NZ entries in science blog awards

There are a total of 171 nominations for the 3 Quarks daily 2009 Science Prize for science blog posts (see Science blogging prize). Its now open for voting (until midnight June 8 NYC time)

So go along and have a look at the nominees, even vote for the ones you like. If you have a nationalistic interest be aware that two New Zealand bloggers (that I am aware of) submitted posts. Hot Topic’s post Monckton & The Case Of The Missing Curry (#63). And Open Parachute’s series on Human Morality (I: Religious confusion, II: Objective morality, III: Moral intuition, IV: Role of religion and V: The secular conscience)(#94-#98).

Answering the big questions

I am always distrustful of those who claim there are areas of reality which are not accessible to investigation and possibly understanding. Of course this may well be true, but often those who say this desire to specifically deny humanity the opportunity to rationally investigate parts of reality which they wish to reserve for religion. For example Melanie Phillips, in a recent Spectator tirade defending intelligent design attacks science  for seeking “to commander the space previously reserved for the unknowable, or religion.”

Why is science important?

Alom Shaha has created a great web site (Why is science important?) and film. It should be of special interest to teachers and students.

The web site provides a large list of thoughts and comments from leading scientists and public figures. It also encourages comments from readers.

The complete film (30 min) can be watched on the Vimeo site (click Why is Science Important?).

However, one can choose individual short YouTube clips. I have listed them below for convenience.

Intelligent design science publication policy?

Is this the sort of “theistic science” publication policy the proponents of intelligent design (ID) advocate? Is this what they mean by “academic freedom.”

Does this give us an idea of the future of science if the ID Wedge strategy was successful?

From Russia Today – Darwin brushed out of Turkish scientific journal.

Theme testing – feedback welcome

Just trying out a new WordPress theme.

I have wanted something a bit cleaner for a while so will see how this goes.

Apologise for any disruptions and welcome any feedback

Science & Islam

I have never accepted the proposition that science started with Galileo and Newton. Or that it grew out of Christianity. This just seems to be a Eurocentric and Christian chauvinist distortion of history.

The BBC documentary series Science and Islam will help to break down these misunderstandings. Jim Al-Khalili fronts the documentary. He is a physicist from the University of Surrey and author of the book Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed. Science and Islam is a 3-part series and in episode 1, “The Language of Science,” Jim Al-Khalili describes the “translation movement’ – the translation of Egyptian,  Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese scientific sources into Arabic. This helped preserve the ideas for later exploitation. But it is important to stress that this wasn’t passive.  Islamic medieval societies also contributed to science – especially in areas of mathematics, medicine and map making.

In Episode 2 “The Empire of Reason” Al Khalili discusses the origins of chemistry, measurement of the circumference of the earth and the immense contribution of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham – who he describes as the inventor of the scientific method. Fascinating!

Can we now look forward to a similar treatment of the history of science in Greek, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese societies?

My hat tip to Science & relgion News

Psychological abuse

Because of the summer solstice holidays I am reposting some older articles. This one from last April.

We are very conscious of violent physical abuse of children because of the publicity around resulting deaths. However, neglect and psychological stress can be at least as important, or even more important, a problem as physical and sexual abuse. We also seem to be unaware of the long-term psychological results of child abuse.

Our ignorance of non-physical child abuse and its long-term psychological effects means we often don’t acknowledge the harm done to many children.

Child abuse survivors suffer from long-term post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive negative thoughts, low self-esteem, compulsive behaviour, anger, disturbed sleep, hyper-vigilance, shame, guilt, etc. are common.

Persistent psychological abuse of children can result from continual disparaging comments or continual exposure to physical and verbal violence between adult care-givers and parents. Psychological stress can also result from the controlling behaviour of care-givers.

Fine tuning of the universe?

I am going to return to this subject again later as it has been discussed lately and does raise some interesting issues. But meanwhile here is something on the topic from last March.

More and more I hear the apparent “fine-tuning” of the universe being given as an argument to “prove” existence of a god. This goes along the lines that there are a number of critical physical constants underlying the nature of our universe. If either of these had even slightly different values our universe would be very different. Stars and galaxies would not form. Carbon would not be manufactured in the stars and hence life would not occur.

Proponents of this “proof” argue that the chance of our universe having physical constants with these values is impossibly small. Therefore there must have been a divine intelligence to ensure our universe has physical constants with the measured values.

“Cosmic religion”

A repeat of a previous post – from last March.

Did Einstein believe in God?

Certainly some theists support their own beliefs by claiming he did. However Einstein’s religious beliefs were certainly not conventional. His statements have been used by atheists and theists alike as support for their positions. We need to look more closely at Einstein’s writings to get a clearer idea of his beliefs.

Max Jammer’s book Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology is probably the best easily available source on the subject. According to Jammer, although Einstein had a “deep religiosity” as a child “at the age of twelve, just when he should have been preparing for the bar mitzvah, the Jewish confirmation, he suddenly became completely irreligious.” A position from which he never changed throughout the rest of his life.

I wonder how we can describe a child under the age of 12 as having strong beliefs – age 12 is probably that time when people start to develop serious beliefs.

Dissent from science

I’m currently out of town so am repeating a few old posts – this one form last February.

Opponents of scientific evolutionary theory will often refer to the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list to justify that the theory is controversial and should be discarded, or at least equal time be given to creationist “theories” in school biology classes. There is no doubt that the list is being used to attack scientific theory but its worth looking at the statement professionals on the list have signed up to. It reads:

“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

Few of the signatories have signed the statement for scientific reasons – rather their motives have been religious (see Who are the “dissenters from Darwinism”?). However, scientists by their nature are skeptics and should always critically examine evidence. In principle few scientists would disagree with the statement. So why has the Scientific Dissent from Darwin list attracted so little scientific support (see Dissenters from Darwinism in context)?