Gulliver Knew His Physics ...

One of the best illustrations of the influence of Isaac Newton, and of the intellectual capability of the eighteenth century readers, pops up in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735). The official name is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships.

Most people have heard of Gulliver's visit to Lilliput, home of the little people. Many don't realize that gulliver travelled to several other lands, too. Swift wrote the book as a satire and condemnation of the injustices of society in the century before the great democratic revolutions. But Swift had to be careful. He couldn't just come right out and say, for example, that the king was an ass, or that the British House of Lords was composed of imbeciles, or that justices of the peace were corrupt. Doing so could have got him thrown in jail, or worse.

Instead, he had Gulliver visit lands where the king was an ass and the appointed governing body was composed of imbeciles. When challenged, he could always say that he'd written a book of fiction. He wasn't talking about home, for goodness sake.

Isaac Newton had revolutionized science. He showed that the universe runs on simple mathematical laws. He broke down the distinction between heaven and earth by showing that the same laws of physics that govern the actions of objects on Earth apply to the planets. Prior to Newton, nature was mysterious, and scientists (or natural philosophers, as they were more properly called) were limited to explaining Earthly phenomena. The Heavens were governed by their own laws, and why not? Heaven was the realm of God, and God should not be subject to the same laws that constrained the behaviours of Earthly objects.

A generation before Newton, Kepler found that the planetary orbits follow mathematical rules. The planets travel on elliptical paths at varying speed. (Their speed increases as they get closer to the sun.) And Kepler found a fascinating, but mysterious relationship: the cube of the a planet's average radius of orbit divided by the square of the planet's period of orbit is the same for all planets. In math lingo, T-squared varies directly with R-cubed.

Newton used this relationship, Kepler's elliptical orbits, and the calculus that Newton invented while on summer holidays when he was an undergrad at Cambridge University to come up with the Law of Gravity. He could demonstrate that the same force that makes apples fall keeps the planets in orbit around the sun. When he published his discoveries (some twenty years after he made them) he became an instant celebrity.

So, back to Gulliver. On his voyage, he landed at Laputa, where astronomers studied the heavenly bodies through great telescopes. In Swift's time, no moons of Mars had been discovered, so he decided to pretend that Laputian astronomers made a fascinating discovery. Read this:

They have discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost, five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.

Did you see what he said? Kepler's T-squared/R-cubed law holds for the moons of Mars, showing them to follow Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation!

I think this speaks volumes about Swift's society. Swift counted on his readers knowing Kepler's and Newton's Laws. He knew that his characters had instant credibility if they were included in Newton's great intellectual revolution.

How many authors of fiction today assume their readers would be as intellectually accomplished?

Tidy rooms...

My wife regularly asks my daughter Debbie to tidy her bedroom. Debbie's response is always either, "I did," or "It is tidy." Here are two photos of the room after my daughter insists it's tidy.

After many years, I still haven't cracked the code. I figure "It is tidy" means one of these:

1. it's good enough for me

2. this matches the definition of "tidy"

3. don't tell me what to do.

To be sure, number 3 applies as a general rule to any suggestion my wife makes to my daughter. "Don't tell me what to do" is a given. But I've come to the conclusion that Debbie actually believes that a room qualifies as tidy even if the floor is covered in paper, empty water bottles, underwear, spilled cat litter, books, CDs, and overturned containers.

Look, my den is often messy. I freely confess it. But, during those times, I don't call it "tidy". Our bedroom is often a mess. (My wife doesn't follow the adage "let she who is without sin cast the first stone.") But I admit the fact.

Debbie's definition of "tidy" is far from my wife's (and mine, but I stay out of it.) There will never be a day when my wife will be able to look in Debbie's room and say, "My, your room is tidy."

And there is only one or two days a year when our bedroom is tidy, and it only stays that way for 24 hours. But that's another story.

Congratulations US Congress ...

As a Canadian, I was pleased to see the Democrats prevail and pass a universal health care bill. Over the past year, I couldn't believe the vitriol from the Republicans. I was disgusted by the distortions, and misinformation, and outright lies about what the various versions of the bill contained and ramifications of ensuring that Americans can get access to health care.

I don't mind paying higher taxes than Americans in return for health care. One of my daughters had a brain tumor operation. No one asked for money for the operation and the three weeks in hospital. My other daughter went in for a seizure-caused dislocated shoulder. We just show our health card, and walk in. If I have a problem, I go to my doctor, flash my card, and that's it. The important thing is that it's the same for everyone, not just those that can afford insurance.

The fact that, in the US, some workers at insurance companies admitted that they automatically reject claims until appealed appalled me. I found it hard to believe that the country with the highest standard of living in the world wasn't embarrassed to see some of its citizens bankrupted by health problems, or worse, see some of its citizens having to forgo medical treatments because they were financially worse off.

That a country wouldn't take care of its citizens on such a basic issue as health care ... well, congratulations for seeing the light.

Shame on Republicans for NOT EVEN ONE voting for the bill. NOT EVEN ONE.

Defeating Obama was more important than doing the right thing for your country. I realize that Republicans will jump all over that statement, saying that they WERE doing the right thing for the country by voting against the bill. But it sure didn't look that way from here.

The Mentalist ... Getting Stupid

I'm getting more and more disappointed with The Mentalist. I cheered the concept at the start, especially when Patrick Jayne said, in the first episode, "There are no such things as psychics." The problem is, the police work in the show is getting far too stupid.

Cases in point:

Case 1

In one episode, the dead victim is in a field, shot from a distance. But where did he stand? We hear Jayne call, "He stood here." Jayne is standing behind a scarecrow, waving its arms. Of course, Jayne would be standing right on top, and thus destroying, possible evidence.

Case 2

A couple of episodes ago (January or February, 2010), The Mentalist never realized that a person was lying to him. Kinda destroys the very concept of The Mentalist, doesn't it.

Case 3 (Last week, March 4)

A second victim dies, right in front of the head of the crime unit (Teresa Lisbon). She sees him drop, eyes open, not breathing, not talking. Does she start CPR? Does she check for a pulse. No. She holds her hand in front of his face and cries, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Case 4 (Tonight, March 11)

A scientist in a bio lab became exposed to a virus and died. A few hours later, Jayne pulls a prank, admittedly clever, to catch the killer. But it involved announcing to at least 40 other people that they have now been exposed, that they should call their loved ones and say good-bye, and make their final arrangements. They only have an hour or so to live.

It was a fabrication, of course, but how many lives did he just hurt? How many people are going to sue him for pain and suffering.

Going back to Case 3. Where was an editor or consultant to say, "That's stupid. A supposedly experienced person is not going to say 'how many fingers?' to a dead person." Surely Robbin Tunney, if she really knew her role, would balk, and announce, "My character wouldn't say that."

Dealing with unruly students

I have been retired from teaching or four years. I had a wonderful career, teaching high school physics. I was in good schools, got the best students, and had supportive vice-principals and principals. Generally, a more peaceful career than many teachers.

I did have the odd student who was a class disruptor, refused to do assignments, or skipped class. Here is a remedy that fixed the situation.

In brief, they were told to leave and not come back until the after the next test. I explained that each day they could come at the beginning to get page references for the lesson. But they were to learn from the text book, without my aid "Since, by your behaviour," I told them, "you showed that you do not value my contribution to your education, learn without me. We'll see how that works on the next test."

The result was that, after a day or two, the student requested to come back in the classroom. And that's how it should be. Students should be in class because they want to be, not because they have to be. A student isn't doing me a favour by showing up. I am doing him a favour by sharing my expertise. My method gets that point across.

Of course, the process was illegal. Putting a student in the hall meant that he was now, potentially, someone else's discipline problem. And if he left the school and got hit by a car, I might be held responsible because he should have been in the class under my supervision. I took the risk, and was supported by the principal because the system worked.

Here are some methods that ensure success.

Call home. Mention that the student is not learning as much as he should and ask for suggestions. Parents are almost always appreciative of your call, and the fact that you ask them for help shows you care and respect their opinion. Usually, if you are having trouble with the student, they are too. The phone call will be a sharing episode. Then say, "Here's something that might work. Suppose I tell him that he's not allowed to come to class. He's not kicked out of the course. He just has to learn on his own." Then explain the plan. Parents have always agreed to try it. Usually they're desperate to try anything.

Mention the plan to the principal. A couple of times I drew up contracts, on school stationery, for the principal, parent, student, and me to sign. The student always wants to renegotiate after a day or two.

Soon, the student is back in class, under my terms, appreciative of my efforts to help him learn.

Sample Horoscope

One day, I went down the aisles of my grade 10 science class asking the kids their birthdays. Each was given the appropriate horoscope. Here's Aries:

Aries – March 21- April 19

You have had some difficulties in the recent past. Sometimes you wonder who your best friends are, or will be in the future.

Someone's words will take on a tone of intensity for you now. Don't fall into a dark, brooding mood as a result. It's good to clear the air, and time to break your silence.

There's high drama on your schedule for the next couple of days, so prepare yourself. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Still, you might want to warn your close friends.

Some encounters will be a very significant -- some more pleasantly so than others. Think of it this way -- you have a choice about how to use this energy, so use it to its best ends.

You're in the mood to catch up on the latest scoop, but your family and friends have been a little too intense for your tastes -- at the moment, anyway. Let them talk, and just listen closely. Your turn will be coming up soon.

I asked the kids to put up their hand if they felt the horoscope was accurate. Hands went up around the room. Then I had them pass it to the person beside them. They started to laugh because all the horoscopes were the same. (I made it up.) It's so easy to persuade people of the truth of something so loony (luney?) as astrology. And easy to demonstrate how false it is. Still, few believers can ever be persuaded otherwise.

BTW: Not a single person pointed out that in the second paragraph I advised them to speak out, but in the last paragraph to just listen.

What "Christian" means

Shari, a teaching colleague, once told me that she was against evolution because she was a Christian. Of course, what she meant was that she was a fundamentalist Christian.

I asked her if she thought the Pope was a Christian. She agreed that he was. But Roman Catholics are okay with evolution, I told her. So are Anglicans (Episcopalians) and some other Protestant denominations. She was surprised at that.

(The RC's position, stated in March 2009, is that there is no conflict between evolution and religion on the origin of species, but man's soul was a matter of special creation. I am simplifying, but I think that's the kernel of their position.)

I digress. My comments are on the use of the label "Christian". We hear of "Christian Schools". In Canada, we allow two school systems, the public school system (inclusive, open to everyone) and the Roman Catholic School system. Non-Catholics can, theoretically, attend (because tax dollars go to the RC boards), but it's catholic education. Then there are the schools not supported by tax dollars. The label "Christian" school goes to the private schools that are run by Baptists, for example, or other fundamentalist groups. In general usage, the term "a Christian education" does not apply to either of the two official school systems.

The fundamentalists have confiscated the word "Christian". In addition to Christian schools, we have Christian radio stations and Christian literature. Am I over generalizing here? Are there "Christian" televangelists who accept evolution? Are there any "Christian" radio stations that broadcast messages doubting the literal translation of Genesis?

Incidentally, Shari was a biology teacher who did an excellent job of teaching evolution. This despite her proudly announcing herself as "a Christian".

Denying Evolution

I almost feel sorry for the creationists these days. I have a couple of friends who take Genesis literally. There was an actual Adam and Eve, they say. One of them was surprised to hear that man have the same number of ribs as women. The other truly believes the Earth is not much older than six thousand years.

These are not morons--they are intelligent, rational people with good jobs (earning more than me!) But they deny evolution with a vehemence that astounds me. No, I'll take that back. I am not astounded by what adherence to a religious belief does. Witness suicide bombers who feel that
1. non-believers deserve to die, and
2. they themselves will go to eternal paradise by killing infidels with them when they go.

My two creationist friends aren't in that league. That is, contrary to some creationists I see on the web, they don't feel the need to make everyone believe, or else.

I feel sorry for creationists when I assess what they have to give up to maintain their beliefs. Although they might not concede this list, to deny evolution, they must ignore accepted facts in astronomy, geology, the fossil record, comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, genetics, molecular biology, continental drift, and embryology, at a minimum.

One of them even says, "There is no evidence for evolution." This floors me! The evidence for evolution is overwhelming, converging from so many disciplines. How can he say this?

What a wealth of knowledge people have to give up to maintain absolute consistency with a religious belief. So sad!

Sing the Damn Note!

I don't watch Idol because I can't stand the type of singing that everyone seems to do nowadays. Instead of singing the note as the composer wrote it, today's performers hit about five notes per syllable near the correct one, eventually (one hopes) lingering on right one long enough to demonstrate that they are familiar with the tune. I know Streisand did that (in moderation) years ago. Karen Carpenter used to scoop a note here or there, and Petula Clark would put a grace note in occasionally.

But now the instruction to "Make the song your own" means that the tune gets destroyed. I am especially irked when this happens to Christmas carols. When "ger" in "Away In The Manger" is awarded six notes, I feel like yelling "Sing the damn note".

That's one of the reasons I like show tunes. I realize I'm showing my age here, but when Shirley Jones sung a song, she hit the notes and put on the consonants. Same with the quality performs in "Cats", or "Phantom" or "Les Mis".

Of course, we have to give the singers who perform the national anthem permission to butcher the song. That's expected.

Conspiracy theorists

Glenn Beck on the radio; Mark Steyn in Macleans magazine; Conrad Black in the National Post... One thing these men have in common is their loud disbelief that global warming is occurring, much less caused by humans. Do they actually believe what they are saying/writing?

Evidently so. Just as the people who think that the US flew planes into the Twin Towers, that man has not set foot on the moon, that the Holocaust didn't happen, and so on. I sometimes wonder how intelligent people can let themselves be led to ridiculous, unsupported positions.

Of course, these guys are saying the same thing about me; namely, that I've been sucked in by all the baloney and believe that the Earth is getting warmer. Every day I hear new evidence--a study here, an observation there. What do Beck, Steyn, Black, and the other deniers think to themselves when they hear each bit of new evidence? Another deluded scientist has made a mistake (or is lying)?

For the record: I have had a cottage a few hours north of Toronto since 1976, and grew up at my parents' cottage before that. The lake temperature used to peak at 80 degrees F on or around August 1, and stay there for a day or two before starting to cool. In each of the last two years, my lake got to 80 F by July 13, and stayed that warm for over two weeks. And there are new birds in the forest. (I know by the new bird calls.)

Something has changed.

Base 3 Computers

Computers work by having ones and zeros represented by memory locations that either contain magnetism or no magnetism. These memory locations are combined to represent bigger numbers using binary arithmetic. For example 0010 is 2, 0111 is 7, and 1000 is 8. Is there any way of altering and determing the polarity of the magnetism? If there were, then "north-up" could be a 2, "north-down" could be a 1, and no magnetism would be a 0.

That way, the computer could work in base three. A 2 would be 0002, a 7 would be 0021, and an eight 0022. It took two digits to represent an 8 instead of four (not counting the leading zeros.)

In binary, the biggest 4 digit number is 1111, which is 15. So sixteen numbers (0 to 15) can be represented with 4 digits. In base three, however, the biggest 4 digit number would be 2222, which represents 80. Many more numbers (i.e. data) could be packed into the same memory space.

Is anybody working on base three computers?

Amazing? Not

I propose a ban on the use of the word 'amazing'. Just today I heard the following:

The figure skater's performance was amazing.
The Olympics were amazing.
Crosby's goal was amazing.
Avatar was amazing.
The book was amazing.
The video was simply amazing.
The blueberry cheesecake was amazing.
Human reaction time is amazing.
The hummingbird was amazing.
The [sensitivity of a] mousetrap was amazing.
A girl said her boyfriend was amazing, but didn't clarify.
The same girl said her girlfriend was amazing to her.

I'm ready to scream the next time I hear the word. The problem is, of course, that the word is used so widely that it has lost all meaning. To amaze is to overwhelm with surprise or sudden wonder. But people now use it to mean excellent, interesting, better than expected, higher/lower/cooler/warmer/drier/wetter, and very tasty. Human reaction time might be incredibly fast, but it is what it is, so one should not be amazed. Same with the hummingbird, but not that it can hover. If it tried to hover and fell...that should be amazing.

I agree that a hockey player like Ovetchkin can score an amazing goal, like when I see him put the puck through an opponent's legs, twirl around the guy, pick it up again, slip it into his skates to keep it away from the goalie's poke check, then kick it up to his stick, and pop it over the goalie's shoulder with a one-handed shot. Something that makes me blurt out, "Oh!" or "Wow" should rank as amazing.

But not everything else.

How Many Dimensions Are There?

We have three physical dimensions: length, width, and height. A mathematician or physicist might represent them by x, y, and z.

In his Theory of Relativity, Einstein used time as a dimension, expressing the position of an object in space-time with four co-ordinates: x, y, z, and t. Hence the phrase "time is the fourth dimension."

Remember that the number of dimensions is just a convenience. Einstein's formulas, using four dimensions, described the universe better than Newton's equations.

You may have heard of string theory using eleven dimensions. What does this mean? Why eleven? Here's a quick explanation.

An application of the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum, in senior high school physics, is calculating the final velocities of two colliding balls, given the balls' initial masses and velocities. (And the angle between them, technically included in the word "velocity".) There are two unknowns, the final velocities of each object, and two equations to use. You always need the same number of equations as unknowns.

What if there are three balls? You need three equations to find the three final velocities. But we don't have a third equation. This is the famous Three Body Problem. It's unsolved: physicists can't compute an exact answer.

But nature can! How does nature figure out what happens to three simultaneously interacting objects? It's clear that nature does know, because this situation comes up all the time. The sun, moon, and Earth are simultaneously interacting. (An interaction is one object exerting a force on another, and all three objects have gravity, which extends to infinity.)

Physicists attack the problem by dealing with the bodies in pairs, or approximating the situation by saying that the smallest object doesn't influence the others very much. But it would be nice to have a third equation, to get absolute answers instead of numerical approximations.

A special three-body question that can be solved by students is if one object comes in and hits two identical objects, like two balls touching and the third arriving on the mid-line between them. Because the situation is symmetrical, you can find an answer. (The third equation is that the final speed on one ball equals the final speed of the other, through symmetry.)

So you can solve more complex questions if symmetry is involved. Remember this fact.

Now picture a circle. It looks the same from all angles. Perfect symmetry. Even a small circle is the same as a large circle, in one respect, because a small circle is the large circle viewed from farther back.

How about a square and a diamond? Are they the same? Sure: a diamond is a square rotated.

How about a square and a hexagon? (A hexagon has six equal sides.) You can't rotate a square or view it from a different angle and direction and see a hexagon. So in two dimensions, a square and a hexagon are different.

Now use your imagination. If you illuminate a cube with a light directly overhead, the shadow is the shape of a square. But if you turn the cube, you can get a shadow the shape of a hexagon. (To convince yourself, draw a hexagon, and add the "missing lines" to make it look like a 3-D cube viewed at an angle.)

So, if you think in three dimensions, a square and a hexagon are the same thing. They're both 2-D shadows of the same 3-D object. The lesson here is that if you include an extra dimension in your considerations, you can sometimes find symmetries that didn't exist when you were working in fewer dimensions.

And symmetry allows you to solve otherwise unsolvable equations, remember?

The string theorists use eleven dimensions. Their equations are so complex, apparently, that they need eleven dimensions to give them enough symmetries to solve them.

Gun Control and American Over-reaction

(Warning: stereotypes used in this dissertation!)

Last night I had a discussion with a friend, Jim, about gun control. He was an American, now happy to have been granted immigrant status to remain in Canada. He's from New Hampshire (state motto: Live Free or Die) and owns several guns, stored at the home of his parents in the US.

He had been an Obama supporter, but last night made Obama out to be the worst person imaginable. Why? Because, Jim said, Obama was sneaking in legislation under the tax laws to take away people's guns. Jim was furious, and proceeded to bring up the right-to-bear-arms and denial-of-freedom-guaranteed-by-the-Founding-Fathers arguments.

I did some research and it turned out that he was incensed over an internet hoax. (http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/taxreturns.asp). There was a bill about licensing of firearms (HR 45: Blair Holt...) before Congress--nothing to do with Obama--that Jim thought would permit the government to enter private houses to check the firearms, but the bill said no such thing. A similar bill had been brought before, and never voted on. Likely, that will be the same result here.

What I found surprising (shocking would be a better word, except that I'm no longer shocked because I've seen it so often) is how the barest hint of gun control provokes such a visceral reaction in (many) Americans that it trumps all other considerations. Jim argued that the reaction is against restriction on freedom itself. Okay, I'll buy that. But the scale of the reaction is way out of proportion to the "danger".

First, the reaction is against the mere suggestion of something that could possibly be used by an extremely totalitarian state to remove all weapons from its citizens. In fact the first site I hit when I searched for Obama and gun control displayed his picture beside Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Such comparison is ludicrous because the president doesn't have the power over the legislative and judicial arms that those guys had.

Second, there are many limitations on freedom in society that we (Canadians and Americans, both) tolerate. We accept having to contribute some income to the state (taxation), licensing our cars, being required to educate our children, and so on.

Jim made a distinction between privilege and right. Owning guns wasn't a privilege; it was a right. He was on pretty solid ground there, except that the distinction has, historically and in practicality, been that "right" is what a someone demands and "privilege" is what someone else demands but doesn't matter much to me. We saw how society changed on the Smokers' Rights issue, where smoking changed from a right to a limited privilege.

It seems to me, and to most Canadians (I claim), that the American defense of their "right" in the 2nd Amendment is far more vehement than their defense of any hint of infringement on any other right. The reaction looks, to Canadians, way out of proportion. And since we Canadians don't include the right to bear arms as a fundamental freedom, the fact that so many otherwise thoughtful, intelligent Americans demand the right to carry machine guns and rocket launchers down public streets looks preposterous and downright pathological.

Am I exaggerating? Sure, but there is a continuous line between pea-shooters and nuclear weapons. Air pistols, semiautomatics, and the other types of weapons fill the gap. Individual Americans place the line between acceptable and unacceptable somewhere, and there is vast disagreement as to where.

To Americans, I say that I accept that the right to bear arms is incorporated into the very fabric of the creation of your country, both to rid yourself of an oppressive regime and to defend yourself against external threats. So I can pardon the vehemence somewhat. But what's ironic (and scary) is that your vehemence is its own counterargument. Jim said it himself, "If Obama's going to restrict my right to carry a gun, I'll shoot him myself." The very fact that he made that declaration shows that he shouldn't have the right to own a gun. My own Florida relative, visiting my cottage during an earlier presidential campaign years ago, was watching Jesse Jackson on the TV news. She blurted, "That man should be shot." I stared at her in disbelief. Compare her statement to "we should vote against that guy" or "someone should write an editorial against what he's saying". Her automatic reaction perfectly illustrated the difference between Canadians and Americans.

I agree that I'm talking stereotypes. Many Americans favor gun control, and many Canadians are against the drive to register long guns in Canada.

But am I very far off the mark?

Belief in God

I just finished sending a comment to “Tim” (http://existence-of-god.com/author-information.html). Sorry, I don’t know any more about his name. Tim’s site provides a huge discussion of arguments for and against the existence of God. Each argument against God’s existence is refuted. The counter arguments, however, are very well presented, though, which is rare on “Evidence for God’s existence” sites.

If you look down the left, you see links to other sites or pages arguing for God’s existence. You see links to proclamations that “So and so rejects atheism.” I don’t see any saying “So and so converts to atheism.” I would feel better had I seen these. I realize, though, that “Tim” has no wish to convince anyone of the unreasonableness of his belief in God. And therein, really, lies the problem. The ideal philosopher, the ideal searcher after truth, should not care whether the statement “A is B” is actually true. The ideal searcher after truth should not have an agenda to convince readers that his point of view is the (only) correct one.

I am always suspicious of people’s objectivity when they have a strong belief in the truth of some statement, whether the statement is “We never went to the moon”, “HIV (virus) does not cause AIDS” or “God exists.” As I said before, though, I commend Tim for the depth of his coverage of both sides of the discussion.

I have a confession to make: I’m an atheist. As a high school physics teacher, I never stated this fact to my class. I taught that there is a separation of science from religion/philosophy/belief. I suggested that if there was any way to absolute truth, only religion could get there. I taught that science didn’t say anything about God; only that science’s goal was to come up with a useful, testable, non-divine explanation for observed phenomena. I never answered the question “Do you believe in God?”

Now, having retired, I can concede that the concept of the existence of God just does not fly with me.

One of the arguments for God’s existence is based on probability: the likelihood of the universe being precisely right for the development of intelligent life on Earth is so small that one concludes that there had to be a designer.

But I use probabilities a different way. Most people follow the faith of their parents. What is the likelihood, of all the faiths on this planet, that the one my parents happened to believe is the only true faith? I don’t think I’m that lucky. The fact that most people believe the faith of their fathers leads me to the conclusion that the correctness of their faith is suspect.

Related to that argument is the statement of humility: So many people believe in other religions, other Gods, other ways that the universe may have come to be, who am I to assume that my way is correct?

Frankly, I find the certitude of believers disturbing. I can’t buy the existence of an entity watching me/us/humanity/the cosmos, caring what we do, (perhaps) interceding (on our behalf), desiring to be worshiped, judging us.

A friend told me, “You are a good person. You have to believe in God because God is the source of all goodness.” Sorry, but I think you can be good without the need for a God (to set a standard, presumably, for ultimate goodness).

And people say, “Yes, but in the Bible it says…” Again, I don’t mean any disrespect when I say that, not believing in the existence of God, I don’t accept the Bible to be the word of (any) God.
I respect people’s belief in God. Fanatics apart, most people I meet are sincerely interested in doing good, sincerely interested in the welfare of others (not just their own kind or own religious group). If belief in a God helps them to be that way, good for them. When their loved ones die and they find solace in a belief that “God had other plans for them” or that they have “gone to a better place”, I’m happy for them. Perhaps I’m even a little envious of believers’ satisfaction, or the peace that a belief in a God has brought them.

I concede that I might be better off if I believed in God. But that is not a valid reason for a belief. I don’t think you can say, “I believe it because it’s advantageous to do so.”

So, do I believe in God? No, but if you do, that’s OK. As long as you don’t discriminate against others who believe differently from you.

Standard Accepted Knowledge

In my last article I commented on the differences in positions held by scientists and non-scientists on whether Earth had been visited in the past by intelligent extraterrestrials. I use the term scientists widely, not referring to an occupation but to a state of mind.

No matter what your occupation, I call you a scientist if you look for answers by studying the evidence; if you test to see if proposed explanations work; and if you assume that there are reasonable, physical explanations first, before resorting to magic or far-out justifications for an extraordinary claim.

I made a statement that there is near universal agreement among scientists on the big issues. Here is a list of what I consider those issues to be.

Earth is a speck in the cosmos. There are likely to be many small, rocky planets orbiting stars, some of which will be similar to our sun. There are so many stars, there are bound to me many Earth-like planets at suitable distances from their sun that conditions were similar to those on early Earth.

Earth is old and changing. Continents drift around and collide. Mountains rise. Rivers cut canyons. Lakes and oceans fill up with debris that eventually becomes sedimentary rock. As you dig down through layers you reach older and older rock.

Life processes follow the laws of chemistry and physics. There is no process that requires “magic”. We don’t know all the processes, but are confident that they are “knowable”. (Consider the opposite. If, for example, some magical process causes the heart to beat, then we might as well stop trying to understand how the heart works!)

Life evolves. Little changes in short periods add up to bigger changes over long periods.

The laws of mathematics and physics apply everywhere. The formula for a circle and value of pi is the same on Mars. Magicians don’t do true magic: they are still constrained by the laws of physics. (While watching a magic show, everytime you ask yourself, “How did he do that?” you are applying this concept. You feel that there was a physical explanation, a “trick”. You didn’t see true magic.)

Matter is particulate. Substances are made of atoms that join to become molecules. (Atoms themselves are made of particles.)

The properties an object possesses depend on the observer. (This claim, for which there is much evidence, arises from relativity and quantum physics. Relativity deals with the big concepts of time, space, gravity, matter and energy; quantum physics with the behaviour of matter and energy at the tiniest level.

I might as well mention the fringe items, too.

There are no ghosts, werewolves, vampires, living dead, mammoth spiders, King Kongs, Spidermen, invisible people, extraterrestrial aliens living amongst us.

Astrology is false.

There is no such thing as psychic ability. You can’t move objects by though alone. No one can actually read minds, see the future (rather than predict likelihoods), perceive present, past, or future events by other than the five senses.

Men HAVE landed on the moon (i.e. the landing in 1969 was not a hoax.)
Humans and dinosaurs did not inhabit the Earth at the same time.

I expect many to disagree with me on many of this last list. In particular, countless people will cite amazing occurrences, coincidences, anecdotes, and “facts”. I will leave it as this: I have seen no repeatable, non-controversial evidence that convinces me that, for example, ESP exists. A million dollar prize is available for ANY purported psychic who can demonstrate ANY psychic ability. No one has yet been able to do it.

As much as we, scientists included, might wish for exceptional abilities, extraordinary creatures, and assistance from the stars, there is just no good evidence for any of it.

Has Earth Been Visited?

Last night I was reading Discover, a science magazine. The cover story dealt with the new, mammoth telescopes presently under construction that may actually show us planets about nearby stars.
Presently we know of over a hundred extrasolar planets, as they are called, but detect them by looking at wobbles in the position of the star. We haven’t actually seen them. From our distance, the dots would be too tiny, lost in the glare of the star that is their sun. A sentence in the article stuck me. While describing the discoveries the next giant telescope might make, the author wrote, “For now, we know of life on just one planet around just one of the [billions of billions] of stars in the known cosmos.”
I paused, and reflected that almost everyone reading the article would agree. Although we reason that there is a high probability that life exists elsewhere in the universe, scientists are still awaiting concrete evidence. I asked myself, however, what the majority of people not reading the article thought.
Having been a secondary school science teacher, I know what many high school students would tell you. With great excitement, they would announce that alien spacecraft make crop circles, that stone-age paintings on cave walls show spacemen, that there are dead aliens in an air force hanger near Roswell, New Mexico.
Many adults believe these tales, too. While scientists spend time and money searching for life, even mere microbial life, off the Earth, vast numbers accept that Earth has already been visited by alien life forms.
Four hundred years ago, learned people considered Earth to be in the centre of the universe. Now, astronomers teach that Earth is a small rock orbiting an average star in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy that contains billions of stars. Decades passed, though, before most intelligent people stopped saying, “I still believe Earth is in the centre.”
Two hundred years ago, many intelligent, learned people had no trouble accepting that the Earth was about six thousand years old. Scientists universally accept that the planet has been around for billions of years.
Sixty years ago the concept that the continents are moving was taken dubiously, but continental drift is standard policy now. The motions of the great land masses are measurable, and their collisions cause mountains to rise and the earth to quake.
Are there people now who reject the changed perspectives, people who consider the Earth to be young, in the centre of the universe, and composed of stationary continents? If so, would they be reading science magazines? And if so, would they be continually shaking their heads over the hundreds of incorrect statements from the world’s astronomers, biologists, geologists, chemists, and physicists?
I don’t maintain that all scientists agree with each other on every topic. Part of the fun of science is the constant debate, the tussles over the details and explanations. There is near universal agreement, though, on the big issues, one being that there is no good evidence for life off the Earth, now or in the past.

ESP

I had a discussion recently with members of my writer’s club. A small group of us meet regularly to exchange critiques of our developing novels. Two involved forms of ESP. In one, a character had the ability to picture previous inhabitants of a house and, specifically, “feel” terrifying experiences that happened to others. Another novel featured a scene in which a character was awakened in the night at a crucial time via a “signal” from her distant mother.

I’m a physics teacher and sceptical of the these phenomena. No, I’ll be honest, I’m not just sceptical, I don’t believe ESP exists. I’m careful not to let this disbelief affect my critiques of the novels. After all, my novel-in-progress uses parallel universes, a concept no less dubius.

I made the mistake, at the end of the evening, of mentioning my scepticism. Jim, one of the authors, was incredulous. “You don’t believe in ESP?” he remarked.
Me: No. There’s no good evidence that ESP exists.
Jim: You don’t think people can read minds?”
Me: Of course not. Nobody has been able to demonstrate that ability when examined carefully.
Jim: How about Edgar Cayce?
Me: Are you kidding? Magicians can do that stuff.
By this time Jim was laughing. At first I thought he was just having fun. But he was laughing with disbelief that I could be so mistaken.
Jim: How about astral projection?
Me: For heaven’s sake. There’s no evidence for that.
Jim: [laughing harder] Uri Geller bending spoons?
Me: URI GELLER!!! He couldn’t do it on Johnny Carson. Magicians can bend spoons. They aren’t using any special powers.
Jim: Astrology?
Me: Jim, astrology and horoscopes are demonstrably false.
Jim: [laughing uproariously at my ignorance] Alien abductions?
Me: No way. There’s no evidence for that.
Jim: Have you read about Betty and Barney Hill.
Me: I’ve read about them, and am satisfied that alien abduction is not the explanation for Barney’s drawing.
Jim: Well, they’re my aunt and uncle. They believe it.

At this point, the teacher of our little group spoke up passionately.

Lynda: What about when a little girl at home sees her Dad in the doorway waving goodbye when he was actually in the hospital, and her Mom next to her in bed awakens and says “You just saw your Dad, didn’t you?” and the Mom telephones the hospital to find out that he just died?

I wanted to respond with some more old saws (like “when my grandmother died, her picture fell off the wall”) but bit my tongue, for Lynda was talking from personal experience.

Me: I accept that you experienced what you say, but my explanation might be different from yours.

Suffice it to say that I took quite a roasting for expressing strong doubts about ESP and its kin. There is not much you can say when honest, intelligent people give testimonials. When I related this story to my friend Bruce, he pointed out that my disbelief in ESP’s existence is a belief in its non-existence. So I’m expressing a belief just as ESP’s proponents are.

Me: But there’s evidence that supports my position.
Bruce: But believers consider anecdotal evidence to be of equal value to scientific testing.
Me: But it’s not.
Bruce: That’s your BELIEF. You believe that the scientific method is the only way to truth. They believe that there are other ways to truth for some phenomenon that science just can’t catch reliably.

Bruce was not necessarily defending ESP’s existence, only arguing for the equality of belief for and against, given different background beliefs in the validity of the scientific method for determining truth. Interesting.

More on that in the next article.

Intelligent Design in the Science Classroom

There are several court cases and school board elections in the United States revolving around the issue of the teaching, or even the mere mention, of Intelligent Design in science classrooms. ID is, basically, the idea that the complexity of the world around us shows the influence of an architect; in essence, a divine creator. An example that usually arises is the claim that the human eye could not have evolved because there are too many steps between non-eye and eye. Evolution, supposedly, is sequential, and the fact that a partial eye confers no reproductive advantage, the theory of evolution fails to explain the development of the eye. Only an intelligent designer able to conceive of and construct the entire eye could have brought about the presence of eyes in humans (and other animals.) He did this instantly…no half-measures.

Proponents claim that ID is every much a science as is evolution. At least, ID is no more a religion than is evolution. Therefore, ID should be taught in science class. At a minimum, a statement should be read to science students that the theory of evolution is found wanting in some areas, and Intelligent Design provides the answers.

As a retired science teacher, I find myself in an ironic position. I agree whole-heartedly that ID, or even the statement requested by ID fans, has no place in a science classroom. Yet I discussed ID in my classroom, of my own volition. The difference was, I discussed why ID was out of the realm of science, without actually declaring its truth or falsity.

A recurring theme in my senior physics course was the distinction between religion/belief/philosophy and science. With examples drawn from ancient Greece, from the European eras Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, and from twentieth century America, I tried to show how the disciplines differed.

Science deals with observable, repeatable phenomena and provides testable, falsifiable explanations. By definition, an explanation for a specific phenomenon or observation that includes God would not be a valid scientific explanation.

The reason is simple: since God can do anything he wants (or she wants, but we’ll stick with “he” for simplicity) he could make the phenomenon happen or not happen on a whim. Repeatability goes out the window. Similarly, you can’t test for God. To be contrary, suppose that a test does exist for the presence of God. For argument’s sake, we can suppose the test to be the mixing of two liquids, with favourable results being a yellow product. That is, suppose that if we mix the two liquids and get a yellow product, that means God exists. We demonstrate, repeatedly, the positive result: yellow after yellow after yellow. Each time we mix the liquids, the product turns yellow. We say, “See, God exists.” Suddenly, one day, the result is red. What do we say then when we see a result that is contrary to known behaviour of the two liquids? It would be like seeing a falling ball suddenly hovering motionless in the air. We’d call that a miracle (if we had no other physical explanation, such as hidden strings or magnets). But consider: a miracle is evidence of God’s existence. So if the liquids turned yellow or didn’t turn yellow, both results supposedly implied that God exists. Thus the experiment was irrelevant. There can be no test for God.

I tell my students, “I’m not saying that God doesn’t exist, only that there is no scientific test that can confirm it.” The statement “God exists” is philosophical, religious, a statement of belief.

In science, no acceptable explanations for an event can mention God. How did the Grand Canyon form? Explanation: God made it. How was Earth created? God made it. How does haemoglobin carry oxygen? God puts it there. These explanations may be true (who knows?) but are simply not scientific.

A God explanation is an intellectual dead-end for a scientist. And for you, too. Have you watched magic shows? The magician makes a rabbit appear from an empty black hat. Don’t you think to yourself, “How did he do it?” The very act of searching for an explanation shows that you believe that the magician was subject to the same laws of physics as you are, and used no true magic. How disappointing magic shows would be if the true explanation for each trick was “magic”! You might as well not try to figure anything out, if the explanation is “magic”.

Science, the search for physical explanations, deals only with non-God hypotheses. That’s why Intelligent Design is an unacceptable scientific explanation for a phenomenon.

Intelligent Design grew out of (evolved!) from Creation Science. Most creationists were fundamentalists, believers in the literal interpretation of the Bible. They taught that God made the world as described in Genesis, fundamentally as we see it today. He made the mountains, the valleys, the plants, the animals, and the humans. There was no evolution; the Earth was young. Creation Science’s close adherence to the Bible made the religious connection obvious. The US Supreme Court ruled that Creation “Science” could not be taught as a science.

The Intelligent Design proponents try to escape the “religion” label. They say that they are not discussing religion in the classroom (which would be contrary to the US Constitution.) Rather, they are proposing a valid “scientific” explanation for a phenomenon that happens to involve an architect. The distinction between the architect and God is rather tenuous. (And arguing that there is such a distinction is somewhat disingenuous.)

ID looked good at first blush, but fails on a number of planes. As already mentioned, ID requires a deity. But let’s ignore that fatal wound for a minute. ID fails for other reasons. The sequential evolution of the eye can be shown to provide benefits during the intermediate steps. As explained in Dawson’s book The Blind Clockmaker, there are animals on Earth right now possessing “eyes” (or light detecting regions/organs) in a multitude of different shapes and complexities that can be strung together to demonstrate the development of the human eye (or follow alternate paths for the evolution of other eyes, such as that of the octopus or house fly.) The presence of each “partial-eye” is advantageous over the previous step. Second, our eyes, although very good, could have been designed better. The light-sensing cells of the retina are backward, with nerve connections to the brain extending toward the front (i.e. inside the eye) rather than the back. The result is less than optimum light reception, and a blind spot where the bundled nerves pass through the retina on the way to the brain. The “Intelligent” designer was not fully intelligent in the case of the human eye. (Evolution, however, just goes where it goes. The drift is toward improvement, but optimal results are not guaranteed.)

There are many examples where an intelligent designer could have done a better job. Here’s another. Unlike women’s ovaries, men’s testicles hang outside the body, exposing them to potential harm. The reason is that sperm must be formed and stored at below body temperature. Why not just make sperm that “liked” body temperature? Remember, the designer had God-like powers, and God can do anything. He certainly could have made sperm that thrived at 37°C.

At this point, many IDers will say that God must have had some other reason for making eyes or testicles in what appears to be a less efficient manor. This is the old “God moves in mysterious ways” argument. The problem with this damage control spin is a little abstract. “God moves in mysterious ways” makes the original claim of God’s intervention non-falsifiable. Here’s why: when we see an example of something that works as we expect a God would have make it, we say “Look. There’s good evidence for our (God) argument.” When we see something that runs counter to the God-did-it argument, we say “Well, it probably supports the argument too, but we just can’t see the connection.” Thus the God-did-it argument holds regardless of whether we perceive it or not. Evidence is irrelevant.

At a little deeper level, the “mysterious ways” argument is intellectually dishonest. When we announce a connection between the world and what we feel God would have done, we are claiming that humans have the ability to grasp the divine purpose. But when we retreat to “God moves in mysterious ways” we are saying that humans don’t have the ability to grasp the divine purpose. You can’t have it both ways.

I taught all the above, little by little when applicable, to my senior science students. When someone asked “Do you believe in God?” I refused to answer yes or no. My response was that I did not want to influence young person toward either answer. When a student asked “Do you believe in evolution?” my response was, “By using the word “believe” you are asking for my religious position." If the student rephrased the question as "Do you think evolution is a good scientific explanation for the living world as we see it?” my response was, "Yes. Evidence for evolution is wide-spread and overwhelming."

If you ask, “Should science teachers be forced to mention Intelligent Design in their classrooms” my response is “No.” And, if you ask, “Did I mention ID in my classes?” my answer is “Yes”.

God and Why Things Happen

I had an interesting discussion on a car trip last night with my wife Sue and niece, Jenn. We had started with the question of life off the Earth, and touched on parallel universes and extra dimensions, God and science. At one point I mentioned the tube worms and other creatures living around the deep sea vents.
Sue: What is the purpose of them being there?
Rob: Do you mean what role do they play in their little ecosystem?
Sue: No, what is the reason they are there?
Rob: Evolution doesn’t happen for a reason, that is, in order to fulfill something. Like giraffes didn’t evolve long necks in order to eat the leaves of tall trees. Its just that longer necked creatures were able to get more food, so stayed healthy, and had more babies. So over the long run, a long-necked creature evolved.
Jenn: So you don’t believe there was a purpose to their evolution.
Rob: “Believe?” Good word, Jenn. You are asking a philosophical question: what is my philosophy or religious position on the matter. Not a question of science.
Jenn: No, no. Science. If giraffes didn’t evolve long necks there would be more leaves left on the trees. They would shade the ground, changing the temperature. They would fall and rot and change the pH. There’s be a different ecosystem.
Rob: Right. Good point. That’s why we have to be careful because when we engineer a change in the ecosystem, a million other things are affected.
Jenn: Right, like adding rabbits to Australia, or using pesticides. So can’t the purpose of the giraffes be that they are needed for that ecosystem?
Rob: But let’s for a moment assume that there are no giraffes. You would say to me “The reason there are no long-necked creatures is that they would eat the high leaves, there would be more sunshine, so the ground would be warmer at the base of the tree. There would be fewer leaves to rot, and the pH would change.
Jenn: (laughs) Same argument.
Rob: Right. Your original argument was, basically, if there are no giraffes, things would be different. When that argument can be used both for and against the point being examined, that argument is valueless as a scientific statement.
Jenn: I see that.
Rob: You could make it into a valid philosophical argument, though. A religious person could say, for example, that if there were no giraffes, conditions would be different and the difference would be bad. Since God would not have wanted the conditions to be bad, God wouldn’t have allowed that (i.e. no giraffes) to happen, and would have created/evolved giraffes in the first place.
The problem with this argument, though, is that, for consistency, it must be applied everywhere. You could say that the malaria mosquito or the TB virus must have been created/evolved for a purpose. So why are we (even “good” religious people) contributing money to eradicate these creatures? Might not we be acting against God’s will?
There are a couple of ways out of this conundrum. One is to say that we are part of God’s creation/evolution, so our purpose was to alter the ecosystem (for the good) by wiping out the bad bugs. Unfortunately, this argument also has too wide a range, because it could be used by the people eradicating the rainforests and polluting the environment, too.
Another escape is the “free will” argument: God gave us free will to do our best to determine what’s good and what’s bad. We see that wiping out giraffes is bad, but wiping out TB is good. (That leaves the question about why God allowed the TB in the first place, if not to test us when we develop the capability of eradicating it. (This heads towards “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, perhaps the deepest, most important religious question.)
Sue: Rob! Pay attention. You’re heading to Niagara falls!
Rob: [cutting across two lanes highway traffic, and driving on the shoulder until we can get into the correct lane] Sorry.