they were doing in the water I dunno. I'm used to seeing seals and otter, but deer is a first. They finally made it on shore, despite the drunken idiots on the beach running after them and throwing rocks.
