Recently, I had a little rant about how silly it is to consider creationism a scientific theory, even under the guise of so-called “intelligent design theory.” When I read Stephen Meyer’s ID paper, I realized, after I stopped laughing, that some may be taken in by Meyer’s scientific mumbo-jumbo talk. Even with no clue about the scientific terminology he throws around, it was clear to me that this paper is complete bogus. Meyer purports to challenge evolution with the argument that Darwin’s heirs cannot explain everything in this world, only to then turn around and propose that some “intelligent designer” of whom we know nothing and have no evidence, is a better scientific explanation for life on earth.

An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate–and perhaps the most causally adequate–explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.
“The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” – Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (volume 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239)

As laughable as this is, it is commendable that Alan Gishlick, Nick Matzke, and Wesley R. Elsberry took the time to systematically pick Meyer’s treatise apart. They come to the conclusion that Meyer simply does not understand very well the science he challenges:

There is nothing wrong with challenging conventional wisdom — continuing challenge is a core feature of science. But challengers should at least be aware of, read, cite, and specifically rebut the actual data that supports conventional wisdom, not merely construct a rhetorical edifice out of omission of relevant facts, selective quoting, bad analogies, knocking down strawmen, and tendentious interpretations. Unless and until the “intelligent design” movement does this, they are not seriously in the game. They’re not even playing the same sport.
Meyer’s Hopeless Monster – Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117(2):213-239 – by Alan Gishlick, Nick Matzke, and Wesley R. Elsberry

Let me make one thing clear: I have no beef with folks who believe the Good Lord created the world in seven days and said it was good. No problem – I have my own creation myth, too. But do I pretend my creation myth is anything but a myth? Do I force it down the throat of students in science class? Even if I could – I would not! But Meyer’s pseudo-scientific polemic is part of a movement to advance the agenda of the reactionary theocrats who would like to turn back the time to the “good old days” when all bowed to the lord, everyone knew his place, and witches and heretics burned at the stake.

For Big Oil the disruption of the oil supply due to Hurricane Katrina was better than a license to print money. They jacked up the fuel prices, and they are keeping them up. Exxon Mobil is making $110 million profit a day this quarter.

So President Bush hurries to their rescue and makes sure they get a tax break!!? That means the American taxpayer has the privilege to subsidize the companies that currently engage in massive price-gouging at the gas stations. Regular gas costs over $3 at the pump. At the same time, we’re paying over $200 million a day for the Iraq War, and now more than that for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.

And while I’m on this topic: I would love to see a list of the top-ten companies that get no-bid reconstruction contracts in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The man who mows our grass came by this evening to pick up his check and ran with his truck over a 2 1/2 foot copperhead snake in our driveway. It was clearly an adult and it was a beautiful snake with tan and brown hourglass markings. It was still moving and a couple of blows to the head with a stick put it out of its misery.

Copperheads are common here in North Carolina, some say one per acre in a healthy forest. I showed the dead snake to the children, so they know what it looks like, and to stay away from any snakes that look like that. The children also know to not mess with any piles of debris in the woods, because that is where the snakes like to hang out.

I also tell the children to stay on the path in the forest, so they see where they step. Yet, I also don’t want to discourage them to play in the woods. The snakes are shy, and our cats probably drive them away, too. And I really think that the kids need to enjoy playing in the woods – they just need to keep their eyes open.

[Update: These guys (PDF) say there can be up to four copperheads per acre!]

It’s a beautiful late summer day in North Carolina, gasoline costs $3.20 a gallon, and I reached a personal fitness milestone today, by biking 3 miles around the property in under 30 Minutes. Not that anyone rally cares, but that’s where I was at last Winter, when my bike broke (the free hub). It took me until last June to get my act together to fix it and to get back onto the bike trail around the house.

Since June, this summer’s heat has been relentless, mercilessly scorching and humid. I usually get up at 6:00 AM to ride, and some mornings it was 85 degrees and 100 percent humidity at that point.

Before this summer, I had estimated that the path around our property is about 1/3 of a mile long, and as I now have a bike computer, I know now that it is exactly .3 miles long. So 10 rounds are roughly 3 miles (5 KM). Not sure about the altitude – 50 feet perhaps from the highest point to the lowest?! That would be 500 feet difference on 3 miles.

Now I am teaching Jacob how to ride Julia’s old bike, and Julia is practicing with her new, fancy 21-gear mountain bike ….

This should be good news for the petro-fuel users. Let’s hope it is reflected in the price at the pump soon:

Two petroleum pipelines that supply gasoline and other fuels to the Triangle area have returned to service and are increasing their service to the region.
Plantation Pipe Line Co. is up to 95 percent capacity after electric crews repaired its distribution system, which failed when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast early this week.
Meanwhile, the Colonial Pipeline is at 66 percent capacity and is expected to increase to an 85 percent level by late this weekend.
Colonial operates 5,500 miles of pipeline and normally pumps more than 100 million gallons of fuel products daily from refineries and storage facilities in Texas and Louisiana to Georgia, the Carolinas and New York.
Plantation operates 3,100 miles of pipelines that transport gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to major metropolitan areas in the Southeast.
Two main gasoline pipelines back online – 2005-09-02 – Triangle Business Journal

BBC reporter Matt Wells nails it:

The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country – of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society – has reached a crisis point this week.
Will there be real investment, or just more buck-passing between federal agencies and states?
The country has to choose whether it wants to rebuild the levees and destroyed communities, with no expense spared for the future – or once again brush off that responsibility, and blame the other guy.
BBC NEWS: New Orleans crisis shames Americans

The Public Voicemail service by Air America Radio looks like a very creative solution to help people in disaster areas notify friends and family of their status – IF they know about it …

Air America Radio’s Public Voicemail
1-866-217-6255
Air America Radio’s Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the wake of Katrina.

Here’s how it works:

Call the toll-free number above, enter your everyday phone number, and then record a message. Other people who know your everyday phone number (even if it doesn’t work anymore) can call Emergency Voicemail, enter the phone number they associate with you, and hear your message.

You can also search for messages left by people whose phone numbers you know.
Air America Radio – Public Voicemail

Boy, am I glad that I fixed my bike. Ninety percent of the pipeline capacity for the South-Eastern US is down right now. We’re car-pooling with the TDI for now. Here is the press release from the Gov-man’s office:

STATEMENT GIVEN TODAY BY GOV. EASLEY CONCERNING GASOLINE SUPPLY IN NORTH CAROLINA

THE TWO MAJOR PIPELINES THAT FURNISH GASOLINE TO MANY STATES, INCLUDING NORTH CAROLINA, HAVE BEEN AFFECTED BY HURRICANE KATRINA AND ARE CURRENTLY WITHOUT ELECTRICITY. THEY SERVICE NORTH CAROLINA AND 8-10 OTHER STATES.

90 PERCENT OF OUR GAS COMES FROM THESE PIPELINES AND RIGHT NOW THEY ARE NOT OPERATIONAL.

SUPPLIERS GENERALLY HAVE A WEEK OR SO OF SUPPLY. THEY HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN SINCE THE HURRICANE.

THE PIPELINES NEED ELECTRIC SUPPLY AND THE REFINERIES THAT PRODUCE GASOLINE NEED TO MAKE URGENT REPAIRS ALSO ARE WITHOUT ELECTRICITY. THE REFINERIES THAT PRODUCE GASOLINE NEED TO MAKE URGENT REPAIRS.

CONSEQUENTLY, WE DO NOT KNOW THE EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM, BUT WE DO KNOW THAT THERE WILL BE A SIGNIFCANT LOSS OF GASOLINE IN THE SOUTHEAST, AT LEAST IN THE SHORT TERM UNTIL THE ELECTRICITY IS RESTORED.

Read the rest of this entry »

… and the president is on vacation. Maybe he is working on finishing My Pet Goat? Apparently he never read the FEMA reports on the probability of the second most devastating disaster to hit the US during his presidency:

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as “among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country,” directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City.
Progress Report 8/30/2005

Instead of taking this threat seriously, the administration cut the budget of the New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by $71.2 million two months ago and rolled back wetland protection laws, although wetlands provide important flood buffers around New Orleans. And one in three National Guardsmen in Louisiana is currently in Iraq, and thus not in a position to help protect or rebuild his home state.

All we can do now, is try to help pick up the pieces.

Creationism is religion and has no place in the classroom. End of story. One problem with scientists is that they want to argue with anyone over anything. So they fall into this trap the creationists set for them to consider “intelligent design” a scientific theory and argue painstakingly over creationism’s scientific merit.

However, the “intelligent design” debate is an Orwellian trap. Most people want simple answers. Evolution is not simple, and scientific arguments are nit-picking gobbledygook to most of us not-so-scientific worker-bees. The creationist “theory” is simple and compelling to many who are tired of the complexities of life on earth: “There is the Big Guy – trust me – and He made it all up and said it was good. Amen.”

Uh – that’s not science. That’s religion. Creationists don’t bother to explain where the Big Guy came from and how He got so smart He could make all this stuff up. I mean, if that’s a scientific theory, than we also have to consider the Norse creation myth or the creation myth of the Huron (check it out) or the Dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines as competing scientific theories. Some of these creation myths are very cool stories – compelling ways of our forebears to explain where we come from. But there is no science in these stories, and neither is in the Christian creation myth.

Today we know that we were designed by an unintelligent process of natural selection – unintelligent design, if you will – and we call this process evolution. This is no more a theory than the globe-shape of the earth is a theory. Evolution is a very broad scientific principle that leaves plenty of room for change, debate and arguments. But there is no room for creationism. Creationism belongs in the church.

The Christian creation myth is not so totally incompatible with evolution as the creationist zealots make it seem, anyway. Many Christians I know have no problem with the idea that God got the ball rolling and created the rules that apply in our world. These Christians praise the Lord for creating such a clever, efficient and effective design as unintelligent design, or evolution.

Religious so-called leaders calling for terror against other nations? Not exactly an original concept! Does Pat Robertson aspire to be the Christian Osama Bin Laden? In a Aug. 22 broadcast on cable television, the wealthy American televangelist called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez:

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if [Chavez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.
Pat Robertson on The 700 Club, Aug. 22, 2005

In the past, Robertson has enjoyed the company and association of bloody dictators and terrorists, like Liberia’s Charles Taylor (BBC) and Zaire’s Mobuto Sese Seko. Robertson’s mining companies did business with these ruthless dictators, extracting blood diamonds and gold from the African soil, fuelling bloody conflicts, cruel oppression and fattening Robertson’s bank accounts. Now Robertson is whining about Chavez, a popular leader among the working class in Venezuela, who has been attacked by US-backed smear campaigns by Venezuela’s rich land-owners. Probably Chavez is not so accommodating to Robertson’s attempts to exploit his country? Greg Palast has more …

Pope Panzerfaust rolled into Köln today, threw his scull cap into the cheering mob and slid down the handrail of the gangway. No, he did not kiss the ground – he’s doing the ecclesiastical slide! Yeah, he’s now da man! Check out all the young Christians, screaming and fainting, when they catch a glimpse of the pope-man. You think the chicks are crazy about Mister P.? Take a look at the some of the guys ;) …

Yeah, he’s the man to stem the tide of young people fleeing the catholic church. Just look at him, a trust-inspiring father-figure, yet hip and edgy, not afraid to rock the boat, ruffle some feathers, shake some booty … The grand-inquisitor-turned-grand-inspirator is here: “Let Christ surprise you.” What a message! Yeah, baby, we looove surprises. What a man!

(hilarious pope-photoshop job via ProfessorBainbridge.com)

A toast to the efforts of Sean Wilson and Julie Bradford and all supporters of the Pop the Cap effort here in North Carolina. This weekend the NC Governor Mike Easley signed House Bill 392 into law. It is now on the books as S.L. 2005-277 and it raises the cap on alcohol content for beer from a measly 6 percent to 15 percent alcohol by volume. This change makes hundreds of fine brews available to beer connoisseurs in North Carolina.

Congratulations to North Carolina on another step into the 21st Century. It didn’t hurt, did it? Keep on going, and maybe this great state, too, will one day have both feet solidly this side of the turn of the century.

Early in the morning on August 13, 1961, workers began tearing up the cobblestone and asphalt along the sector boundaries across Berlin. They began erecting concrete pillars and barbed-wire barricades, while units of the the Volkspolizei – the People’s Police – kept the angry people in the eastern sector in check with machine guns.

The residents of West Berlin watched these events with shocked disbelief. The mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt, ordered an emergency session of the West Berlin City Senate and issued an appeal to the international community to stop the division of their city and country by the Stalinists. The government of West Germany in Bonn, under then-chancellor Adenauer, appealed to the West-Germans to stay calm and not to provoke any incidents.

For the East German Stalinist government under Walter Ulbricht, sealing off West Berlin was the final effort to stop the exodus of farmers and workers from the “Farmer’s and Worker’s State.” In the preceding months they had fortified the border between the two German states. As they began surrounding West Berlin with barbed wire, they were plugging the last hole through which thousands of people fled to the West every day. The 24 hours preceding the start of the construction of the Berlin Wall, 2,400 people had registered in the refugee camp in Berlin -Marienfelde alone. Up to that day, almost 2.5 million people had fled the Stalinist regime in East Germany.

The fortified border between East and West Germany, including the Wall surrounding Berlin, cost the lives of hundreds of people in the next 28 years. On November 9, 1989, the East German government started opening the border and allowing some travel of East Germans to the West. In the next two days, thousands of East Germans rushed to the border, and in West Berlin some started applying sledgehammers to the concrete barriers. On November 11, the first concrete segment of the Wall fell, and the border posts were overrun by East Germans. This was the end of the Wall, and the beginning of the end of the divided Germany.

[Source: Chronik der Mauer (in Geman)]

… are much cheaper than people. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is projected to cost a total of $686 million over 6 years, according to this year’s NASA budget (PDF – see page 320). This is roughly half of a single launch of the space shuttle but the MRO is designed to send back a torrent of scientific data about Mars. Yet, there is still this silly obsession with putting humans on Mars.

To contribute to the four science goals, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has the following science objectives:
1. Characterize the present climate of Mars and its physical mechanisms of seasonal and interannual climate change
2. Determine the nature of complex layered terrain on Mars and identify water-related landforms
3. Search for sites showing evidence of aqueous and/or hydrothermal activity
4. Identify and characterize sites with the highest potential for landed science and sample return by future Mars missions
5. Return scientific data from Mars landed craft during a relay phase
MRO Objectives

Humans on Mars? What for? What can humans do on Mars that a well-designed robot cannot do? Seems that the challenges of putting humans into space has the potential to interfere with actual science, because it uses up so much more resources (=taxpayer dollars). Especially at times of tight budgets, manned space flight is a luxury, maybe even a vanity, we cannot afford.

Seit 1. August gilt jetzt also die neus Rechtschreibung – fast überall. Da dachte ich mir dass ich mir das mal genauer anschaue muss. Über Jahre war das ja ein Riesentheater und ich war also auf ein paar Überraschungenn gefasst. Die Überraschung war dann allerdings dass die sogenannte “Neue Rechtschreibung” tatsächlich nur eine handvoll Änderungen beinhaltet, die im Großen un Ganzen sinnvoll sind. Da werden doch nur ein paar Ungereimtheiten in der Deutschen Grammatik ausgebügelt, aber wie so oft im Leben werden Dinge die eigentlich gar keinen Unterschied machen zum Riesendrama.

Es spielt doch überhaupt eine Rolle ob man nun Kuss oder Kuß schreibt – solange sich nur alle einig sind was richtig ist. Das Einzige was noch viel lächerlicher ist als großspurig eine “Rechtschreibereform” zu verkünden ist wenn sich einzelne Bundesländer querlegen und mit dem Fuß stampfen und ganz trotzig sagen “Meine Suppe ess ich nicht!”

Na ja – wie dem auch sei. Auf der nächsten Seite sind die neuen Regeln …
Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations to NASA – the space shuttle is back in one piece. Now it’s time to put those big clunkers in a nice museum and charge foreign tourists money to see them (I think that US taxpayers have already paid their admission fees).

At an average cost of $1.3 billion per launch, and a total cost of $174 billion, the space shuttle program seems like a giant welfare program for the aerospace industry. What exactly are they doing up there? This time, it seems they put the craft into orbit in order to see if they could repair it!? In the past, sometimes we’d hear about the astronauts fixing stuff, like the space telescope, or tinkering with the space station. Mostly it is just about this irrational idea that we have to put humans into space.

As a taxpayer, however, I get much more scientific ROI from unmanned space exploration, where robots are strapped on a rocket and blasted to cool places, like Mars or Jupiter. These missions are low-risk, reasonably priced and seem to yield concrete scientific results. The Mars Pathfinder cost a moderate $150 million and gave us a great view and concrete data from the surface of Mars.

It’s not like I am not fascinated by the idea of space travel. But the space shuttle program is wasting my taxes on a system with some pretty significant flaws. This is one area, where I think that private enterprise makes a lot more sense than government programs. and once they figure out how to get people safely into space and back – sign me up, Scottie!

Last weekend Laura went to see the new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie. She had been very anxious to see it, and she seems to have really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to seeing it one of these days myself. But today I heard about a movie I really want to see as soon as it comes out. I just listened to Scott Simon’s interview with Werner Herzog about his latest film Grizzly Man. He talks about how he found the story of Timothy Treadwell, the, uh, bear lover, who got eaten by grizzly bears in Alaska in October 2003. What a character and what a story! A new-age great-white-hunter who wants to hug the bears instead of shooting them. Yeah – until one of the bears hugged him back!

Treadwell’s story is a tragic, sad story. He was probably well-intentioned and he seems to have really loved these bears. But he had no sense and no respect for these dangerous animals. He also did set a bad example for other nature-lovers. One thing is clear: he is a fascinating character. No surprise that Herzog jumped on this project – a real-life Fitzcarraldo in Alaska with bears. I can’t wait to see this film when it comes out in mid-August.

This is how his supporters see Treadwell’s legacy:

In an interview with David Letterman, you saw a quick wit, returning each Letterman volley with panache, sparkle and a hint of an Australian accent. In a filmed scene of Timothy singing to a mother bear, flat on her back, with two cubs nursing on top of her, you imagined for a moment that she too enjoyed the song of gentleness. And you had no doubt that you were hearing a “bear whisperer.”
In Honor of Timothy Treadwell, Louisa Willcox, Grizzly People

Oh man – yeah, except that the “bear whisperer” did get eaten by a bear!

More on Treadwell:
Grizzly People – Treadwell’s non-profit organization
Newspaper story about Timothy Treadwell’s and Amie Huguenard’s deaths(pop-ups)
Story in Montana paper about the movie
Some of Treadwell’s grizzly pictures
More grizzly photos
[update: Information about Katmai National Park (NPS)]

There is a big debate raging over whether biofuels (biodiesel, ethanol) are sustainable. A paper published earlier this year by David Pimentel and Ted Patzek has the biofuels proponents on the defensive about the sustainability of the two most widely used types of biofuels in the US: corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel (methylesther).

Ethanol production in the UnitedStates does not benefit the nation’s energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment. Also,ethical questions are raised by diverting land and precious food into fuel and actually adding a net amount of pollution to the environment.
“Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower” David Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, 2005

Of course, the National Corn Growers Association is a big fan of ethanol. And the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) – formerly known as the Soydiesel Board – vigorously rebukes (PDF) the Patzek/Pimentel study.

There are clearly some important scientific questions about this study, like the steam energy and electricity inputs, whether to include the food of the workers as an energy input, and the huge amount of lime they figure is needed to raise the crops. But the biggest problem, I see, is using corn and soy as the benchmark for biofuels production, as neither is a great feedstock for fuel. Even looking at the most favourable numbers, the 1:3 energy ratio for soy-biodiesel from a 1998 DoA/DoE study (PDF), that is still not good enough to fuel the world.

My big problem with the Patzek/Pimentel paper is that it tries to establish a benchmark using a poor-performance scenario. It’s like judging a city by visiting its worst neighborhood. And then journalists turn this study into headlines like this:
“Study says ethanol not worth the energy”
“Academic Study Discredits Ethanol, Biodiesel”
These headlines make blanket statements about renewable fuels, while the study only looked at particularly poorly designed production processes for specific types of fuels. Sort of like documenting the poor performance of an airplane made of lead and then concluding airplanes cannot work.

We need studies that help us figure out how we can make biofuels work, and soon. The Pimentel/Patzek paper did not get us any closer to a solution. In order for this country to “survive” Peak Oil, we need a massive investment in research on how to grow feedstock for biofuels that can get us up to 1:10 energy ratio, while minimizing land use and the environmental footprint. No, it does not look like soy or corn are the solution, but they are a stepping-stone. Solar and wind energy are not THE SOLUTION either. Solar-powered cars are a long way away, let alone solar tractor-trailers or lorries. Biofuels are a necessary part of the solution for sustainable, cleaner energy, just as solar, wind, and maybe even hydrogen. A truly relevant research question is not if biofuels are sustainable, it is how can we produce them sustainably.

My photo album for our Iceland vacation is finally ready. It took a while to get it ready, but I had a lot of pictures to sort through; almost 700 from our 5 days in Iceland! I ended up using 220 images for the website. I took all the images with my Canon D350 (Digital Rebel) with the kit lens – which worked great.

I am still adding comments and descriptions to the images, and I am also adding wikipedia references to many of the pages, so people who want to find out more about the Alþingi or Vatnajökull can do so easily. Browse on over and take a look. Let me know how you like the site.