Unsought Input

Just to wrap up our Chemical of the Day miniseries I have brought out a special treat. Everybody get your groove on with Chemical Party! Badda da dum da, baddad da dum da. I would hate to be a noble gas at this party. Talk about wallflower!

Jesus, I know you are asking when this will stop.  I promise this is it.  I now it’s gone on way too long but who doesn’t want to hear about arsenic? These guys are cracking me up with this one. You just have to watch it. Arsenic is apparently the soap opera of elements. So dramatic and exciting. Really, I love these guys. And, check out the other elements in this feature, please.

Blah blah blah, you know the deal. And no groaning, you might learn something from watching these. You didn’t have to watch all of them. I did. Really, I know how hard it can be to make these interesting, mostly because most of them are incredibly dry. This one at least has some cool fireworks in it.

More from the element of the day series, Lanthanum. Really the whole reason to watch this one is to listen to the mnemonic, quite amusing according to him. “Language centers praise notes small promise of small European garden tubs dinosaurs hobble erotically thrumming yellow lutes.” What the hell? Maybe you should just memorize all of the elements, it sounds easier than trying to remember this little nursery rhyme. Anyway, watch and enjoy.

In line with our Element of the day series, here is day two: phosphorus.  It’s our younger scientist’s favorite element, he has lot’s of scars from taking it out and playing with it.  Really, you shouldn’t have favorites, it makes the other elements jealous.  This one is lots of fun, fire and such.  Well, as much fun as you can get out of phosphorus I supposed.  Still, it burns a letter P onto the paper all by itself.  Isn’t that just precious?

Head over and check out this cool site, The Periodic Table of Videos. It’s pretty amusing, they have created a video for each element. So, you could watch all 118 videos if you wanted, or you could just let me watch them and check out the element of the day that I pick. Really, some of them are very bland. But…it’s a very cool idea and i give these guys mad props. Seriously. Who else but this crazy haired guy could get so excited about Niobium? It really is such a friendly metal.

Creationism. It’s been finding its way into schools by hiding behind the facade of intelligent design. We’ve written about it in the past.

One argument in particular seems to appeal to all the rational, open minded people out there. The Creationists ask, why can’t we tell both sides of the story? We can teach the controversy and let people make up their minds for themselves.

This sounds nice and democratic and all but the argument has several fatal flaws:

1. We don’t teach Chinese in Spanish class because, although Chinese is great and kids should be able to learn it if they want, Chinese is not Spanish. Creationism posits that there are supernatural, unexplainable causes for things and that’s the exact opposite of the scientific method.
2. There is no controversy to teach. Among anyone who has actually studied biology or genetics there’s really no controversy. The controversy is between virtually all the experts on one side and a very loud group of non experts on the other. To go back to the Spanish example, would you let someone write the Spanish language text book if they admitted they don’t speak the language, had never spent any time in a Spanish-speaking country, and they disagreed with what native speakers say is the proper grammar?
3. We separate church and state for a reason. No one (in the U.S.) ever talks about teaching Hindu creationism or Navajo creationism in public schools. Teaching from one religion’s beliefs and not another’s in discriminatory. Other that counting the warm bodies in the pews, how can we judge which mythical creation story is worth teaching and which isn’t? Some religions have books older than the Bible.
4. Creationism is an intellectual dead end. If the conclusion to every mystery is “God did it,” where can we go from there? We certainly can’t discover DNA, decode the genome, create new drugs and therapies, use evolutionary techniques to create computer algorithms, fight drug-resistant bacteria, etc. To beat a dead horse, it’s like a Spanish class where the teacher answers questions about conjugating verbs in the past tense by saying “it’s too hard, it’s unknowable, you can’t learn it unless God reveals it to you.”

The list goes on. There’s one argument I generally don’t like to make, which is the slippery slope argument – that is, if we allow one thing to happen, that will set society on a slippery slope toward some crazy scenario that no one would be happy with. I don’t think creationism in public schools puts us on an inevitable path to the Middle Ages. But let me ask you this: do you really thing the very religious people leading the intelligent design movement will stop at Creationism?

(more…)

An interesting article over at Cracked (yes, I know this is a comedy type site but they have good interesting articles, for real!) recently talked about Psychological Experiments done on people that have gone horribly wrong. You never would have guessed, would you? Either way, I thought it was a pretty interesting article and that I would share it with anyone who cared. I assume you care if you are still reading.

Either way, the article talks about five main experiments that Cracked thinks proves humanity is doomed. I find this interesting because if these are traits humans have had for years, why aren’t we extinct yet? There has to be some benefit (or at least it’s a habit/trait that doesn’t kill us) or else we would all be goners and something else would be here in our place.

For example, they talk about the Stanford Prison Experiment which if you haven’t heard of it you can watch this nice little clip that informs you of it. It was a college experiment that went horribly wrong, as you can assume would happen.

(more…)

Just when you thought it was safe to drink water you hear about this. This headline on yahoo.com today strikes fear into the hearts of all Americans who thought it was healthy to drink water. Yes, conspiracy theories aside, there was a five month probe to find out what was actually in our drinking water. And do you know what they found out? I think you might since I put in in the headline of this article but allow me to reiterate. They found prescription drugs and other stuff in minute concentrations in our drinking water. Minute. I.e. small amounts. Very small. But still present. And what do our utility companies say? Is our water safe? Should we be allowing our selves and our loved ones to drink this water? This aqua pharmaceutical cocktail that comes out of our taps and into our glasses, into our showers and baths and food?

First off, let’s talk about media hype. It’s built up around times when people are getting too worried about other things: war, elections, terrorism, etc, to distract everyday people like you and me from these intense subjects by worrying about something else. In magic it’s call slight of the hand. The magician makes you look the other way and does the trick while you are distracted. Then, viola! You didn’t even know what was happening and now it’s already over and you are just left to wonder how it was done without you noticing.

So, the media creates hype and fear about your drinking water while there are several other important things to be reporting to the good people of America about so that you are distracted. Yes, something in the water is very scary. You need water to live and you trust the water that comes delivered to you. So, I agree, it’s a scary idea that there is something in the water. (more…)

Toxins.  They are all around you, in the air, in your food, in your drinking water.  So how are you going to get rid of them?

One way would be to realize that “toxins” is so broad a term as to be useless and that in order to avoid exposure to specific health risks like mercury you need to do some research, analyze costs and benefits of approaches, and participate in a modern society with environmental, health, and food inspection.

But that’s too hard.  So instead, turn off your brain and watch this commercial:

So let’s check off all the reasons why this smells scammy.  Have you ever had any of the following symptoms:

• Headaches?
• Backaches?
• The dreaded…  fatigue?
• And many more?

These symptoms could mean that you are filled with toxins! or more likely, that you are a human being, since everyone has a headache once in a while.  In any event, products that claim to cure everything usually cure nothing.

The pads “work” by sticking to your feet at night and removing everything bad from your body.  Everything bad includes:

• Heavy Metals
• Metabolic Wastes
• Toxins
• Parasites
• Chemicals
• Cellulite

Yes, it turns out that cobalt, chiggers and chubbiness all follow the same metabolic processes.  This is point number two – claiming to work in several, completely unrelated ways.

Point number three is easy.  Too easy.  Isn’t it a bit suspicious that it does so much without any effort, pain, or discomfort on your part?

How was such an amazing products discovered?  Through the amazing, ancient art of oriental reflexology.  And acupuncture, or something and nature.  Did they mention homeopathy?  They should.  Misusing a lot of scientific-sounding or hippie nature-sounding terms is point four.

So what did I miss?  What other ways does this seem ridiculous to you?

In a recent study the good old US of A was ranked 39th out of 149 countries in an environmental study that looked at countries overall environmental policies and emissions.  We were not the worst though.  I know I was saying stuff about China cleaning up for the Olympics before but they apparently have quiet a long way to go since they are currently competing with India for the least environmentally friendly country around.

Either way it’s probably time we do something about this, though.  I mean, where is our drive to win?  Our burning desire to fight and conquer and take over and WIN!!!? So, we just need to make this a challenge or a competition or a major TV show like American Gladiators.  If we had some type of zany game show to make people want to do environmentally friendly things we might be able to beat out other Costa Rica (who ranked fifth) or at least Japan (who ranked 21st).  I mean, all we need is a little bit of good old fashioned patriotism applied to saving the environment and people would just eat it up.  I know you could consider this technique to be  tricking the American public into doing something they wouldn’t normally do for a small prize or other’s amusement but I can’t really see any other way to make lazy people want to go out of their way do to anything.  Maybe I am not trying hard enough myself.  I know that if there was some crazy recycling game where I could win money or prizes I would totally be playing.

As far as corporations go, we could make a new TV show like The Office but with a company that has environmental hyjinks always ensuing.  Or we could just make them actually follow the regulations that would lower their emissions and pollution.  But hyjinks are always more fun.

Yuki Taro, the Japanese sidewalk snow plow.  Think Roomba for snow covered sidewalks.  The basic idea here is that a very cute robot runs itself with GPS and plows up snow.  This snow it then turns into bricks that you can do anything with.  As long as they don’t melt.  The article I linked to says it was invented by kids but it was not.  The Japanese are just suckers for anything that is super cute and useful.  The name basically means “snow boy”, in case you were wondering.

~FBI gets their wire tap phone service disconnected.  I am not sure if there is anyone out there who hadn’t heard of this massive failure but I couldn’t let it get away with not being mentioned on this site.   Ha!  No free rides for you, FBI.  There are a few quotes that really sum this up.  “More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows.” More than half?  So, about 445 bills or so were unpaid?  Very interesting.

And one other quote worth mentioning, “We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence”.  NO! I never would have guessed that not paying your bills and having your services shut off could affect your ability to spy on people without a warrant.  A final note on this topic is that they are trying to pin the blame on a woman who stole some money from them.  So, you are telling me that one woman was the sole person responsible to pay every phone bill for the FBI? Hmm, maybe the FBI needs to consider implementing a checks and balance system.

~Burning coal for electricity creates a byproduct that is more radioactive than nuclear waste.  At least it is according to a new article in Scientific America.  It actually says that the ash created from burning the coal that is released into the air is up to 100 times more radioactive then nuclear waste.  I mean, with coal there is never a chance of a nuclear meltdown but maybe it really is time to move away from our dependency on coal.  I mean, we could live with acid rain, greenhouse gas emissions and the occasional trapped miners or unstoppable underground coal fires.  But now, with all of these things, please let’s just realize when to call it a draw.  In the defense of coal, the uranium content can change due to where the coal was mined, making some less radioactive then others.  But in the overall scheme of things, does it really matter?

Hope you enjoyed.  Please comment below.

Recently I read an article over at Thedailygreen.com where I read that China is putting a nationwide ban on free use of plastic bags.  It is said that this will reduce the country’s dependency on oil while helping them to cut their emissions down just in time for planning and executing the Beijing Olympics.  This is a good thing, even if it is being done for the wrong reasons.  I am not saying that it is, but it does seem suspicious that it’s being pushed into place just in time for the Olympics, doesn’t it?  I mean, China wants to set a good example.  The government wants to show the world it can change. And I say, good for you.  I can only hope that America’s need to change would spur such a difference here at home.

Not only is China cutting back on the amount of oil they use (37 million barrels of crude oil on plastic bag production every year), they will be cutting back on the processing and production pollution made while making the bags, and on the overall pollution of their landscape and landfills after the bags have been used.  There will still be plastic bags for sale but they will not be given freely as they currently are now.  The idea is to make people bring their own reusable shopping bags each time they shop.

I think this sounds feasible here in the States.  I think something similar is definitely what we need.  A good old kick in the pants to get people to be slightly less environmentally selfish and to get our nation to start actually acting like they care what they are doing to the planet we live on.  I mean, I think everyone is aware that there is a problem.  But how long can we go on ignoring the signs?  Something needs to be done and this could be something that would not be that hard for people to adjust to and very very good for the environment.

Some retailers have already started selling reusable bags in the States, major chains like Walmart and Giant Eagle.  Here is a little info about Walmart’s bags from sustainableisgood.com:

The new Wal-Mart shopping bags are made from a fabric containing rPET.  The bags are made from 85% recycled content and hold more than twice the amount of an average plastic bag.  The bags will sell for $1 and be located near checkout aisles in Wal-Mart stores.  Wal-Mart will also take the bags back at the end of their life-span for recycling.

I am not trying to preach here.  I just think that most people are not going to do something like this on their own.  That if there were laws put in place that put a heavy tax (for example an environmental tax where the money went into environmental sustainability programs/research) on things that are wasteful (insert the plastic bag here) that people would start to actually consider their impact on the planet.  And if not, they would still be forced to either be environmentally friendly in a small way or pay a tax for the environment.

I am sure there are all sorts of negative comments people can make about this, that it’s not fair for the government to force this on people and no new taxes  and blah blah blah but we need to face reality.  And preferably sometime soon.

If you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve been discussing problems with Creationism.  In part one we looked at the Second Law of Thermodynamics and why it doesn’t invalidate evolution (or biology in general).  Despite what some wealthy political figures with delusions of persecution might tell you, we still haven’t found any empirical evidence or falsifiable claims in favor of creationism, but we’re going to look at the arguments provided in favor.

Our gracious commenter mentioned another perceived problem with evolution, the lack of direct observation of it.  Of course, we have plenty of direct observations of physical and genetic changes due to natural selection.  The adjusted claim was :

What I’m saying about evolution however is that since we have not observed the transition of one species to another, the fossils, rock strata and any other observations about the world as it is today, don’t make the case for the conjecture of transition from non-life to life and simple lifeforms to complex lifeforms. That transition is still an opinion which could only be confirmed by the scientific method through observation of the actual transition itself.

This is an interesting twist on what’s normally called the God of the Gaps argument against evolution.  Normally the argument is formulated this way:  Okay, sure we have all these fossils which scientists like to fit into a big family tree, but where are all the missing links?  You don’t have them, and that’s because God created the individual species.  Any time we don’t have a scientific explanation for something, God did it.

The biggest problem with the God of the Gaps argument is the tendency of the gaps to shrink over time.  Scientists are constantly discovering new fossils as well as better ways to examine relationships between species such as cladistics and genetics.  Some gaps in knowledge, like the exact method by which RNA or DNA originally formed from non-living molecules, might seem comfortable enough for God to fit in right now, but every day really interesting work is being done.

Now for the interesting twist:  our commenter is not just pointing out the gaps in the fossil evidence, genetic evidence, and explanatory models.  In addition, supposedly all this evidence must be thrown out – anything not based on direct observation of the actual transitions between species is just “an opinion.”  This causes a number of problems.
First, this causes serious problems if we ever want to study speciation, let alone evolution.  Based on what we know from radiometric dating the earth has been around for billions of years.  It’s quite possible that it takes tens of thousands of years before an ancestor and it’s descendant are different enough to be considered separate species, especially for large vertabrates with long gaps between generations.  Unfortunately we humans only live 100 years or so at most – not much time for direct observation of very gradual change.

This might look like a good argument from the creationist side until you realize that this poses a problem for anyone trying to observe some sort of “creationist speciation” as well.  We can cross our fingers and hope God turns a turnip into some kind of super turnip during our lifetimes, but given the geological scale the Lord works on, don’t hold your breath.

Second, this is an extremely high bar to set for evidence – so high that if applied consistently it invalidates entire fields of study.  Forensics, for example, would be completely thrown out the window.  No more collecting fingerprints and DNA in episodes of CSI.  We can’t even take the presence of a dead body too seriously anymore.  That murder is still an opinion which could only be confirmed by the scientific method through observation of the actual murder itself.

Archaeologists all over the world need to hang up their Indiana Jones hats and get real jobs, because all of their work is based on indirect observation.  Since we’re not accepting genetic evidence either we need to throw fields like Linguistics, which use similar methods.  What about all the apparatus used by quantum physicists?  No one has ever really seen a quark.  Don’t even mention geology.

Luckily for us, we don’t have to contemplate this bizarre notion any further, because we actually do have plenty of observations of speciation through selection, otherwise known as evolution.  Two organisms are considered different species if they don’t interbreed, and we’ve actually seen that happen through selection.

I can hear the objections already – “but those are all small changes, show me a monkey turning into a man!”  Now we come to the evidence that creationism is not science.  Let’s recap:

1. First the argument is that there are missing links.  But more transitional fossils are found every day.
2. Next the argument is that no one has ever actually observed evolution.  But it has been observed plenty of times.
3. Next the argument is that microevolution is possible, but no one has ever observed macroevolution or speciation.  But it has been observed as well.
4. Next the argument is that evolution might create different species, but what about different genera?  Or different families?  Or orders?  Or…

Once again we are trying to stick God into an ever-shrinking series of gaps.  We’ve already seen that creationists are willing to throw out perfectly valid observational evidence like fossils and genetics.  Do you get the impression that no amount of evidence will ever be enough to disprove creationism?  That smells fishy.

Part 3 will continue following this thread toward the notion of falsifiability.  In the mean time, we have seen some sophistic arguments, but no actual evidence to support creationism or divine intervention.  Please feel free to comment below.