Thinking of installing a Rooftop Solar Array. Why can't I make more electricity than I use?

Edward Snowden Appears at Flagship TED

Science and the Religious Right

This week on the Point of Inquiry podcast Chris Mooney interviews author Peter Montgomery. The discussion is long so I felt compelled to transcribe the following exchange which I think neatly sums up their respective positions.

Chris Mooney: I wrote a book called the Republican War on Science and it had this section on the religious right messing with science. And so what turns out is that if you take away their god-inspired moralistic language about sex, abortion, or whatever, then they make up phony scientific arguments that are secular. So suddenly adult stem cells are better than embryonic stem cells, and they've got phony science on that. Or, condoms don't actually work, and they've got phony science on that. Or, abstinence education DOES work, phony science, here it comes. Or what are the other ones? It goes on and on. Abortion causes breast cancer, abortion causes mental illness. They start makin' all this stuff up. But REALLY it's the religion driving the policy view.

Peter Montgomery: Well that's right but the thing about the fact that they feel compelled to make up phony science, I think it's a good thing because that science can be exposed and challenged as bogus and phony and as no real basis for policy and that's what our side has to do better. If it's just about disputing their theology then you kind of get stuck on who's got god right. And there's really no way to know who's got god right. But it is a lot easier to know who's got science right. And even though they have a tremendous propaganda machine that backs a lot of these bogus scientific claims, those are things that we can engage on, we can challenge them and we can martial the consensus support of the scientific community to challenge those claims.

Listen to the entire discussion here.

While Peter Montgomery was making this point I immediately thought of the incessant denial of anthropogenic global warming among some very vocal conservatives. From my perspective, the best part of this debate is when conservatives fund scientific assessments of climate change and find exactly the same conclusions as have been reported over and over by federally funded researchers. The climate is changing and human generated carbon dioxide is largely to blame.  This recently happened to the Koch brothers. The satisfaction in seeing real science vindicated is priceless. 

Lawrence Krauss - words of wisdom

"Too often in the media, speculative ideas are treated on the same footing as well-tested ones. As a result, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between them. This is particularly unfortunate when firmly grounded ideas that are known to accurately describe the physical world (such as evolution and the big bang) are passed off as mere theoretical whims of a group of partisan scientists.  One of the most useful tasks a popular exposition of science at the forefront can achieve, it seems to me, is clearly differentiate that which we know yields an accurate description of nature on some scale from those things we have reason to suspect one day might do so. And the worst thing such an exposition can do is confuse the two."

                                                   ~Lawrence M. Krauss

                                                        from Hiding in the Mirror

I had the good fortune of meeting Lawrence Krauss last Friday as he recorded the radio show "On Being" with Krista Tippett at Chautauqua Institution here in Western New York.  He was happy and irascible in front of a large crowd of religious people in the open-air "Hall of Philosophy." 

Throughout his interview he drove home his point over and over that God and science do not mix, that science is the best method for learning and religion is a collection of childish myths and we all need to grow up. The gasps from the crowd were priceless. 

Krauss took the opportunity to explain how the discovery of the Higgs boson affects our understanding of the universe. A subtle point not covered by many popular outlets is that the Higgs field barely interects with photons. This accident of our existence explains how photons can travel at the speed of light while the rest of matter is slowed by the strong nuclear force and the newly verified Higgs field.  

While speaking of the Higgs Krauss urged the audience to embrace the ecstatic awe discoveries like these can provide without the need for faith. He stressed the satisfaction that comes from a secular humanist view of the universe.

Krauss pointed out that faith leaves humanity helpless in making policy decisions. He proposed policy be decided based on evidence. A strangely novel suggestion in the current political atmosphere. He said it bothered him greatly that McCain and Obama choose to have a presidential debate on faith rather than issues that actually matter like approaches to human health and disease, energy, and the environment. What did we learn from the faith debate in 2008? That both candidates had it. So what?!?!

When you do not base you moral and ethical decisions on evidence you end up with the republican party!

One of the best moments of the day was when an elderly woman asked Dr. Krauss "what can science tell us about love?" He responded with a wonderfully humanist answer I will paraphrase from memory.

Science can tell us a lot about love starting with chemistry and physiology. From a scientific world-view a person can approach love honestly. I can tell you that I am deeply in love right now. When I feel love I am seeing and sensing shared values in another human being. Of course I am sexually attracted to the  person but on a deeper level I see myself in her. I see the ideals, the things I aspire to most in her. That reflection can easily come from a scientific approach to love.

After the interview I picked up a copy of his book Hiding in the Mirror and was pleased to see him described as a "writer-scientist" on the back cover. From now on I aspire to be a "writer-scientist" myself. Too often I think people who go from doing science to writing about science feel the need to re-label themselves "science-writers." I see no need for this re-branding. We are all scientists!

Though I did want to ask him many different questions I choose the one most important to me. I asked him if he supports Open Access. He replied with gusto.

"Yes, of course. In fact astrophysics pioneered open access with the invention of the ArXiv. I see journal articles as for archival purposes. I don't even read journals anymore, just the ArXiv."

As a biochemist I had not heard of this resource and was happy to look it up and experience it first hand.  With this awareness fresh in my mind I was shocked to see the ArXiv all over science news this week. A law newly passed in the UK requires all research publications made possible with tax-payer funds be made openly available to the whole world online. The astrophysics ArXiv was used as an archetype for how to make this happen.  Brilliant!

While I do look forward to a world with wider and wider open access I approach this world with Lawrence Krauss and his words of caution in mind. Carl Sagan had something to say about this as well.

"We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.

For our collective understanding of the universe to mature we need to have a lot of ideas. This means there will be countless bad ideas. The trick, I think, will be not to get caught in an eddy in the river of knowledge. Dogma, fear, and superstition have proved themselves sure paths into those stagnant waters. 

I applaud Lawrence Krauss for encouraging us to grow up.

Charter Schools - Opinion

By Kristopher Hite

When I say I do not like charter schools I mean it. I mean it because I see their proliferation as a shift towards privatization in general. I perceive privatization as an all-encompassing ideological philosophy of many politicians; Margaret Spellings, George W. Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld to name a few. I agree with the Democrats who were outraged at W for slipping in "school vouchers" to his last re-signings of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

From the Washington Post -

"Democrats in Congress assailed the plan -- which also would allow low-performing schools to override union contracts or become charter schools despite state laws limiting their creation -- and expressed concern that the politically charged proposals could delay the reauthorization, which is scheduled for this year." ~ from July 2007. 

I see school vouchers as a more extreme version of charter schools - a move away from public schooling as traditionally understood. While reading about NCLB I came across several provisions of the act leading to increased number of charter schools.

"A fifth year of failure results in planning to restructure the entire school; the plan is implemented if the school fails to hit its AYP targets for the sixth year in a row. Common options include closing the school, turning the school into a charter school, hiring a private company to run the school, or asking the state office of education to run the school directly."

It seems as though all roads out of NCLB lead to a privatized world which upsets me. To me, many of the most powerful Republicans somehow swoon over the teachings of a man with whom I vehemently disagree - Milton Friedman.

From the school voucher wiki -

 "Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman argued for the modern concept of vouchers in the 1950s, stating that competition would improve schools and cost efficiency. The view further gained popularity with the 1980 TV broadcast of Friedman's series Free to Choose for which volume 6 was devoted entirely to promoting "educational freedom" through programs like school vouchers. In some Southern states during the 1960s, school vouchers were used as a method of perpetuating segregation. In a few instances, public schools were closed outright and vouchers were issued to parents. The vouchers, in many cases, were only good at privately segregated schools, known as segregation academies. Today, all modern voucher programs prohibit racial discrimination."

This brings me full circle to my stance on charter schools vouchers and NCLB in general. I perceive NCLB as a well intentioned act of congress carrying a Trojan horse filled with little pro-privatization Milton Friedman time-bombs. I see these privatization ideals as detrimental to communities throughout our educated democracy.

---

Did you like this article? If so please help out my blog however you can. You can donate as much or as little as you like, even just a few pennies. By supporting Tom Paine's Ghost you are helping me bring interesting topics to your beautiful eyes :) Click the MuCash button below. Thanks!