Webs’ Random Ideas

I got an email a few days ago, won’t say from who, but it sparked my interest.

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2008/07/science-today-easy-way-to-lie-to-public.html

I know that you guys are in the tank for science, but I found this exchange interesting, if mainly because Brenda Rosser and Bruce Webb are well known and quality.

Think on it for a second, does science help to lie to the public as an arm of the commercial interests? Particularly with greater and greater concentration and specificity of fields. I’m not saying that all scientists fall in this category, but sufficient that certain authority can be bestowed by attaching to the coattails of responsible science.

We need a greater concentration on ethics in science.

It’s a strawman. Just because some people misuse evidence and science speaks nothing to the rest.

Think on it for a second, does science help to lie to the public as an arm of the commercial interests?

No. Science is a way of discovering and analyzing. It’s a way to look at the world and not just see the beauty but explain how it all works and fits together. Science was never meant to be used for good or evil, that’s what people choose to use it for. As stated above it’s more of a way of explaining and analyzing.

We don’t just need ethics in science but all walks of life. I can think of other areas of life where no ethics has done some terrible damage.

A new documentary by scientist Randy Olsen. Go check out the trailer.

First click here, Expelled Exposed!

Then go here to learn how to help (it’s really easy)…

So Thurs Feb 14th I had the privilege to listen to Ray Kurzweil speak. The talk was incredibly interesting and insightful. I really enjoyed it and at the end of the whole event our College President remarked that his coffee would have two creams (he was joking about how long the whole event was, not about how boring Kurzweil is).

For me, the whole event was incredibly boring as we had faculty awards and other things I had trouble staying awake for. Being that I really wanted to listen to Kurzweil speak I was worried that I would be asleep by the time he came up. This was my first time ever listening to Kurzweil and I knew very little about him going into the speech, but once he started speaking I was very much awake.

I don’t want to try to remember everything from the speech and dump it into this post, instead I wish to focus on a couple key items (at least in my view) and maybe discuss them a little.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is a discussion going on at ***Dave’s blog about morality and technology. Originally the topic was about a study asking respondents about their opinions on nanotechnology; the study was written in Science Daily. From the article:

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.

To me this seems like a completely silly response. But even more so, it seems like an udder nonsensical question. Now I don’t know what question was asked for sure, I can’t find the original study, but I am assuming the question was along the lines of, “Do you find nanotechnology to be morally acceptable?” Which to me, and ***Dave, seems akin to asking, “Do you find metallurgy morally acceptable?” How can you get a true result from such a question?

I also found this odd from the article:

The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.

“They still oppose it,” he says. “They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn’t about informing these people. They are informed.”

I’m not sure I buy that conclusion at all. People in general do not seem to have a full grasp of technology, what it is, where it’s going, etc. If they did, stem cells wouldn’t be an issue of morality and neither would nanotechnology. Below is a clip of a comment I left on ***Dave’s blog about this very subject:

If we stick to dictionary definitions of morality we are dealing with ethical decisions of right or wrong essentially, goodness based on a code of conduct, and/or human ethical decisions. Basically to be moral or immoral you or something has to make a conscious decision based on some kind of code.

So in the extreme case of cannibalism, for example, most people in the industrialized world would come to the conclusion that eating another person is immoral. Our codes of conduct or (un)written rules condone such action. In more remote places of the world it is acceptable and likely considered moral by their code or (un)written rules.

In the case of technology that goes into building a PMFRD machine, each piece of technology is an inanimate object. It cannot make a decision based on (un)written rules. Now maybe the machine on a whole could make such decisions with the right amount of AI. But the machine on a whole is not considered technology, rather a machine or AI robot. And different pieces of technology went into creating this machine. And furthermore, the machine was still programmed to make such decisions based on some kind of code. It still had a creator that decided how to give the robot the ability to make decisions.

You may need to go to the link above for the discussion on ***Dave’s blog for context, but basically technology can’t really be good or evil, people are based on pre-defined standards.

So what do you think? Is technology moral or immoral? Are people good or evil? Do people kill people or do PMFRD machines kill people?

Interesting take on the other side of things.

Excitement is growing in the Northern England town of Huddlesfield following the news that a local man saw an image of the Big-Bang in a piece of toast. Atheist Donald Chapman, 36, told local newspaper, “The Huddlesfield Express” that he was sitting down to eat breakfast when an unusual toast pattern caught his eye.

“I was just about to spread the butter when I noticed a fairly typical small hole in the bread surrounded by a burnt black ring. However the direction and splatter patterns of the crumbs as well as the changing shades emanating outwards from this black hole were very clearly similar to the chaotic-dynamic non-linear patterns that one would expect following the Big Bang”. “It’s the beginning of the world” he added excitedly.

Many people may jump to say this is a hoax, or a farce. But what makes seeing a religious image in toast more credible than an image of scientific theory?

Here are the links:

Original site (down due to being dugg): Satire and Comment
Mirror of site above: Toast site mirror

… Yes! Anything! That means, corn husks, trash, you name it. This great news comes from a Wired Magazine article:

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn’t interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

“It’s not five years away, it’s not 10 years away. It’s affordable, and it’s now,” said Wes Bolsen, the company’s vice president of business development.

This is pretty hug news. Imagine a system of energy where local cities and towns become closed energy loops. The waste we produce is turned into fuel for cars that is only shipped to local gas stations. This minimizes waste and increase efficiency across the board.

The other thing it makes me think of is the last scene in “Back to the Future” where Doc drives up and refuels his car with trash from Marty’s trash can. With the technology presented above this idea is a lot closer than I first thought when I saw the movie.

… and for a darn good reason too!

As promised, “California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for denying its first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs.” At least fifteen states will support California in the lawsuit, including 13 of those that have either adopted or are in the process of adopting the rules.

Good for them I say and the 13 other states! It’s about time someone stepped up to Bush’s cronies, or for that matter showed an interest in caring about the environment. Most of what Bush has done (which is actually nothing up to this point) and talked about doing has gone from denial, to making sure the science is correct (another form of denial) to accepting the science is correct… but still doing nothing… Yes it is confusing. How you can see Global Warming as a problem and accept the science that shows it, and yet do nothing is beyond me?

It’s obvious Bush has not yet seen any real evidence for Global Warming. If he has, he would know most of this already. Global Warming is a serious issue that needs immediate attention.

It also appears this Cali lawsuit isn’t the only thing the head of the EPA should be worried about…

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by California democrat Henry Waxman — a prominent critic of industry influence on the Bush administration’s science policies — has launched an investigation into the EPA’s rejection of California’s attempt to reduce automotive greenhouse gas emissions.

Good Ol’ Waxman is on the hunt to get to the bottom of things. If you missed the whole issue of why Cali is suing, read this LA Times article.

The Bush administration Wednesday denied California’s bid to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, dealing a blow to the state’s attempts to combat global warming and prompting an immediate vow from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to take the decision to court.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen L. Johnson denied the state’s request to implement its own landmark law, noting that an energy bill signed by President Bush earlier in the day would go a long way toward reducing emissions throughout the United States. The bill provides the most significant increase in vehicle fuel economy standards in more than three decades.

Basically the Bush Girly-men are trumping state rights by saying Cali has no right to set their own limits, look at the bold section right above to see the EPAs argument. WTF kind of reason is that?!?! It makes no difference how good the Federal bill is. If a state wants to set their own limits on top of the Feds, it’s their decision. As the Governator states:

It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California and nineteen other states from adopting these standards. They are ignoring the will of millions of people who want their government to take action in the fight against global warming. That’s why, at the very first legal opportunity, we’re suing to reverse the US EPA’s wrong decision. California has always been a leader in protecting the environment, and we will do everything in our power to continue that proud tradition.

Well just chalk “State’s Rights” up on the chalkboard of what makes Bush the worst president in history… oh wait. We already have chalked that one up.

This is pretty cool and exciting news. Apparently the ancestor to the whale has been discovered.

Whales are known to be descended from land-dwellers but the “missing link” has been a mystery until now. Although Indonyus, as it is known, looks nothing like the whales of today, it shares certain anatomical features.

The structures of its skull and ear are similar to those of early whales, and like other animals that spend a lot of time in water, it had thickened bones that provided ballast to keep its feet anchored in shallow water.

Scientist at one point suspected hippos may be the descendant, but fossil records do not go far enough back to give that conclusion.

DNA studies show that hippos are in fact closely related to modern whales. They do not appear in the fossil record, however, until about 15 million years ago, some 35 million years after the cetaceans originated in south Asia.

Found via Greg Laden…