Brian Clegg's Blog, page 139

Surely this is madness? No, sir, 'tis mine art

I was listening to some Shakespearian actor Johnnie on the radio yesterday morning talking about an arts event that is being arranged in London for the Olympics. Apparently he and 49 other actorrrrs (sic) will be spontaneously weaving quotes from Shakespeare into encounters with the public. Apparently he is a little worried about doing it himself, because people will recognise him. (He shouldn't worry, I've never heard of him, let alone know what he looks like. I think he rather overrates his fame.)

But here's the thing - when he described what would happen, it didn't so much sound like art as letching. I paraphrase from memory, but this is roughly what he said might happen.

I might sit next to someone on a park bench and say 'Hello, it's a nice day,' and then 'That's a nice bracelet... Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.'

Now, I'm sorry, but if someone did this to me, or the equivalent - I can't see anyone comparing me to a summer's day (more like 'This misshapen knave - His mother was a witch') - I would at best be moving away rapidly and at worst calling the police. This isn't art, it's harassment.

I can just imagine the meeting where someone dreamed this up. 'Oh, daaaarling (sic), wouldn't it be wonderful? The common proles could hear the language of Shakespeare without us having to get them into an overpriced theatre seat, which they can't afford once they've paid for their bingo and whippets. It would so good for them. They'll just lap it up.'

I remain to be convinced.

Royal Society Winton Prize

It's a lazy post today. The long list has been announced for the 2012 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books (though I don't know what Dale Winton has to do with it). Take a look at my post on it at www.popularscience.co.uk with links to reviews of the listed books we've had in so far, plus the all-important set of the books that should have been on the list but were overlooked.

To be fair, you really have to feel a bit sorry for the judges. They had to somehow whittle down a pile of over 100 books to 12, which is a horrendous task.

Oh, the excitement.

So long, farewell

The means we have for communicating in writing have blossomed over the last couple of decades. When I was at university it was letters or telegrams. We may have lost those exciting little brown envelopes that brought  news of disaster and triumph, but we've added email, text messaging and so much more. Which leads me to ponder the ways we sign off when writing.

In formal letters it's easy - Yours sincerely if it's a named person you are writing to and Yours faithfully if it's not. But informal letters and particularly these quicker, easier means of written communication of today bring with them a whole host of options for how to end. Even text messages have this: do you end with a kiss or not? My (female) family expect this. In fact the number of kisses acts as a kind of emoticon. No kisses - you're in trouble. One or two - ordinary communication. Lots of kisses - either 'I want something' or 'Thank you so much!' But those kisses are so dangerous. Because 90+% of my texts are to said family members it's so easy to nearly add a kiss to a text to a business colleague, or to a tweet, where it simply isn't what I want to do.

And then there are the endings for emails and other longer communications. They too carry a hidden baggage of subtle secret messages. Here is my attempt to decode them:
Best regards - Straightforward, neutral sign offKindest regards - I don't really know you, but I want to appear rather formally pleasantGet stuffed - This is probably the end of our conversationBye - In a hurry, but want to appear chatty and friendlyCheerio - Just off to have a picnic, washed down with lashings of ginger beerBest wishes - We aren't just business colleagues, we are social colleaguesCheers - I know we're quite close, but it would be embarrassing to say anything elseAll the best - One of my favourites: an affectionate farewell without being sloppyLove - For girliesLots of love - For people you fancy or very close familySo there we have it. It's quite difficult to end anything, letter or email or even blog post.
Keep smiling,Brian xx

Defying gravity

I'm delighted to announced that my new book Gravity - How the weakest force in the universe shaped our lives is now available in the US. (UK readers, the proper UK version is out on 25 October, but if you can't wait that long, there are some copies of the US version on Amazon, and the UK link from my website will point to that until the official US version is out.)

I have recently done a few relatively light topic books, which is hugely enjoyable to do (and, I hope, to read), but it's nice to get your teeth into something meaty, and it's interesting that my best selling physics-based book remains The God Effect on quantum entanglement, one of my more challenging titles. The great thing about doing the book on gravity is that it's a subject that is very obvious - you can avoid the effects of gravity in everyday life - and yet for most of human existence it has been quite mysterious.

Then, when you get onto general relativity it becomes even more fascinating, and if you don't try to do the maths (which you'll be pleased to know I don't), it is still surprisingly approachable. I've gone into more depth in general relativity than I've seen before in a popular science title, but I really think its worth it, as it gives you a chance to explore, for instance, why frame dragging, the effect that is used in conceptual general relativity time machines, exists.

For light relief there is the whole anti-gravity business. There's a hilarious mid-20th century article on how the world will be transformed by anti-gravity (quite serious), there are the real scientific attempts to counter gravity... and the sometimes delightful amateurs. Not to mention the conspiracy theories.

All in all, I think this is a book that should go down well - and I think it's the best cover St. Martin's Press has ever done for me (the blue one at the top of the page). I've also included here the UK cover from Duckworth, which I think is great fun, though I'm not so sure about the subtitle, which no one consulted me about.

If you are on Goodreads, I've a free copy on offer - see the link at the bottom of the page. To finish off, here's a few fun factoids from Gravity:


The gravitational attraction of the midwife is a stronger effect than that of the planets – so basing astrology on gravity is problematicThanks to a project sponsored by KFC we know that birds eggs don’t develop in zero gravity, as the yolk needs to be kept near the shellOriginally gravity was paired with levity, the tendency light things have to move upwardsSurprisingly, Galileo’s famous observation that pendulums swing with the same frequency however far they swing is wrong. It only applies for small swingsNewton’s ideas on gravity were called ‘occult’ by his contemporaries because he referred to ‘attraction, and the only meaning for the word was the attraction between people – he seemed to be saying the Moon orbits the Earth because they fancy each otherIf you fire a bullet horizontally and drop a bullet from the same height at the same time they will both land at the same timeIf there was water on the Moon the tides would be dramatic – 80 times the size of those on the EarthIf you fall through a hole dug from point to point on the Earth (e.g. from one side to the other) it takes 42 minutes to fall throughThe gravity on the International Space Station is around 90 percent Earth normal – but they don’t feel it because they are constantly falling and accelerating towards the EarthThe famous experiment that ‘proved’ general relativity right by measuring the deflection of starlight round the Sun in a total eclipse in 1919 was fudged to get the right results (though it has since been proved)Relativity made Einstein such a media star he was asked to appear for a season at the London Palladium, explaining his theories. He politely declinedFor five  decades, millions of dollars have been spent on a whole range of experiments to detect gravity waves but as yet not a single one has been detectedThere is no evidence to support conspiracy theories about antigravity technology – we know all about stealth technology, which doesn’t have commercial applications – antigravity would inevitably ‘escape’ from the military sphere it if it existedIt is possible that antimatter is repelled by gravity rather than attracted – we have never had enough of it to measure the effect      .goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;      font-style: normal; background: white; }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;      text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;      border: 1px solid #6A6454; -moz-border-radius: 5px; -webkit-border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;      background-image:url(http://www.goodreads.com/images/layou... background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;      outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;    }    .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(http://www.goodreads.com/images/layou...      color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;    }        Goodreads Book Giveaway 
               
                    Gravity                      by Brian Clegg     
                            Giveaway ends July 06, 2012.                                See the giveaway details            at Goodreads.                       
      Enter to win

On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus - 5

This is the fifth and last in my series of linked blog entries on my experience of being converted (or not) to intelligent design.

The final evidence provided to me is from the DVD 'Where does the Evidence Lead'. Like my first source, the book "What's Darwin Got to do with it?": this is a calm, reasoned argument for intelligent design, rather than a religious rant.

I don't think the DVD provides any additional arguments, going over the same material slowly with pictures. Once again, I am convinced that the reasonable inference argument means that ID needs at least considering, but that there just isn't enough evidence to unseat evolution.

This DVD majors on the bacterial flagellum as impossible to explain without design. We are told that no one can explain how the various different components could have evolved, as none is useful independently. Unfortunately, it appears that the only source for this assertion is the champion of the motor, Michael Behe (who appears prominently on the video). There are good examples already of many of the components of the flagellar motor in action elsewhere. This was highlighted in the 2005 Pennsylvania court case.

So, sadly, nothing more added here.

The outcome of my trip through this material? I am more sympathetic to intelligent design than I was. Because I know it has been used as a 'stalking horse' by some creationists I was suspicious of it, but frankly this is an ad hominem attack, which was unscientific of me. It doesn't matter why someone puts a theory forward if it has some merit.

There is enough  in nature that is suggestive of design to make it worth investigating as a scientific thesis - however, there appears to be no good evidence to accept the design theory, and everything to stick with evolution. This doesn't mean evolution shouldn't be challenged - it always is being - and it doesn't mean we can rule out design - but it has to remain a minority theory to be kept in mind but not in a fit state to challenge mainstream thinking.

POSTSCRIPT - When I thought I was finished, a book called Dissent over Decent dropped onto my review pile. Subtitled 'intelligent design's challenge to darwinism' I thought it might give me a final conclusion. Unfortunately it's a philosophy (or possibly sociology) of science book, so very woffly and intensely dull. I think its conclusions were that both ID and evolution are scientific theories (in that they try to offer an explanation for the existence of something), but both are bad science (because neither can offer any useful predictions about a specific species etc.) So I got nothing useful here, apart from reinforcing my prejudices about philosophy/sociology of science - but that's a whole new debate which I will leave to another day.

On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus - 4

This is the fourth in my series of linked blog entries on my experience of being converted (or not) to intelligent design. I had intended to do much the same with the second book as I did with the first - give a quick summary of the book in a first post, then analyze the key points in the next, but in this case there will be only one post about the book, for reasons that I think will become obvious.

The second book intended to shift me into the intelligent design camp is The 10 things you should know about the Creation vs Evolution debate by Ron Rhodes. What I didn't realize when I started to read this is that it's one of a whole series Ron has written including The 10 most important things you can say to a mason and The 10 most important things you can say to a Catholic. I think this tells you where Ron is coming from. (I confess I would be fascinated to read both of these!)

As the other books in the series show, this title really doesn't contribute to my journey, because it's not a science book, it's a religious book. A fair amount of its arguments are based on biblical quotation - important to many, but irrelevant to this discussion.

All in all, the book left me feeling more than a little queasy. Perhaps the best example of how it got things horribly wrong is it gives three examples of the evil that 'darwinism' is responsible for. This came close to self parody, because in every single example you could change 'darwinism' to 'Christianity' and make as much sense. According to Ron:
Hitler was a 'Darwinian evolutionist' - the implication is that evil actions of the state are driven by a 'belief' in darwinism. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to say the same about many world religions. And Hitler also believed the world was not flat - does his support make that theory doubtful too?Evolutionary theory has played a role in fostering racism - no, incorrect assumptions falsely citing evolutionary theory have done this, not evolutionary theory. And let's not forget the Ku Klux Klan, making exactly the same type of misuse of a Christian heritage.Darwin argued that men had greater mental powers than women, so evolutionary theory is sexist - Darwin's beliefs on women are neither here nor there, and would certainly be of his time. And let's face it, some of the epistles in the Bible are not exactly lacking in sexist content if you're just going to take things out of context.I really can't go on with the contents of this book, which has a 'young earth', world created less than 10,000 years ago in six literal days viewpoint. If its viewpoint were true, it seems to accept that we are dealing with a God who maliciously did things to fool us, like set light from the stars in motion part of the way here, so it appears to be coming from further back in time than it really is. (The author agrees this is an unacceptable picture, so it must be wrong, but doesn't provide an alternative explanation.)

I can only end with a quote from a review of one of Ron's other books: 'This is an uneducated author in biblical research and church history, not to mention a person with an already established agenda which will not be deterred by the facts.'

This book hasn't changed my opinions at all - but then it's not surprising, as it regards even Intelligent Design as suspect. This isn't a science book, full stop. So, in my next and final post on the subject, I come to the last of the evidence I've been presented with - a DVD.

On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus - 3

This is the third in my series of linked blog entries on my experience of being converted (or not) to intelligent design. Here I present the key arguments from the book What's Darwin Got to do with it? by Robert Newman, John Wiester and Janet and Jonathan Moneymaker, and how I respond to them.
You can't necessarily argue from small scale to large - you can't take the example of (say) all the different shapes and sizes of dogs and draw the conclusion that you can evolve something from a single cell to a complex mammal. Seems fair - certainly in physics you can't apply the same rules to different scales. Micro-evolution accepted without question. Macro-evolution requires more evidence.Peppered moths aren't enough either - the famous increase of dark peppered moths in the industrial revolution demonstrates selectivity, but not evolution of drastically different species. Can't argue with this. (Similarly finch beaks.)Similarities between species doesn't necessarily imply common descent rather than design - the fact, for instance, that many mammals have very similar skeletal structures etc. is true but not useful. The fact that all cars are pretty similar in layout doesn't imply common descent rather than design.You can't use the bad design argument - This is one I've been guilty of. You point out that if biological entities are designed, they aren't perfectly designed. Look at our back-to-front optic nerves. Look at the panda's thumb. Y-e-e-s - but this is a theological argument, not a scientific one. ID doesn't say that an infallible God designed everything, just that there is evidence of design. (And let's face it, some biological 'design' is very good at what it does.)Transitional fossils are few and far between - MY FIRST CRY FOR HELP. Is this true? I know it used to be, and also there could be other reasons for this than they don't exist (e.g. transitions tended to coincide with geological circumstances that don't suit laying down of fossils). This was kindly answered by Henry Gee in my first posting: Yes. See this paper for a good, recent example. There is a problem, though, with 'transitional' fossils, as follows. In a sense they do not exist except in hindsight. As I have said elsewhere, evolution has no memory and no foresight, and only exists in the moment. Although we can pick up trends in the fossil recod after the fact, this doesn't mean that evolution runs on some kind of pre-ordained rails. I think creationists of all stripes think that that's how evolution works. Many evolutionary biologists certainly seem to think like that, or did until recently. This is not to deny that evolution happens, only to state trhat we should be more rigorous in defining what evolution is. Nevertheless, when I debunked the notion of progressive evolution in my book Deep Time there were howls of protest from evolutionary biologists complaining that I was giving ammo to the creationists. The existence of creationism has, to that extent, eroded free thought among evolutionary biologists, and this is something to be deplored.Everything since the Cambrian explosion has been variations on those 'basic designs' - SECOND CRY FOR HELP. Is this true? The book alleges that 'no animal phylum has appeared since [the Cambrian era].' Is this just a function of the way phyla are defined? This also was answered by Henry: [Yes], this is pretty much true.If SETI received a message that appeared to be designed, we would attribute it to intelligence, even though we have no evidence whatsoever of the existence of alien life. Why do we treat the possibility of intelligent design so differently? - Their best argument, I think - not for the correctness of ID, but for not dismissing it out of hand.What about irreducible complexity? - For me this turns out to be an argument against ID. The Victorian favourites the eye and the wing have both been shot to pieces; as far as I'm aware, the same has been done for 'rotary motors' propelling bacterial flagella. If irreducable complexity indicates design, you'd expect to see it all over, and you don't.Apart from my factual queries, what isn't mentioned anywhere is the sheer timescale available for evolution to do its work. Between the 1950s and 1990s, the Russian geneticist Belyaev selectively bred Russian silver foxes for docile behavior and showed just how early man may have turned the wolf into a dog. In just 40 years he got from a fox to something very close to a dog. Imagine what you could do in a billion years.

The other missing argument is the remarkably large overlap in the information content of DNA between different species. It really doesn't take too many changes to provide a change of species. [Added: and also there's the fundamental error made over and over again by those who query evolution, which is failing to recognise that evolution never sees a change of species from one generation to the next. Every individual is the same species as its parents, but paradoxically it is still possible to change over time. Divide a rainbow into billions of colours. It goes all the way through the colours yet each of your colour 'pixels' is indistinguishable from the previous one.]

Overall, then, I feel we need to take ID seriously, unlike creationism, because there is reasonable inferential evidence that is worth considering. And I will stop using the 'bad design' argument - that's not a scientific argument. (In my original post Stephen Curry queried this, but as I pointed out, 'bad design' is a theological argument. If we take ID at face value the designer does not have to be infallible.) But going on what this book can tell me I'm not persuaded that there is any reason why we couldn't see the changes an evolutionary model implies producing the variety of animals and plants we see today.

P.S. On my original post Bob O'Hara kindly listed these answers to my points above:

CB902CB910.2CI141I can't find anything for this, but anyway I agree to some extent: it would only be an argument if there was a perfect creator. I would disagree because some of the imperfections (e.g. the 10-15 foot detour in the giraffe1's nervous system) are better explained through common descent with modification.CC200CC300CI190CI102

On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus 2

My original blog at Nature Network is due to disappear fairly soon, so I thought I would bring back one or two old posts. This week I am re-visiting a brief series of posts on evolution and the alternatives from 2008:



This is the second in my series of linked blog entries on my experience of being converted (or not) to intelligent design.

The first of the books I read was What's Darwin Got to do with it? by Robert Newman, John Wiester and Janet and Jonathan Moneymaker (I just love the polarity of the comments on Amazon). I mostly started with this as it was in friendly cartoon form (not unlike one of the Horrible Science books) so seemed a good way to pick up the main themes quickly.

I'm going to start with two points from here: what labels to use, and whether intelligent design has any scientific legitimacy.

The book is in the form of a friendly debate between two professors, and they start by ditching the terms creationism and evolution, in favour of intelligent design and darwinism. I half agree. They dump creationism because it's a loaded term, making you think of a young Earth, only 10,000 years old and a literal creation in six days. This, they imply, is garbage. So we'll adopt the less loaded intelligent design. Fine.

They dump evolution because they don't dispute the evolutionary process by natural selection on a small scale. Fine so far, but I can't accept the substitution of darwinism. To me, the 'ism' makes it sound like a religious belief - one of a strictly godless world where everything is mechanistic. That too is a loaded term. So I can't go along with the book here. I'll use a new term, evolutionary design (where the D word is in implied inverted commas), to encompass the full panoply of evolution.

Now some would say, there's no need to dispute this at all. It's 'obvious' that science shouldn't even consider the possibility of intelligent design. But I'll go along with the book in saying this isn't a good scientific viewpoint. You don't dismiss things arbitrarily because they are different. Of course this doesn't mean you can examine everything - nothing would ever get done if I expected equal time to be given to the great green Arklseizure theory, for instance. But intelligent design is rather less bizarre.

Specifically, I'd say intelligent design deserves examination, because it's a theory that works quite well be inference. This is, of course, Paley's 19th century argument about finding a watch and inferring a watchmaker. While this doesn't prove anything, it makes the concept worth considering. We can't dismiss inference in science - almost all cosmology is based on inference one way and another, for instance.

Note that this does NOT mean I accept that intelligent design should be taught in schools. There are lots of alternative theories that shouldn't come into the curriculum (e.g. alternatives to the big bang) because there just isn't time, and it's confusing at the level it's taught. Same here. The curriculum should mention that all scientific theories are current best understanding and likely to change, but should not waste time on the alternatives. However, the quite logical inference protects ID from being instantly discarded.

At this stage, then, 1 1/2 points to the book, 1/2 a point against it. In the next post I examine the key arguments and decide whether this book has changed my thinking.

On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus - 1

My original blog at Nature Network is due to disappear fairly soon, so I thought I would bring back one or two old posts. This week I am re-visiting a brief series of posts on evolution and the alternatives from 2008:

I quite often get emails and letters from readers of my books, and recently was contacted by someone who I shall call Sandy (because that's his name). He had one or two questions about my book on quantum entanglement - The God Effect which I was pleased to answer.

At the end of our short discussion, because of the 'God' word in the title he asked me about my religious beliefs and went on to offer me a book exploring the arguments for intelligent design. In the end, he very generously sent me two books and a DVD.

What I'd like to do in this short series of blog entries is explore whether reading these books and watching the DVD has any effect on my attitude to evolution and intelligent design. If my mind is changed, I want to share the experience, and ask for words of wisdom from those who know more about these matters than me. If my mind isn't changed, that too shall go on record.

To set the scene, I am someone whose opinion can be swayed by argument - for example, I've voted for all three major parties in the UK in my time. Religiously, I'm neither an atheist nor a fundamentalist believer in any of the religions. Scientifically I am currently of the opinion that evolution is sufficient to explain what we see out there without resorting to intelligent design. So here we go. Fasten your seatbelts.

The warm glow of being a record producer

I have been running a website selling organ accompaniments for hymns and organ voluntaries for a few years now.

Church music is a particular interest of mine, and when I teamed up with the superb organist John Keys and his recording engineer and co-worker Wendy Williams I have been able to sell some excellent CDs and MP3s. But it has all been from my site, so it has felt a little DIY and yard sale. But now I feel like a real record producer.

Thanks to a service by the name of AWAL (Artists Without A Label) I have been able to put one of our CDs in downloadable format on Amazon, iTunes and even Spotify.

I don't know why, but it's immensely satisfying, being able to go onto one of these sites and think 'we did that.'