Random journeys through Science

You call this science???

2009-09-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

I have not written much in the past months, being focused on work and writing some articles on simulations of uman societies. However, the news I found on PLOS: Ghostwriting: The Dirty Little Secret of Medical Publishing That Just Got Bigger have prompted my reaction.

An article written by PLOS editors has described in detail the practice of ghostwriting "scientific" papers by specialized companies hired by pharmaceutical giants. Of course - favourable to the pharmaceuticals. Then the papers were "given" - readymade - to "researchers".

If you are an editor, author, reviewer, or reader of medical journals, or if you depend on your doctor or health care provider getting unbiased information from medical journals, then the 1,500 documents now hosted on the PLoS Medicine Web site should make you very concerned and angry. Because, quite simply, the story told in these documents amounts to one of the most compelling expositions ever seen of the systematic manipulation and abuse of scholarly publishing by the pharmaceutical industry and its commercial partners in their attempt to influence the health care decisions of physicians and the general public.

[...]

It's time to get serious about tackling ghostwriting. As has been shown in the documents released after the Vioxx scandal [7], this practice can result in lasting injury and even deaths as a result of prescribers and patients being misinformed about risks. Without action, the practice will undoubtedly continue. How did we get to the point that falsifying the medical literature is acceptable? How did an industry whose products have contributed to astounding advances in global health over the past several decades come to accept such practices as the norm? Whatever the reasons, as the pipeline for new drugs dries up and companies increasingly scramble for an ever-diminishing proportion of the market in “me-too” drugs, the medical publishing and pharmaceutical industries and the medical academic community have become locked into a cycle of mutual dependency, in which truth and a lack of bias have come to be seen as optional extras. Medical journal editors need to decide whether they want to roll over and just join the marketing departments of pharmaceutical companies. Authors who put their names to such papers need to consider whether doing so is more important than having a medical literature that can be believed in. Politicians need to consider the harm done by an environment that incites companies into insane races for profit rather than for medical need. And companies need to consider whether the arms race they have started will in the end benefit anyone. After all, even drug company employees get sick; do they trust ghost authors?

Instant infamy - plus criminal charges for the involved - this is what comes to my mind...

Interesting links

2009-07-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

This time for almost purely informational:

I have stumbled upon a few very interesting links. The first is to a set of Richard Feynman physics lectures captured on video, and restored, paid for and put on the WEB by Bill Gates. At last some of the money I paid for Windows went back to something useful and good.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.htm

The second link is to a book caled Physics for Future Presidents. Its WEB site is
http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/physics_for_future_presid/
I dare not to comment on capabilities of presidents of the US, France or Zimbabwe. But I daresay the book should be translated into Polish ASAP.

The third link is to a set of symposiums on astrophysics at London Imperial College http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/astrophysics. The one that caught my attention was a debate on Dark Energy. I hope to live to see the issue resolved. And I do expect that twenty years from now we might look at the current period with some dismay. Or not?

Decision making efficiency

2009-06-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

I have been studying opinion formation for some time now, with a few papers published or to be published. Generally, my outlook on the capacities of human species to make rational - no, OPTIMAL - decisions is rather bleak.

Hunting through papers written on the subject I found one written by Amé, J.-M.; Halloy, J.; Rivault, C.; Detrain, C. & Deneubourg, J. L. Collegial decision making based on social amplification leads to optimal group formation, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, 2006, 103, 5835-5840.

And there is hope! we have founs at least one species capable of:

This experimental and theoretical study of shelter selection by cockroach groups demonstrates that choices can emerge through nonlinear interaction dynamics between equal individuals without perfect knowledge or leadership. We identify a simple mechanism whereby a decision is taken on the move with limited information and signaling and without comparison of available opportunities. This mechanism leads to optimal mean benefit for group individuals.

So, the old SF joke about cockroach surviving after we demolish the world with atmo bombs has a good, scientific basis. They are, collectively, smarter. Because I can not recall many examples when humans could take a good decision through interaction dynamics between equal individuals without perfect knowledge or leadership. A decision that would be taken on the move with limited information and signaling and without comparison of available opportunities. And turned out to be an optimal one.

Scare the public!!!

2009-06-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

It seems that one of the duties of so called "science journalism" is to scare the general public witless. It is not so difficult, bearing in mind that the public is generally witless to start with, but let's focus on scaring them then.

Example?
What would you think when reading the following title: Caesarean delivery can alter DNA ? Monster mutants caused by cesarean birth? Permanent changes of DNA? ... Horror...

Yet this is the modern world: the title of the original publication is much less interesting: Epigenetic modulation at birth – altered DNA-methylation in white blood cells after Caesarean section
by T Schlinzig, S Johansson, A Gunnar, TJ Ekström and M Norman.
This does not sound so scary, does it?
And what you find in the abstract is

Aim: Delivery by C-section (CS) has been associated with increased risk for allergy, diabetes and leukaemia. Whereas the underlying cause is unknown, epigenetic change of the genome has been suggested as a candidate molecular mechanism for perinatal contributions to later disease risk. We hypothesized that mode of delivery affects epigenetic activity in newborn infants.

Methods: A total of 37 newborn infants were included. Spontaneous vaginal delivery (VD) occurred in 21, and 16 infants were delivered by elective CS. Blood was sampled from the umbilical cord and 3–5 days after birth. DNA-methylation was analyzed in leucocytes.

Results: Infants born by CS exhibited higher DNA-methylation in leucocytes compared with that of those born by VD (p < 0.001). After VD, newborn infants exhibited stable levels of DNA-methylation, as evidenced by comparing cord blood values with those 3–5 days after birth (p = 0.55). On postnatal days 3–5, DNA-methylation had decreased in the CS group (p = 0.01) and was no longer significantly different from that of VD (p = 0.10).

Conclusion: DNA-methylation is higher in infants delivered by CS than in infants vaginally born. Although currently unknown how gene expression is affected, or whether epigenetic differences related to mode of delivery are long-lasting, our findings open a new area of clinical research with potentially important public health implications.

Seems the effect is temporary, causes unknown and effects unknown as well. OK - I have nothing against the continued research, the topic may be important - but should Karolinska Institute really be involved in scaring everyone?

Or is it just my imagination that DNA is a dirty word? I remember the protesters holding up placards with "we do not want DNA in our tomatoes". Is this the time to ban DNA from our children as well?

Where do wars come from?

2009-06-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

I have found - by a curious accident - a very interesting article by Samuel Bowles:
Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?, Science, 2009, 324, 1293-1298,

Abstract:

Since Darwin, intergroup hostilities have figured prominently in explanations of the evolution of human social behavior. Yet whether ancestral humans were largely "peaceful" or "warlike" remains controversial. I ask a more precise question: If more cooperative groups were more likely to prevail in conflicts with other groups, was the level of intergroup violence sufficient to influence the evolution of human social behavior? Using a model of the evolutionary impact of between-group competition and a new data set that combines archaeological evidence on causes of death during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene with ethnographic and historical reports on hunter-gatherer populations, I find that the estimated level of mortality in intergroup conflicts would have had substantial effects, allowing the proliferation of group-beneficial behaviors that were quite costly to the individual altruist.

In the light of Jared Diamond getting sued for writing about social strife in New Guinea by the very people who have told him the stories of the violence in the first place it is very risky direction of research. According to "politically correct" explanations wars are charactersictic only for white, aggressive and doministic western civilization. Savages are, by definition, noble. Fortunately for Bowles his work is based on field research done by others, so the chances of beinf sued for putting some tribe "in bad light" are slim. But who knows...

Seriously - what I have found important was a careful combination of theory/model and observations. As it should be in science.

SkyNet?

2009-04-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

As the new terminator movie approaches the notion of people building Skynet Artificial Intelligence seems a dark prospect. Yet there is something that looks just like it...

At http://www.intelligencerealm.com/aisystem we might find an attempt to build AI in the free multiple client mode, using home computers a la SETI.

The aim:

This project uses Internet-connected computers in order to leverage the computing power of many machines. You can participate by downloading and running a free program on your computer. You will need to download the BOINC client manager from the BOINC web site. If you have any issues with the BOINC software please address them to their network of volunteers on the help page. We will post the source code on SourceForge.net project site. We expect to launch new versions often so please bear with us. Building a neural network simulator requires much more than raw computing power and each released version will incrementally increase the system's features.

How they do it?

Results
To date we have simulated 709,358,333,333 neurons. The human brain has an estimated 100 billion neurons.
Computing Information
The neural network simulator is an application that simulates neurons. Each downloaded work unit generates 500,000 biophysical neurons. Because the simulator is in an initial phase and we have very few cellular models implemented, we can only use it to test for simulations capacity. We have completed the first phase of the project, to simulate over 100 billion neurons. The second largest brain simulation has been done on a cluster of 27 machines, with 100 billion neurons simulated over a period of 50 days. While it was a very interesting experiment which pushed the frontier further on it was a partial simulation only, in the sense that many of the required components were not implemented due to hardware constraints.

The neurons were created, simulated and then destroyed in memory, without any data being stored. Based on their results the estimate for full brain simulations was calculated to be the year 2016; we would like to prove otherwise. From a practical point of view it didn't advance the knowledge further on and that's why we would like to continue along this line of thought and bridge these results with some practical data. The problem of storage and computing power is esential for large scale brain simulations because without them we can't plan and estimate these requirements. Without planning there is also no clear understanding as to what is needed in order to do that. As we advance with the simulation and more and more neurons get simulated, we should be able to make increasingly precise estimations on storage, number of computers required, duration, bandwidth and other factors. Regardless of the fact that at this stage our simulation is not precise and it lacks in many aspects, this is what we want to achieve with your help.

There is also the added benefit that once we will publish these results and the public at large would see that the capacity to simulate the entire brain is considerably higher than previously thought, a large stumbling block will be removed from the path of artificial intelligence.

Is this dangerous? Well, the FAQ confirm the danger

If the system will eventually be smarter than you, its creator, wouldn't that pose a risk?
It sure does. We understand the negative and positive implications of building an Artificial Intelligence system. That's why we have already restricted access and we will implement multiple levels of control and monitoring.

Nice. Fine. OK.

But... If the system turns out truly alien, and truly smarter than us - then what kind of security will be sufficient? Especially as the beast runs not in some enclosed laboratory, but in the wilderness of world wide network.

What worries me particularly is how the system will get the information:

Knowledge Acquisition:
The knowledge acquisition module is used for retrieving and defining the information that will form the future memories of the system. We are using a robot (i.e. web bot) to extract information from the Internet.

Hmmm... if the system learns about the RWOT (Real World Out There) from the Internet, it is going to be very, very confused.

The only hope is that the project shall fail.

Peer review in practice

2009-04-26T05:13:00.000-07:00

It is worse than I thought.
submission date: March 6th
sent to referees: March 24 (why wait almost three weeks?)
on April 14h reminders sent to referees, because they have not responded.

My own average as a referee - so far - was less than one week for reviews (including those where I had to do totally new calculations to prove authors wrong). But I am an amateur.

Judging by some recent publications titled "Are we training pitbulls for peer review" (or something like this) there is a growing worry about the cornerstone of scientific credibility - the belief that the published work IS checked and may be safely used by others.

We'll soon become much like pop artists: publish (rubbish) or perish. And science will become a beuty contest for funding. Dark future.

Amateur Scientist - the story continues

2009-04-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

After the first step of publishing in a little known open access electronic journal I have sent some work to a leading physics paper - without any affiliation.

The paper is under review - but I am glad to announce that the lack of affiliation has not been any problem for the Editors.

So, I guess that I shall wait now for the Referees' opinions.

Publish or perish?

2009-02-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

It turns out that - not really. At least at Lublin Technical University. In December, the Dean of the University has run a survey about worls published in the last three years by the researchers. And quite a few have published -- nothing!

Yes, I can imagine someone working in recluse on some grand work (Fermat's Theorem, for example), not publishing anything for 20 years. But even the famous story of Andrew Wiles shows that he had recveived recognition for work before the proof of FLT. In most cases, even if soemone is writing a huge monograph on some subject (which can take more than three years), it is possible to publish small fragments, if only to check the opinions of others or the interest in the work...

But in Poland one can be a scientist without doing science.

First step

2009-01-31T22:19:00.001-08:00

The first step in the direction described a few days ago has been done. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 12, no. 1, 2009 has published a forum article Modelling Opinion Formation with Physics Tools: Call for Closer Link with Reality, without any reference to my affiliation (none) or credentials other than the text itself.

Of course, it is not an original research paper, but a review and discussion one, so the criteria are lighter. And JASSS is a specialized, electronic-version only journal, not on the higherst top of the citation index. But at least one myth is busted: it is possible for an outsider to comment and be heard within academic world proper.

Hooray for the amateurs.

Amateur scientist

2009-01-26T22:13:00.000-08:00

Writing Country of Blindfolded I gradually came to the idea of re-creating amateur science as a honourable pasttime, jjust as fascinating as flower arrangement, speed racing or computer games. Of course it is not for everyone (I mean speed racing).

Following some posts and letters I have decided to check if the idea is doable. It is not the same thing to post some papers on the arXiv, where there is no peer review as to decide to publish in a proper journal. To run the gauntlet with no proper affiliation attached to the author's name.

So, for the past few months, my evenings were filled with working on a couple of papers - this is the reason for the lack of posts here. The first part of the experiment comes near the end, the second should be finished in a few months.

We shall see, if indeed it is possible, with enough persistance, to enter the ivory tower via kitchen entrance.

Science of magic

2009-01-02T01:45:00.000-08:00

... or to be more exact, of conjuring. Very interesting window on the capabilities and mis-capabilities of human brain.

Two recent articles:
Macknik, S.; Randi, J.; Robbins, A.; Thompson, J. & Martinez-Conde, S. Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2008, 9, 871,

Kuhn, G.; Amlani, A. A. & Rensink, R. A. Towards a science of magic Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Elsevier, 2008, 12, 349

There are also reviews in december issues of NewScientist and Scientific Amarican, but the access to these is restricted.

An excellent tool

2009-01-02T01:39:00.000-08:00

During the Christmas free time I have discovered a great tool: a personal wiki application that allows to gather snippets (and more) of information from many sources.
The application is called wikidPad,and is available from sourceforge: http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/ .

To quote the description:

wikidPad is a real-time wiki
wikidPad is not a web server, or application server, or groupware solution. wikidPad is a standalone notepad like application, albeit notepad on steroids. wikidPad is like an IDE for your thoughts.

IDE for your thoughts
Software developers have grown accustomed to certain features from their integrated development environment that make their jobs easier. Features like auto-completion, outline views, incremental search, easy source code navigation. IDE's that provide these features can greatly increase developer productivity. wikidPad attempts to utilize some of these features to address the problem of personal information management.

Personal Information Management
How do you manage all of the random bits of information in your personal and professional life? Word documents, text files, Microsoft Outlook folders/notes. If you're an expert user maybe you have a weblog, or a personal database, or possibly an outlining application. Where do you track your wifes favorite food, your bosses kids names, your personal todo list, the name of the movie you just read a review of, the name of the book a friend recommended. wikidPad was created to address this issue of personal information management. It provides a place to manage the massive amounts of information you have stuffed in your head, on stickies, or on your computer.

A great help in organising my notes and thoughts. Highly recommended!

A joke or not a joke?

2008-12-28T00:40:00.000-08:00

The equations of medieval cosmology
Roberto Buonanno and Claudia Quercellini from Universita di Roma Tor Vergata have published on arXiv a paper titled
The equations of medieval cosmology
The abstract claims:

In Dantean cosmography the Universe is described as a series of concentric spheres with all the known planets embedded in their rotation motion, the Earth located at the centre and Lucifer at the centre of the Earth. Beyond these "celestial spheres", Dante represents the "angelic choirs" as other nine spheres surrounding God. The rotation velocity increases with decreasing distance from God, that is with increasing Power (Virtu'). We show that, adding Power as an additional fourth dimension to space, the modern equations governing the expansion of a closed Universe (i. e. with the density parameter \Omega_0>1) in the space-time, can be applied to the medieval Universe as imaged by Dante in his Divine Comedy. In this representation the Cosmos acquires a unique description and Lucifer is not located at the centre of the hyperspheres.

Indeed, the paper combines the Dantean images with astrophysical equations.
To what end? Does it tell us anything about Dante? Or perhaps it tells us something about us, modern scientists? Don't we have more important subjects to study?

Science may be a pleasure

2008-12-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

It was with great pleasure that I have read of recent choice of prizes of Polish Science Foundation (sometimes dubbed "Polish Nobels").

The reason was actually quite far from my usual turf. One of the prizes went to prof. Stanisław Mossakowski for the monography od Sigismundus Chapel at the Wawel Castle in Cracow. Interviewed he has said that he has been working alone, without special grants:

Thanks to this I was happy to work for the sheer pleasure that may come out only from selfless scientific research. If I had signed a contract the results would be probably worse. As it was, I had no schedules to meet and I had the pleasure of work.

What could be more optimistic than such account?

A Science Fiction challenge

2008-12-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

I was a great fan of hard SF: the stories of dauntless exploration of the Cosmos, of spaceships, new planets, new galaxies... But my realist psyche has decreasingly reduced the fun I was getting from these lectures. I simply stopped believing that it is possible for the human race to make the effort necessary to go anywhere in the Universe. Even to Mars, not mentioning successful colonization of other star systems or galaxies. The more I look at the way we act, at out limitations (which are to a large part built in our evolutionary heritage) the more I doubt of any concerted action that would put us on a way to stars. I am not alone. Norman Augustine, Chairman of Lockheed AMrtin corporation has written a short essay What We Don't Know Does Hurt Us. How Scientific Illiteracy Hobbles Society Science, 1998, 279, p. 1640.
He states:

Could we send men and women to Mars? Technologically speaking, I believe we could. But politically there is no will to do so.

Augustine should know - after all LM holds quite a lot of the technology necessary to make the trip. But I agree - there is no will and no chance of making it, unless...

And this is the first topic of the challenge:
Try to describe what should have happen in the future (I fear my knowledge of English tenses runs short here) that would change the attitude and ways of significant part of our societies to launch us on the way to Cosmos? What social, psychological, technical, maybe biological changes, what wars/new religions/single events might do the job?

The second challenge is less ambitious and more scientific: what kind of alien evolution would produce beings that would be capable of intermixing the cooperative spirit and curiosity that would lead them and allow the effort necessary for space exploration?

Answers more than welcome!
One avenue is, however, excluded, as I already have thought of it (of course, with due humility, not being the first to do so). The beings that might have the necessary capacities would be the ones that do not have the evolutionary heritage, being programmed to explore the Universe. Machines. Possibly self replicating, possibly intelligent. As they would be conceived with the very idea in mind and without the evolutionary baggage, they might just be the thing. So, the challenge is a biological one: think of a sequence of events and constraints that would produce species cooperative like bees, intelligent and technical as humans and peaceful as orcas. Or, to be working, something much, much stranger.

Anyone out there?

Wonderful material universe

2008-11-22T22:43:00.000-08:00

For all those doomsayers who proclaim the nearing end of science - the Universe has more surprises than anyone can think of. So if the science would come to an end, it would not be because of the lack of wonders to discover, but because either we cease to look for them (because of lack of funds and public understanding and support) or that the humanity loses the capability to do science...

But back to the interesting part: I always thought material science (especially inorganic) to be a bit boring. Even discoveries of fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene was not a surprise: these were all forms of the `most flexible' of elements, carbon. But then there are the mysterious High Tc ceramic superconductors, where we still do not know what causes the current to flow without resistance.

A recent piece of news has caught my attentions: a new material, ceramic alloy of boron, aluminium and magnesium (AlMgB_14) with titanium boride (TiB_2). It is extremely hard - in fact one of the hardest substances ever discovers/made. But it has also a very, very low friction coefficient, 2.5 times smaller than the previous record holder - teflon, and 8 times smaller than lubricated steel. Such discovery can bring real changes in the efficiency of machinery, energy coonservation etc.

So, even the traditional, down-to-earth, just another compound to be tested physics can be refreshing and important.

Dumb or not so dumb?

2008-11-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

One of the recent issues of New Scientist has published a popular piece called Dumb eco-questions you were afraid to ask.

What has interested me the most was the last one, which I quote here in entriety, because it's just co much contrary to the philosophy of the New Scientist that I am shocked.

What is the single most effective thing I can do for the environment?

Over a 75-year lifespan, the average European will be responsible for about 900 tonnes of CO2 emissions. For Americans and Australians, the figure is more like 1500 tonnes. Add to that all of humanity's other environmentally damaging activities and, draconian as it may sound, the answer must surely be to avoid reproducing.

Candidness leaves me speechless.

Link to an article on arXiv

2008-11-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

In a spur of dissatisfaction I have posted a short paper on the arxiv, Peer-review in the Internet age

Abstract:

The importance of peer-review in the scientific process can not be overestimated. Yet, due to increasing pressures of research and exponentially growing number of publications the task faced by the referees becomes ever more difficult. We discuss here a few possible improvements that would enable more efficient review of the scientific literature, using the growing Internet connectivity. In particular, a practical automated model for providing the referees with references to papers that might have strong relationship with the work under review, based on general network properties of citations is proposed.

Comments are more than welcome.

Numbers behind the folly

2008-10-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

Following the last post: I have found an interesting report on ecological devastation of our planet published by WWF and Zoological Society of London. The report claims that we now have the ecoligical impact equivalent to 1.3 times the capacity of planet Earth, that is we are overusing our environment by 30%. This sounds - and if true it is - really scary.

But my post deals with a small set of numbers at the core of the report. While the ecological impact per person in high income countries is 2.9 times greater than for the middle income countries the population of the middle income countries is 3.2 times greater. This more than compensates the relative overall impact. Moreover, there are two additional effects at play: first, the inevitable and laudable wish of the people in the middle income and low income countries to improve their living standards. Second the concentration of the population growth in these regions. As a result, simple math would show that future growth of the overall impact would be the fastest exactly there, coming from the combination of these two factors. The industrialised, high income nations would play smaller and smaller role in the global consumption.

The authors do focus mostly on the `per person' indicators, but even they do recognize the overall impact of the population growth:

There are many different strategies that
could reduce the gap between human demand
on nature and the availability of ecological
capacity. Each of these strategies can be
represented as a sustainability wedge that
shifts the business-as-usual path towards one
in which, when these wedges are combined,
overshoot is eliminated
One way of organizing wedges is to link
them to the three factors that determine
footprint. Some strategies in the per person
consumption and technology wedges, such
as insulating buildings, produce quick results
for shrinking overshoot. Other strategies,
such as those that would reduce and
eventually reverse population growth, may
have less impact in the short term, but lead
to large cumulative declines in overshoot in
the longer term.

Sounds easy. But can anyone tell any reasonable way of invoking such a strategy for reversing the population growth?

The Folly of Folly

2008-10-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

A recent issue of New Scientist had a special section on The folly of growth - how to stop the economy from killing the planet. This report is so far away from the "scientist" part of the journal that I was almost speechless. Politics, pure politics...

Several carefully chosen experts, all representing almost the same point of view, postulate that the western civilisation is killing the planet. That western civilisation - and it alone - is to balme for all the sins: unwarranted greed and exploitation of natural resources, the fact that green values have no chances against market capitalism, short term thinking, all of that and more.

Well, let me aks some questions:
What are the effects of population growth, especially in non-western world? The journal prints one comprehensive graph showing all our exponential explosion.

Everything is exploding: exploited fisheries, paper consumption, extinct species, motor vehicles ... and ... human population.
The last one, especially outside the western world. But stating obvious truth, that overpopulation, especially in poor regions may be one of the causes of the poverty, is, hum, politically uncorrect. So, no, we do not touch this subject.

Secondly, I'd like to see an analysis of the impact on the planet from various populations, projected into the future: India, China, Africa... The people living there have every right to hope for, to aim for and to work for the same level of living and citizens of EU and USA. The question is: are there enough resources to achieve this, and at the same time to keep the population explosion going?

Lastly, a very uncorrect suggestion. The cover of the magazine shows a white male, dressed in western-type clothes (suggesting a banker?), pushing the Earth into an abyss.

Isn't this racism? Sexism?

(If you think it is obviously not, then please consider would it bee racist if the picture would show a bunch of African children pushing the same world into the same abyss?)

Thus, instead of a much needed discussion I was served with several pages of political propaganda. If this is the level of professionalism one can get from a popular science publication, what could we expect from less informed participants in the public debate?

Day of leisure (sort of)

2008-10-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I have spent almost a whole day reading a book. What made it unusual was that the book was a Science Fiction novel. I have been a voracious SF reader some years ago, but gradually it has become harder and harder to find a book that would satisfy my desire for scientific plausibility and a good plot. For years the favourite was Timescape by Gregory Benford. But the trend to write `for the public', to use the easy Universe of swishing swords and zipping magical missiles has got me less and less interested in modern SF/Fantasy -- with the obvious exception of Terry Pratchett.

So, waiting in line to get some schoolboks for my daughter, I have leafed throug some books on display and I have found one that contained a bibliography! Moreover this bibliography contained rather unusual comments. I thought why not, and bought the book. And spent the whole day reading it.

The book is Blindsight, by Peter Watts. It is no easy read, but it offers a refreshing departure from the world of fireballs and enchantments, even though it does feature vampires. Since then I have learned that one can read the book for free, but I do not begrudge the price I paid, hoping that at least a part would reach the author.

The bibliography notes that caught my eye are worth noting. They are introduced as:

References and remarks, to try and convince you all I'm not crazy (or, failing that, to simply intimidate you into shutting up about it). Read for extra credit.

Many are papers and books that I have encountered during my wanderings (as may be seen in the Country of Blindfolded). But some were a discovery, for example works of Metzinger. Because who, in a sane mind, could refuse an invitation like this:

Sentience/Intelligence

This is the heart of the whole damn exercise. Let's get the biggies out of the way first. Metzinger's Being No One is the toughest book I've ever read (and there are still significant chunks of it I haven't), but it also contains some of the most mindblowing ideas I've encountered in fact or fiction. Most authors are shameless bait-and-switchers when it comes to the nature of consciousness. Pinker calls his book How the Mind Works, then admits on page one that "We don't understand how the mind works". Koch (the guy who coined the term "zombie agents") writes The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach, in which he sheepishly sidesteps the whole issue of why neural activity should result in any kind of subjective awareness whatsoever.

Towering above such pussies, Metzinger takes the bull by the balls. His "World-zero" hypothesis not only explains the subjective sense of self, but also why such an illusory first-person narrator would be an emergent property of certain cognitive systems in the first place. I have no idea whether he's right— the man's way beyond me— but at least he addressed the real question that keeps us staring at the ceiling at three a.m., long after the last roach is spent. Many of the syndromes and maladies dropped into Blindsight I first encountered in Metzinger's book.

What a language! Not an usual, watered down peer-review blah-blah. So, as I finished the novel, I hooked up to the Scholar and hunted for Metzinger. While the book is obviously not there, I have found some papers which I hope to skim through soon.

The Subjectivity of Subjective Experience: A Represent at ioualisl Analysis of the First-Person Perspective Networks, 2004, 3--4, 33-64 ,

Précis of Being No One PSYCHE, 2005, 10, 1-35,

The emergence of a shared action ontology: Building blocks for a theory Consciousness and Cognition, 2003, 12, 549-571,

Post-feminist-modernist idiocy

2008-10-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

I thought, naively, that the exposure of itiotism of post modernist, feminist, multicultural critique of science, done, for example by Sokal and Bricmont, or by Levitt and Gross would at least discourage further attempts. How wrong I was...

Searching for references on the modern fate of amateur scientist I have found some papers devoted to "citizen scientist". At first I though that the topic wouls be a close one. So I dug in, into, for example, papers by Karin Backstrand:
Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance Global Environmental Politics, 2003, 3, 24-41
Scientisation vs. Civic Expertise in Environmental Governance: Eco-feminist, Eco-modern and Post-modern Responses Environmental Politics, 2004, 13, 695-714

The latter lecture has been a clear example that the trends are alive and kicking:

Scientific rationality should be replaced by a social and ecological rationality that entails a self-critique of the progress of ‘scientific truths’. Science should be de-monopolised and democratised and redirected toward a social rationality.

The discourses and practices of science are at the heart of theories of risk society and reflexive modernisation. The encroachment of scientific and technological practice can be seen as a cause of environmental problems. However, if the role of science in decision-making can be reframed, science can also present the solutions to global environmental hazards. A distinction
is made between primary and reflexive scientisation. Primary scientisation belongs to the epoch of the industrial society and simple modernity associated with a positivistic science with a claim to universal and objective truth. Moreover, there is a clear division between the enlightened priesthood of scientific experts and ignorant laymen. Science has
become increasingly professionalised and inaccessible to non-experts. In contrast, reflexive scientisation implies that scientific decision-making on environmental risks is opened up for social rationality and wider participation. Society has to exercise a new level of self-critique and systematic self-doubt has to be invoked in science.
[...]
Society has to exercise a new level of self-critique and systematic self-doubt has to be invoked in science
[...]
However, the expert-centred forms of knowledge with their secrecy and centralised character need a democratic check.

While my own goal is simply to broaden the social (civic) participation in science I see no other way to do it than to bring up the interested perties knolwege of the scientific methods, processes and results. Trying to broaden the participation by denigrating scinece seems not just plain stupid, but extremely dangerous.

The feminist part is also present, and how! Backstrand writes:

I start by presenting three green perspectives – ecofeminist, eco-modern and postmodernism – which all offer a trenchant critique of how science and technology generate unprecedented environmental risks.

The relationship between human societies and the environment is gendered, i.e. structured by patriarchal relations that have positioned women closer to nature. However, feminist philosophy of science has stretched the argument further: the central norms underpinning science – rationality, objectivity and control – are also celebrated masculine ideals.

An important assumption in eco-feminism is the conceptual connection between the subordination of women, the destruction of the environment and scientific rationality. This revolves around the women-nature association – women are associated with nature and the feminine, which, in turn, are devalued and degraded.

Just one small question: in which type of society are women more subordinated: in Nature-living primitive societies or in todays, Science-begotten modern society? Would Karin Backstrand be allowed to have her say in other corcumstances than those brought by the accumulated knowledge of whole humanity, men and women alike?

Mathematical treasures by Gregory Chaitin

2008-09-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

My wanderings over various disciplines that usually lead mt to and fro, this time have led me back to gregory Chaitin. I have already read some of his articles while writing Country of Blindfolded bit this time the search has been started by a provocative paper How real are real numbers?.

This has directed me to Irreducible Complexity in Pure Mathematics and finally to a delightful, easy to read but very deep Meta Math! The Quest for Omega. The last one is especially worth recommending. Mathematics that is told with gusto and personal interest.

There are whole passages that are so close to my soul, that I can only quote them in extenso:

In my opinion, the view that math provides absolute certainty and is static and perfect while physics is tentative and constantly evolving is a false dichotomy. Math is actually not that different from physics. Both are attempts of the human mind to organize, to make sense, of human experience; in the case of physics, experience in the laboratory, in the physical world, and
in the case of math, experience in the computer, in the mental mindscape of pure mathematics.

And mathematics is far from static and perfect; it is constantly evolving, constantly changing, constantly morphing itself into new forms. New concepts are constantly transforming math and creating new ﬁelds, new viewpoints, new emphasis, and new questions to answer. And mathematicians do in fact utilize unproved new principles suggested by computational experience, just as a physicist would.

And in discovering and creating new mathematics, mathematicians do base themselves on intuition and inspiration, on unconscious motivations and impulses, and on their aesthetic sense, just like any creative artist would. And mathematicians do not lead logical mechanical “rational” lives. Like any creative artist, they are passionate emotional people who deeply care about their art, they are unconventional eccentrics motivated by mysterious forces, not by money nor by a concern for the “practical applications” of their work.

I know, because I’m one of these crazy people myself! I’ve been obsessed by these questions for my whole life, starting at an early age. And I’ll give you an insider’s view of all of this, a ﬁrst-hand report from the front, where there is still a lot of ﬁghting, a lot of pushing and shoving, between different viewpoints. In fact basic questions like this are never settled, never deﬁnitively put aside, they have a way of resurfacing, of popping up again in transformed form, every few generations. . .

So that’s what this book is about: It’s about reasoning questioning itself, and its limits and the role of creativity and intuition, and the sources of new ideas and of new knowledge. That’s a big subject, and I only understand a little bit of it, the areas that I’ve worked in or experienced myself. Some of this nobody understands very well, it’s a task for the future. How about you?! Maybe you can do some work in this area. Maybe you can push the darkness back a millimeter or two! Maybe you can come up with an important new idea, maybe you can imagine a new kind of question to ask, maybe you can transform the landscape by seeing it from a diﬀerent point of view! That’s all it takes, just one little new idea, and lots and lots of hard work to develop it and to convince other people! Maybe you can put a scratch on the rock of eternity!

A good read ahead

2008-09-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

Just a short note on a book I have found on the arXiv:
Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems: A Primer by Claudius Gros.

On first impression it looks interesting and accessible, an joind an already quite rich shelf of electronically available books on networked systems.

Antibiotics

2008-09-21T02:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of news stories have drawn my worried attention to the status of medical research. The appearance of more and more bacteria strains that are highly resistive to the current generations of antibiotics is showing the difference between a natural process - such as evolution of bacteria - and the socially driven planned activity of medical research.

While it would be unjust to call the process under which bacteria reach resistance to new generations of drugs "easy" and "costless" (as the billions of dying bacteria for each one that survives and multiplies prove), the human effort, with its needed billions of dollars is much less flexible.

I recall a quote from Lem's Magellan Cloud, hwere infections are deemed to be long gone - one of very few blunders of Lem. Nope. It's a lost war.

And in the current political and social climate, the situation is even worse due to lack of concentrations, and anti-scientific sentiments. I have read some news stories in the Polish dailies - accompanied by lots of supporting WEB comments - condemning doctors and medical industry for its inability to fight "trivial diseases". Probably, many of these comments were by people who discarded their antibiotic treatment just after a couple of days, when they "felt better".

I am quite pessimistic for the next 20 years. If, as recent article in Science claims,

more people die from the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium than from HIV in the United States

then we need to start worrying. The number of new drugs is decreasing. The activity of bacteria is not and will not. You do the math yourself.

Revival - perhaps

2008-09-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

Due to vacation season and lots of work I have almost abandoned the blog in the past months. Perhaps it is time to revive it? I'll try...

Reading `Trouble With Physics' the second time

2008-06-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

As indicated on the front cover - `Read this book. Twice' - I went through L:ee Smolin's Trouble with physics again. And I found a nugget I have missed previously. It concerns the positioning of Science as social enterprise, as a very special social enterprise. Ethics of the scientific community that Smolin describes are very close to my heart. But there's one point I tend to disagree.

Membership in the community of science is open to any human being. Considerations of status, age, gender, or any other personal characteristic may not play a role in the consideration of a scientist's evidence and arguments, and may not limit a member's access to the means of dissemination of evidence, argument and information. Entry to the community is, however, based on two criteria. The first is the mastery of at least one of the crafts of a scientific subfield to the point where you can independently produce work judged by other members to be of high quality. The second criterion is allegiance and continued adherence to the shared ethic.

Well, formally I fulfill the first criterion - PhD in theoretical physics (however ancient) may be considered a sufficient proof of mastery of the craft. But in my little crusade for revival of amateur science I think of those who have only touched the scientific method and life during their studies. If we are able to promote their adherence to the scientific ethic, even when they do not produce the work judged to be `high quality', but just to spread the understanding and the ethic, would be a great and much needed success for science.

Anyway, the second reading was as much pleasure as the first one.

Almost final draft of Country of Blindfolded

2008-05-25T02:08:00.000-07:00

The link for the In the Country of Blindfolded has been updated to an almost final draft of May 2008.

Fruitful reading!

Is there a place for Amateur Scientists?

2008-05-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

I pride myself on being a contemporary Amateur Scientist. Whether this pride is justified or not is not for me to decide, but I staunchly believe in the need for such backing of institutional Science. Recently my dedication was strengthened. The story below shows how and why...

The story begins with an essay competition I read about in New Scientist

Wellcome Trust and New Scientist essay competition

In partnership with 'New Scientist', the Wellcome Trust runs an annual competition inviting postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers in science, engineering and technology to tell the world about their work.

The competition is about encouraging researchers to communicate their science and to explore the possible implications of their work for society. The judges look for interesting, creative and fresh approaches, in a style that would appeal to readers of New Scientist. The competition is open to entries from PhD students who are registered at an internationally recognised university.

I decided that while the amount of actual research I do is rather minimal (a few arXiv preprints) I do have something to say - mostly tongue-in-cheek - with particular motivation coming from the effort to defy the last limitation of the participation. There was no age limit - but you have to be registered at a recognized university? So, in direct violation of the rules I submitted the following essay, arguing that Science can be done outside such institutions, more, that such activities should be encouraged...

Sociophysics from Home

Today’s science is a domain of universities, international research projects and formalised grant processes. Groups of specialists communicate in a language that is incomprehensible to anyone outside their circle. Even the rules of this competition reflect such view – the participants are limited to those affiliated with appropriate research institutions. Is it because science is `done' only there?

On the other hand the social reception of science is getting less and less favourable, the appeal of scientific curiosity is diminishing. Other `narratives’ are growing in popularity, some of them openly irrational and anti-scientific. The conventional response is to try to get more and more young people to universities. This is, of course, important, but not enough. Many of these students leave science for other occupations and never return to the scientific frame of mind. My own story describes such a return to science. What I call for is restoration of the status of AMATEUR SCIENTIST.

Of course, there are disciplines where the huge machinery and funding are simply necessary condition for success. But there are discoveries that may be made by amateurs, and other useful roles they may play.

My involvement with applications of physical methods in sociology (sociophysics) is an interesting example. Long after I left semiconductor research I have heard someone mention Bose-Einstein condensation in computer networks. This sounded so ridiculous that I decided to look it up, and step by step got enthralled by the topic. The existence of freely accessible databases and search engines allowed me to track some of the new developments. Even to my untrained eye some publications were just begging for corrections or extensions. So I dusted off my FORTRAN skills (and in some cases simply used spreadsheets) and wrote my own simulations. I went through some of the discipline topics: assortative matching, theory of cooperation, influence of leadership strategies on opinion formation. Thanks to arXiv site anyone can `publish’, so I did. The result was not overwhelming – a few people downloaded the papers, some commented on them, as far as I know they were not cited. I’d be the first to admit their limited value. But – and this is, I guess, the most important part of amateur research – I was able, as a participant, to change my outlook on the topic profoundly. For by doing something myself, I was able to see the difficulties and the simplifications, to recognize the processes, which is much more than just seeing the results.

One of the first questions was: does modelling of social phenomena using simplistic tools have any sense? Do we really gain understanding or is it just a fad, a convenient way to get grants and publications? Some papers were obviously trivial. But there were others that seemed to detect mechanisms underlying our real social behaviour, sometimes quite surprising. Somewhat later, I began to get referee requests from established journals. I try to do this task conscientiously, feeling that my lack of bonds imposed usually by one’s own career and the web of mutual obligations and cooperation allows quite a lot of candour in the analyses. And it just spurs my own interests. I feel that in this relationship between institutionalised and amateur science both sides win.

And this is the reason why I call for re-establishment of the honourable status of the amateur scientist. Obviously, it is not limited to sociophysics. Ecology and observational biology are classical examples from Victorian era. But there are many more, I am sure. The cost of promoting such activities for traditional scientific institutions is minimal, compared to the grand projects. Guidance in topic choice for prospective participants, coordination, help in access to publications. Occasional funding for conferences. Yet the outcome may be tremendous. Many of the people who now leave the universities, with reasonable education but no wish for a full time research career, could be brought back to the scientific way of seeing and understanding the world. Moreover, they would become science’s ambassadors, sometimes much better than `proper’ scientists, because amateurs are used to talk in comprehensible language. To get the `part time research’ back on the list of interesting and fashionable hobbies seems well worth the trouble.

Well, a few days after my submission has been posted I received a curt reply from the Wellcome Trust:

Hi Pawel,
Very sorry, but you are ineligible to enter the competition.

Now, I was not particularly surprised. And I fully agree with the right of the organisers to set out and enforce all the rules for the competition. Their money, their show, their right. But I was saddened. Because I do believe that every means to get greater public involvement in Science is beneficial - to both Science and Society. And the particular choice of rules reflects the division between the `certified', academic world of universities and the public, which, at best, is a target of communication, never a participant.

My initial thoughts were that the competition rules seem to embody the basic principle that
1. `Proper' Science is done only in established institutions. This is where ALL the scientists are.
And it seems that indeed they are confirmed.

While this is true for most of the scientific effort, there are clear examples of achievements coming from outside of the academic circles.
Moreover, by stressing the origin, instead of content of the work, we arrive at several consequences that are not necessarily positive:

2. We create an image that any `science' done without the official support of an established institution is, by definition, uninteresting or crank.
3. The general public gets estranged from the ivory tower, and drawn to `alternative explanations', sometimes with disastrous results in policy determination
4. Science itself loses a lot of possible active supporters through a lack of `retention policy', which could encourage the low-level involvement in scientific development.

My motivation for submitting the essay was directly connected with the main goal of the competition "As well as communicating their science, researchers are encouraged to explore the possible implications of their work for society." In a sense, I see my submission - with full recognition of breaking of the formal rules - as a practical experiment in sociology of science. As for the results...

I am more than ever convinced that increasing the public involvement with DOING science, on every level, is sensible and much needed. But I seem to be rather alone in my feelings...

Dark Energy STSI Symposium

2008-05-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

For someone like me - trying to follow what is interesting in Science - getting access to `live' events, to `science as it happens' is like finding a pirate treasure trove. Reading preprints, even reading blogs and comments does not give the same feeling as participation in meetings where key ideas are discussed.

As one of my recent points of interest is the string theory vs. other quantum gravity models controversy - on both physical and sociological level - I was more than thrilled by finding a complete recording of Space Telescope Science Institute May 2008 symposium on Decade of Dark Energy.

As it turns out STSI contains much more than this single treasure - a WEB page certainly worth bookmarking.

Science and Society

2008-05-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hunting down some references from a very, very interesting paper on discrepancy of justice and morality and diffrences between `liberal' and `conservative' outlooks, written by Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham, titled When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals may not Recognize I have found another quite interesting link.

This is a three-years old paper by Helga Novotny, freely accessible at Science, titled High- and Low-Cost Realities for Science and Society.

What I have found there was quite resonant with my own thinking. Simply consider a question:

Now that researchers are becoming more than 1% of the population, should their ways of interacting with society change?

Well, have there ever been `better times' that that for Science? I guess there were, despite the numerically weaker representation. Because the trust and respect for Science were higher in 19th century...

Declining trust in science and scientific experts has been clear in public controversies like genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis, as well as in the rejection of scientific evidence regarding vaccination safety in the UK. The Euro-barometer, conducted as an EU-wide survey, probes the state of mind of EU citizens and how they view science and technology. The most recent data are expected to be published in mid-May and, for the first time, will be commented on by a panel of experts. The 2001 survey revealed that two-thirds of the public do not feel well-informed about science and technology, and the number of people who believe in the capacity of science and technology to solve societal problems is declining. Trust in science in general seems to be on the decline in many national surveys, although scientists still come out way ahead of politicians or other public institutions.

There are currently clear examples of research on the frontiers of science clashing with human beliefs and values. From the United States, voices can be heard deploring the tendency of politicians to interfere with scientific agendas in teaching and in research and faith-based opposition to the teaching of evolution and some forms of frontier research, like stem cells continue to raise serious concern. Luckily, creationism/evolution is not an issue in Europe, largely due to the centralized education systems in most countries. However, an analogous situation exists for stem cell research, with some countries, like Germany and Italy, completely opposed. There will be a referendum in Italy shortly on stem cell research. The Catholic church urges the public not to vote, in the hope that the necessary 50% quota will not be reached, and the referendum will be defeated.

Although we may welcome greater public interest in science, if only to avoid another backlash in fields like nanotechnology as occurred with GMOs, we must also confront the thorny issue of how contemporary democracies will deal with minorities who, on faith-based or other, value-related grounds, refuse any compromise. There is no reason to believe that Europe will be immune to an ascendancy of groups who oppose otherwise promising lines of research on the basis of their value system. If the values dimension is here to stay, it is far from certain that the usual response of setting up ethical guidelines and committees will suffice, let alone that any of the efforts to "better communicate science" will have any effect.

Indeed. Science is not easily explainable, it is difficult and disturbing, it is contrary to intuitions we get as children (our naive physics, naive biology etc.).
But we need to try nevertheless. And try again. Adopt, adapt and improve. And try again.

P.S. I am sure I'll come back to the Haidt and Graham paper - the funny part is how well it explains Polish politics...

Reading continued - String theory

2008-05-10T23:08:00.001-07:00

As I delved deeper into Smolin's Trouble with physics, with its critique of the specific status of string theory (at the cost of other possible approaches to quantum gravity and ToE) I found a very recent paper on arXiv. This is "So what will you do if string theory is wrong?" by Moataz H. Emam. Written by an active proponent of the theory, it contains some very defensive statements. Is it a preparation for defeat?

Let's look at some quotes:

String theory occupies a special niche in the history of science. It is the only theory of physics with no experimental backing that has managed to not only survive, but also become “the only game in town” (to quote Sheldon Glashow). In addition, the theory has gained much popularity with the general public, spurred on by accessible online accounts and popular TV programs. Judging by amateur web sites and personal discussions, there seems to be a rising belief that it is a correct theory of nature. [...]

In fact, string theory has so far failed to conform to the deﬁnition of a scientific theory. In his classic work Karl Popper gives several criteria that a scientific theory must satisfy. These may be summarized as “the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability”. [...] So far string theory has failed to meet Popper’s criterion. It might be argued that this situation is temporary. Eventually technology will catch up with string theory and allow us to test its assumptions directly or someone will ﬁnd a way to test the theory using current technology. This hope is what keeps string theory on the list of scientific theories, saving it from the fate of astrology and creationism. The failure to satisfy Popper’s definition is however a serious drawback that string theory critics will, justly, continue to point out.
So why do people continue to work on string theory? There are several reasons. We often hear that the theory is aesthetically attractive and that it would be a shame if nature had not picked such an elegant structure to use as the basis of the universe. [...]

People like myself who are interested in some small segment of the string theory landscape that might not relate to the universe naturally are asked: “Why do you work on this theory? Shouldn’t you, as a physicist, be interested in what describes nature? Why waste your time on something
that you know a priori to be wrong?” Another closely related question is “What if someone proves that subatomic particles cannot possibly be made of strings? In that case not only is the particular theory you are working on wrong, the whole edifice has collapsed! What will you do then? Will you drop your research and switch to something else? Or will you stubbornly continue to work on the (now incorrect) string hypothesis? What will happen to all of your careers? And why take the
risk in the ﬁrst place?” These questions are reasonable and may be rephrased as “Are there any accomplishments of string theory that would survive such a total collapse?”

This is indeed, an important question. In fact, no critics of string theory deny its beauty and mathematical accomplishments. But the question rests on limited resources. With the decrease of funding for basic science, including physics we must ask ourselves a question is this the best avenue to follow. And, if because there are no physical references to guide us there is no option but to explore the whole landscape (as Emam suggests). But how can we hoe to explore bu a tiny part of the 10^500 Landscape? The analogy with a Persian rug that Emam uses is misleading: the ratio of the single thread to the whole rug, the image of `already woven patches' is wholly misleading: the real ratio of known/unknown is ... unimaginably low. And unless the research is given to some future quantum computers, I see no chance of exploring all the alternatives. On the other hand if we give the task to computers, would it still be human science?

The lack of experimental results to guide us through the vast string landscape leaves string theorists with no choice but to systematically explore all of it! These explorations, even within theories that we already know are not related to nature, have resulted in the discovery of deep and elegant mathematics. Mathematicians today work in parallel with string theorists to explore the frontiers that the latter have opened.

Studying the large number of theories in the landscape and how they are related to each other has provided deep insights into how a physical theory generally works. The string theory landscape may be likened to a vast range of samples collected and studied in detail for the purpose of understanding why theories of physics behave the way they do and perhaps guide us into answering
deep questions about such things as symmetry and its origins. So even if someone shows that the universe cannot be based on string theory, I suspect that people will continue to work on it. It might no longer be considered physics, nor will mathematicians consider it to be pure mathematics. I can imagine that string theory in that case may become its own new discipline; that is, a mathematical science that is devoted to the study of the structure of physical theory and the development of computational tools to be used in the real world. The theory would be studied by physicists and mathematicians who might no longer consider themselves either. They will continue to derive beautiful mathematical formulas and feed them to the mathematicians next door. They also might, every once in a while, point out interesting and important properties concerning the nature of a physical theory which might guide the physicists exploring the actual theory of everything over in the next building. Whether or not string theory describes nature, there is no doubt that we have stumbled upon an exceptionally huge and elegant structure which might be very difficult to abandon.

The difficulty of abandoning one's own brainchild is obvious. But is there enough scientific justification? Today, one may assume that there is some hope that string theory would not remain forever disconnected from real world and experimental physics. But how long can we (should we) wait? Another 30 years? Who can say?

Curious coincidence

2008-05-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

During a recent business trip I had to spend seven hours on the train. As my favourite task on such occasions is reading I have equipped myself accordingly.

On the way out I have read almost entire `Winning' by Jack Welch (the one of GE fame). It is a no-nonsense, clearly written book on good business practices, touching topics such as finding company values and mission; setting goals; finding, cultivating, motivating and firing employees; and managing crises. Most of the ideas are straightforward - the key lies in their execution, the capability to walk the talk. I could recognize, from my own experience, some of the good practices, as well as many of the bad examples. However, in describing the balancing act that company CEOs face everyday, between creativity and obedience, Welch argues (with the successes at his posts in GE giving the arguments much weight) that the importance of creativity is much higher - and the companies should be built with the tools that enable all employees their voice and dignity. In a chapter on hiring Welch describes the qualities necessary for any candidate: integrity, intelligence and maturity, but then moves to qualities that do make the difference: energy, capability to energize others, edge (defined as capacity to make decisions) and finally ability to execute, and lastly - passion.

On the way back, I have decided to switch to more scientific subject and begun to read Lee Smolin's `Trouble with physics'. As I did not have the mental capacity to dig into string theory controversies, I have started the book from the last section, dealing with Smolins remarks on status and future of Science. And, without much surprise, I have found all the signs of, what Welch would undoubtedly describe as very bad management, in Smolin's description. Of course, Smolin devoted most of his examples to US, but I was coming back from a meeting with ... a leading Polish University! And the problems look so similar... maybe even worse here, as there is less money, less opportunities, less capacity to choose.

Examples?
Discontinuity between the expressed values and mission of Science (we all know what it is, don't we?) and the practice. For example, hiring, advancement and funding principles, favouring the old and tried or just plain fashionable topics, and inhibiting research into new ideas. As the old joke has it: to write successful grant application use results you got last year as your goal. This way you can be sure of success... Jokes aside: such approach forces innovativeness out of established research. Which is wholly contrary to the Science ideals, isn't it?

Highly hierarchical structure that fosters politics and groupthink/conventional wisdom. Using yesterday's solutions to tomorrows problems is just as killing in business as it is in Science.

Egalitarian culture as opposed to differentiation: giving each team `a little piece of the cake' may keep bickering down, but would not lead to necessary concentration. Giving everyone `nice evaluations' might be considered nice and friendly, but does it breed dedication and passion? But there's another side: putting all the eggs in one basket (as has been done with the string theory) may result in missing some other opportunities. Business practice of the best companies, pitting internal teams against each other in the competitive environments - or just plain good old commercial competition - is the way that ensures the keenness of the cutting edge.

Last, but not least, demographics. My experience with business (IT to be specific) shows relatively quick career paths here. While not a dinosaur, I am now one of the older people in the current company. And young age - as Welch duly notes - does not inhibit maturity. On the other hand it does correlate with inquisitiveness and lack of `conventional wisdom'. Quite a few of these young people are successful entrepreneurs and managers. In Science - in US (according to Smolin) and in Poland (my observations) the average age of attaining self-sufficiency (permanent position, funds sufficient for research) is moving to greater and greater values. Whether this is a result of closed circle of established Professors defending their turf (as Smolin suggests, and I would tend to agree) remains to be proven - but then who would allow a grant for such a study to be approved?

All in all, my trip has resulted in rather pessimistic outlook on the today's capability of rejuvenating Science - which seems necessary to bring it back to the rightly earned place in Humanity decision making. It can not be, as it is, on the defensive against pop-culture, mass-disinformation or fundamentalist religions. But to move out of the ivory tower Science needs young, passionate entrepreneurs of its own, with all the qualities described by Welch: energy and capability to energize, edge and execution, and integrity ensuring strict adherence to the mission: discovering the truth about Nature.

Politics of Science

2008-04-27T00:38:00.000-07:00

For the last few weeks there's a discussion in Poland, spurred by plans of the Ministry of Higher Education to abandon the "habilitation" part of the career path. The reason for this move is to speed up the possibilities of scientific career for your researchers (an make them stay in Poland!).

Shortly after the plans were revealed, 44 prominent professors from humanist departments of various institutes and universities have published a very strong letter, defending the current model, with its long advancement path, with a message:
in humanist disciplines it is the experience, not the talent, that decides on matureness and value of the research. Maybe in physics or mathematics young bright people may discover something interesting, but in the Polish literature studies or in history or in theory of theater it is the knowledge and experience - the age of the scientists that carries the weight. needless to say, the average age of the authors of the letter is, well, `experienced'.

Now, there are three trains of thought that this letter has stirred in my head.

First, that there must be a very strong difference between the humanities and `hard sciences'. Physics, biology or geology deal with external reality. The measure of a theory or experiment is in its power to show new phenomena in Nature or to explain them. No matter how venerable you are - if your work disagrees with observations it is invalid. It is no wonder that in the `Science Wars' between the postmodernist humanities in the US and the `reality' sciences the favourite weapon of the lit-crit crowd is to postulate that Science is but one of many alternative `world narratives'. This downgrade of Science would allow the humanists to claim their level of freedom from being accurate is generally applicable.
In Poland the Science Wars seem to have taken the additional conflict of generations flavour. Old professors defending their posts by claiming the `deep differences' between, for example, physics and literary criticism - well they might be right after all.

Which brings me to the second train of thought: are these disciplines different in Poland? In several aspects the answer is - yes. For one thing, despite very, very low level of funding for science in Poland, the hard sciences note some successes on the international scale. From astronomy to zoology. On the other hand, the humanities seem to boil in their own sauce, as the saying is. International publications? Who needs them! Certainly very few of international readers... Additionally, as there is no measuring stick of Nature, the Professors judge the validity of research by relationship to their own work. And thus the advancement of a young scientist is based on his social skills and on fitting into the existing trends, structures and cliques. I ask the international reader: do you know of any significant development of huninities originating from Poland in the past 20 years?

Lastly, a word on my personal history: as I have left the official path of active, institutionalized research some fifteen years ago I have no interest in supporting this or that model. In fact, my own career has been positively influenced by my tutors. They have not only encouraged me but also actively helped in my first publications. Without putting their name on the papers - situation very unusual in the master-apprentice model of humanist disciplines, where usually the Master becomes a co-author as a norm, without the real work done (sometimes automatically on the first place). Both my masters thesis and PhD tutors (Jan Blinowski and Jacek Kossut) have followed the rule "these are your calculations so it is your paper". Significantly on the papers with mixed experimental/theoretical content I was usually one of the last authors, which bears witness to the primacy of experiment over theory, at least the kind of theory I was involved with.
So I can say that I was lucky, up to a point, in my career. The relative freedom of research I enjoyed, constrained by the needs to find topics interesting enough for the experimentalists is a value, that I recognize fully today.

And thus, whatever the actual means are I would always support processes that promote young, enthusiastic scientists. This is the only way that our societies can manage to overcome the problems ahead of us. And the role of older, more experienced scientists should be to nurture and grow the talented younger colleagues, not to defend their positions via abstract hierarchies, closed grant applications and politics. Unless their disciplines would devolve to the geriatric obscurantism.

What pride is spelled by the words of Humphry Davy (who had quite a lot of achievements under his belt), who said that his greatest discovery was the discovery of Michael Faraday. Would every professor from the 44 list have something like this to say...

Right and Wrong in Science.

2008-04-06T10:18:00.001-07:00

A very interesting and thought provoking paper has appeared at arXiv. Crime and punishment in scientific research by Mathieu Bouville attempts to show discrepancy between the current policies for scientific misconduct and the goals of promoting Science in its various aspects, including getting more knowledge about Reality.

Arguments against scientific misconduct one finds in the literature generally fail to support current policies on research fraud: they may not prove wrong what is typically considered research misconduct and they tend to make wrong things that are not usually seen as scientific fraud, in particular honest errors. I argue that society cannot set a rule enjoining scientists to be honest, so any such rule can only be internal to science. Therefore society cannot legitimately enforce it. Moreover, until an argument is provided to prove that lack of honesty is far worse than lack of technical competence, intentional deceit should not be punished much more harshly than technical errors

While the paper is short and for me just an intro to the subject, it is interesting and opened my eyes to the mismatch between the human side of doing Science and its general aims.

CERN's LHC to be stopped by Hawaiian court?

2008-04-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I have found that two men have sued CERN (at a court in Hawaii!) and asked the court to stop the building and operations of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva.
They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.
If you think that this is April Fools day - think again. It's deadly serious.
Especially when one looks at the `achievements' of one of the plaintiffs.

The way that the world turns away from Science, away from its ethics and the special position with respect to Reality that Science has is indeed frightening. I can only hope that the court would follow the previous decisions (as was the case of the heavy Ion Collider). But ... there is little chance of the judge giving a verdict of thoroughness of the Dover district intelligent design trial. Simply because we do not know, what to expect from the LHC. That's the purpose behind it!

Of course, the danger of being swallowed by a Black Hole or some other `strangelet' in very small. Yet - can we say it doesn't exist? But by that token, every action, from the first step our ancestors have taken, going down the trees, is dangerous. And if, indeed the scientists have to prove that what they would so would be absolutely safe, then I would ask the plaintiffs to prove, on similar absoluteness, that what they do in everyday actions (such as going to the toilet) is just as absolutely safe and Black Hole or `malignant fractal' free...

Global Warming and Social Warming

2008-03-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite authors of sociophysics papers, Serge Galam, has published an interesting short analysis of social phenomena associated with the frenzy of words and resolutions (hardly a frenzy of real activities) that is called `response to the Global Warming threat'.

The paper, found on arXiv, Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation argues that the emotional side of the situation has led all research on the warming and conclusions of such research away from the scientific princliples.

Let me quote the abstract and conclusions of this paper:

The claimed unanimity of the scientific community about the human culpability for global warming is questioned. Up today there exists no scientific proof of human culpability. It is not the number of authors of a paper, which validates its scientific content. The use of probability to assert the degree of certainty with respect the global warming problem is shown to be misleading. The debate about global warming has taken on emotional tones driven by passion and irrationality while it should be a scientific debate. The degree of hostility used to mull any dissonance voice demonstrates that the current debate has acquired a quasi-religious nature. Scientists are behaving as priests in their will "to save the planet". We are facing a dangerous social phenomenon, which must be addressed from the social point of view. The current unanimity of citizens, scientists, journalists, intellectuals and politicians is intrinsically worrying. The calls to sacrifice our way of life to calm down the upset nature is an emotional ancestral reminiscence of archaic fears, which should be analyzed as such.

To sum up above analysis of the social and human aspects of global warming, most caution should be taken to prevent opportunistic politicians, more and
more numerous, to subscribe to the proposed temptation of a sacrifice frame in order to reinforce their power by canalizing these archaic fears that are reemerging. Let us keep in mind that in a paroxysm crisis of fear, opinions can be activated very quickly among millions of mobilized citizens, ready to act in the same direction, against the same enemy: it then enough to designate it.

Read it, even if you fear the global warming.

New Scientist and dark energy without dark energy

2008-03-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I have decided to subscribe to New Scientist. My reactions are, on the average, rather mixed. Half o f the printed pages are taken by job postings for UK (which are rather uninteresting for me. And the general tabloid style, which I have already ridiculed here is a bit too tabloid.

But there is a positive side of the `hunt for the NEWS' approach, which, in summary more than compensated the shortcomings. It is exactly the tabloid style hunt for the man bites dog sensational news that allows to find scientific research that is off the beaten path.

The reason for this mention is the reference to works of David Wiltshire, especially his efforts to build alternative to the cosmology model. Ever since the discovery of the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, I have felt that the acceptance of the Dark Energy/Dark Matter Universe, despite the 120 orders of magnitude discrepancy with the basic quantum `explanation', was a bit too fast.
My own experiences with solid state physics are that if anyone proposes an explanation that is off the data by, a single order of magnitude, it is `suspect', two orders make it useless. But hundred and twenty orders of magnitude? Yet the astrophysics community has accepted the 70%/25%/5% explanation so easily, without real understanding about what these 95% of the Universe are made of. Carroll's Preposterous Universe offers a good label for this quick understanding.

For these reasons I am grateful to the New Scientist for pointing out the work of Wiltshire. His papers, on Dark Energy without Dark Energy and Cosmic clocks, cosmic variance and cosmic averages, available on the WEB, are rather difficult in their mathematical part, but they are also very pedagogical.
In the words of the author:

An overview is presented of a recently proposed "radically conservative" solution to the problem of dark energy in cosmology. The proposal yields a model universe which appears to be quantitatively viable, in terms of its fit to supernovae luminosity distances, the angular scale of the sound horizon in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy spectrum, and the baryon acoustic oscillation scale. It may simultaneously resolve key anomalies relating to primordial lithium abundances, CMB ellipticity, the expansion age of the universe and the Hubble bubble feature. The model uses only general relativity, and matter obeying the strong energy condition, but revisits operational issues in interpreting average measurements in our presently inhomogeneous universe, from first principles. The present overview examines both the foundational issues concerning the definition of gravitational energy in a dynamically expanding space, the quantitative predictions of the new model and its best-fit cosmological parameters, and the prospects for an era of new observational tests in cosmology.

While the calculations are rather intricate (too intricate for this amateur), the background physics and assumptions used are physical common sense and with much closer links to reality (such as observations of inhomogeneity of the Universe) that the Dark Energy models.

Why is then Wiltshire's work not the hot topic of astrophysics conferences?

Cultural Natural Selection

2008-03-02T02:20:00.000-08:00

An interesting paper by Rogers and Ehrlich, titled Natural selection and cultural rates of change, published in a recent edition of PNAS, has brought my attention to the issue if some principles of the Darwinian evolutionary theory might be applicable to cultural transmission. The findings document the intuitive reasoning that it should be so.

It has been claimed that a meaningful theory of cultural evolution
is not possible because human beliefs and behaviors do not follow
predictable patterns. However, theoretical models of cultural
transmission and observations of the development of societies
suggest that patterns in cultural evolution do occur. Here, we
analyze whether two sets of related cultural traits, one tested
against the environment and the other not, evolve at different
rates in the same populations. Using functional and symbolic
design features for Polynesian canoes, we show that natural
selection apparently slows the evolution of functional structures,
whereas symbolic designs differentiate more rapidly. This finding
indicates that cultural change, like genetic evolution, can follow
theoretically derived patterns.

Of course the mechanisms of change are different: in place of biological mutations we have innovation and cultural drift. But the stabilizing (or destabilizing) effects of selection on those traits that have strong link with reality which may influence the survivability of individuals and societies (canoe design, but also obviously, building design, food preparation etc.) are the same in mechanisms in biology and cultural change. The difference between the observed rates of change in functional and decorative design elements of canoes provide not only beautiful observational example of such differentiating process in action, but also are reminiscent of the `Spandrels of San Marco' discussion. Is it possible that a functional (i.e. selective) element in canoe design could come from a decorative change?
What was the origin of the high bows of the Viking boats? Was it technical/functional when conceived? I guess that yes, but perhaps there is more to the story?

In any case, this is a short but quite interesting paper.

Crowd Behaviour, continued

2008-03-02T02:07:00.000-08:00

Following the topic of the previous post: fortunately, the search through references has been possible, and thus I have been lucky enough to read four of the key papers related to the field under discussion.

It seems that indeed, animals and humans alike may be led by relatively small groups of informed individuals, and that in most cases such non-democratic methods do have an advantage (for example in choosing when/where to feed, or in choice of the new location for a bee swarm). Whether the selective advantages of such a method of being led by small `informed' minority are applicable to human societies is an interesting question, both from scientific and from political point of view.

The paper mentioned in the previous post, Consensus decision making in human crowds, by Dyer at. al. depicts a very interesting experiment, where conditions reduce humans to `animal' status, by careful choice of setting where verbal and sign communications are prohibited. Despite the limitations, strong correlations were observed.

For those interested in following the trail deeper, I suggest the following papers:

Evolutionary Origins of Leadership and Followership, by Van Vugt

Consensus decision making in animals, by Conradt and Roper
Group decision-making in animals by Conradt and Roper

and

Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move by Couzin et. al.

Crowd behaviour

2008-02-22T22:59:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I have dabbled in simplistic modelling of decision making in networked societies. While large scale decisions, in weakly connected environments, such as political choices in country sized society, where most of the participants can interact only indirectly, via many links or via general communication tools, such as media, are rather difficult to study and observe `in real life', it seems that the research on crowd behaviour is much easier.

A recent publication by a group od researchers at the University of Leeds that humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of individuals. It takes a minority of just five per cent to influence a crowd’s direction – and that the other 95 per cent follow without realizing it.

Comparing this to animal behaviour might be really interesting. But also the nature of the links in the crowd, where interactions span almost the whole group - but are of necessity very shallow in information transfer (we observe only very superficial and incomplete indcators of others decision reasoning, process and results) is quite interesting.

We are the champions - national pride in Science

2008-02-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

Recent discovery of a stellar system that contains two planets that closely resemble Jupiter and Saturn, and thus offer great similarity to our own solar system has resulted in quite curious `national' observation.

Most of the Polish newspapers and TVs have reported this under the titles of "Polish scientist discover a Solar-like star system". One TV news programme has even suggested that the Polish team should get Nobel Prize for the discovery. (To be fair, they have asked a researcher from Oxford and he clearly replied NO).

On the other hand most of the US news agencies and papers have not reported ANY Polish involvement. For example in the Reuters newsfeed we find

Scientists and amateurs find new solar system

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers and amateur stargazers have used an unusual technique to find a solar system that closely resembles our own and say it may be a new and more productive way to scour the universe for planets -- and life.

They said technique, called microlensing, shows promise for finding many more stars, perhaps with Earthlike planets orbiting them.

"We found a solar system that looks like a scaled-down analog of our solar system," Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University, who led the study, told reporters.

The new solar system, described in Friday's issue of the journal Science, has two planets of similar size and orbit to Jupiter and Saturn. It is the first time microlensing has been used to find two planets orbiting a single star.

Let's have a look at the original paper, published in Science. The author list is quite impressive - and one can find both Scott Gaudi and many Polish astronomers there, as well as many others.

B. S. Gaudi, D. P. Bennett, A. Udalski, A. Gould, G. W. Christie, D. Maoz, S. Dong, J. McCormick, M. K. Szymanski, P. J. Tristram, S. Nikolaev, B. Paczynski, M. Kubiak, G. Pietrzynski, I. Soszynski, O. Szewczyk, K. Ulaczyk, L. Wyrzykowski, The OGLE Collaboration, D. L. DePoy, C. Han, S. Kaspi, C.-U. Lee, F. Mallia, T. Natusch, R. W. Pogge, B.-G. Park, The µFUN Collaboration, F. Abe, I. A. Bond, C. S. Botzler, A. Fukui, J. B. Hearnshaw, Y. Itow, K. Kamiya, A. V. Korpela, P. M. Kilmartin, W. Lin, K. Masuda, Y. Matsubara, M. Motomura, Y. Muraki, S. Nakamura, T. Okumura, K. Ohnishi, N. J. Rattenbury, T. Sako, To. Saito, S. Sato, L. Skuljan, D. J. Sullivan, T. Sumi, W. L. Sweatman, P. C. M. Yock, The MOA Collaboration, M. D. Albrow, A. Allan, J.-P. Beaulieu, M. J. Burgdorf, K. H. Cook, C. Coutures, M. Dominik, S. Dieters, P. Fouqué, J. Greenhill, K. Horne, I. Steele, Y. Tsapras, From the PLANET and RoboNet Collaborations, B. Chaboyer, A. Crocker, S. Frank, and B. Macintosh

Now, the question is: is it acceptable that the reporters would pick the nationalistic elements in the story and openly wave the flags of discoverers? In the light of the truly multinational cooperation that has led to the discovery it seems a bit parochial. This is the humanity effort to discover, possibly, other beings in the Universe!

But on second reflection I thought of the positive, role model building side of such national pride attitude. Yes, the Americans have the right to claim success. So have the Poles. And so have the New Zealanders, Koreans and many others, judging by the affiliations of the team members. Science should use any available vehicle to promote rational thinking and scientific attitudes, and the model offered by sports reporters is a good one. We are the champions! Everytime we discover anything!

And for me the most uplifting part of the news is that indeed, some members of the team were genuine AMATEUR SCIENTISTS. This is the flag I would choose to be counted under.

Evolution wars - again

2008-02-19T19:32:00.000-08:00

Recently, Florida Department od Education has become a new battl;efront in the war waged by religious groups against Science. The Clay County School Board has voted for the following resolution:

RESOLUTION

Whereas, the Florida Department of Education has drafted and is now proposing new Sunshine State Standards for Science, the Clay County School Board opposes the implementation of the new standards as currently presented.

Whereas, the new Sunshine State Standards for Science no longer present evolution as theory but as “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported in multiple forms of scientific evidence,” we are requesting that the State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of Education to revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is not presented as fact.

Whereas, the Clay County School Board recognizes the importance of providing a thorough and comprehensive Science education to all the students in Clay County and to all students in the State of Florida, it recognizes as even more important the need to present these standards through a fair and balanced approach.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the School Board of Clay County, Florida, that the Board urges the State Board of Education to direct the Florida Department of Education to revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science such that evolution is not presented as fact.

Approved by the School Board of Clay County on the 17th day of January, 2008.

Similar resolution has been passed by Taylor County, differing only by adding a significant phrases extending the meaning of the resolutions beyond mere `biological evolution':

Whereas, the Florida Department of Education has drafted and is now proposing new Sunshine State Standards for Science, the Taylor County School Board opposes the implementation of the new standards as currently presented.

Whereas, the new Sunshine State Standards for Science no longer present evolution as theory but as “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported in multiple forms of scientific evidence,” we are requesting that the State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of Education to revise/edit the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed.

Whereas, the Taylor County School Board recognizes the importance of providing a thorough and comprehensive Science education to all the students in Taylor County and to all students in the state of Florida, it recognizes as even more important the need to present these standards through a fair and balanced approach, an approach that does not unfairly exclude other theories as to the creation of the universe.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Taylor County School Board of Taylor County, Perry, Florida, that the Board urges the State Board of Education to direct the Florida Department of Education to revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science such that evolution is not presented as fact, but as one of several theories.

Now, aside from rather obvious fact that the School Boards in question do not understand what they are voting about, for example what is a scientific theory and fact, or that evolution has very little to do with origin of the Universe the recent movements seem quite important.

Some of the comments following these resolutions were that Florida will become laughingstock of the US and the world. I believe otherwise. Florida is on the forefront of the battle against secular, rational thinking and will be eventually applauded for its dedication to fight unwanted thinking. I am not joking. The general resurgence of fundamentalist religions everywhere is a phenomenon that has to be taken into account. Just check what is the stance of the UC presidential candidates. Does ANY SINGLE ONE OF THEM clearly and openly support evolution and scientific viewpoint? Can anyone send me a pointer to such statements? Is it that they are afraid of stating it, or that they really do not believe evolution?

The rational efforts of scientists are falling on purposely deaf ears. Our societies want to be blindfolded. And it seems that probably the only way to fight the religious war against rational thinking is to adapt the same measures.

I would vote for the resolutions taken in Florida. And I urge that the doctrines of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster should be taken equally seriously as Christian Intelligent Design proposals and incorporated into school curricula as one of the `several theories explaining the origin of the Universe'. An almost ready to send letter to this effect is available on the WEB page of the Church:

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith. [...]

Scientists seem to have to adapt the same discipline and devotion that the religious movements have to protect the sacred grounds of Science against the infidels. To Arms!

No excuse for ignorance

2008-02-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

One of the major topics of the Country of Blindfolded is my horror of humanity as ignorant mass of people, taking decisions blindly. Not because we can not see, but because we do blindfold ourselves. Especially when it comes to rationality. Especially when it comes to basic scientific literacy.

For this reason I was thrilled when I have read the commentary by Anthony C. Grayling in the Feb 9th issue of New Scientists, titled `There's no excuse for ignorance'. This was as if I read the thoughts that are constantly in my mind (written in better English). Here are some excerpts that point to the major issues (I am sorely tempted to quote in extenso, as the text is fully worth of it and accessible only by subscription, but my legalistic mind prevails):

Keeping abreast of what is happening in science and technology should be a matter of course for thoughtful people, no matter what their educational background or occupation. [...] Of course, active engagement in any branch of science requires expertise, but an intelligent appreciation of reports about the outcomes, significance and possible applications of research does not. [...]

A third and equally important part [of scientific literacy] is being able to take an informed and hence responsible stance on issues that vex society, a stance that might, say, influence how one votes.

[But the] biggest boon that scientific literacy can confer: the development of rational attitudes.

By this I mean the kind of healthy scepticism that asks for good evidence and good argument, that applies critical scrutiny to propositions or claims, that suspends judgement while the evidence is pending, and accepts what the evidence says once it has arrived, independently of prior wishes or partisan beliefs.

Amen.

Strings, LQG and all that

2008-01-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

During a week long business trip I have finished reading a book by Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong, about the failure of the String Theory. I have then augmented it by several articles by Carlo Rovelli (especially Notes for a brief history of quantum gravity, and A dialog on quantum gravity, Int. J. Mod. Phys., 2003, D12, 1509-1528). Just to preserve the balance I leafed through Brian Greene books and Leonard Susskind Cosmic Landscape.

Results? Of course I do not understand String Theory not Loop Quantum Gravity. But as for human side, it is quite interesting.

The situation seems more than lightly skewed. While Woit and Rovelli discuss at length the pros and cons of string theory and its alternatives, the proponents of string theory behave somewhat differently. For example, Susskind devotes a single paragraph (about six lines of text) to Loop Quantum Gravity,
stating that it `is an interesting proposal, but it is not nearly as well developed as String Theory'. He continues:

As much as I would very much like to balance things by explaining the opposing side, I simply can't find that other side.

Very similar stance is taken by Greene in The Elegant Universe. He devotes about four pages to `criticisms of String Theory', which he starts as follows:

Is string theory right? We don't know. If you share the belief that the laws of physics should not be fragmented into those that govern the large and those that govern the small, and if you believe that we should not rest until we have a theory whose range of applicability is limitless, string theory is the only game in town.
You might well argue, though, that this highlights only physicists' lack of imagination rather than some fundamental uniqueness of string theory. Perhaps. You might further argue that, like the man searching for his lost keys under a street light, physicists are huddled around string theory merely because vagaries of scientific history have shed one random ray of light in this direction.

But, as Greene argues, these arguments are less and less important as the theory climbs up the mountain of understanding. The fact that it does not have any connection with experiment and reality is, for Greene, but a temporary matter, a `historical asynchrony'. What he hopes is that soon experiment would be able to confirm the results. The book has been written before the number of solutions of String Theory grew so much that any solution became possible, somewhere within the immense landscape which made the falsification near impossible. But the departure from the classical ideal of falsifiability by experiment is not critical for many proponents. The beauty of String Theory with its self-consistent finite number of dimensions, slightly spoiled that the number is wrong, not four but ten or eleven, and deep mathematical relationships is for many enough to continue the work. Both books by Greene and Susskind (as well as the one by Woit) are of the popular science genre. Thus, they may be considered as examples of what the scientists want to communicate to the lay public. And in the proponents of the String Theory it is clearly the excitement of research but also a lot of Public Relations. Look, we are climbing the mountain! We're just below the summit! The critics voices, more sombre, point out the less optimistic perspective. Is this good PR? Should we, scientists, show the public that we might be spending their money without getting results? Should we admit that some efforts (and funds) are wasted on wrong theories and failed experiments? If one looks through most of the books on history of science we usually see an uninterrupted march of progress, leaping, from tree to tree, like the Monthy Pythons lumberjack. Yes, there are some pet `wrong theories', like the phlogiston, or Ptolemaic system to show that progress is sometimes at expense of old ideas. But finding the day-to-day struggle with failed concepts, with ideas that caught fire for a couple of years only to be forgotten after a decade, is much more difficult. And for anyone who does dig deeply enough into the history of science, it is soon clear that this waste of funds and effort is an indispensable part of the success of science. Discovery can be achieved only by going into unknown. And this, by definition, means traveling without paths, often in a wrong direction.

The String Theory controversy, even taking into account its relatively low profile and the disproportions in the numbers of critics and supporters, is one of the crucial disputes in modern science. First, because it touches issues of group behaviour, career development, freedom of research. The question is: how can we expect to boost creativity if all the money (from limited and shrinking funds) is directed into one approach? What is the result of all the young, enthusiastic physicists flocking into one path?

The second issue is the role of Public Relations in science. In which way should the work be portrayed, is is allowed to publicize the controversies and questions? At first glance the situation in String Theory looks like a perfect case study for the radical `science studies' proponents, the deconstructivists and others. There is a lot of political agenda visible, a lot of social and psychological motives. But then the question becomes: can we separate the human and political aspects from the scientific content of the debate? Ultimately, some of the equations, some of the experiments would show who was right and who was not. This is at least what most of the physicists on both sides of the dispute hope for. How, then, could a sociologist decide who is right today, without understanding the physical problems? I am quite sure that most of the hard words expressed by the participants of the debate result not from some character flaws or political agendas but from deep convictions about the nature of the Universe. Yet, on the other hand, the social phenomena, such as tenure track selection or funding decisions are real.

The third issue is more physical: can we expect that any of the theories would touch with any experiments or observations in a foreseeable future? It seems that a small (but very fundamental) part of physics has turned into speculative metaphysics, where theories are laced so far ahead of experiment, that decisive factors are mathematical beauty or popularity. Some people might think that these are sufficient motivations for support. Some disagree.
But whatever our human inclinations are, the real verdict is still out --- there is no Quantum Gravity today.

A scan(ny) for your thoughts, my dear

2008-01-13T01:32:00.000-08:00

I got interested in a recent news reported by Science Daily. Apparently a group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has been able to

identify where people's thoughts and perceptions of familiar objects originate in the brain by identifying the patterns of brain activity associated with the objects.

A dozen study participants enveloped in an MRI scanner were shown line drawings of 10 different objects -- five tools and five dwellings --one at a time and asked to think about their properties. Just and Mitchell's method was able to accurately determine which of the 10 drawings a participant was viewing based on their characteristic whole-brain neural activation patterns. To make the task more challenging for themselves, the researchers excluded information in the brain's visual cortex, where raw visual information is available, and focused more on the "thinking" parts of the brain.

.

I'll need to have a deeper look at the original work, because the news reporting is, perhaps, a bit on the hype side, but nevertheless, this sounds like Science Fiction, doesn't it?

Judging by appearances - String Theory

2008-01-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION
In the recent issue of the New Scientist (january 5th, 2008) I have found an article on an new development in string theory, String theory may predict our universe after all, by Anil Ananthaswamy. The news is that instead of the `traditional' string theory landscape of Universes, with maybe 10^500 possible universes, differentiated by 10 dimensional manifolds, there may be a way to arrive at our Universe, via some kind of path through the landscape. An evolution through the landscape if you will.
The idea is quite interesting, it offers a new way of explaining our own Universe, other than anthropic principle of pure luck. So I read the article, and also adhered to my usual advice: I followed the sources, in this case a paper by Philip Candelas, Xenia de la Ossa, Yang-Hui He, Balazs Szendroi, titled Triadophilia: A Special Corner in the Landscape. I looked at both and come out with quite a lot of observations.

However, before I present them, a word of warning: I do not have any special knowledge of string theory beyond the popular books and papers. I would not recognize a string-theoretic equation. I have met most of the terms used in the discussion below for the first time. I am a perfect amateur here.
But - does it make me totally unqualified to judge the matter by appearances? I let you decide...

--------------------

My problems started with the following paragraph in the New Scientist article, describing what Candelas and coworkers did:

The group placed all of the known Calabi-Yau manifolds on a diagram, plotting their topological complexity - for instance, how twisted and contorted the manifold is - against their "Euler number", which mathematicians use to dictate how the extra dimensions can be compacted.

The plot turned out to have the shape of a cone (see Diagram).

When I turned to the original paper I found a diagram that was similar, yet significantly different.

It is not the question of colour. It is, for example, how the axes are labelled. In case of New Scientist the vertical axis is a mysterious `complexity of manifolds'. In the original paper it is also rather mysterious quantity h^11+h^21. But knowing this makes the mysterious cone shape very simple of origin: The oblique axes bound the region where h^11 and h^21 are greater than zero.

The next problem is the visual suggestion that all interesting things happen at the bottom triangle, strengthened by the arrow in NS picture. Well, this is what the authors argue, that's true. But we should be really cautious to let us be guided away from the top of the triangle. The facts that points representing manifolds are getting sparser as one moves up is not a property of string theory (I think) but rather reflects our limited knowledge of the manifolds. as Candelas et al. write, the diagram represents only manifolds from Kreuzer-Skarke list. There are no informations on all the 10^500 (?) manifolds allowed by String Theory.

The question becomes: can such editing of the original research, undoubtedly aimed at improving understanding and making `the story' more colourful, be considered fair? Does the triangular shape comes from simple mathematical condition and not from profound discovery? Or am I oversensitive, and all journalist media, including blogs (such as mine) have to exaggerate...

Global warming again

2008-01-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

recent days in Poland were rather cold (-10C) with wind chilling us to the bone. In such a weather it is quite strange to think about global warming, but still...

I have found recently the following paper:
Douglass, D. H.; Christy, J. R.; Pearsona, B. D. & Singer, S. F.
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions International Journal of Climatology, 2007.

The article compares several General Circulation Models (GCMs) with observations. And, not surprisingly for a topic of my blog, it finds some discrepancies.

In the summary of the article, the authors state

We have tested the proposition that greenhouse model
simulations and trend observations can be reconciled. Our
conclusion is that the present evidence, with the application
of a robust statistical test, supports rejection of this
proposition. [...] On the whole, the evidence indicates that
model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent
with observations that indicate that, since 1979, there
is no significant long-term amplification factor relative to
the surface. If these results continue to be supported, then
future projections of temperature change, as depicted in
the present suite of climate models, are likely too high.

Now I do not have the time nor the knowledge to follow my usual advice and to go for the sources. But the paper, with its controversial claims, has been published in a peer-reviewed journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. Presumably these people know what they write about. Or can anyone tell me that they are wrong?

The World Climate Report blog
discusses the paper and and the opening comments are quite important. I think anyone who wants to discuss the Global Warming should remember that the scientific research on the matter is far from over, and that giving politically motivated Nobel Prizes does not settle the discrepancies between observations and predictions.

Over and over, we hear that the global warming debate is over, the science is settled, and it is time to move past the science and turn the focus onto the policy side of the issue. Anyone who suggests that the science is not settled and the debate is still alive is immediately accused of being heavily funded by industry and discredited by the mainstream scientific community. Who could forget the August 13, 2007 Newsweek issue with its cover suggesting “naysayers” are well-funded by industry and apparently unaware that the Earth is becoming the red planet.

Anyone who reads World Climate Report regularly is aware that the debate is very much alive and well in the major scientific journals related to global warming. We find numerous articles each year presenting results that are clearly at odds with the popular predictions and claims of the global warming advocates.

By the way, I am not funded by the industry in writing this blog. Anyone willing to change that?

Evolution wars continue

2008-01-06T00:04:00.000-08:00

Recent publication of a booklet promoting evolutionary biology by the National Academy of Sciences in US, downloadable from here, has led me to a response from the chief institution promoting the so called `Intelligent Design' theories, the Discovery Institute (found here).

Dear Educator:
This briefing packet was developed in order to provide you with
clear and accurate information about the scientific theory of
intelligent design: what it is, how it originated, and how it differs
from Neo-Darwinism. [...]

This presentation which is aimed at US educators who would wish to teach ID contains nothing new (at least for me) in terms of science. But it does contain a very interesting assertions regarding education:

Discovery Institute opposed the Dover policy from
the start and urged the Dover school board to repeal
it. [...]

As a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes
any effort to mandate or require the teaching the theory
of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of
education.

Why? Because:

Attempts to mandate
teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory
and will hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the
theory among scholars and within the scientific community.

Now, this is very politically correct language. In fact the presentation reeks with pro-science wording, long reference links list, all four peer-reviewed papers to support ID, and all in all it is as academic and pro-educational as one can imagine. Discovery Institute advocates teaching evolution. (Stressing, of course, the shortcomings of it).

Fine with me. If the children are really taught evolution properly, whether in the US or in Poland, with enough detail to understand the nature of the `weaknesses' singled out by the ID proponents, I would be happy. I have already written in the "CoB" that I would be happy with the children going thoroughly through the challenged curriculum of the Dover district. The problem is, that the criticism can not be addressed without detailed knowledge of other disciplines than biology. For example detailed understanding of geology (to understand the fossil record). Or understanding the basics of information theory, to understand the cornerstone of ID: the irreducibly complex information (ICI).

Try as I did I could not understand the ICI concept myself. And I went through quite a lot of available sources. It sounded like a repeated incantation to me. So, maybe there is someone who can explain it to me?

Life on Mars

2007-12-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

Just a short comment: should we find life on Mars it would be far stranger than anything we envisage now.

And I do not mean monsters with tentacles (that's very normal), nor the fact that this life may be based on silicon not carbon (very unlikely, but still just chemistry).
The life would be `self restrained'. And that would be really strange. Of course the most probable solution is that there is NO life on Mars. Then again there is nothing strange.

Where does this prediction come from? Well, consider Earth. What is the probability that a spaceship would land on Earth and fail to discover life? pretty much close to zero. Earth life has infiltrated every niche, from abysses of the oceans to the volcanic pits. Deserts of Sahara are full of life.
Earth life even managed to invade meteorites coming down from space.

With the signs of life-friendly (at least at some time) environments on Mars, if we assume that life there would be similar in principle to ours, it is strange that the planet would not be just as inhabited as Earth is. Of course this might be just some micro(nano)organisms or some other forms, but why are they not everywhere? The `principle' I have in mind is replication, because this is the motor force for the ultimate conquest of Earth by living organisms.

So, if there is life on Mars and if it has not conquered the whole planet, then it must be very strange: refraining from the `go forth and multiply' rule.

Roots of quantum mechanics

2007-12-12T21:10:00.001-08:00

Last month has been a particularly busy time for me. Not only the job was taking most of my time, but, in what was left, I was trying to finish the Quantum Mechanics chapter of the book.

It has grown well out of proportion, because QM is not only really weird, it is also full of interesting human stories. Here I just signal a very very interesting book for all of those who are interested in the origin of the quantum debates: the Solvay Conference in 1927.

Bacciagaluppi, G. & Valentini, A. Quantum Theory at the Crossroads: Reconsidering the 1927 Solvay Conference , Cambridge University Press, 2007. The book is available on the arXiv repository. Very interesting reading!

Global warming for the politically uncorrect.

2007-11-23T22:33:00.001-08:00

The discussion about global warming has become more and more heated with this year's Nobel Prize going to IPCC (for scientific achievements) and to Al Gore (for marketing). But even decided supporters of `action now' are getting pissed with the overwhelming propaganda, depicting England as a small scattered archipelago after a 60 METER (instead of centimeters) increases in sea level in our lifetimes and other comparable idiocies.

Yes, I know that the IPCC reports are difficult to read in their entirety. But they are at least worth leafing through. Estimates, analyses and predictions are much more sober. Go to the source, whenever you can. Journalists and commentators (including myself) are not reliable sources.

But there is one thing that I found missing in the IPCC report. The clear indication of the cause of the human induced component to the global warming. Yes, I do believe that there is such a component. I also believe that there are huge natural forces components. And in the past these have been much stronger than what we predict for the next 100 years. During the recent glaciation (only 25-20 thousand years ago) the sea level was 80 meters lower!

What I found missing is a very simple comparison, between the factors considered to measure the global warming (such as the concentration of CO2) and ... human population. The correlation is clearly visible.

(greenhouse gases, 18 000BC to present day, from IPCC WEB site)

(human population, 10 000 BC to present day, WIKIPEDIA)

But what is my point? That out of political correctness the IPCC report does not make a simple statement (at least I did not find it): human induced global warming factors are directly resulting from the explosive growth of human population. Not something that we do wrong, in trying to live thin the best conditions that we can, driving cars and using electricity, and eating and heating our houses. Simply by being too numerous. The difference between the per capita emission of CO2 in US and in India is a factor of 10. This is huge, I admit. But the growth of the population in the last 10 000 years was by a factor of 1000 - three orders of magnitude. Moreover, the overpopulation resulted in humans filling every continent, every niche, every environment, and turning them to our own purposes. I am deeply worried that by omitting this simple correlation, by concentrating on cars, and devices left on standby as ways to reduce our `carbon footprint' we are only fooling ourselves. It would but allow the population to grow more. There are simply too many humans.

I am reminded of the little speech of Agent Smith in the Matrix (should he get a Nobel Prize too?):

I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.

Update of the Country of Blindfolded

2007-11-11T02:26:00.000-08:00

I have posted a new version of the book for download. All comments more than welcome. it is closer to the finish line, but still a lot of work to do.

Political uncorrectness revisited

2007-11-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

In a recent New Scientist issue, Robert I Sternberg, the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychology at Tufts University defends the attacks on James Watson. The opening statement of his comment is

RECEIVING the Nobel prize does not necessarily stop great scientists making foolish statements. William Shockley won a Nobel for his work on transistors, but nevertheless managed to spend the latter years of his career making racist comments and even writing about the mental inferiority of black Africans.
Last week, James Watson, co-recipient of a Nobel prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, made blatantly racist comments regarding the supposed mental inferiority of black Africans. The response has been swift. His comments were widely condemned and he was suspended from his post at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Unlike Shockley, Watson later apologised for his remarks.
But what of the research in this area? Does the condemnation of Watson's words stem from solid science or from political correctness?

The goal of the comment is, I guess, not just another attack on Watson. It is to show that

The problems with our understanding of intelligence and race show that the criticism being levelled at Watson is based on science rather than political correctness.

The two arguments used are our problems with race as a socially constructed concept, not a biological one. It derives from people's desire to classify. The second argument is our poor understanding of intelligence. Thus talking about racial differences in intelligence is doubly suspect, and thus unscientific.

But let me compare this with the statement of Watson and then apply a bit of logic (still, I guess, a part of science). The offensive statement of Watson, as far as i was able to track it, was:

I am inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.

Now, even professor Sternberg admits in his comment that there are differences in measured values of mental capabilities between various `groups'

The tests as they stand show some differences between various groups of children. The size of the differences and what groups do best in the tests depend on what is tested. For example, with various collaborators I have found that analytical tests of the kind traditionally used to measure so-called general abilities tend to favour Americans of European and Asian origin, while tests of creative and practical thinking show quite different patterns. On a test of oral storytelling, for example, Native Americans outperform other groups.

So there are differences. Whether the concept of race is well defined or poorly is beside the point - there is quite a lot to discuss on the subject. But to be able to absorb science based solutions to the problems of great social importance requires exactly such analytical capabilities, which even Sternberg admits might be real.

But let's assume, contrary to the cited findings, that there are no genetic differences in analytical intelligence between `groups of different origin'. That it is all due to upbringing and education. Certainly this component of the differences would be of great importance when we compare the US and African societies. But does it change the message of Watson even by an iota? Shouldn't we reconsider our social policies? After all, we do adjust the way we present things to different people on a daily basis, the best universally accepted example being the gradual way science is introduced in schools. And there are no cries of horror that we treat seven year olds as having different analytical capabilities than university students. No accusations of `childism'.

So, even if all the difference is intelligence shown by inhabitants of Africa are due to environment, is it not even a stronger reason to adjust our social policies? In most places all the schooling their kids receive is practical thinking and oral storytelling: tribal tradition (including the inter tribal violence) and handling a Kalashnikov. This certainly does not help in understanding, for example, the complex issues of environment protection and economic growth in harmony with Nature. Yet, even in the countries where situation is better and real schools are accessible, there are voices to get rid of the Eurocolonialist science. For example for replacing mathematics with `ethnomathematics'. And as far as I have been able to track it down, this new science still has to produce any significant result apart from the fancy name. As a result of such mistreatment `the poor would get poorer'. Ant this is hardly the result we all desire.

In this context, the call of Watson to adjust our policies to reality of a different situation, whatever the reason of the difference, is hardly racist. I argue that the attacks out of political correctness, not science. That the race and intelligence are complex and multivalued notions does not inhibit any knowledge about them. And logical reasoning is still a part of science. So lets stop acting out of the gut feelings and perhaps consider the issue logically.

Bell Theorem disprooved?

2007-11-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

Writing the Country of Blindfolded is a task that is an never ending story, it seems.

Some time ago, I have found a clearly pseudoscientific work of Ilia Barukčić. The first link to it (through a search at google) was in a short note on a mail archive of the mailing list for the cygwin project. Far, far away from quantum mechanics. But the link has led me to a WEB page of supposedly peer reviewed Causation: International Journal Of Science. The front page boasts exploding graphics with a title Bell's theorem ... refuted! in one inch letters. Inside one finds two papers (claimed to be peer reviewed) by Ilija Barukčić: Bell's theorem. A fallacy of the excluded middle} and Helicobacter pylori: the cause of human gastric cancer. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Editorial Board consists of - you probably guessed - Ilija Barukčić!

With a great surprise I have opened the new issue (Nov 3rd) of New Scientist. In only slightly smaller letters the cover declared `NOT SO SPOOKY. Was Einstein right about quantum theory?'

And the article pointed to a disproof of Bell Theorem by Joy Christian. The disproof is, according to the New Scientist, based on the use, for the observed values, not `normal numbers' but Clifford algebra. Well, I have not yet read the original papers (which might be found here and here and here).
When I do, I'll try to grok some sense out of the whole matter.

Polish `Sokal hoax'

2007-11-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

A short while ago, a Polish psychologist, Tomasz Witkowski, has replayed the Sokal hoax .

he has managed to publish, in a psychology journal Charaktery, an article on morphic resonance. Most of the `facts' in the article were completely false. Not only did the journal Editors check the data, but they actively `helped' to write the article, by proposing to add to it pirated excerpts from and old review of Rupert Sheldrake. This goes beyond the stupidity of Lingua France editors, who could not tell science from pseudoscience, here a journal boasting more than twelve professors and PhDs in its board, actively worked to make the hoax `better'.

Unfortunately, the WEB page devoted to the issue in in Polish, but maybe there are some readers whou do want to have a look.

Science and political (un)correctness

2007-10-27T22:54:00.001-07:00

Within a space of a week three news item have hit me. The first was the enormous PC based pressure and attack on James Watson for his remarks on Africa and its state of affairs. Quoted totally out of context (as I have been unable to find the whole interview) the offending Watson statement was:

I am inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.

First Watson talks in the UK were cancelled, then his Institution, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory forced him to resign (here are the CSHL and Watson's official announcements).
But I urge you to look at the statements, even as they are taken out of context (and I am pretty sure that whoever picked them up, did pick the worst parts of the whole viewpoint), not the conditionals and caveats. So what: statement that some people (as measurements say) might be less intelligent than others and that our policies should reflect this?
But we are doing it everyday. What and how we teach children in schools has to be based on assumption of the differences in capability to absorb and use information. Trying to teach first graders straight university level science would result in ... catastrophe. But suggesting that the problem might be more general is racism.
Of course, the fact that 95% of NBA players are black has nothing to do with racism. Racism works only one way.

The second piece of news was the massacre of gorillas by some African militia. Apparently to train themselves, for shooting practice, they have killed some tens of the great apes. For fun. In a recent report I have read that 1/3 of the primate population is in danger, directly because of human activity. Now, I am going to be racist again: think who is organizing the preservation areas and trying to save the apes, and who is using them as targets (good ones: they move, but they won't shoot back!)

The third piece of news is a statement by an UN expert, Jean Ziegler (the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food), who has stated that

It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into biofuel.

Ziegler claims that all causes of hunger are man-made, it’s a problem of access, not overpopulation or underproduction, and can be changed by human decision.

He noted that from 1972 to 2002, the number of gravely undernourished people in Africa increased from 81 million to 202 million, and every day hundreds of Africans “take to the sea” fleeing from hunger.

He called on the UN Human Rights Council “to declare a new human right” to protect those who flee from hunger.

The right to food is defined as the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.

When we look at the statement above we can hardly disagree. Or can we? Is the right applicable regardless of the size of human population? How can we be sure of adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people, when the density of these people has increased (since beginning of XX Century) more than 30 times? Should we not look at the possibility that a change in the culture would be advisable? That the "laws" should have physical possibility of being implemented?

Ziegler calls for a five year ban on production of biofuels. Perhaps a five year `restraint' on human population growth in some places would be more sensible? To take care of the people who live there today and to take care of the environment for their future descendants?

Physics of insanity

2007-10-21T02:55:00.000-07:00

My regular search through arXiv has brought a small pearl of pseudoscience, a paper called `Continuum of consciousness: Mind uploading and
resurrection of human consciousness. Is there a place
for physics, neuroscience and computers?' by Vadim Astakhov.

The paper is an incredible mixture of two languages. On one side we find:
resurrection, mind uploading, time tunneling and teleportation.
On the other we find a lot of equations (I doubt very strongly as to their applicability) and even longer list of physical concepts deemed to be applicable to the topic:
Riemannian metric, Ricci tensor, Euler-Lagrange equations, Lia-algebra (sic!), generator of infinitesimal transformation, Renormalization group, Holographic representation, etc. etc.
as well as relatively new notions:
Stoichiometric matrix, auto poetic functionality, geometric networks, information geometry, causality circuit.

Perhaps I am wrong, but the first attempt to read the paper did lead me to a conclusion that this is a complete mumbo-jumbo. Perhaps some Reader of this blog would explain why and how the metric for the network system should be Riemannian (Section 2), so that the theory "resembles" General Relativity. And how would this be related to Section 7, when the system is described in quantum way, strangely resembling the one used for Bell theorem. Or why `total Fidelity-information is conserved. This is something like Energy Conservation Law for information systems'.
I'd like to apply this law, because I am constantly forgetting things.

However, the misuses seen by me in this particular paper are of secondary nature. This is a free world, especially when it comes to WEB publications. This blog is a perfect proof of the freedom.

But the arXiv publication has a note that the work has been submitted to conference Toward a Science of Consciousness 2008. I've looked up the conference site, and as the organizers (Arizona University) claim, it is to be a place to present `intense, far-ranging and rigorous discussions on all approaches to the the fundamental issue of how the brain produces conscious experience'.

I shall try to keep an eye on the list of accepted papers. And if Astakhov makes it, then I would have to redefine my notion of the word rigorous. Or of the word science?

Is ultimate reality a mathematical structure?

2007-10-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

I have always liked the style of Max Tegmark. He combines his expertise and witty language with courage to pick pretty unusual (for mainstream science) topics. In a couple of papers Shut up and calculate and The Mathematical Universe, one short and dedicated even to laymen, the other much longer and technical exposition) he presents a rather radical hypothesis: the universe itself is a mathematical structure, or rather multiple mathematical structures.
Although he openly admits that he is not the first to propose the ideas, the way they are presented is quite interesting. The proposal is based on two hypotheses. The first of these is close to my heart, while the other one, is, hmmm, courageous. What are the two hypotheses?

External Reality Hypothesis (ERH):
There exists an external physical reality completely independent of us humans.
Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH):
Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.

ERH seems to be quite widely accepted, although in the light of Quantum Mechanics results we must remember that the external physical reality might be very different from our intuitions. It might be nonlocal, unreal, quantum - pick the name you prefer. The key point, which I hold dear, is independent of us humans.

Now, the aim of the papers is to argue for the necessity of MUH. There are great reasons for this: it would solve the mystery of why is the Universe, in so many of its aspects, so well describable by mathematics.
It could also change our perspective on the Theory of Everything and science:

If the mathematical universe hypothesis is true, then it is great news for science, allowing the possibility that an elegant unification of physics and mathematics will one day allow us to understand reality more deeply than most dreamed possible. Indeed, I think the mathematical cosmos with its multiverse is the best theory of everything that we could hope for, because it would mean that no aspect of reality is off-limits from our scientific quest to uncover regularities and make quantitative predictions.

However, it is even more difficult to break the bounds of our limited imagination and intuitions and perceive our universe as some mathematical structure, which is by definition an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. What is `mathematical structure' anyway? Set of abstract objects and rules that connect them? How complex should that structure be to describe the seemingly infinite variety of our observations, the probable complexity of the Universe? Most people, even physicists and mathematicians, would not venture into his abstract space at all.

But - why not? Our human perspective is rather limited and inadequate. Even for `almost normal' phenomena. It suggests that Sun circles the Earth when we observe it moving across the sky. It does not help us in understanding how a light bulb works, or a hard disk in our computer. Why should our intuitions be more usable when we talk about the question of ultimate reality? Tegmark even uses our inadequacy as a `proof' of the Mathematical Universe hypothesis (although I detect some measure of tongue-in-cheek there):

Ultimately, why should we believe the mathematical universe hypothesis? Perhaps the most compelling objection is that it feels counter-intuitive and disturbing. I personally dismiss this as a failure to appreciate Darwinian evolution. Evolution endowed us with intuition only for those aspects of physics that had survival value for our distant ancestors, such as the parabolic trajectories of flying rocks. Darwin’s theory thus makes the testable prediction that whenever we look beyond the human scale, our evolved intuition should break down.

We have repeatedly tested this prediction, and the results overwhelmingly support it: our intuition breaks down at high speeds, where time slows down; on small scales, where particles can be in two places at once; and at high temperatures, where colliding particles change identity. To me, an electron colliding with a positron and turning into a Z-boson feels about as intuitive as two colliding cars turning into a cruise ship. The point is that if we dismiss seemingly weird theories out of hand, we risk dismissing the correct theory of everything, whatever it may turn out to be.

It is like saying `it must be true because I do not understand it'. Well, perhaps it is worthwhile to remember our limitations and to be sure that we do not dismiss some possible solutions because of these limitations.

But the papers are certainly worth reading.

Conspiracy of silence? In physics?

2007-09-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

Have you heard about Emil Rupp? Not?
Well neither did I, until today. Neither does Wikipedia.
Who is he?

Well, Today I found two arXiv papers of Jeroen van Dongen:
Emil Rupp, Albert Einstein and the canal ray experiments on wave-particle duality: Scientific fraud and theoretical bias
The interpretation of the Einstein-Rupp experiments and their influence on the history of quantum mechanics
It seems that

In 1926 Emil Rupp published a number of papers on the interference properties of light emitted by canal ray sources. These articles, particularly one paper that came into being in close collaboration with Albert Einstein, drew quite some attention as they probed the wave versus particle nature of light. They also significantly propelled Rupp’s career, even though that from the outset they were highly controversial.

In 1935 Rupp very publicly retracted no less than five of his scientific publications from the previous year. The articles dealt with such subjects as the polarization of electrons and the artificial production of positrons.2 Rupp published his retraction in a short notice that appeared in the Zeitschrift für Physik. He stated that his withdrawals were the result of an illness and supplied a medical opinion—by a “Dr. E. Freiherr von Gebsattel” — in support of his claim:
"Dr. Rupp had been ill since 1932 with an emotional weakness (psychasthenia) linked
to psychogenic semiconsciousness. During this illness, and under its influence, he has, without being himself conscious of it, published papers on physical phenomena [...] that have the character of ‘fictions.’ It is a matter of the intrusion of dreamlike states into the area of his scientific activity".

Well, it seems to be a very interesting part of physics history. One that was curiously absent from most accounts. For example, Abraham Pais biography of Einstein, The Lord is Subtle, does not mention Rupp at all. The only other publication mentioning Rupp I was able to find at short notice was A. P French, The Strange Case of Emil Rupp (unfortunately not available freely). The abstract of paper by French reads:

Physics has seldom had to deal with claims of alteration or fabrication of data, such as have troubled biological and medical research in recent years. The case of Emil Rupp in the 1930s was, however, a notable exception. The present paper revisits this case, adding in certain areas to earlier accounts of Rupp and his work. The case is not without significance, because Rupp's publications carried considerable weight during a historically important era of 20th-century physics.

My usual source, Google Scholar lists 8 papers by Emil Rupp (half of this list being US Patents.

I wonder why is this case so hushed up? If, indeed, this is a case of fraud in physics, is it a sign of shame by physicists that they - within the most concrete of natural sciences - let through the fraud?

Perhaps You can supply with more links?

Afshar experiment

2007-09-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

Slowly, so slowly, the work on the book In the Country of the Blindfolded continues. I started to write a section devoted to the Afshar experiment. When it surfaced three years ago, thanks to Mark Chown article in the New Scientist titled Quantum rebel, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Quite a lot of people set out to prove where and why Afshar was wrong in his analysis. This February, another piece by Mark Chown, in the same New Scientist is titled Quantum rebel wins over doubters. So, something is brewing...

I have not formed my opinion yet. But perhaps there is someone among the readers who has interesting ideas, suggestions of `must read' papers etc?

Falling behind

2007-09-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

Ever since I have read Robert H Frank's Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotion I have been a great fan of his clear style, logical presentation and down to earth practicality. Now it seems he has a new book Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class published by University of California Press. The book is - for the time being, available (in the form of proofreading sheets) at Frank's WEB page: http://www.robert-h-frank.com/PDFs/MusingsOnInequality.pdf

I have read it and I have to express my gratitude for the availability. As before, the clarity, wit and understanding of human nature are great. Buy the book, if you can afford. Read it anyway.

Opinion formation in real societies

2007-08-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

When I have published the previous post, which was simply prompted by my personal interest in modelling social phenomena using some tools coming from physics, I had absolutely no idea of connecting it to current turmoil in Polish politics.

For those of you from abroad, who (rightly so) are not really interested in Polish power struggle, I owe a brief exposition: the Polish government, since about a month led by minority Law and Justice party is making crazier and crazier decisions. Should you want to look, with imparial eye on the situation, here is the Reuters news bite Polish government critic detained, opposition outraged.

The opposition and human rights groups say the government's anti-corruption drive has turned into a witch-hunt in which anyone who does not share the ruling party's views is branded a criminal or a traitor to Polish interests.

But this blog is not political (although I do have very definite political opinions). So why do I mention the topic? It is because of the statement issued by the Prime Minister to Gazeta Pomorska, in which he reiterates not only his opinions about the existence of `the system' (układ) - setup of criminal activities linking everybody to everybody (excluding only his closest collaborators). This is old story. But the interview confirms that the government conducts a scientific investigation using computer model that shows that the układ is real!

Wow! And I called for developing the model only two days ago! There must be really powerful people reading my blog.

Opinion formation in network models of societies

2007-08-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

Some years ago I have dabbed for a while in simple simulations of social phenomena. My rather rusty programming skills and some elementary physical mathematics has allowed to produce some models. I got interested in the network models, especially the preferential attachment networks (for details hunt down works of Barabasi, Dorogovtsev, Mendez or Newman, see also bibliography of the In the Country of the Blindfolded).

Since this time I have received a few papers on close subjects to review, which I have done to the best of my ability. I no longer have the time to continue my own studies (they were done during a forced sabbatical between two jobs caused by non-competitiveness clauses in the contract). But looking through the literature on the subject, which seems to grow exponentially (the subject is relatively easy, it is also quite easy to obtain funding - from either physics or soccial sciences departments, and it seems to be one of the fashionable ones), I do see a less trodden path.

Perhaps someone would like to take it?

The idea is based on the reversal of the preferential attachment (`the rich get richer') phenomenon that seems to be found in many networks (from the physical Internet infrastructure, throuth WEB, to scientific collaborations and actor's relationships). In processes that govern the formation of opinions in modern societies, such networks, with influential hubs play an important role. While many early models were based on 1D or 2D close proximity opinion exchanges, in today's small world we interact via networks.

But one phenomenon that is quite crucial for the models dealing with information spread and opinion formation in such networks is that people quite readily cut the links with those who are `not to their liking'. Thus, instead of getting converted to majority opinions, the enclaves of like minded people are formed, cut off from the main network. We all see it in real life, especially in dramatic circumstances of terrorist gropups and their supporters.

Computer modelling would help in establishing the conditions that would diminish this tendency to cut off the links with those who do not share our opinions. Some incentives for keeping the links open (for example through promoting participation in `open' activities and societies, where ideas are exchanged) might be included in the models and studied.

One of my friends has remarked that such computer models in themselves are worthless, as they are purely artificial. Without reference to real life data (experimental or observational) the models are just toys. I agree. But the phenomenon of cutting the links is easy enough to study in reality. One can imagine, for example, monitoring the evolution of links between students on a campus of a University, as they go throught the period of study and later disperse to their jobs. Smaller groups could be used to monitor susceptibility of connections to differences in opinions. So, it does not have to be a purely artificial topic.

Question: does anyone know of works already done along these lines?

Quantum Mechanics again

2007-08-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

QM seems to have a practically unfathomable reservoir of surprises. A recent work on Progressive field-state collapse and quantum non-demolition photon counting by Christine Guerlin, Julien Bernu, Samuel Deléglise, Clément Sayrin, Sébastien Gleyzes, Stefan Kuhr, Michel Brune, Jean-Michel Raimond & Serge Haroche, published in Nature 448, 889-893 (23 August 2007) has caught my attention.

The experiment is designed to observe, with as little disturbence as possible, the quantum state of a cavity containing an initially unknown number of photons. The authors describe it as follows:

The irreversible evolution of a microscopic system under measurement is a central feature of quantum theory. From an initial state generally exhibiting quantum uncertainty in the measured observable, the system is projected into a state in which this observable becomes precisely known. Its value is random, with a probability determined by the initial system's state. The evolution induced by measurement (known as 'state collapse') can be progressive, accumulating the effects of elementary state changes. Here we report the observation of such a step-by-step collapse by measuring non-destructively the photon number of a field stored in a cavity. Atoms behaving as microscopic clocks cross the cavity successively. By measuring the light-induced alterations of the clock rate, information is progressively extracted, until the initially uncertain photon number converges to an integer. The suppression of the photon number spread is demonstrated by correlations between repeated measurements. The procedure illustrates all the postulates of quantum measurement (state collapse, statistical results and repeatability) and should facilitate studies of non-classical fields trapped in cavities.

I must admit that my understanding of QM gets more and more inadequate with every such report. For example I do not understand how the `non-destructive' measurements, proposed by the authors really influence the state of the photons. Perhaps they do not change their number.

In this experiment, light is an object of investigation repeatedly interrogated by atoms. Its evolution under continuous non-destructive monitoring is directly accessible to measurement, making real the stochastic trajectories of quantum field Monte Carlo simulations

What is observed is the collapse of the state into one with a defined number of photons. Then the observed number remains constant - until the cavity absorbs one of the photons (on a much larger timescale) and then the measurements show this smaller number.

When I find the words `repeated interrogation' my mind jumps to `continuous measurement' and thus to the Quantum Zeno Effect. Is there any connection?

And one more remark: the short article on the discovery on physicsworld.com has attracted a few comments. By far the most extensive is one by Andrei P. Kirilyuk, who is a champion of "Universal Concept of Complexity by the Dynamic Redundance Paradigm: Causal Randomness, Complete Wave Mechanics, and the Ultimate Unification of Knowledge"

OK, OK - I admit I do not iunderstand him neither. But there are some tell-tale signs of going beyond normal science. Such as mentioning by Kirilyuk that ALL famous science creators, from Descartes and Newton to Einstein and de Broglie were notorious mavericks understood by almost nobody at the time of their discoveries. Which supposedly builds up his credentials. This reminds me of a famous quote:
They laughed at Copernicus.
They laughed at the Wright Brothers.
Yes, well, they also laughed at the Marx Brothers.
Being laughed at does not mean you are right.
Another signal is that Citebase lists 18 articles quoting the Kirilyuk work ... all of them by ... Kirilyuk himself.

Concluding: it is difficult to follow the new developments in physics. A lot depends on the peer review. But - should we have some sort of mechanism for the strange approaches that are out of the mainstream science? Would the famous EPR paper be published today? Especially if the author list did not include Einstein?

Marvel (at the) Universe

2007-08-20T04:57:00.000-07:00

That physicists are a curious crowd I knew since my own science days. But that government officials are willing to pay them for the fun they have is sometimes, astonishing.

Consider the recent paper by P. M. Gleiser, How to become a superhero.
It is devoted to analysis of

collaboration network based on theMarvel Universe comic books. First, we consider the system as a binary network, where two characters are connected if they appear in the same publication. The analysis of degree correlations reveals that, in contrast to most real social networks, the Marvel Universe presents a disassortative mixing on the degree. Then, we use a weight measure to study the system as a weighted network. This allows us to find and characterize well defined communities. Through the analysis of the community structure and the clustering as a function of the degree we show that the network presents a hierarchical structure. Finally, we comment on possible mechanisms responsible for the particular motifs observed.

Hmm. Looking at the results we find all the typical traits of complex networks: power law distributions, hubs, giant components. Funny. Even funnier is the acknowledgements part of the paper:

This work has been supported by grants from CONICET PIP05-5114 (Argentina), ANPCyT PICT03-13893 (Argentina) and ICTP NET-61 (Italy).

It makes me wish to come back to physics. At least in Argentina or Italy...

Divination solved?

2007-08-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

Wandering through one of the largest Polish Internet bookshops I have found, in the physics section couple of books on divination, pendulums and rods. Well, I know that there are publishing houses that would publish anything, but my habit of checking the sources and trying to find the roots kicked in. I had no intention of making the authors richer (there are enough people for this) I searched the WEB for the original works. And, indeed I did find some. For example I have found a publication in a Polish language Fizyka i Przyroda (Physics and Nature), by Piotr Tyrawa, titled "How I solved the rod and pendulum phenomena"

Wow! There is thus ONE person in the world who has solved the phenomenon! I went through the paper (in Polish, unfortunately) and it is as far from a solution as possible.

You might say - just another crank, just another esoteric WEB site and publication. But it is not so: the Fizyka i Przyroda is sponsored by the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics and Institute of Nuclear Studies. It promotes physics competitions. The publications include some very good - though elementary - texts, such as a study of radioactive properties of granite by a high school student. Hardly surprising - but solid piece of intrioductory experimental work.

And I wonder how would the two Institutes feel to be associated with absurd divination studies.

Classical physics is fun

2007-08-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

Should anyone think that only the quantum boundaries of physics are interesting, here is an example: The Existence of Noncollision Singularities in Newtonian Systems by Zhihong Xia
The Annals of Mathematics, 2nd Ser., Vol. 135, No. 3 (May, 1992), pp. 411-468.

Unfortunately, I know this article only by reflected light, I have not been able to find a freely accessible version. But the ripples and comments it has made are quite numerous, for example Noncollision Singularities: Do Four Bodies Suffice? by Joseph L. Gerver, or EJECTIONS AND CAPTURES BY SOLAR SYSTEMS

What is the point: simple that there is a possibility to cleverly construct a classical (Newtonian) system of five bodies that would result in expulsing one of them to infinity in finite time.

Just pure fun? Not really - it turns out that such result has implicationsas to physical computability, Church-Turing hypothesis, the whole issue of determinism in classical physics. If a body can be expulsed to infinity that by simple time reversal and initial conditions reversal a body can appear in the system and become a part of it, in finite time from infinity! And this means that there might be an essentially unknown and unknowable influence (unknowable because it is infinitely removed) that would act on the system - again, not infinitely far in the future but in finite time.

The paper is quite old (15 years) but compared to the age of Newtonian theory it simply shows that an old dog still has a lot of tricks to learn.

Light faster than light

2007-08-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

Browsing through arXiv repository of preprints I have found a short paper Macroscopic violation of special relativity by
Authors: G. Nimtz, A. A. Stahlhofen.

At first I was surprised by the bold statements of the authors:

We demonstrate the quantum mechanical behavior of evanescent modes with digital microwave signals at a macroscopic scale of the order of a meter and show that evanescent modes are well described by virtual photons as predicted by former QED calculations.

Several QED and QM calculations predicted that both evanescent modes and tunneling particles appear to propagate in zero time.

All three properties - the violation of the Einstein energy relation, the zero time spreading, and the non observability of evanescent modes - can be explained by identifying evanescent modes with virtual photons as predicted by several authors, see for instance references. Tunneling and evanescent modes are properly described by quantum mechanics

The (unpublished) paper's form is `unacademic' (i.e. not TeX-ed...) and at first I had doubts as to the credentials of the experiment. Was it another out-of-nowhere Einstein basher? But further search has showed that this is a paper from a long series of publications involving light and microwave signal processing in unusual setups. For references it suffices to search arXiv for au:Nimtz_G

Signaling faster than light speed? Not only possible but observed?
In the light of a recent discussion with a friend (also on this blog...) how would one describe it in a quantum way? or photons as billiard balls way?

Islam and physics

2007-08-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

In a recent issue of Physics World I found a very interesting interview with an Iranian Physicist, Reza Mansouri.
It provides a very clear explanation of the problems that deeply religious society and religious government pose for science education. According to Mansouri `there is little research activity in most areas of physics, and indeed science as a whole, in Iran'. There are maybe 500 PhD educated physicists, and we can only guess how many of them work on the state nuclear programme. Who really believes Iran needs atomic reactor for peacefil energy purposes?. The problem, says Mansouri, is

that Iran, like other Muslim countries, has a very distorted view of what science is – a problem that is rooted in culture and reflected in language. He points out that the Arabic term elm (which is used in almost all Muslim countries) is often taken to mean `science', but this word in fact refers to a deep knowledge of Islam. Indeed ahl e elm means `religious scholar'. Consequently, there is no clear distinction between the meaning and purpose of science and the meaning and purpose of theology.

Iranian universities today do teach science beyond that required for practicing Islam, but Mansouri believes that the legacy of this narrow mindset means that students still learn a very prescribed curriculum by rote, rather than being encouraged to investigate subjects for themselves. [...]

This view of science as a fixed body of knowledge then shapes the way politicians think of science and therefore how they fund it, he says. They view a scientist as an ahl e elm sitting in a small study who will at most need money for new books rather than the far greater resources needed for experiments, lab technicians and computers. The result is that Iran spends only about 0.5% of its gross domestic product on R&D.

It is quite interesting to note that in Poland the R&D spending is about 0.59%, very, very close to Iran. Is there a sign of some deeper similarity? (This compares to USA with 2.76%, Japan with 3.12% or European Union average of 1.93% (data for 2002)).

Science for the people

2007-07-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

During my wanderings I have found the original manifesto Towards A Science For The People by Bill Zimmerman, Len Radinsky, Mel Rothenberg and Bart Meyers written in 1972. The text is full of ideological lingo, for a person who grew under communist rule reminiscent of the Party slogans and directives. It is so highly critical of the `ruling class', `military-industrial complex' and inequality in science that if such criticism was written under the communist rule, the authors would end up in prison. The worst that has happened to the authors in the US was the refusal of publication in Science.

While the text is, in its political fervour, almost crazy, the ideological blindness that makes it funny lies in small details. The predictions and accusations that almost all were falsified by the passage of time. Two sinful monopolies were mentioned: ATT (that soon was broken down by the very `capitalist government') and IBM (that is now far from a monopoly). An example of inequality of access to science was provided by computers and - that are far removed from ordinary people (just a couple of years before PC was invented). Lasers and other advances in telecommunications were supposed to benefit only the telco company. Who could envision ubiquitous mobile phones...

One thing for certain, a lesson for today: when we are blinded by our own ideas, our own goals it is so easy to miss the reality of the world. When we think about the environment protection, nuclear energy or empowerment of the people it is worth to spend a minute analyzing the fate of the predictions from 1972. Read it, whether you are conservatist or leftist.

PS. In the current Science for the People WEB site many of the problems have changed. Obviously. Some were solved, some - never appeared. But the language has remained truly revolutionary. Point for Dawkins and his meme concept.

Quantum Mechanics again: point for experimentalists

2007-07-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

Understanding the basic principles of QM is really difficult. The philosophical and theoretical discussions, even those coupled with a lot of more or less developed mathematics are only adding to the confusion. Of course - they are needed - because thanks to such theoretical musings as EPR's or Bell's the path may be opened for experimental evidence. And such evidence, very often, is more surprising than we could expect.

A fine example is provided by
Jacques, V.; Wu, E.; Grosshans, F.; Treussart, F.; Grangier, P.; Aspect, A. & Roch, J. Experimental realization of Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment. Science, 2007, 315, 966-968

Let me just quote here the conclusions of the paper:

Our realization of Wheeler’s delayed choice Gedanken Experiment demonstrates beyond any doubt that the behavior of the photon in the interferometer depends on the choice of the observable which is measured, even when that choice is made at a position and a time such that it is separated from the entrance of the photon in the interferometer by a space-like interval. In Wheeler’s words, since no signal traveling at a velocity less than that of light can connect these two events, “we have a strange inversion of the normal order of time. We, now, by moving the mirror in or out have an unavoidable effect on what we have a right to say about the already past history of that photon”. Once more, we find that Nature behaves in agreement with the predictions of Quantum Mechanics even in surprising situations where a tension with Relativity seems to. appear

I wonder if this result will hold on repetitions. If yes, then this would reaffirm that we have a lot to understand yet. Especially about time in Quantum Mechanics.

Beyond DNA and RNA

2007-07-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

One of the basic messages of current biology, one of its paradigms is the circular flow of information and selection, in which DNA (in some cases RNA) carries the information, which directs development and some aspects of operation of organisms. These organisms then compete, cooperate, coexist; and as result of selective events, pass (or fail to pass) their DNA to their descendants. The flow of information from nucleic acids to the main building blocks of organisms --- proteins, is unidirectional. Of course when we look at the processes more carefully we see that proteins themselves are not only products of the genetic code translation, but heavily influence the process. They make the process possible, may speed it, slow it down, influence what gets translated.
But in general this cycle: `DNA -> RNA -> proteins (complete organism) -> survival and reproduction' is seen as basic and universally true rule.

The discovery of prions (and the subsequent fame of this discovery related to the `mad cow' disease and its relation to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans has shown that there might be very interesting exceptions. For me it has been exactly this sort of an exception that makes it necessary to have a deeper look at the rule itself.

I have found a short, but very readable article summarizing this subject,
by A. E. Bussard, A scientific revolution?
The prion anomaly may challenge the central dogma of molecular biology, European Molecular Biology Organization Reports, 2005, 6, 691-694
The prion anomaly may challenge the central dogma of molecular biology. The main line of reasoning is not the existence of prions, but the fact that in some cases, relevant information may be stored and transmitted between generations not via DNA or RNA, but via proteins:

Recent discovery of prions as genetic elements that store and transmit information in various organisms, mainly yeast, the fungi Podospora and the sea hare Aplysia.

How is it possible? How does it work? The first evidence came from studying yeast, where evidences of non-mendelian transmission of phenotypic traits were found in late 1960's. As Bussard describes the situation:

Much of this evidence relies on Lindquist’s work on yeast prions. Not only did she show that prion domains in some proteins act as molecular switches that activate or deactivate the protein, she also showed that prions are non-mendelian genetic elements that have an important volutionary role by producing new phenotypes, which are often beneficial. Her work on sup35 revealed that the protein switches to its prion state [PS1+] when the environmental conditions for yeast deteriorate, which decreases translation fidelity and causes the ribosome to read beyond nonsense codons. This in turn enables the expression of formerly silent genes and gene variants, and creates new phenotypes. [PS1+] is passed on to daughter cells in which it self-replicates by imposing its conformation on normal sup35 proteins, until a new phenotype eventually emerges that is better adapted to the new environment. In another elegant experiment, Li and Lindquist showed the generality of this mechanism for controlling protein activity by fusing a yeast prion domain to a rat protein.

For more detailed informations see, for example,
True, H. L. & Lindquist, S. L. A yeast prion provides a mechanism for genetic variation and phenotypic diversity. Nature, 2000, 407, 477-483
Lindquist, S.; Krobitsch, S.; Li, L. & Sondheimer, N. Investigating protein conformation-based inheritance and disease in yeast. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 2001, 356, 169-176

When we start to think how really complex the molecular biology of life is, when we take into account the myriad of interactions and influences, then we may begin to believe in wonderful nature of life --- and, at least for me, in the wonderful nature of the study of life, of discovering the links and relationships, between various elements.

There is a very significant message that Bussard emphasizes:

Biologists need to get used to the idea that there is no end in sight when it comes to new insights and scientific breakthroughs; this idea has long been abandoned by physicists who are subject to regular scientific revolutions. I wonder if knowledge is, like the Universe, basically endless and in constant expansion, just as the complexity of life itself is also expanding infinitely.

And this is exactly what I believe myself.

Astrophysics directions

2007-07-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

Recent years have been very fruitful for astrophysics. Sometimes even to the point of overeagerness in accepting new paradigms. For example I am somewhat surprised with the speed of acceptance of the Dark Energy (73%) / Dark Matter(22%) / Normal components (5%) model of the Universe.
Yes, I am impressed with the explaining powers of this model, especially with respect to the increasing speed of expansion, but the question is: how did it come about that the scientific community has accepted so fast the Dark Energy explanation (and the Dark Matter as well), without any inklings as to what this Dark Energy is?

More - with the 120 orders of magnitude difference between our possible explanations and the observed value! Yet so many astrophysicists behave in a way as if the problem does not exist.

When the ApPEC and ASPERA, which are consortia of national agencies that pay for astroparticle physics research in Europe, published the report on Status and Perspective of Astroparticle Physics in Europe the collaborators have identified six `basic questions that need to be addressed by the astroparticle community over the next decade:

1. What is the Universe made of?
2. Do protons have a finite life time?
3. What are the properties of neutrinos? What is their role in cosmic evolution?
4. What do neutrinos tell us about the interior of the Sun and the Earth, and about Supernova explosions?
5. What is the origin of cosmic rays ? What is the view of the sky at extreme energies ?
6. Can we detect gravitational waves ? What will they tell us about violent cosmic processes and about the nature of gravity?

As for the question 1, the particular focus is on Dark Matter, which is described as
`Dark Matter turns out to be the majority
component of cosmic matter. It holds the Universe together through the gravitational force but neither emits nor absorbs light. Dark Matter (including a small admixture of massive neutrinos) has likely played a central role in the formation of large scale structures in the Universe. Its exact nature has yet to be determined. The discovery of new types of particles which may comprise the dark matter would confirm a key element of the Universe as we understand it today.'

But for the Dark Energy, the report states only that `The nature of dark energy remains a mystery, probably intimately connected with the fundamental question of the cosmological constant problem.'

The plans are - one should notice - made by astroparticle
rather than astrophysics organizations. So, perhaps it is not too surprising that in the list of planned and supported experiments the authors state:
`It is this part of the search for Dark Matter that we assign to the field of astroparticle physics. Dark Energy has a similar density to dark matter; unveiling of its nature would have profound impact on astroparticle physics. On the other hand, current projects exclusively rely on tools of astronomy; therefore we express strong support for dark energy projects but leave detailed recommendations to the strategic planning of astronomy roadmaps.'

Despite these remarks (perhaps written slightly tongue-in-cheek), the report is very clear and can be a good initial review on the current state of knowledge. Recommended reading!

Network of genes, network of patents

2007-07-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

I was away on a business trip for a few days, and in a hotel lobby I have chanced upon an International Herald Tribune (July 4th, 2007). And there I found a longish article in the economy section (!): Biotech industry rocked as theories change. The change of theories is described as:

"challenging the traditional view of our genetic blueprint as a tidy collection of independent genes, pointing instead to a complex network in which genes, along with regulatory elements and other types of DNA sequences that do not code for proteins, interact in overlapping ways not yet fully understood."

While this may be interesting scientific result, the IHT article aptly points that the one gene-one effect (one protein) stance led the way to gene patents: patents based on the assumption that industrial gene (made by splicing techniques) would have defined, owned, tracked and uniform effect, moreover with ability to sell and retract. But when the genes really work in a complex network how can we be sure which effects is due to what? Biologically. And legally too: if one patented gene depends on other natural or patented ones? Especially in ways we do not understand? How to pay royalties? How to split an eventual responsibility for damages? How to ensure that effects are uniform and as promised?

Well, there is much more to the subject. I was never in favour of granting patents on genes, but the US law has allowed the companies to do it. Without, as it turns out, proper understanding of the separability of the "inventions". And because we lack real understanding of the most of the genome (the original paper that has prompted the IHT article speaks about 1% of the genome) we are blundering blindly -- and this is never a good thing.

For more information see:
The ENCODE Project Consortium, Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project, Nature 447
Mark B. Gerstein at al. What is a gene, post-ENCODE? History and updated definition, Genome Res. 2007 17: 669-681
Thomas R. Gingeras Origin of phenotypes: Genes and transcripts Genome Res. 2007 17: 682-690

Bell theorem refuted!!! Or just another pseudo-physicist.

2007-06-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Recently I have found a very curious piece of information on Bell Theorem.
And this was even stranger. The news came from Causation: International Journal Of Science.
It claims to be peer reviewed scientific electronic journal.

The front page boasts exploding graphics with a title Bell's
theorem …refuted! in one inch letters .

Figure 1: That's what I call a scientific journal!
Not some dull, blank blue page as Phys Rev Letters...

Inside one finds two (!) peer reviewed papers by Ilija Barukčić:
Bell's theorem. A fallacy of the excluded
middle and Helicobacter pylori: the cause of human gastric cancer. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Editorial Board consists of — you guessed: Ilija Barukčić!

But I was curious to see, if indeed, this recent work has resulted in a refutation of Bell theorem (making a lot of my own effort to prove it for myself - succesfully - useless and wrong).

I dug into the first article (which was quite cumbersome — as the text is really overfull of mathematical formulae, repeated endlessly). The conclusions of the author are really bold:

As proofed above, Bell's theorem is fallacious because of specifically logical reasons. The logic of Bell's theorem is not sound. Bell's theorem contradicts classical logic, it is based upon a fallacy. In so far either
Bell's theorem is valid or classical logic is valid but not both. Bell's theorem is not compatible with the law of the excluded middle, it is a fallacy of the excluded middle. Bell has committed the fallacy of the excluded middle, commonly referred to as a false dilemma. This logical fallacy is sometimes known also as a false correlative, an either/or fallacy, a bifurcation or as black and white thinking. Bell's formalisation of local realism, his starting point, is incorrect and is based on a logical contradiction. Bell's theorem, as a false dilemma fallacy, refers to a misuse of the law of the excluded middle. Bell has misapplied the law of excluded middle at an maximum. An extreme simplification, a wishful thinking and a misapplication of the law of the excluded middle is the foundation of Bell's theorem. In so far,
Bell's theorem is the most profound logical fallacy of science.

Further, Bell's theorem is the definite and best proof known, that correlation analysis contradicts Quantum mechanics and Relativity Theory, that it is a useless and dangerous statistical machinery. Thus, as proofed above, Bell's theorem is refuted definitely, the book on Bell's theorem is completely losed.

Finally I got to the essence of the proof of refutation of Bells theorem. It may be found first on page 18 of the paper. I'll try to repeat here the most important step, taking the liberty of radically simplifying the notation. I ask the Reader to excuse the use of formulae here, but I think it is such a mathematical joke, that should be shared.

The Bell's theorem is given by Barukčić as:

( 1 − ( (1 − (A_t ) )· ( 1 − (Not A_t )) ) ) ≥( Not A_t) + ( Not C_t ) · ( ( A_t ) − (B_t ) ). (1)

Let's simplify it by denoting the left and right side of equation:

( 1 − ( (1 − (A_t ) )· ( 1 − (Not A_t )) ) ) = L (2)

( Not A_t) + ( Not C_t ) · ( ( A_t ) − (B_t ) ) = R (3)

This really helps, as there are really no operations on L and R in the `proofs'. Thus what we have is the inequality

L≥ R (4)

What Barukčić aims at is a proof by reductio ad absurdum, i.e., he assumes the theorem to be true, and looks for logical discrepancies. There are four `proofs' and I'll present the first of them, quoting the author as much as it is possible (some substitutions and cuts are put in here, the Reader interested in details can check the original paper).

The term R can take the values 0 or 1. In so far, let us assume, that R = 0. We
obtain equation L ≥ (R=0).

It is generally accepted, that a ≥ b means that a = b or a > b, both are equally allowed and
possible, if the inequality is true. In so far, Eq. 1 is true, if L=0.
Eq. 1 is equally true if L > 0. In this case, let us assume¹, that
L = (R=0),
which satisfies Bell's inequality. On the other hand, Bell is respecting classical logic and thus the law of the excluded middle. The law of excluded middle in classical bivalent logic must yield L=1. Bell's inequality is respecting this law. We obtain

(L=1) = (R=0) (5)

Bell's inequality leads to a logical contradiction, it not true that 1 = 0. Therefore, our original assumption, that Bell's theorem is correct is false.

This was the first of the four `proofs'. Of course, if one assumes to use equality and to use R=0 condition then one gets contradiction. But it is not the Bell theorem that `contradicts classical logic and leads to a logical contradiction' — it is the author himself.

1: Emphasis mine. There is no emphasis on this assumption in the original paper...

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by
H^EV^EA.

Będąc Młodym Fizykiem

2007-06-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

For those who do understand Polish, I highly recommend the scientific absurdities WEB page
Będąc młodym fizykiem

A collection of misuse of science and scientific journalism, ranging from mildly amusing to horrifying.

Counting

2007-06-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I have learned about the Amazonian tribe of Piraha, who, apparently have very, very simple system of mathematics. (as described by Rochel Gelman and Brian Butterworth ):
"The Munduruku language uses the count words for 1, 2 and 3 consistently, and 4 and 5 somewhat inconsistently. The Piraha do not even use the words for 1 and 2 consistently. How would members of these groups perform on various non-verbal tasks involving numerosity?
The amazing result was that both groups succeeded on non-verbal number tasks that used displays representing values (in one study) as large as 80."

I recall the Piraha story because of totally unrelated paper by
Irene M. Pepperberg called Grey parrot numerical competence: a review .
The abstract of the paper states:

"The extent to which humans and nonhumans share numerical competency is a matter of debate. Some researchers argue that nonhumans, lacking human language, possess only a simple understanding of small quantities, generally less than four. Animals that have, however, received some training in human communication systems might demonstrate abilities intermediate between those of untrained nonhumans and humans. Here I review data for a Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) that has been shown to quantify sets of up to and including six items (including heterogeneous subsets) using vocal English labels, to comprehend these labels fully, and to have a zero-like concept. Recent research demonstrates that he can also sum small quantities. His success shows that he understands number symbols as abstract representations of real-world collections, and that his sense of number compares favorably to that of chimpanzees and young human children."

Does make you think, doesn't it?

Quantum question

2007-06-18T04:19:00.000-07:00

A recent preprint on Time in Quantum Theory by Dieter H Zeh has brought my attention
to the question of the `speed of quantum changes'. While the classical discussions of nonlocality
in Quantum Mechanics (QM) and consequences of Bell's Theorem are widely published,
there are some other situations where nonlocality is rather hard to grok.

Consider a hydrogen atom in excited state. The electron wavefunction has some specific form, extending via exponentially vanishing factor, to infinity.
Now, when the atom emits a photon (preferably for this analysis in spontaneous emission)
the wavefunction changes.
Question: does the wavefunction change at the same moment in the whole space?
Or, as Zeh suggests, is there a `wave' of changing wavefunction, spreading our from the atom?

Anyone knows any solution / references to this problem?

Dark Energy, dark matter and all that

2007-06-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

For those interested in the incredible story of modern astrophysics, especially the dark matter/dark energy puzzles there is an excellent guide to resources.

Pre-print of the Resource Letter BE-1: The Beginning and Evolution of the Universe,
by Bharat Ratra and Michael S. Vogeley, which has just appeared in arXiv has
not only a very comprehensive list of sources, but readable introductions into what is what.

The only negative remark I can find, speaking from the point of view of an amateur follower of science, is that the publication is too conservative with respect to `official channels' of science dissemination. Yes, I know that there are copyrights and that scientific journals usually do not have free access. And it is `proper' to give references to peer-reviewed journal publications.

But we do live in the Internet age, and astrophysics is, in fact, one of the fields where
e-pre-print is very much alive. As the Resource Letter publication shows itself. So, I find it a bit disappointing that there are no links to pre-prints in the publication.
It would make the life so much easier...

Starting the blog

2007-06-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

The decision to start the blog - in addition to writing the book - has been prompted by the difficulty in coping with all the science news streaming in. While I try to incorporate some of the discoveries, stupidities, questions into the main theme of the book, in some cases it is simply not possible. These news are not necessarily real news, sometimes they are just my own discoveries, as I go through google scholar or arXiv. Or via chain-reading various publications.

A word of warning to the Reader: do not expect expert knowledge here. I have long ago ceased to be an expert, even in my own discipline, solid state physics. I am, what one might call, a curious wanderer, going randomly through many disciplines in the realm of Science. I hope that the things that I discover might be interesting for other people. If so - I look forward to any comments.