Tag Archives: science

Earth at Night

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NASA has a composite picture of the earth at night.

Note the concentrations of light! I wonder how far out the lights would be visible to the naked eye.

Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth’s surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites.

I also like their astronomy picture of the day.

Reality will not be overthrown

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The United States has, until now, been a (if not "the") world leader in scientific research and the development of technologies. This has been the backbone of public policies that navigate reality, and it has brought us our highish standard of living and our economy of relative priviledge. But I think we’re on the way out of that role. When ideologies replace knowledge, it is always the people who pay.

Certain fundamentalist groups, suspicious of all intellectuals, "eggheads," and independent thought, have moved us even further into a state of socio-pathology. Their effects on public policy, public higher education, biomedical research, family planning and sex education, environmental issues, the arts and humanities, freedom of inquiry, and even research funding for the common good are monumental, and I suspect that these effects will continue to feed into the sucking vortex of disaster created the skewed priorities of the neocons and crony corporatists.

This administration puts political interests above our well-being as a people. Knowledge and expertise has been pushed aside in favor of unqualified appointments (or those with clear conflicts of interest), the dissolution of advisory committees, and even censorship and suppression of reports from the government’s own scientists.

Across the board, "intelligence" (I use the term in its double meaning) is disregarded unless it supports a conclusion desired by power. There is nothing more deadly to truth than this. I believe such disregard is a substantial security risk that presents a clear and present danger to the American people. We are becoming a danger to ourselves as well as to others. There is still room in our current system for things to change. I hope that the momentum for such change is growing, and I hope that real leaders will emerge – soonest – in this nation’s time of need.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

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The Flying Spaghetti Monster made it into the Wikipedia, nice!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of a religion, known as Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, started on the Internet by Bobby Henderson as a parody of the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught in science classes alongside evolution. Henderson submitted an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education demanding that the Flying Spaghetti Monster be given equal time in classrooms along with Christian and all other creation myths. The “religion” has since become an Internet phenomenon garnering many followers preaching the word of their “noodly master” as the One True Religion.

The doctrine of this emergent religious movement centers on the belief that the Universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster and mandates that His followers shall wear full pirate regalia to ward off natural disasters caused by the decline in numbers of pirates.

Shiver me timbers and ahoy! Ra-men.
(Thanks Jean-Marie!)

Navigating the Minefield of Teaching Evolution

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Understanding Evolution

This is a very good introduction to evolution, intended to help teachers navigate through the current minefield.

“Do you believe in evolution?” is a question often asked of biology teachers by their puzzled students. The answer is, “No, I accept the fact that the Earth is very old and life has changed over billions of years because that is what the evidence tells us.” Science is not about belief—it is about making inferences based on evidence.

The alleged incompatibility of religion and evolution has been used as a way of persuading people to deny the history of the Earth. The following misconception is dependent on a misunderstanding of the functions of both science and religion.

Religion and science (evolution) are very different things. In science (as in science class), only natural causes are used to explain natural phenomena, while religion deals with beliefs that are beyond the natural world.

The misconception that one has to choose between science and religion is divisive. Most Christian and Jewish religious groups have no conflict with the theory of evolution or other scientific findings. In fact, many religious people, including theologians, feel that a deeper understanding of nature actually enriches their faith. Moreover, in the scientific community there are thousands of scientists who are devoutly religious and also accept evolution.

The National Center for Science Education has statements of support from several religious organizations, who affirm the constitutional separation of church and state as supportive of religious freedom, and who support the teaching of evolutionary theories knowing that it doesn’t threaten faith.

Intelligent Design a Boondoggle

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In a roundtable interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers President Bush said yesterday that he believes schools should discuss “intelligent design” alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life.

No problem. Just don’t ask science teachers to teach it. Teach it in religion classes, not alongside evolutionary theories in biology class. The principle of selection: what lives to reproduce passes on its genes. There are discussions about different theories within the science of evolution – debate about catastrophic events, punctuated and gradual evolution, the big bang. Much of science has latent mysterious content – read up on string theory or strange attractors, for example. However, renaming “creationism” as “intelligent design” doesn’t make it science. What are you going to teach? Bible verses? In any case, there are lots of creation stories – you’d then have to teach them all, not just the Genesis account. Wouldn’t it be better to leave that to families and the worship centers of the different religions? Why would the public school system be teaching Judeo-Christianity?

Intelligent design refers to the theory that “unspecified intelligent causes” (i.e. God the Father) are responsible for the origin of the universe and of life in all its diversity – well anyway, the life we know, which is based on carbon.

Don’t laugh – these pseudochristics are serious! They are already anti-intellectual, anti-science. They want followers, not thinkers.

The House Subcommittee on Basic Education in Pennsylvania heard testimony Monday on a bill that would allow local school boards to mandate that science lessons include intelligent design. The legislation is sponsored by only a dozen lawmakers. A federal judge will consider the issue this fall, when a lawsuit against the Dover Area School District is scheduled to go to trial. The suit alleges that the school board violated the constitutional separation of church and state when it voted in October to require ninth-grade students to hear about intelligent design during biology class.

Of course, here in Georgia, the infamous Cobb Country had big stickers in all the science textbooks proclaiming that evolution is just a theory until a federal judge in Atlanta finally put the nix on it in January saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The stickers were added after more than 2,000 parents complained that the textbooks presented evolution as fact, without mentioning rival ideas about the beginnings of life, such as the biblical story of creation. Six parents and the American Civil Liberties Union then sued, contending the disclaimers violated the separation of church and state and unfairly singled out evolution from thousands of other scientific theories as suspect. The judge ruled that “While evolution is subject to criticism, particularly with respect to the mechanism by which it occurred, the sticker misleads students regarding the significance and value of evolution in the scientific community.” “By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof.” Last year, Georgia’s education chief proposed a science curriculum that dropped the word “evolution” in favor of “changes over time.” The idea was dropped amid protests from teachers.

This focus on the new creationism is very clever. If they get religion taught as science they gain more control over the children (get ‘em while they’re young). Such children will be unable to distinguish between science and religion, but as Bush himself shows, many of our kids are impervious to the very best education. We may lose out in the science and technology wars of the future, but hey, we’re going down anyway with the gradual destruction of the public school system that helped us rise. If the fight fails, they still motivate their fearful, hateful base -energizing them with that ole God is on our side bull at a time when people are getting less enthused about Iraq, oil/gas prices, and so on. Now that’s strategic politics.

One question, though – if you believe in creationism (and that’s what this is), then you probably also believe that God placed humans in the position of the stewards of the earth. How is it that the same group of people who advocate for creationism are first in line to let corporations pollute? Where are their environmental concerns? Some stewards.

What possible joint interest could a real Christian have with the death and power policies of this administration? Believers are so easily manipulated – don’t you remember that warning about false prophets?

Mobilize Nov 2 – Start planning now

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Not in Our Name is trying to launch an initiative for November 2, 2005 called “The World Can’t Wait – Drive out the Bush Regime.” They envision mass outpourings of popular protest on the anniversary of the “re-election.” Politics as usual isn’t going to work, and dependence on semi-magical “leaders” in the Democratic party or elsewhere doesn’t appear to be a good option either. Silence and paralysis are irresponsible – what you will not protest and fight you will be forced to accept. We aren’t make much headway tackling issues one at a time.

Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Your government suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

People who steal elections and believe they’re on a “mission from God” will not go without a fight.

—-

We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime’s program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.

To that end, on November 2, the first anniversary of Bush’s “re-election”, we will take the first major step in this by organizing a truly massive day of resistance all over this country. People everywhere will walk out of school, they will take off work, they will come to the downtowns and town squares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to JOIN US.

This is the first of probably several actions that aim to represent the majority as the majority despite losses in freedom of the press – to repudiate this criminal regime, making a powerful statement that this regime does not represent us and we are committed to the refusal of being ruled and manipulated for aims that are not in our national interests.

Imagine if everything just stopped for a day – cars in the streets, people walking, talking with one another. Crowds in public places. They can’t block or arrest everyone. This is a country that is supposed to ensure the right of freedom of assembly – says nothing about permits or “protest areas” in the Constitution. What if major areas all over the country took that one day just to say that they reject what it being done in the name of Americans, and to America and its citizens?

Instead of hostility toward the ones who are still being fooled by Bush Inc – how about a reach out? How about some simple – and accurate – arguments? How about some visual aids? If the protesting is happening all over the place there isn’t a whole lot anyone can do about it! If assembly is peaceable, it’s protected. I say go for it.

This isn’t some nambly-pambly feel-good action. It really means to get out there. Grab ten of your friends and start making things for the camera to see. And…. keep your face off the camera – it’s not impossible that this administration would target you under the Patriot Act as a “terrorist.” And isn’t that part of what’s wrong?

Check out the site: http://www.worldcantwait.org/, and also http://www.notinourname.net/ if you haven’t been there yet. September 3/4 New York City National Organizer’s meeting.

Initiating signers of the World Can’t Wait Call include:

William Blum, author of Rogue State
Prof B. Robert Franza, MD, author of Control of Human Retrovirus Gene Expression
Nina Felshin, author of But Is It Art: The Spirit of Art as Activism
Margot Harry, author of Attention MOVE! This is America
C. Clark Kissinger, Revolution newspaper and initiator of Not In Our Name statement
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp
Travis Morales, Revolutionary Communist Party, SF Bay Area
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter [Bulworth]
Frances Fox Piven, author of Regulating the Poor
Ralph Poynter, community activist
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild-NY
Lynne Stewart, criminal defense attorney
Sunsara Taylor, Revolution newspaper

Global Warming Virtual March

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Join the Stop Global Warming Virtual March and make your voice heard!

This one is big enough that it might make some waves.

Some of the other participants are:
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Senator John McCain
John H. Adams, President, NRDC
Laurie David, Founder
Senator Joe Lieberman
R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence Agency
Senator Maria Cantwell
Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
General Wesley Clark
Andy Stern, President, SEIU
Richard Klausner, MD, Executive Director, Global Health, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Father Paul Mayer, Co-Founder of the Climate Crisis Coalition
Ross Gelbspan, Author
Gus Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Al Franken, Author, Air America Radio
Leonardo DiCaprio, Actor, Environmental Activist
Martha Marks, Pres., REP America
Susan Joy Hassol, Independent Scholar
Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Geosciences and Intern’l Affairs, Princeton University

An excerpt from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s call to action:

…we have the technology to avert catastrophic global warming. We only need to muster the political will. We must require our leadership in Washington to once again mobilize our country’s scientific and technological capacity – the way America did to win World War II against the Nazis in 1945, to put a man on the moon in 1969, and to fix the ozone crisis in 1988. Today, we need a Apollo project to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, we need our leadership to muster America’s capacity for invention and innovation, our entrepreneurial energies and our willingness to sacrifice –and deploy our invigorated nation to rescue human civilization.

Second, all the actions we must take to avert this global warming, are things America ought to be doing anyhow to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, our entanglement with petty dictators, our vulnerability to price shocks on the international oil markets, and to improve our national security, modify our trade deficits, reduce our national debt, stimulate our economy, create new jobs, and give our children clean air and water, robust health and safer, more wholesome communities. Immediate dramatic action on global warming will restore America’s global leadership and our moral authority among the nations of earth.

We are asking you to help us express your own commitment to stop global warming through a single act of community – a giant petition drive that we call the “Stop Global Warming Virtual March on Washington.” Over the next year, we will mobilize millions of Americans to join our march and make their personal commitment known by joining together to urge Washington to begin taking the steps necessary to derail global warming.

Our mandate to stop global warming transcends politics. It is a moral imperative. The battle to save the planet is the ultimate human rights struggle and, as with America’s civil rights movement, the first steps must be to mobilize citizens to remind our elected leaders of their moral obligation. Global warming is a theft of our children’s future. It is criminal and sinful.

It would mean a lot to me if you would join under my personal impact page.

“Good Steward”????

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Well, all in all, both men did very well. These presidential debates are the most serious, the most exciting, the most historically resonant of any in my living memory. Anyone who wants to now has plenty of information to do their own research, and make an informed voting decision. Voter registration is up.

I’m really beat and I’ve had an extraordinarily…um..unusual week. But I can’t go to bed after the second presidential debate without at least screaming out to cyberspace:

Bush claimed to be "a good steward"????????

A GOOD STEWARD??????????

I hope that the religious communities do a little comparision in their own theologies, and consult one another about what the biblical definition of "steward" is. For one, it is a highly charged phrase. It distinguishes between two kinds of biblical interpretation regarding Genesis. Some believe that God granted man dominion over the world, to rule over it – and others believe that God appointed man as steward, a manager over the animals and fish and the entire world until such time as he would be held accountable (Gen. 1:26-28).

A good steward is an administrator of another’s property or estate and so, in the same way, humans (or even just men and not women) are entrusted with God’s property, to manage and care for God’s creation.

Kerry missed a big big big chance there. A quick listing of the top ten anti-environmental actions of Bush might have gone a little distance here. Yes, yes, we all understand that Kerry will respect science as Bush does not. But he could’ve really really zinged him on that!

Here are just a few little thoughts on stewardship that one can find with minimal digging before falling asleep.

In the OT [OT Old Testament] a steward is a man who is ‘over a house’ (Gn. 43:19; 44:4; Isa. 22:15). In the NT [NT New Testament] there are two words translated steward: epitropos (Mt. 20:8; Gal. 4:2), i.e. one to whose care or honour one has been entrusted, a curator, a guardian; and oikonomos (Lk. 16:2-3; 1 Cor. 4:1-2; Tit. 1:7; 1 Pet. 4:10), i.e. a manager, a superintendent-from oikos(‘house’) and nemoµ(‘to dispense’ or ‘to manage’). The word is used to describe the function of delegated responsibility. Christians are the stewards for the Christ, admitted to the responsibilities of Christ’s overruling of his world; so that stewardship (oikonomia) can be referred to similarly as a dispensation (1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; Col. 1:25).

Worthy to be stewards of rent and land. –Chaucer.

As good stewards of the manifold grace of God. –1 Peter 4:10

For Tolkein fans, the steward of Gondor. The Stewards watched over the throne until it could be reclaimed by a true King of Gondor, an heir of Elendil.

To spiritual people negotiating the priorities between Mammon (wealth, a false god) and the health of the earth itself, a good steward has the connotation of an attitude toward the environment, a sense of connectedness and belonging, an understanding of the interconnectedness of everything in the universe – a sense of being at home. When the earth has serious disruptions in its cycles, its energy systems, and its living systems, it can heal by regaining its balance; pollutants are transformed, physical damage is corrected, animal and plant populations adjust. But when the earth’s systems are extremely disrupted then homeostasis, balance, and self-regulatory processes cannot be re-established in the same way – and major changes can occur detrimental to human life.

Examine your consciences – can anyone really say that Bush is a good steward, in any sense?

Some people think that stewardship is all about tithing or donating money or time to a church, but numerous sites- I found one just off the bat – also talk about the different spiritual responsibilities of stewardship in the religious sense. It "demands a way of life that encourages virtue and bears the fruit of solidarity among peoples."

A steward does not own the kingdom. The king determines when and how long a steward serves him. A steward handles affairs for someone else. If Bush is a "steward" is it for the American people? For the world? For God? Do you really believe that it could be any of these? Really?

Each person contributes or should be able to contribute to the well-being of society, and each person has the opportunity to care for others and to help them thrive. Stewardship is collective.

I believe that, collectively, we are stewards. We all have to answer to ourselves and to our children and all our seventh cousins of the world, in repercussions and disrupted systems, and the widening gyres of destruction. We have to take responsibility for what we have allowed to happen, from the dumbing down of the population, to allowing certain power interests to take over our country.

Is Bush a good steward? Christians, you know what a good steward is. Is it the mark of a good steward to smirk and brag that he is a good steward? Has he enabled us and all the world to breathe easier, to thrive, to find healthier interchanges between humanity and the planet, between our nation and the rest of the world, between ourselves and our neighbors?

There are lots of things to say about this excellent debate, but I thought that if this phrase of the "good steward" stuck out to me as code for "I’m a christian" it might for others as well. My question is, what exactly is the nature of this christianity? It doesn’t seem very christian to me. As the highest executive of the US (of course, that is a matter of some debate), Bush is meant to be a steward of the American people. Is that really what you see?

Look around you. Open your eyes.

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