Tea + Shooting + Second Life

Three events recently came together to give an idea.

I was reading Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time . It's an incredible story about an American, who against all odds, managed to build over 60 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The events and barriers he had to overcome could seriously be made into a thriller movie. For example, imagine being detained by a community that is known to be violent and not know any of the language. Later on, two fatwahs were issued to get him out of Pakistan!

The other thing is, I watched my friend play a first person shooter game for the first time in my life. I have to admit, it was pretty exciting. Although I got lost in all the jargon regarding gun swapping, it was entertaining to watch. Now I finally understand a bit more why some people are addicted.

The last thing is my friend showed me a video about Second Life on TED. I knew about second life, but it made me rethink about how it could be used.

So..what if these stories of real heroes like Greg in Three Cups of Tea could be made into video games or Second Life characters so that other people can get to know them in a more fun and interactive medium? I love reading books, but not all my friends do. Why not turn these amazing stories into as many mediums as possible so that it can spread? It took two years to write the book...I'm sure it would take just about the same time to make it into a video game.

P.S. did you know over 300 universities world wide are using Second Life as their platform for distance education courses? (source: wikipedia)

Environmentalism as Politics

A few years back, I was really, really pissed off at Michael Crichton. The pissery was in response to his speech, “Environmentalism as Religion”, given to the Commonwealth Club of California (link: http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html). In it, Crichton describes the modern environmental movement and scientific community as being based on faith and ideological fundamentalism, with elements of Christian redemption theory and eschatology. He believed it was time to reform the scientific community and corresponding movement so that scientific rigour, not ideology or politics, became the movement’s driving force. Suffice it to say that Crichton was a climate-change sceptic: his book, State of Fear, presented an extensively researched collection of evidence that countered (or tried to, at least) the prevailing notion that climate change is a clear and present danger to humanity.

Now, of course, I flew right into Crichton’s trap. My first reaction, righteous indignation, is exactly what an “environmental fundamentalist” would do, and any group that reacted to Crichton’s speech in a similar manner would just as much be inadvertently proving his point. The only good rebuttal is one that wields evidence. Scientists went after State of Fear for the representation of its data (http://www.pewclimate.org/state_of_fear.cfm is an example, ignoring the political comments at the end). This is a science debate, and Crichton was absolutely right in saying that hard science, not politics, or ideology, or personal belief, should shape debate. The only arguments he makes that I would contend with are on the mindset of the climate science community and the validity of climate data.

But this isn’t a blog post about Crichton. (It isn’t?) This is a blog post about the politicization of science. Recently, Senator James Inhofe’s Environment and Public Works press blog had an article entitled “UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”, and subtitled “Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'”. (Access the article at: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6&Issue_id= .) When I read this, I immediately started to feel that righteous indignation boiling up again, but I calmed myself down, lest I fall into Crichton’s trap again.

As it turns out, the study, published in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters (http://www.agu.org/contents/journals/ViewPapersInPress.do?journalCode=GL&sortBy=author), does not say that! Quoting from the abstract: “The strong correlation
between reconstructed temperature and solar activity suggests solar forcing as a main
driver for temperature variations during the period 1250-1850 in this region.” Furthermore, “Solar contribution to temperature change became less important during industrial period 1850-2000 in the Altai region”. On the fifty percent quip, “Our results are in agreement with studies based on NH temperature reconstructions [Scafetta et al., 2007] revealing that only up to approximately 50% of the observed global warming in the last 100 years can be explained by the Sun.” And note, this article is a study on one region in south-central Russia. There are two possible explanations for happened here: either one of Inhofe’s staff (or he himself) only read the last part of the last sentence of the conclusion (and you’re supposed to read the abstract!), or, for whatever reason, they cherry-picked phrases.

This is, purely and simply, a blatant misrepresentation of a legitimate scientific study. Add in the sensationalist headlines, and you have exactly what Crichton warned against: the politicization of science, and the corruption to public understanding it brings. Public understanding of climate change cannot be guided by U.S. senators or by ex-vice presidents or rock stars: they need to be dictated by the presentation of hard data and good interpretation. The senate minority report attached to the blog post is a list of (apparent; for all I know they could be misquoted) climate sceptics and their credentials. Exactly what am I to do with their credentials? Their endorsements of climate scepticism based on what they perceive to be the politicization of the IPCC and other climate science organizations? Judging by their credentials, these people must have evidence to back up their claims, and that’s where the debate should be. If they don’t, they’re an embarrassment to the establishments that granted them degrees.

My political science professor said in my global politics class the other day that climate change is an issue that draws from natural science, political science, social science and economics. This leaves four axes of knowledge along any one of which a person can be misled. This is why the sceptics movement in the U.S. (largely funded by free-market think tanks and the auto and oil industries) has been so strong: so long as they can keep people’s understanding muddled and confused, they prevent change from occurring.

If Canada or the United States were an autocracy, the king/emperor/president-for-life would need very good, trustworthy advisors in all these fields to tackle the problem (assuming s/he’d want to). Canada and the U.S. are democracies, and so (theoretically) the people have power. Therefore, the people need to be educated in all these fields. Of course, I don’t mean only people with dual degrees in science and the humanities should be allowed to vote. Ordinary people don’t pick climate change policies; they pick people who pick people who pick climate policies. But what the voting population does need is enough knowledge and analytical experience to know when they’re being fed nonsense. Otherwise, people like Sen. Inhofe and his staff (or the people at the David Suzuki Foundation) will have absolute free reign to shape public opinion to suit their own political agendas.

So what to do? The next time you hear a speech on environmentalism, or are presented with yet another “hockey-stick graph” (a la Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation), look at it critically. Do research, and do your best to become informed. I know not everyone is cut out to get PhDs in environmental science, or political science for that matter. But power in this country, and in great industrialized countries around the world, belongs to the people, and those with power should never allow themselves to be patronized and treated like idiots. You have the power to make political change. Once you gain knowledge as well, nothing will stop you.

Oh, and don’t take my word for anything I’ve said here. If you’re not sure about a fact I’ve stated, look it up!

~Charles

P.S. Senator Inhofe has had Michael Crichton on the senate floor to argue the case of global warming scepticism. I wonder what Crichton would have thought of Inhofe’s blog post.

P.P.S. I can’t help myself. Quoting Crichton’s speech:

“I can tell you the percentage the US land area that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%.”

The continental United States covers a total area of 9.83 million square kilometres. A square covering 5% of that would be around 700 kilometres to a side, or more than the entire state of New Mexico (New Mexico is around 500 kilometres to a side)! Imagine a city that large - it would be reminiscent of Blade Runner. In the bad way.

That was just for fun, an indication that 5% is a lot. We don’t have Blade Runner yet because that 5% is spread out quite well. But imagine if I crisscrossed the entire country with electric fences so that each square kilometre of the U.S. is fenced off. Surely that wouldn’t take more than 5% of the total U.S. land mass, and wouldn’t affect trees much, but I’ve effectively destroyed the habitat of any creature larger than a fox. Size doesn’t necessarily matter in such cases.

P.P.P.S. I realize that I have failied utterly to give credit where credit was due. It was Jacob who discovered the article, and it was Jacob who found the error, not me. Also, many of the ideas of this post result from productive discussion with Jacob. Sorry, Jacob!

My lottery money just disappeared...and I'm famous

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a reality tv show like this?

People who won the lottery (grand prize) and are willing to donate 50% of their winnings to which ever cause they like will be filmed and featured. Follow where the money goes and where the person goes.

I wonder how many people would be willing to give up that much money to get 1 hour of national (maybe even international) TV fame?

I haven't done any research, but it seems like on average, the prize is around 3 million (?)....think of how many donations this reality TV show can get (each week!)

To sell "less"

I was reading a post about how supermarkets are changing to green on monbiot.com

But there is a bigger contradiction than this, which has been overlooked by both the supermarkets and many of their critics. “The green movement,” Terry Leahy tells us, “must become a mass movement in green consumption.”(10) But what about consuming less? Less is the one thing the superstores cannot sell us. As further efficiencies become harder to extract, their growth will eventually outstrip all their reductions in the use of energy. This is not Tesco’s problem alone: the green movement’s economic alternatives still lack force.

What if stores do start selling us "less"? As a product?

Why not? People bought indulgences; arguably, we're not much smarter today than we were then...
What if these "less" that we sell let's us display to others that we are cutting down on consumption? Maybe it's a badge we can display on facebook...or something like that.

"Hey! Look what I got you for christmas! 'Less'"

But what good can I do?

So my friends and I were having this discussion.

The Large Hadron Collider is just firing up, and the BBC reports that the project cost about 5 billion British pounds, took fourteen years to build, and occupied some 10,000 of the world's finest scientists. The collider is built to smash protons together at nearly the speed of light, and scientists will analyze the resulting collisions in hopes of finding out whether the current models of physics are right. The main experiment is an attempt to find the Higgs boson, a particle predicted to exist but which has not yet been observed.

What we were wondering about is, is this an ethical application of so much effort? Could it be put to better uses?

It's not just the LHC, though. The same question might be asked of publicly-funded science and engineering ventures, like the space shuttle programme, or basic science research, like the construction of a new radio telescope observatory.

So here's the question: Is it ethical to pour money into these projects, while there are still suffering people in the world?

It's a tough question to answer, especially if you're a young scientist thinking about what to do for your career. We want to do the right thing, of course. Should we put our own interests, curiosities, and fascinations on hold when there's others in need?

Well, I'll try my best to tackle this question.

People who say "no, it's not ethical" generally divide into two groups. The first argues that basic research like the LHC has no merit whatsoever, except perhaps to appease a small group of mad scientists who love building these giant accelerators. The second argues that, while these projects do have some value, it's not sufficient to merit the huge expense to the public.

The first is easy to refute. All we need to do is find some kind of practical benefit that can only have come about from these endeavours. I think it's not easy to come up with an exhaustive list, but I'll try to at least give some good examples.

Basic research means trying to learn about nature. It differs from inventing, which is applying what we know about nature to try to make our lives easier. Basic research includes proving math theorems, discovering Newton's laws of motion, learning what atoms are made of, finding out that the Earth goes around the sun and not vice versa, deciding on what gravity is, discovering the nature of DNA, and, yes, trying to tell whether or not the Higgs boson exists.

Well, to me at least, it seems like a strange claim to make that basic research is a less fruitful investment of effort than inventing. That's because we can't apply our knowledge of nature to make medicines and solar panels if we don't know how nature works in the first place! Mathematicians have a habit of engaging in research that seems to be so far removed from real life that it could never have applications. The worst of them are the Number Theorists, who are said to be deeply offended when it's suggested that their work could be put to practical use. But today, if you ever used a credit card online, number theory is at work keeping your personal information encrypted.

The way I see it, basic research tends to have lots of applications - but where and when they'll appear is impossible for anybody to predict. Half a century after J.J. Thompson discovered the electron came the invention of the transistor. It seems unlikely to me that the latter could have ever occurred without the former, but I doubt that Thompson could have ever dreamed what people might have used his research for. I'm sure that at the time, some people would have looked on his science as an ivory-towered pursuit. Now people learn about it in grade ten chemistry.

So my argument is that the benefits of basic research aren't so straightforward, but they do exist and they are significant.

The second is a bit more difficult. "If the benefits of basic research are so great", one may argue, "shouldn't the private sector perform it? Why spend so much public money?"

Some large private sector institutions (like Bell Labs) do give their scientists free range to do basic research, but it's pretty risky. It's difficult to make a business out of basic research, because no matter how savvy of a businessperson you are, or how smart your scientists are, you can't guarantee a big discovery. Furthermore - and this is the key point - you usually can't start with an invention in mind (like a transistor) that you could present to investors, and then ask your scientists to discover the electron so that you can build it. That just doesn't make sense!

The scope of our inventiveness is limited by the science that we already understand. It's impossible to predict how extending the range of our understanding will translate into new inventions. What we can say is that it's never a bad thing to learn a little bit more, and whenever we do, people look to see what new things will be made possible from that pursuit.



Well, okay. I didn't get to the heart of the moral question, but I did address a small part of it. That's probably enough for one day :)

-- Jacob