science

My brilliant would-be scientist gets blogged!

Jason Thibeault, , , ,

And I am blogging about it!  I’m proud of her.  She’s asked how to go about getting into science, biology specifically, and knowing she’s an animal person she’s going to have a fun time.  She has a letter answered by John S. Wilkins of Evolving Thoughts on how to break into the biology field and he makes some excellent suggestions.

In the meantime, I am playing Fallout 3 pretty well every spare minute I can get away from work-and-work, which amounts to maybe a couple hours a night.  I am on call all the time and do what I can where and when I can for everyone, as evidenced by the fact that I have remoted into the “Other Site’s” computers half of the day and altered software for them.  My in-office time is spent avoiding total disaster with software pushes that don’t work quite right when there’s a lingering bad self-made MSI install of Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 that seems to not want to remove itself from certain systems even after the program files directory is removed, requiring removal of a registry key.  Software installs are not fun under Windows.  Now maybe if I had a way to remote into them like SSH, that I could do some awesome system stuff while someone else is logged in, that’d be perfect.  You know, like under a Linux computer.

I bet such a thing already exists for Windows, but I can’t imagine unless you can remotely spawn a local copy of a GUI application that it would be nearly as useful as under Linux.  I believe you can do something like that while remoting into Windows 2003, but unless there’s some third party out there, Microsoft can’t do it intrinsically, I don’t believe.  There’s one mentioned here that I want to look into, which looks to have the command prompt half of it at least.  It’s 1999 stuff though, so who knows how good it’ll be.

My brilliant would-be scientist gets blogged!
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Why do people, PhDs included, keep misunderstanding the concept of evolution?

Jason Thibeault, 4 Comments

This is why physicists don’t generally work on biology problems, and vice versa.  Two scientists at Princeton University made an interesting protein discovery, where a specific protein acts as a sort of error-correction for DNA strands, only now they think the protein they found is actually the mechanism driving evolution.

Now, you must be thinking, “what the hell is a computer geek with no science credentials doing, telling some PhD level scientists they’ve got their heads up their asses?”  And normally, you’d be dead right.  But in this case, these scientists are claiming that this protein is driving biological organisms to change themselves within their own lifespans, when all they’ve proven is that the protein corrects DNA replication errors (think Scandisk for the DNA in all your cells).

Here’s the thing about evolution.  It has no intent.  There is no driving force, no guiding hand — evolution is not equal to God fiddling with our DNA, it is rather the by-product of the natural world.  Evolution is defined as the net sum of what happens when biological organisms change from generation to generation, with the environment and random chance (like how even creatures with evolutionary advantages might sometimes eat a rotten berry or get seen by a predator and eaten), ending certain genotypes early.  Evolution is not pushing creatures to change — evolution IS the change, over time, of creatures upon whom an evolutionary influence is exerted.

So, here we have creatures that mutate certain genes naturally when they reproduce.  Some of these gene mutations are advantageous, and those creatures have an increased ability to survive.  Some are disadvantageous, and they are more likely to die before reproducing.  These mutations happen when the zygote is formed.  Later on, once out of that zygote stage, those aforementioned proteins try to prevent DNA replication errors throughout the body, because if a cell’s DNA is altered through a mutation, it can become a freckle, a mole, a cancerous tumor, et cetera.  So these proteins fight what could become cancer and kill you, but they don’t actively drive a living creature to suddenly sprout an extra arm or grow gills during that creature’s lifespan.

There need be no magic mechanism that “explains why all that random chance formed you and I”, because the naturalistic explanation works just fine in explaining that.  Over millions of iterations of reproduction, wherein genes have fused, new genes expressed, genes have had errors in transcription that happen to work out nicely, whole new features can come into being practically spontaneously when the environment selects for certain abilities.  The Cambrian Explosion happened after a dramatic shift in the environment.  Likewise when plants evolved to emit oxygen and started pumping out that otherwise corrosive gas in record amounts, so too did creatures evolve to breathe it.  No need for an invisible hand rewriting our genetic code, and no need for a special protein to drive us to change within the span of our own lives to adapt to the new circumstances of our environment, when reproduction and natural selection (meaning specifically, how some genes can be advantageous for survival or reproduction) both have explained the whole process quite nicely.

I’m likely to edit this post later to include a bunch of links or videos to explain things better.

Why do people, PhDs included, keep misunderstanding the concept of evolution?

Sci-Attica! Sci-Attica!

Jason Thibeault4 Comments

So last night, my dear Jodi was good enough to take me to the hospital at 3:30 am after failing to get to sleep for two hours due to an insane amount of pain in my lower back, which had the side effect of making my legs tingly and numb.  Over the past two weeks, I’d been having what I thought was a combination of leg pain and the “usual” hip pains that I’d been having seasonally for the past two years. It was only a few days ago that I realized that putting heat on the small of my back was actually way more effective in soothing the pain than applying the same heat to my hip or leg.

During my visit to the emergency room last night, the doctor told me that it seems my sciatic nerves were being affected, meaning I’m experiencing sciatica.  The diagnosis of sciatica isn’t exactly a revelation — it’d be like someone having a stomachache and being diagnosed with dispepsia.  Sciatica is simply the medical definition for this group of symptoms, and as you can see by the Wikipedia article, it can have a large number of causes.  Of the ones presented, I’m hoping it’s simple wear-and-tear, but I have to get to my family doctor to start investigating.

When I visited the doctor originally about my hip problems, he diagnosed the issue as being a bursitis that was affecting my sciatic nerve.  At the time, I was prescribed Naproxen, an anti-inflammatory, which seemed to help quite a bit, though it did a number on my stomach.  Now that I know I have sciatica presently, it makes me wonder whether or not this whole seasonally affected aspect of this pain is indicative of a bone spur or herniated disc, something that would be affected by barometric pressure, and I’ve been stupidly toughing it out all this time.

At the moment I’m on a 5mg dose of oxycodone (a.k.a Percocet), which is at the very least quite effective at distracting me from the pain — think Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.  Outside these first few days after my initial crisis of last night, I’ll be relying on ibuprofen (up to 8 a day), and a stomach acid blocker to keep the ibuprofen from ripping my stomach apart, using the Percocet only to help get to sleep at night.

The long and the short of it is, I’m having a good bit of trouble getting around, since last night’s crisis, but I’m now managing the pain effectively, so hopefully it won’t affect my ability to get my work done and try to maintain my home life.  And I’m also hopeful to have a proper diagnosis as to why this is going on, now that we know it’s something more serious than a seasonally recurring bursitis.

I suppose the upshot of this is that I’ll have more time to write here, and to try to reopen communications with some e-mail friends I’ve been neglecting lately while in shoulders-of-Atlas mode with work.  It’s funny how I always have such a guilty conscience about losing touch with the people I care about, but there’s always such a barrier to have to surmount in reestablishing these communications.

I’m grateful that Jodi was willing to take me in last night.  The fact that when my hip issues first presented, I was living on my own at the time, and almost blacked out from the pain (which in retrospect should have been a clue that it was more than just a bursitis, given the location of the pain — the lower back, same place that’s killing me lately), makes me all the more grateful that I have someone I can rely on.  I hope I can return the favour someday.

Sci-Attica! Sci-Attica!

Reader links roundup

Jason Thibeault, , , 3 Comments

Another quick link roundup.  What do you guys think of the really-short, nearly-content-free postings I’ve been doing over the past several days?  They’re easier to slap together quickly, which is what I need given that my free time has been so tight.  I promise I won’t abandon longer posts altogether, either way.

Courtesy of Jason Pickles: this video must have some provenance given the douchenozzle Rob’s reaction to having someone ask three questions — “are you a volunteer?  are you paid?  what do you do?” to the “paid walkers” of the Florida Republican GOTV effort.

From Bob: this might be a way to get off of oil dependency — or it might be snake oil, yet another bit of bad science.  I don’t know enough about the technology behind this yet, but I’ll revisit it as soon as I do.  I have a feeling it would take more energy to run the engine than the engine would generate.  Also — how the hell are these “gold nanoparticles” attracted to cancer cells?  This guy sounds like a quack through and through, frankly.

Also from Bob: what if the whole world could vote on the 2008 US election?  So far the only country John McCain is carrying is Macedonia, but feel free to vote for whomever you’d like to see as the next “leader of the free world” (if you can call the president that any more).  Hilariously enough, evidently this link has only gotten around to the Democrats in the States, because this poll has Obama winning there 80.8-19.2%.

From Groklaw‘s NewsPicks: why exactly is it that Microsoft is trying to muddy the “free software” waters lately?  Why do they want us all confused?  The obvious answer is that they can’t compete on merits, because an open source project will achieve a level of stability and features to rival their own products in extremely short order, due to the meritocratous nature of the open source programming model, and all without any monetary input.  The long answer is in the article.

And finally, courtesy of Huffington Post: apparently Palin’s $150,000 shopping spree for designer clothes pales in comparison to the graft that Obama is guilty of, for having used a 767 to visit his grandmother on her deathbed.  This asshat should be punched in the teeth.


Reader links roundup

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mouse

Jason Thibeault

Scientists have managed to erase specific memories in mice.  This is a bit scary.  How long before people can go in and get memories of their cat Fluffy erased after their death, and at the same time as a free two-fer, get all memories of their reasoning behind their political party affiliation wiped out as well?  Military or political application of the technology was honestly the first thing I contemplated when I first watched the movie — well, the second thing.  The first thing was about how I had a relationship or two I’d be mentally healthier to have eradicated from my memory banks.

Anyway, science marches on, it’s the application of science by those with sinister motivations that I distrust.  Maybe I should invest in tin-foil and get to shaping some hats, ASAP.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mouse

An Essential, Concise History of the LHC, 2002–2008

Jason Thibeault, , 2 Comments

This is definitely worth a read if you are as excited about the Large Hadron Collider as I am, and it will hopefully tide you over until they’ve repaired the issue with liquid helium coolant spilling from a magnetic lock and have restarted the Great Experiment.  Interestingly, it includes links to articles regarding arguments that have sprung up amongst the shrill fringes. Though, they’re admittedly biased toward reality so those proponents of doomsday scenarios might claim, and correctly so, that they’re not being properly heard out.  (Please, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Lest-He-Appear-Suddenly-Like-Beetlejuice, this doesn’t mean you’re allowed to pipe in.  All other worlds — any other scientific blog on the internet — are yours, but stay the hell off Europa — my blog.)

And here comes a rant, because it’s relevant to my parenthetical last point.  Frankly, I’m sick and tired of loons being given the floor in a misguided attempt to air out both sides of every story.  Fine, be skeptical, attempt to disprove the science put forward stating that strangelets, micro-black-holes, Bose-novas, et cetera, are impossible, using real, peer-reviewed science based on existing foundations wherever possible. Also, it’s well possible that two or three PhD-owners could very well be wrong, but hundreds are far less likely to be wrong.  Your theories have to be able to a) be predictive, b) be duplicable by other scientists, and c) be falsifiable so as to actually allow for the possibility of experiments to prove or disprove them.

Science is not dogma, we do not accept the word of scientists with their arms crossed who demand we believe them without any proof.  They must give us proof or else their hypothesis does not graduate to a theory.   And even once a hypothesis becomes a theory, when presented with real evidence that a theory is flawed, the theory is either altered or overturned.  Despite this uncertainty that something might come along in the future to overturn the accepted theory, a “theory” is not a wild guess.  A “theory” in scientific terms is as close to fact as can be achieved, using the evidence at hand, and when a “theory” predicts stuff correctly, repeatedly, without being disproven, without contradictory evidence for years and years, then this strengthens and bolsters the theory’s credibility.  Yes, this sidebar is mostly directed at the flawed assertion that the theory of evolution is just a theory, but it’s relevant, because guess what?  So’s the theory of gravity, so’s the atomic theory, so’s cell theory, the theory of plate tectonics, the big bang theory, the kinetic theory of gases, chaos theory, and the theory of global anthropogenic climate change.  They’re all pretty well established, but all would fall to a proper bit of science — you know, as opposed to the usual tactic, being ideological ranting and pointing at a two thousand year old book or a study produced once but never duplicated by real scientists written by a shill funded by a special interest.  You can dispute them, but you have to prove that a better theory fits the evidence and/or prove the evidence does not fit the current theory.

To those of you who believe the LHC will destroy the world, why is your one or two scientists’ science (most of which being predicated on false assumptions or easily disprovable assertions) supposed to trump all the science that went into researching the feasibility of the project to begin with?  Why, when so many scientists have gone about disproving the doomsaying, do you cry repeatedly “why won’t you just perform a study to examine the safety of the project” when impartial scientists already have several times?  I guess what I’m asking is, why, when you play the scientific “game” within “the rules”, and lose, do you try to circumvent the rules to be heard?  Is it just that you’re sore losers?

Again, this isn’t me saying Beetlejuice.  I was nice the last time I edited your comments, I’ll be much less nice this time, so stay away, you-know-who.

—

On a related note — science, despite my “faith” in its processes and results, sure is strange.

An Essential, Concise History of the LHC, 2002–2008

Continued evolution of homo sapiens sapiens (that’s us!)

Jason Thibeault, , , , 30 Comments

I seem to only be able to manage a post a week, or at least to post in flurries on weekends, so I might as well make my posts count.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the state of evolution within the human species, where it almost seems as though we may have stalled in our own evolutionary tracks, because we’ve reached the pinnacle of intellect where we have gained a mastery over the dark art of “science”, and therefore can overcome most otherwise evolutionary influences like predators or environmental hazards usually within a lifetime or two, thus short-circuiting the whole natural selection process.  After thinking a good deal more about it, I’m convinced that evolution is still happening, but its effects, like a river that’s been dammed, will simply route around the dampening effort.

As an example, Clifton has informed me that his unborn son (who is, admittedly, possibly fictitious, as Clifton’s known for the “long con”) is suspected to have spina bifida, which is a very common congenital defect wherein the baby’s neural tube, what will become the spinal column, and what protects the spinal cord ultimately, fails to fully form.  This condition affects one out of a thousand babies in North America.  Most originally-explored environmental links to its cause have proven spurious at best, and there’s a mounting pile of evidence suggesting that the condition is genetic, with a specific gene suspected as being responsible should that particular gene mutate in a certain way.

Continue reading “Continued evolution of homo sapiens sapiens (that’s us!)” →

Continued evolution of homo sapiens sapiens (that’s us!)

What a fine way to spend Turkey Day Evening…

Jason Thibeault, 7 Comments

… sipping green tea and watching someone with a decent handle on science mangle creationists on Youtube.  This is why VenomFangX got his panties in a bunch, because he got thoroughly whomped.  I’ve only watched up to Part 4, but I’m going to watch the rest after linking the whole bunch from here.

As promised, here’s Thunderf00t’s series, “Why do people laugh at creationists?”  Parts 2 through 26 (yeah!), after the fold.  If this kills people’s computers, I could also replace the whole lot with a link to the playlist on Youtube.  Sit through it all, and you’re going to be treated to a dissection of the views of our favorite VP Candidate, Bible Spice Sarah Palin.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS5vid4GkEY

Continue reading “What a fine way to spend Turkey Day Evening…” →

What a fine way to spend Turkey Day Evening…

Super Linking Post!

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 4 Comments

I have a ton of links to share on a bunch of disparate topics, all of which deserve their own proper post but honestly I’m still swamped.  It pains me to know that I am depriving you, my loyal readers, of my opinion on everything, because I know how some of you live and breathe for those opinions.  So, I’ll give a short blurb with each.  Savvy?  And as an added bonus game, you can guess who or what led me to each link, and I bet you’ll be surprised.  LET IT BEGIN!

Continue reading “Super Linking Post!” →

Super Linking Post!

Ridiculous downtime, and my first troll

Jason Thibeault, 2 Comments

First up folks, my apologies for the ridiculous amount of downtime over the weekend, and this immediately after I close my Facebook account and direct people here.  Murphy’s law and all that.  Needless to say I’m irritated at my hosting provider, and while I’m only paying for the lowest package available, I could probably get more reliable uptime out of hosting on my own computer at home (if I weren’t so concerned about power usage, given that NS Power just jumped power costs another 9.4%).

Secondly, my last post,while it only peripherally involved mention of the Large Hadron Collider, somehow managed to attract one of those concern trolls that frequent internet forums and Wikipedia articles doomsaying about the LHC and pointing to mostly-discredited articles as their proof.  It got caught in the Akismet spam filter, but I’m rescuing it just for posterity.  I post it in its entirety below:

JTankers | [email protected] | shrillinternetklaxon.org | IP: <redacted>

Your prophecy is fullfilled.

Good blog jthibeault, you argue logically, but your Large Hadron Collider analogy relies on disputed “facts” from partisans.

You are correct that popular consensus among scientists with a similar level of understanding as your’s is to believe CERN’s and CERN’s friends’ arguments that danger is not possible.

But CERN did something similar to what the believers you reference do, start with the answer (in this case safety) and promise to prove their conclusion. Any talk of danger was heresy. According to news accounts, CERN even directed their employees not to represent risk as other than zero to the media, regardless of any concerns they might have.

Enough with the supposition. What do the experts who independently of CERN conclude in their respected papers?

Scientists predict possible creation of micro black holes possibly at a rate of 1 per second.[1]

Steven Hawking estimates a 1% chance[2] and evaporation is disputed by multiple papers[3][4]. (Dr. Hawking’s scientific credibility was also recently disputed by Professor Higgs[5]).

Cosmic ray safety arguments are disputed by multiple papers by PHD’ed theoretical scientists[6][7].

Senior German Astrophysicist PHD Dr. Rainer Plaga politely attempted to correct CERN’s apparent possible theoretical flaws in the field of astrophysics which CERN was delving into, but he was ignored apparently.[6]

Inventor of Chaos Theory’s Rössler Attractor and founder of Endophysics Professor Dr. Otto Rössler also theorizes that micro black hole creation would likely be catastrophic, he calculates exponential growth of micro black holes in years, decades or centuries.[7]

If micro black holes are created by Head-On particle colliders some will travel too slowly to escape Earth’s gravity.
CERN’s LHC Safety Assessment Group believed in March of 2008 that micro black holes created by cosmic rays would all travel through Earth at nearly the speed of light[8].

Large Hadron Collider safety is currently under challenge and review in American and European courts.[9][10]. CERN is also alleged to censor information on risks involved.[11]

[1] cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29199 The case for mini black holes, CERN Courier (2004)

[2] http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2008/September/9/93181.aspx Threats Won’t Stop Collider, photonics.com Sep 9, 2008

[3] xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0304042 Do black holes radiate?. Dr. Adam Helfer (2003)

[4] arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0607137, On the existence of black hole evaporationyet again, Prof. VA Belinski (2006)

[5] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4727894.ece Peter Higgs launches attack against Nobel rival Stephen Hawking, TimesOnLine, Sep 11, 2008

[6] arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0808/0808.1415v1.pdf On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders – Rainer Plaga Rebuttal (2008)

[7] http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/OTTOROESSLERMINIBLACKHOLE.pdf Abraham-Solution to Schwarzschild Metric Implies That CERN Miniblack Holes Pose a Planetary Risk, Prof. Dr. Otto Rossler (2008)

[8] http://www.lhcconcerns.com/LHCConcerns/Forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10 LHC Safety Assessment Group, 16 Mar 2008

[9] http://www.lhcdefense.org/lhc_legal.php US Federal Lawsuit Filings – Walter L. Wagner (2008)

[10] lhc-concern.info/?page_id=28 European Legal Action (2008)

[11] http://www.lhcdefense.org/pdf/Sancho%20v%20Doe%20-%20Affidavit%20of%20Luis%20Sancho.pdf AFFIDAVIT OF LUIS SANCHO IN UPPORT OF TRO AND PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

I will need time to prepare an adequate rebuttal to this, and while I understand his legitimate concerns (I mean, it would really really suck if the world were destroyed, because, you know, that’s where I keep all my stuff too!), I don’t think there’s any cause for fearmongering at all here, because as Professor Brian Cox so eloquently stated, “anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.”  There are people who think the turning on of the LHC will also mark year zero for time travellers but there’s nothing that says that every wild-eyed crazy needs to get equal airtime.  This blog does not act as anything remotely resembling Fox News (or at least what they claim to be — “fair and balanced”) — I do not report both the sane and insane sides of the story as though they have equal weight.  Go sell crazy someplace else.

I don’t have a lot of time today, as I just found out my counterpart at a nearby centre has walked out of the job (yes, the one who was just hired), so I’m right back in Shoulders-of-Atlas mode.  For now, enjoy this fantastic talk by Brian Cox.

Ridiculous downtime, and my first troll