Thursday, June 26, 2008

Universe arranged like nautilus shell on a large scale?


A recent report by Amanda Gefter in New Scientist, "Galaxy map hints at fractal universe" (June 25, 2008) suggests that matter in our universe may be arranged in fractals, like the shell of a nautilus:

And therefore,

What's more, the assumption that the distribution is homogeneous has allowed cosmologists to model the universe fairly simply using Einstein's theory of general relativity – which relates the shape of space to the distribution of matter.
Well then, it just can't be true, can it?

Score one for Eugene Wigner's "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics":

By "rational" explanation, Wigner may mean an explanation that appeals to causes (chaos, an unexplained further regress, et cetera) that are ultimately irrational in themselves.

It tells us something about our underlying assumptions that laws that actually work are not considered a rational explanation.

At one time - before the principal project in science had been to disprove the idea that an intelligence underlies the universe - the discovery of such laws would be satisfying rather than problematic. They would be considered the obvious rational explanation rather than a challenge to rational explanation.

Well, the universe is what it is - and if it is governed by intelligently framed laws, so much the worse for those whose science can't absorb that.
(Note: The image is from Sea Life Gifts, one of those fine places I should not see unless my charge card has been mislaid.)

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Serious push to find more exoplanets







Water inferred on Mars

According to a recent report,




Coffee break: Scientist discovers two alternative universes

I am completely envious and I, like, totally admit it. This guy Steve Burri (one of the fellows in this picture) is way better than me when it comes to sending up goofy "zillions of universes" cosmology:

The scientists and researchers employed in my secret basement laboratory are quite an ecclectic bunch. We have staff that wash their hands and brush their teeth after every thought as well as those whose superstitions will not allow them to change their underwear until the completion of their research project. We have committed Christians as well as atheists who should be committed. We have cool, but mostly we have nerd. One biochemist's 5 year old was visiting and after talking to several researchers said to her dad, "Daddy, these guys make even Todd and Lance seem cool." Her dad just shook his head and said, "Sweetie, you have never met Todd or Lance, have you?" That little girl has the cutest giggle.

Perhaps the most unusual character in our lab is Alfred the Atheist, one of our physicists. He's a Landscaper of the String Theory clan. Alfred is always spewing equations about which no one else has a clue. Nobody is ever sure if he really knows what he is talking about. Our only evidence on these matters occurs when he does calculations on his super computer. Often after a result is obtained, his computer smacks itself on its monitor with its own mouse and exclaims, "Boo-yah! My hard drive just had an orgasm!" Then it has a smoke.

Alfred has long been determined to calculate and describe the nature of other universes in the Landscape. (Some say that he hasn't changed underwear in 3 years; others claim he goes 'commando.') He declares that he wants to prove beyond all question that God doesn't exist. His computer now has a 2 pack-a-day habit.
And it gets better when "Alfred", sort of, discovers something ...

I can only get over this fit of envy by writing another book.
Hey, I have been a book editor most of my adult life. I know books. I know them well.
The excellent Burris, pictured above, maybe don't.
Yes, book writing is indeed a dying art, and I'll die with it but ... not yet.
I will write one more book. Meanwhile, enjoy Steve Burri's spoof, and don't blame me if you are one Offended bunny ... I, as it happens, do NOT care ...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Well now, and what of Berlinski's Devils?

I am currently reviewing mathematician David Berlinski's The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. I will post a link to the review, when I am finished, but just this for now:

The book seems to have been written primarily to deflate vast, windy claims, to strike a blow against the crass, dim stupidities currently hawked in the name of "science."

"Like democracy or justice, science is a word exhausted by its examples. We have been vouchsafed four powerful and profound scientific theories since the great scientific revolution of the West was set in motion in the svententh century - Newtonian mechanics, James Clerk Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics. These are isolated miracles, great mountain peaks surrounded by a range of low, furry foothills. The theories that we possess are "magnificent, profound, difficult, sometimes phenomenally accurate," as the distinguished mathematician Roger Penrose has observed, but as he at once adds, they also comprise a "tantalizingly inconsistent scheme of things.

These splendid artifacts of the human imagination have made the world more mysterious than it ever was. We know better than we did what we do not know and have not grasped We do not know how the universe began. We do not know why it is there. Charles Darwin talked speculatively of life emerging from a "warm little pond." The pond is gone. We have little idea how life emerged, and cannot with assurance say that it did. We cannot reconcile our understanding of the human mind with any trivial theory about the manner in which the brain functions. Beyond the trivial, we have no other theories. We can say nothing of interest about the human soul. We do not know what impels us to right conduct or where the form of the good is found." (xii-xiii)
Berlinski does not claim to have answers, and certainly not a fevered cause to promote (except the ongoing life of the mind). He is willing to live with uncertainty. There, of course, he differs from hundreds of comparative mediocrities, proclaiming junk ideas like "meme theory" or "the selfish gene" - and assuring us that our sense that these theories are implausible is fully accounted for because our brains have not evolved in such a way as to find them plausible.

No, I suppose they have not. And that is surely something to be grateful for. Who on earth would want a brain that found these theories plausible?

Monday, June 23, 2008


But it can be hard to convince publishers of that fact. Says Lucy Hawking (yes, daughter of Stephen) in the Sunday Times (June 14, 2008), reflecting on the popularity of good science writing with the book-buying public:

Meanwhile, Lucy Hawking and her father have written a book, George's Secret Key to the Universe, aimed primarily at children. An excerpt is available at the site.

So who cares abut cosmology?
Lots of people do not read much of anything. Recently, someone solemnly apprised me that he thought that Mario Beauregard's and my book, The Spiritual Brain would be "difficult" and he had warned a bunch of people about that. Gee, thanks, fella.

Actually, The Spiritual Brain is pitched to the reading level of a typical Canadian daily newspaper, so it was all I could do to keep from snapping,
Yes, it's difficult - if your regular reading is the bubble gum funnies.
Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut ...

But many people do read, and as Lucy Hawking's article shows, cosmology - well written - is a perennial favourite. Adults who read popular science should not be presumed to have only the level of sophistication of the last year in which they formally studied science. Many people learn a lot on the job or through private reading, and those who do enjoy a challenge.

Teacher: Big ideas without science methods are blank cheque

Recently, I responded to Brian Greene's suggestion that science teachers should teach the big ideas in science, to get students interested. My point was that without a grasp of the underlying principles and fact base, the big ideas in science will not be distinguishable from big ideas in science fiction. A physics teacher kindly writes to comment:

A few thoughts here:

1. The small details in Science are what actually makes up the big picture. Scientific knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle made up of many small interlocking pieces. One cannot intelligently embrace a large idea, e.g., the Big Bang, without first comprehending the many little ideas that built up to it. Otherwise one is signing a blank cheque.

2. Science is much more an epistemology than a body of knowledge. The goal of science teaching is to get students to think this way: recognise a problem, formulate hypotheses which can be tested experimentally, design and carry out experiments which test one variable at a time, repeat experiments for clarity of results, and draw conclusions from those results to modify or validate the hypotheses. That's the scientific method, limited in scope but powerful in application.

3. Unless one has undergone the discipline of thinking through the steps of the method, one has no idea how much certainty one can place in the various pieces of the puzzle. I have a great deal of confidence in some aspects of modern cosmology because I know the experimental basis for them; an example of this would be the tri-hydrogen reaction. On the other hand, some aspects are almost pure speculation (gravitons, for example) and I can hold onto them very lightly. The speculation is necessary, not only because the human mind wants to see the whole picture even when a puzzle piece is missing, but also because the missing pieces provide a locus for new experimentation.

Signing a blank cheque? That reminds me of the spectacular claim in the May 2003 SciAm article by Max Tegmark that

Cosmologists infer the presence of Level II parallel universes by scrutinizing the properties of our universe. These properties, including the strength of the forces of nature and the number of observable space and time dimensions, were established by random processes during the birth of our universe. Yet they have exactly the values that sustain life. That suggests the existence of other universes with other values.
Now, talk about a blank cheque! Our universe looks fine-tuned so there must be a zillion flops out there.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Science teaching: The peril in the big questions


The soldier had written him to say that












Friday, June 20, 2008

You heard it here first, or last, or anyway here: The universe is a donut

Yeah. A donut. We learned the truth at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, or else ... somewhere else. Here's the free donut:

- from Zeeya Merali's "Doughnut-shaped Universe bites back", Nature News (28 May 2008)
The hole is the copy behind the paywall (premium content). Sorry. There are quite a few comments though, including,
I believe the universe IS donut shaped. That's because the closest 'other' universe is shaped like a giant cup of hot coffee - and we're headed straight for it.

25 May, 2008 Posted by: Arfy Warfy
I haven't heard much more than Homer Simpson jokes about this one, and I am still trying to catch up with the surfer dude who solved the riddle of the universe last November.

P.S.: I realize that this illustration is Earth as a donut, but look, we must start somewhere.






Wednesday, June 18, 2008


My Deprogram column in just-published Salvo 5 deals with "privileged planet" astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, who discovered, at Iowa State University that when atheism goes head-to-head with science in a politically correct environment, atheism wins hands down:

The Privileged Planet takes on the assertion of popular-astronomy saint Carl Sagan that Earth is merely a “pale blue dot”—both insignificant and wholly unremarkable. It clearly explains Sagan’s arguments for such, and then provides overwhelming evidence that they are false. Gonzalez thought that in doing so, his film was merely setting the science record straight.

But no. For the secular elite, Gonzalez—a Christian—is a dangerous heretic. He was dissing St. Carl in his own church, the Smithsonian. To the elite, “religion” is okay if you just stupid-holler for Jesus. But it is dangerous if you provide evidence against materialism.

It certainly proved so for him. Despite an excellent publication record, he was denied tenure.

For me, the telling feature of this story is ... the steady stream of mediocrities who write to me and demand that I recognize that Gonzalez does not deserve tenure.

As a journalist, I try to be evenhanded, but I struggle with a profound distaste for these people. ... Their vicious comments are their odious legacy, whereas Gonzalez’s research is his.
Gonzalez is also featured in the Expelled film, and, from my mailbox today, in a podcast on Intelligent Design: the Future in which he talks about Sagan's

Copernican Principle and his latest research on extrasolar planets. Is our place in the universe special or purposeful? Listen in as Dr. Gonzalez answers that question and shares his future research plans.
He is now at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

Will the cosmic multiverse Landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Recently, I read string theorist Leonard Susskind's The Cosmic Landscape (Little, Brown & Co., 2005), so it was fun to hear him explain why his Landscape idea alarms many physicists,
I have been accused of advocating an extremely dangerous idea.



The Landscape (note the upper case), in his words, is an "enormous space of possibilities, whose multiplicity may exceed ten to the 500 power," essentially a multiverse.

This was part of a 2006 "What is your dangerous idea?" schtick at The Edge. Susskind answers the obvious question:

Actually, most of the 2006 Edgy ideas were not dangerous at all, just goofy and probably wrong.

As it happens, according to other cosmologists, string theory is unravelling and coming unstrung.

According to SFGATE, hardly averse to new or wonky ideas (better together, actually), announced breathlessly in 2005:
The most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from skeptics who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual dead end.
and ...
skeptics suggest it's the latest sign of how string theorists, sometimes called "superstringers," try to colorfully camouflage the theory's flaws, like "a 50-year-old woman wearing way too much lipstick," jokes Robert B. Laughlin, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Stanford. "People have been changing string theory in wild ways because it has never worked."

Already, the split over string theory has caused tensions at some of the nation's university physics departments. "The physics department at Stanford effectively fissioned over this issue," said Laughlin, now on sabbatical in South Korea. "I think string theory is textbook 'post-modernism' (and) fueled by irresponsible expenditures of money."
Okay, well, let's have another look at intelligent design. The government never funded it - a sure point in its favour in this environment.

On the other hand, should string theorists wait for rescue by the Large Hadron Collider (gateway to other universes)?

By the way, does anyone know what happened to that surfer dude who was supposed to have solved the riddle of the universe last November? If so, e-mail me at

Monday, June 16, 2008












Stanley L. Miller*
Accepted May 8, 1998.


Thursday, June 12, 2008








Monday, June 9, 2008

Coffee break: First image of water on Mars ...

Well, what did you expect? Little green men? Now get back to work already, okay?

PS: This was forwarded to me. It might be an Astronomy Picture of the Day, or might not. If it is a copyright violation, tell Huff, Huff, and Puff to let me know at and I will take it down. Goodness knows, the idea is obvious enough, and maybe the recent Expelled ruling in favour of the filmmakers will protect me for now.

Sunday, June 8, 2008


Here Eric Hand for Nature News explains:

[ ... ]






We shall see.

Humanity killing the universe?

You mean, we are responsible not only for the death of the passenger pigeon, but the whole shebang?

And here we thought global warming was a problem. Who would have realized that humanity is shortening" the universe's life? That's American physicists Lawrence Krauss and James Dent's theory, anyway, as explained by Roger Highfield, Britain's Telegraph's science editor (21/11/2007),
The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation [of dark energy] in 1998 we may have determined that the cosmos is in a state when it was more likely to end. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may provide evidence that the universe will ultimately decay," says Prof Krauss.

"The intriguing question is this," Prof Krauss told the Telegraph. "If we attempt to apply quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole, and if our present state is unstable, then what sets the clock that governs decay?

"Once we determine our current state by observations, have we effectively determined that the clock is not running at late times? If so, as incredible as it may seem, our detection of dark energy may imply both an unstable universe and a short life expectancy."

And here I thought the universe was way older and more immense and more steady than us.

Actually, I get the distinct feeling from Roger Highfield's account that he does not take the Krauss-Dent theory with the seriousness that its authors might hope. Read it and see if you agree with me.

Hints of a time before the big bang? Or of reaching for a story?

Does our universe contain hints of a time before the Big Bang?, based on the cosmic microwave background?:

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, and colleagues from the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), now believes these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe "bubbled off" from a previous one.

Their data comes from Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been studying the CMB since its launch in 2001.
Apparently, on one side of the sky, the cosmic microwave background fluctuations are 10% stronger than on the other.
The problem to solve, according to the BBC News article, "Hints of 'time before Big Bang" by Chris Lintott (Co-presenter, BBC Sky At Night, St Louis, US) is the fact that time runs in only one direction - forward - but other forces in nature can be reversed. Conventionally, the second law of thermodynamics is held responsible. But, says Prof. Sean Carroll (California Institute of Technology), cosmologists should broaden their horizons.

An American physicist friend insists that this is all "horse puckey", and I suspect he is right. Any time something can be reasonably explained as just "a coincidence", one might perhaps best explain it that way.

Friday, June 6, 2008

"Did you imagine that science was a disinterested pursuit of truth? Well, ... "

Your latest dose of David Berlinski: Well, no, you don't have to read it, but ...


Well, you were wrong.

From The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (P. 112)

Yes, of course Berlinski is on YouTube. Don't write to me to complain. It's fine with me. But whatever you do, don't show this to Darwin Boy if there's a fire code in place.

Thursday, June 5, 2008


Physicist Rob Sheldon writes,


"ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings.


This is my brief answer to multiverse theory:








Tuesday, June 3, 2008

But then maybe the entire universe is just a wave function . . .

Stephen Hawking has tried his hand at designing a design-free universe, as well. In A Brief History of Time, he suggests:


How can the universe both be finite and have no boundary? To make this work, Hawking relies on imaginary time, rather than real time. Chemists sometimes use the concept of time measured in imaginary numbers, such as the square root of minus 2, in order to solve equations. He pictures the universe in imaginary time as being like a wave, with no one point that is the beginning. The problem here is the reality check. When chemists use imaginary time to solve equations, they always have to convert back to real values. Once we get back to real time, the universe does have a beginning.

Hawking acknowledges this, saying that “when one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities.” In other words, a beginning. He suggests:


So … what we call real is “just an idea we invent”? That is a leap of faith, a very different leap of faith from the belief that there is a God whose existence guarantees that what we observe in science experiments, however strange, is real and is happening. Which leap makes more sense for science?

From By Design or by Chance?, page 37.

Multiverse theory: Replacing the Big Fix with the Sure Thing?

In 1982, astronomer Fred Hoyle, an atheist, famously said
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with the chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
Beyond question? Perhaps, but not beyond imagination. What if there are many flopped universes? Or, whether there are or not, people are prepared to believe that they exist.

That may be true today, irrespective of evidence, mathematician David Berlinski suggests. In The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, Berlinski implies that one reason for the attraction of multiverse or many universes theory, sometimes called the "Landscape", as in his comments below, is that it suits a local, modern mindset so perfectly: The idea that everything is really true somewhere "has been current in every college classroom for at least fifty years. It arises spontaneously in discussion, like soap bubbles in water." (P. 123)

He goes on to say,
The Landscape ... is all-purpose in its intent. It works no matter the theory. And it works by means of the simple principle that by multiplying universes, the Landscape dissolves improbabilities. To the question What are the odds? the landscape provides the invigorating answer that it hardly matters. If the fine-structure constant has in our universe one value, in some other universe it has another value. Given sufficiently many universes, things improbable in one must from the perspective of them all appear certain.

The same reasoning applies to questions about the laws of nature. Why is Newton's universal law of gravitation true? No need to ask. In another universe, it is not.

The Big Fix has by this maneuver been supplanted by the Sure Thing. (p. 124)
Indeed, that's precisely the problem. Atheists wanted to eliminate God by implying that our universe is not special. But do they risk eliminating science instead? After all, science consists in saying what is specifically true and what is not. But if everything is true eventually somewhere, why do science? Certainly not to develop a final theory or anything like that.

Neutrino - advised by media consultant to remain elusive ...

The Ghost Particle is airing tonight on PBS, featuring, of course, the neutrino:
In this program, NOVA probes the secret ingredient of the cosmos: swarms of invisible particles that fill every cubic inch of space and just may explain how the universe was created. Trillions of ghostly neutrinos move through our bodies every second without us noticing a thing. Yet without them the sun wouldn't shine and the elements that make up our world wouldn't exist. This program explores the 70-year struggle so far to understand the most elusive of all elementary particles, the neutrino.

Narrated by British actor Juliet Stevenson, "The Ghost Particle" is the story of a discovery that altered scientists' understanding of what the universe is made of and how it was first formed. NOVA accompanies scientists into the laboratory, revealing astonishing footage of bizarre experiments. Computer animation brings to life the neutrino particle, which is at once invisible and yet utterly essential to all life.

A physicist friend used to work in the SNO program, tracking neutrinos in a mine in Sudbury, Ontario (Canada) that houses a neutrino detector. He liked to say that the physicists were doing the sun's bookkeeping.

Now that the neutrino has been found to have mass, perhaps we should not think of it as a ghost, but rather as a scrawny celebrity, "hiding" to attract attention?

Hello, God: This is the Big Bang. Okay, look, I done it. What do I do NOW?

From David Berlinski's The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions,

Those who believe in God and those who do not may resolve their differences by agreeing to say nothing. There is nonetheless a striking point at which Big Bang cosmology and traditional theological claims intersect. The universe has not proceeded from the everlasting to the everlasting. The cosmological beginning may be obscure, but the universe is finite in time. This is something that until the twentieth century was not known. When it became known, it astonished the community of physicists - and everyone else. If nothing else, the facts of Big Bang cosmology indicate that one objection to the argument that Thomas Aquinas offered is empirically unfounded: Causes in nature do come to an end. If science has shown that God does not exist, it has not been by appealing to Big Bang cosmology. The hypothesis of God's existence and the facts of contemporary cosmology are consistent. p. 80
Of course, science (I assume that Berlinski means by science here, physics) has not shown that God does not exist but likely the opposite. That's probably why so many atheists - when they weren't looking to alternative universes - looked to neuroscience to save their belief system, as Mario Beauregard and I discuss in The Spiritual Brain. If anything, the human brain (the most complex item in the known universe) has pretty much fried their unpalatable system and served it on stale toast. See, for example,
Materialists start to come to grips with global failure, but materialism dies hard,
"Neural Buddhists, Christians, and the Mud that failed", and
Neural Buddhism: Do neurons get reincarnated?

on why all that isn't working any more.

I will be reviewing Berlinski's book this summer (when the bench arbour is finally both warm and dry), and will link to the review.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Newton: Does every genius need a tincture of crackpot?

An excerpt from Christopher Hitchens' effusion of praise for Isaac Newton, "Flaws of Gravity" in Vanity Fair online (April 14, 2008):

I knew there was some reason I liked Newton so much. He did nothing by halves, and that included crackpottery. It's good of Hitch to remind us, while reviewing Peter Ackroyd's brief Newton biography.