I just got a new macro (micro) lens for my camera. The goal is to learn how to take close-up pictures of small things and achieve a high level of detail. This is a picture of an almost empty jar of peppercorns. The image quality of the original photograph has been diminished by compressing it for display on the web. Click the image to enlarge it.
Evolution
I never get tired of reading about evolution. So, I’m either a boring geek or a heretic depending on your worldview. I’m astounded with the progress of science in deciphering evolution and writing the story (a story that can be tested and verified) of how we got here.
I just finished reading Dr. Jerry Coyne’s book Why Evolution Is True
The statistics on the percentage of Americans who reject evolution (over half) is disgraceful. Turkey is the only country with a higher percentage of its population who don’t “believe” in evolution. I put “believe” in quotations because evolution is science that has to be understood not believed in and that means making the effort to read a few books. Blind faith is easier than understanding and that accounts for its greater appeal.
Another contributing factor to our national ignorance about evolution is fear. Demagogues tell us that without God we will decay into a morally bankrupt society and lose all sense of purpose in our lives. That argument is ridiculous on multiple levels starting with the fact that understanding evolution doesn’t require discarding God.
Ironically, the widely held belief that we are separate from the natural world allows us to persist in our morally reprehensible pollution of the environment. We are part of nature and understanding evolution is the best way to maintain that perspective. It may also be the best way to save us from ourselves.
Read the book.
Monte
Cars and the Environment
I'm reading a book called Something New Under the Sun, which is a catalog of human environmental misadventures. Here's a crazy fact I just read: Making a single car produces as much air pollution as driving the car for ten years!
MonteSeagulls
Click image to enlarge
Swan
The Dog
Spring Break
Global Conflict and Climate Change
In January of 2010 the Pentagon revealed that it is now including the impact of climate change in its planning for future issues that might require military intervention. Several possible crisis scenarios were cited by Pentagon planners including humanitarian disasters and violent conflict resulting from food and water shortages and extreme weather events like drought and flooding.
Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times on February 6, 2011 about rising world food prices in response to reduced food production, especially a failed wheat crop due to drought in Russia last year. He made the case that the decrease in food production is partly a consequence of extreme weather conditions. The Wall Street Journal reported that the drought in Russia last summer reduced their wheat crop by 40%, and was the worst drought they had suffered in 100 years.
Rising wheat and food prices have been identified as one of the causes of current rioting in Egypt and other Arab countries. This is the sort of social instability created by climate change that Pentagon planners are concerned about.
The worst drought in 60 years in the wheat growing region of China began in September, 2010 and could lead to severe shortages of wheat and corn that may require China to begin importing grain, which it doesn’t usually do. If China has to import a large amount of grain it will cause another spike in world grain prices, which will impact poor nations most severely leaving large populations with food shortages, and the possibility of social unrest. The Chinese drought is also leaving millions of Chinese with drinking water shortages.
In 2010 there was unprecedented flooding in Australia, extreme snowstorms in America, and a severe drought affecting the Amazon rain forest. The 2010 Amazon drought was even worse than the 2005 Amazon drought which was believed at the time to be a “once-in-a-century” drought. An article in the Huffington Post notes the Amazon rain forest generally soaks up significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, but the two droughts in 2005 and 2010 will actually cause the forest to produce excess carbon dioxide over the short term from the trees that died and are now producing carbon dioxide as they decay.
How much longer will we keep buying the fossil fuel-industry-funded misinformation campaign that climate change isn’t happening, or at least isn’t related to their product? Or, asked another way: Are we smart enough to save ourselves from our shocking gullibility?
References:
Pentagon to rank global warming as a destabilizing force
Pentagon Planning for Global Warming
Krugman blog: Speaking of Extreme Weather
Krugman editorial: Droughts, Floods, and Food
Wall Street Journal: When Will Russia Resume Grain Exports Again?
Evolution and America - Part 1
The data on what Americans believe about evolution and creationism is disturbing, at least to me. This is going to be the topic of my next few blog posts and probably my next video. Gallup polls on the issue have collected some interesting, and not always easy-to-interpret, data. Here are just a few “teaser” points that I hope to explore more deeply in forthcoming posts:
About a third of Americans report they believe the Bible to be literally true word for word.
Another 47% believe that the Bible is inspired by the word of God.
Less than 20% believe that the Bible is a collection of ancient myths.
Around 40% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago, and that evolution played no role in our development as a species.
Less than 20% of Americans believe that humans evolved from other life forms over millions of years without the input of God.
Nearly three quarters of Americans think that a presidential candidate’s views on evolution are irrelevant.
There is more, but I’ll save it for later.
The thing that surprised me the most about these Gallup statistics is that they haven’t changed much in the past thirty years. I am sure that I was not aware of the widespread rejection of evolution in the early 1980’s, but in 1982 only 9% of the population believed that humans evolved without the help of God, and 44% believed that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. The fact that I had just earned my undergraduate degree in Biology in 1981 and started medical school that same year probably accounts for why I thought “everybody understands evolution”.
We might actually be inching towards a wider acceptance of evolution, but I wouldn’t suspect that based on the voices getting the most attention in the mainstream media.
Why is this important? I think understanding evolution reflects the overall level of education in a given society and thus their (our) ability to think rationally about all issues.
In upcoming posts and videos I’ll review a study that looked at the relationship between beliefs about creationism and measures of morality in various countries, including America.
References:
1. Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design – Gallup Polls
2. One-Third of Americans Believe Bible is Literally True
Monte
Freethinkers
I just started reading Susan Jacoby's book, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
After a hundred pages I can say that I like it. The feud between religion and rational thinking has been with our country from the beginning and this book takes a good look at how it has played out.
The book is a few years old and she already has two new titles out, but I think it's an important topic.
Monte
Climate Change and Food Production
I Just read Paul Krugman's editorial in today's NYT.
How bad and obvious will climate change have to get before people stop denying it and start working to solve the problem? Sadly, it appears that global appreciation of global warming will finally occur only after it is way too late.
Monte
Christian Nation?
I took a look at the Constitution and some other historical documents to better understand the intention of the guys who wrote it.
Read Morepower out!
The combination of wind and snow is intermittently knocking out our power. Changing batteries in the lamp in the dark turns out to be harder than expected.
happy holidays
Happy Holidays.
my plan to save the world - part 1
In this video I share some thoughts about the impact of cars on our culture, our environment, our health, and our "war on terrorism." Would we do better to ride bicycles?
References:
2. NYT article on mideast oil and terrorism
3. T. Boone Pickens on funding both sides of the war on terrorism
4. Thomas Friedman editorial: The Big American Leak
5. Wikileaks: How Cash Flows to Terrorists:
education blues
A New York Times article recently caught my attention. The article was about the test score results on an international standardized test for math, science, and reading given to teenagers in sixty-five different countries, including China and the USA. Our kids were not number one. They weren't even in the top ten.
The significance of our failing education system is something that should be of great concern to us as a nation moving forward into the 21st century, but I'm afraid it will be overlooked by most people.
Here are the reference articles I used to make the video:
Huffington Post article about empire in decline by Alfred McCoy
Test scores from Shanghai stun educators
Rand Paul on eliminating the Department of Education
RobertReich.org – video on public education