A sense of universal perspective
Leave a CommentThe Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has once again been peering into the dark depths of space and has delivered us another spectacular image of the farthest reaches of the observable universe1. This image was taken using a recently installed wide field camera, which detects light in the near infra-red portion of the light spectrum, just beyond the red part of the spectrum and which is invisible to human eyes.
HST Ultra deep field image (click for larger view)
The space telescope stared intently at a tiny spot in the sky, which to the naked eye and even most telescopes would appear dark and empty. Over the course of 4 days of looking at that one spot, the individual photons of light exposed an image of hundreds of galaxies in the outermost regions of space.
If this image doesn’t blow you away, then perhaps you just need a little perspective. You might want to take a seat first. In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the process of achieving a sense of perspective in the universe was the most tortuous thing any sentient being could undergo and a machine was invented to do just that. It was called the Total Perspective Vortex and it gave its victims a true perspective of their place in the universe, which amounted to a “microscopic dot on a microscopic dot”.
I promise not to fry your brains, as the Total Perspective Vortex did, but will instead attempt to open your eyes to the awesome size of the universe. Let me start by describing what a galaxy is, by describing our own: the Milky Way. It is comprised of a few hundred billion stars, much like our own sun and a great many of which have planets orbiting them too. These are the stars we see when we go outside on a dark, cloudless night and look up at the sky.
To appreciate the size of the Milky Way galaxy, we measure it in terms of the time it would take a light beam to travel from one side to the other. In the vacuum of space, light travels at 300 000 km every second, yet it would still take 100 000 years to traverse the galaxy.
Now look again at that picture from Hubble. It contains hundreds of galaxies. And that is just a view of a tiny speck of sky. As far as we know, looking beyond the stars of our own galaxy, every other speck of sky would show the exact same thing: galaxies extending in all directions as far as we can see. And if we could look beyond all those galaxies in the picture, we would likely see more and more galaxies. Because the universe is expanding, the light from all the galaxies will never reach us, no matter how long we stare, but it is obvious that the little we can see is far from little.
If you still can’t wrap your head around what you’re seeing and want to try another perspective, watch the following video from the American Museum of Natural History. It starts with a view of planet Earth and proceeds to zoom out until the view encompasses all the known and observable universe. Hold on to your hats for a wild ride.
When it appears that those around you are busy staring at their proverbial navels, investing their time in the celebrity gossip pages or concerning themselves with how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, it is refreshing to stand back and appreciate the true magnificence of the wider universe in which we live. You may think the universe is something out there and far too distant and abstract to be regarded a part of our daily lives, but thanks to the incredible science and engineering that gave us tools like the HST, we are now able to visualise it, measure it and come to understand it. The universe is here and we are a part of it, and it is more incredible than anything our imaginations might conceive.
Notes and references:
1) Hubble’s Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies
2) Thanks to gfish for bringing this video to my attention.
I respect your nonsense
Something that caught my attention the other day was the commonly used phrase “I respect your religion”, which is sometimes wheeled out as “I respect your faith”. It is a near universal expectation of those who believe in a deity or deities and it so ingrained in our culture that it can sometimes even trump the most basic human rights. There are even proposed international laws against defaming religion. But why should we respect religion? What do people mean when they say this? Is it dangerous to shelter religion from abuse, ridicule, even questioning?
Respect for property? †
I feel the need to explore what this statement actually means. At one end of the spectrum, it can mean acknowledging the rights of an individual to think what they please, which is innocuous enough, while on the other end it can mean submitting to the (god given) authority of an institution.
Respecting the individual is something that makes very good sense. We are social animals and rely upon those around us, we do not function well in solitude and with few exceptions we live together in communities. By the same reasoning, we can extend this concept of respect to the plant and animal kingdom with which we share this planet, even the bricks and mortar of our communities and the services they provide. But what is it that justifies giving respect to religion?
One argument is that our morals come from god and that without adherence to religious doctrine our societies would collapse in an orgy of sin, because we would not know right from wrong. If that were the case, a healthy respect would most certainly be in order and we should be compelled to listen to the teachings of the church. The whole idea is preposterous, of course. If it were so, we would live in fear that our non-religious neighbours might slaughter our families in the night and take possession of our homes. It is also highly insulting to those good people who do not subscribe to any form of religion and do not believe in the higher power of some unseen god.
As social animals we have an innate understanding of what is right and what is wrong and are quite capable of altruistic behaviours, because we appreciate the fact that cooperation benefits and strengthens our societies. Recent research shows us that we are born with the urge to help others, which suggests that the behaviour has evolved because it provides an advantage. Religious proponents might argue that god planted that seed within us, but why put yourself through the mental contortions necessary to believe this, when science offers the more obvious answer. Those arguing for god would also have to accept that he also chose to plant the same behaviours in other primate species, who have no more need for a holy book to tell them about moral behaviour, than do we.
Religious advocates will emphasise the important charitable role of churches when arguing for its purpose. The charity work of religious people may be something to be admired and appreciated, but it is the individual who deserves the respect. Religion is not an essential part of charity; it can be performed just as admirably by non believers who are not looking for a heavenly reward. In fact religion, in some cases, can attach conditions to their charity work, using it as a subtle – and in some cases not so subtle – recruiting tool. The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington also shows us that human rights – in this case those of gays and lesbians – take second place to religious dogma when it comes to providing for the poor and the needy.
Should religious authorities command respect because they are truth seekers trying to make sense of the world? Theologians will make words do somersaults in order to provoke the mental gymnastics which are necessary to hold a belief in a god or gods, but when scrutinised in the context of the real world, there is no substance to their claims. They will claim to seek the truth, but the fact is that they are already committed to what they believe is the truth and therefore have no interest in doing any such thing. Word play is the only tool they have left with which to support their version of the truth. And with so many faiths out there in the world, there are a lot of incompatible “truths” to which we may subscribe. This fact alone should give a clue that there is more nonsense to religion than there is sense. Why should any one of them command any respect?
How about the suggestion that religion gives meaning to peoples’ lives. After exhausting all other attempts to ascribe a useful purpose to religion and justify the demand for it to be given respect, this is often the last gasp to wrestle the argument back. And I cannot deny that religion does indeed give meaning in some peoples’ lives. I don’t personally think it is a meaning rooted in reality, but it is a personal choice and the individual – not the religion – should be given the respect to believe whatsoever they please, on the condition that it does not adversely affect the lives of others.
The problem is that nonsensical beliefs can spill over into the lives of others, to their detriment. It is at this point that we no longer need to exercise tolerance, let alone give our respect. Religion uses preaching to self perpetuate and commands its adherents to obey certain rules, something which can be used to great advantage in exercising control over a population. Throughout history we have seen how church and state have become intertwined for exactly this purpose. Some modern religions use the threat of eternal damnation in the fires of hell to keep their members from straying from the flock. Most disturbingly they preach this message to fearful, innocent children; that is how far they will sink. These are methods that belong in the dark ages and are nothing more than an embarrassment in the 21st century.
Not all religions operate using threats of violence, either in this life or the next. Jews do not believe in hell like the Christians do, but their faith demands that they obey its rules, some of which are frankly absurd. On the Jewish holy day of Shabbat, for example, followers may use some interesting workarounds to the demands of the faith. Elevators may take an age getting to you on that particular day, because it may be programmed to stop and open on every single floor, just so that devout believers can get around without breaking god’s rules. Apparently she gets very upset when you call for an elevator, but it’s okay if it just happens to pass by and let you on. This is just one example where someone else’s beliefs can adversely affect the everyday lives of the non-believers who want nothing more than to get on with their lives, and unfortunately there will always be those who will protest if you do not live your life according to their beliefs.
Giving respect to this sort of nonsense is the thin end of the wedge that leads to giving religions undue authority or turning a blind eye to their destructive power. Religion has been used to justify heinous acts of violence and cruelty throughout human history, it continues today and will unfortunately continue into the future. And I don’t just refer to wars and terrorism; take faith based medical neglect for example. Undue respect for religion can give perpetrators of these crimes a free pass, or at least some leniency, thereby shrugging off the neglect and abuse of countless numbers of children worldwide, because passing judgement might tread on the sensitive toes of religion.
Nonsense borne out of religious belief should wield no authority. Faith and religion has no right telling people how to live their lives, nor how to end them. The recent sentencing of convicted killer Khristian Oliver stirred up controversy because, in deciding his fate, the jury consulted their holy book: the Bible. A few verses later, they concluded that the man should himself be put to death for his crimes. They had consulted a two thousand year old text that is full of inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies and god sanctioned acts of barbarism that would turn the stomach of any sane jury member. Khristian Oliver was executed on the 6th of November.
No belief system should be sacred and no institution with a vested in interest in keeping it alive should be protected from challengers. If you are a Muslim, which is the default label given to people who are born of parents who consider themselves followers of this particular faith, they have no choice in the matter and are obliged to believe in the one god of their religion. Not conforming carries a risk. Currently the fate of three Iranian men demonstrates the severity of the penalty for dissent: they have been sentenced to death for “enmity against God”. These mens’ lives are in the balance, not for something they did, not even for something they thought, but for something they failed to believe. Where are their human rights? Where is the respect for the one fundamental thing that we all deserve: life?
References:
† Image by caffeina (Creative Commons licence).
British pharmacy chain reprimanded for quack medicines
An Open Letter to Alliance Boots
by the Merseyside Skeptics Society †
The Boots brand is synonymous with health care in the United Kingdom. Your website speaks proudly about your role as a health care provider and your commitment to deliver exceptional patient care. For many people, you are their first resource for medical advice; and their chosen dispensary for prescription and non-prescription medicines. The British public trusts Boots.
However, in evidence given recently to the Commons Science and Technology Committee, you admitted that you do not believe homeopathy to be efficacious. Despite this, homeopathic products are offered for sale in Boots pharmacies – many of them bearing the trusted Boots brand.
Not only is this two-hundred-year-old pseudo-therapy implausible, it is scientifically absurd. The purported mechanisms of action fly in the face of our understanding of chemistry, physics, pharmacology and physiology. As you are aware, the best and most rigorous scientific research concludes that homeopathy offers no therapeutic effect beyond placebo, but you continue to sell these products regardless because “customers believe they work”. Is this the standard you set for yourselves?
The majority of people do not have the time or inclination to check whether the scientific literature supports the claims of efficacy made by products such as homeopathy. We trust brands such as Boots to check the facts for us, to provide sound medical advice that is in our interest and supply only those products with a demonstrable medical benefit.
We don’t expect to find products on the shelf at our local pharmacy which do not work.
Not only are these products ineffective, they can also be dangerous. Patients may delay seeking proper medical assistance because they believe homeopathy can treat their condition. Until recently, the Boots website even went so far as to tell patients that “after taking a homeopathic medicine your symptoms may become slightly worse,” and that this is “a sign that the body’s natural energies have started to counteract the illness”. Advice such as this directly encourages patients to wait before seeking real medical attention, even when their condition deteriorates.
We call upon Boots to withdraw all homeopathic products from your shelves. You should not be involved in the sale of ineffective products, because your customers trust you to do what is right for their health. Surely you agree that your commitment to excellent patient care is better served by supplying only those products whose claims can be substantiated by rigorous scientific research? Or do you really believe that Boots should be in the business of selling placebos to the sick and the injured?
The support lent by Boots to this quack therapy contributes directly to its acceptance as a valid medical treatment by the British public, acceptance it does not warrant and support it does not deserve. Please do the right thing, and remove this bogus therapy from your shelves.
Yours sincerely,
Merseyside Skeptics Society
Controversial: Science to be taught in schools
Teaching kids about the way the world works, insofar as it can be ascertained using the tools of science, is something we’ve come to expect. Should it therefore be a subject of controversy? The British House of Commons has recently passed legislation that will require primary schools to teach evolution to kids and I have no doubt it will ruffle a few feathers.
Science class †
Why this should be a big deal in the 21st century, is hard to comprehend. Do these same schools not teach their students that fire requires oxygen to burn, demonstrating that a flame in a sealed space will be extinguished when the element has been consumed, or teach them why a bulb lights up when a switch is closed and current flows through a circuit? These are all examples of classroom science and the teaching of evolution should be no more remarkable.
This legislation will almost certainly be met with misgivings and protest from some quarters, most notably from groups with faith-based agendas. Such groups are very powerful in the United States where such laws would be near impossible to enact in most states, and unfortunately their influence extends across the pond to the United Kingdom.
Concerns over teaching evolution in primary schools would probably not have been raised even one or two decades ago, other than that the subject is perhaps better left until the later school years, which is a valid argument. Some faith groups, however, would have you believe that the subject should not be taught because it is wrong, and their voices are getting louder as they gather more and more support for their anti-scientific ideas.
Dismissing the overwhelming evidence in support of evolution, built up in the 150 years since Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, they would have you believe that the entire world was created by a supernatural being or some other intelligent designer. Many Biblical creationists would endorse the teaching of their belief that the Earth and everything upon it was magically brought into existence a mere 6000 years ago!
Excessive government control over what is taught in schools is neither practical nor desirable, but this new step is necessary for the sake of our children and the generations that follow them. By properly educating our children and giving them the tools to reason for themselves, we can thwart those who would have us living in the dark ages, ignorant of the truth of the world, slaves to religious doctrine.
If science knew everything…
When responding to someone’s extraordinary claims with a little bit of critical thinking and perhaps some contradictory science, a common retort is that “science doesn’t know everything”. I believe this stems from a terrible misconception of science and perhaps a mistrust of the scientific establishment. If science did know everything, there would be one very large book called “Science” with all of the answers to all of our questions. As a more concise person than I put it “if science knew everything, it would stop” 1. The reason we have scientists is that there are many many unanswered questions and even more cropping up all the time.
Quackery 2
Someone used this gambit against me the other day when I contradicted their belief in the efficacy of homeopathy by referring to the fact that properly conducted scientific trials have never been able to show that it works †. I had also pointed them to some useful resources where they could find the same lack of supporting evidence. But the tired old statement was dragged out once more, like some reluctant freak led out on a leash in a circus sideshow: “but science doesn’t know everything”.
Science has tested alternative medicines such as homeopathy, despite the fact there there are no apparent mechanisms by which they might possibly work, other than the placebo effect. The results: no therapeutic benefits compared with the placebos in test after test. The scientific method has failed to show that it works; it simply hasn’t been shown to heal people. This doesn’t mean that it cannot possibly work, just that we have no reliable evidence to support the claim that it does.
The fact that science does not prove that it cannot work is to some people a license to say, once again, that “science doesn’t know everything”, and to somehow use that as a justification for prescribing quack medicine to patients and telling them it will make them better. Perhaps these people think science should keep testing their “medicines” until it gives them the answer they want to hear. And for how long should they continue to test? A decade, a century, a millennium? Or should science pursue more reasonable avenues of research with medicines that do appear to work?
Science does not have all the answers and neither is it perfect. Advocates of complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM) often cite the fact that conventional medicine sometimes gets it wrong. I must agree. Despite rigorous testing, conventional medicines are rarely perfect, but we can at least have some faith in the system because it is self correcting. It continually tests and re-examines its drugs and therapies, sometimes reversing long established policies and procedures when mistakes or poor practice are revealed. You can not have the same faith in alternative medicines, which are all too often completely unregulated, especially those whose roots are a couple of hundred years old and whose fundamental principles have not changed in that time. With new evidence, science based medicine adapts, but when tests reveal no evidence for the efficacy of a drug or therapy, there is a point at which the most rational thing to do is to abandon them in favour of pursuing those that appear more worthwhile.
Just because scientific knowledge is incomplete and its medicines far from perfect, does not make it permissible for every form of quackery and nonsense to be put on an equal footing with science based medicine. When the alternatives are shown to work, they might then achieve equal status. Or to put it another way, alternative medicines will simply become known as medicines.
References and notes:
1) Homeopathy & Nutritionists vs Real Science!
2) Image by Maxey (Creative Commons attribution)
† Clinical trials should be double blinded, use control groups and involve a large enough data set to provide statistically significant results. The research should also be peer reviewed and the results reproducible before it has any credibility. Advocacy groups sponsoring such research often fail to conduct trials in the proper manner and will only publish a favourable result which supports their claims. Make sure they are using the scientific method correctly before drawing your own conclusions.
Lunar deep freeze holds water
Now that the dust has settled, both metaphorically and literally, the scientists at NASA have managed to take a careful look at the masses of data gathered by the LCROSS mission to the moon and are already reporting great success1.
Lunar craters 2
The mission went according to plan, crashing a spent rocket booster into a crater of the moon on the 9th of October, while instruments aboard the shepherding spacecraft viewed the event and the resulting plume of ejected material.
This “bombing” of the moon, as some media sources liked to call it, was eagerly anticipated by the inhabitants of Earth, who were expecting to see something spectacular. Nothing about this kind of science is guaranteed and the enormous spray of gas, dust and debris did not materialise, much to the disappointment of those watching through telescopes, or at the live images broadcast on TV and over the Internet.
The reports that came out over the following hours and days sounded like a collective “blah” as the public turned its back on space science with a dismissive wave of the hand. Many journalists, talking heads and commentators, unimpressed with the lack of “fireworks”, questioned the value of such interplanetary ventures. Science doesn’t always give instant gratification and those criticisms were premature. After a careful examination of the data, some preliminary results are now in, and they are far more interesting than any puff of gas.
The cloud of debris kicked up by the rocket impact actually reached several kilometres above the lunar surface, exposing long frozen material from within the permanently shadowed depths of the target crater. Spectrometers aboard LCROSS recorded the presence of the constituent elements in the ejected material, as they were lit up by the sun for the first time in a few billion years. From these data, NASA scientists have already concluded that there were “significant” quantities of water ice present there.
The availability of water on the moon would be a big asset for future colonies there, providing not only drinking water but also oxygen to breathe and fuel to power the habitat. These lunar deep freezers may also contain other interesting elements which might hold clues to the formation of our solar system. Again, the scientific methods requires a little more patience from us, while the data from this valuable and intellectually profitable mission continue to be analysed.
References:
1) LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon
2) Image courtesy of NASA (far side of the moon photographed from Apollo 11 in lunar orbit).
Can we have our planet back?
This rant comes from Marcus Brigstocke on the BBC Radio 4 Now Show and was animated by alien8ted. He’s slightly offensive but the message is clear: religion is screwing it up for the rest of us and we’d like it to stop.
Debating the merits of the Catholic church
A recent, televised debate for the Intelligence Squared series is now available to watch online and I highly recommend it (see 5 part video below). It features an archbishop and a British politician debating in favour of the motion that “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”, while two well known personalities argue against it. For those who have no particularly strong feelings on organised religion, these highly erudite disputants may change all that.
Homeopathy muscles in on the flu scare
There have been a series of thuds recently, the result of my head hitting the desk in despair each time I come across some piece of nonsense or stupidity in the newspaper, online or on the TV. In particular I am referring to health advice from practitioners and advocates of what they like to call alternative medicine.
I don’t make a habit of exposing myself to too much of this, because there are better ways to waste time and the headaches are rather unpleasant, but it really does bother me because such advice can be harmful (see Homeopathy couple jailed over daughter’s death) and these people are either deeply misguided or are exploiting the gullibility of people I care about, for their own gains.
Take this recent article by Susan Drury in the Vancouver Observer, for example, in which she recommends the use of homeopathy to ward off the flu, citing her own anecdotal evidence in a vague attempt to support her claims.
What homeopaths do is take a substance which provokes a similar response to the ailment in question, for example caffeine for insomnia, and then dilute it in water until nothing of it remains. The water is then administered directly or in sugar pill form.
Clinical trials, published in the best peer-reviewed journals in the world, have shown these drugs to be no more effective than the placebos they’ve been tested against. For such an ancient “medical system”, evidence showing the efficacy of homeopathy is long overdue.
Advocates cannot even come up with a good theory on how the treatments might possibly work. They sometimes talk about the memory of water and wave their hands in the air, drawing on words such as quantum and entanglement, but this only serves to baffle the enquirer and explains nothing.
At best the homeopath will take our money and leave us to consume harmless water; at worst, they might steer people away from the best and most thoroughly researched drugs and therapies available.
This morning I came across an advertisement from Access Natural Healing in a parenting magazine, offering homeopathic vaccines for “drug-free children”. They are very safe apparently, which is no doubt because they contain absolutely no active ingredients whatsoever, but in my mind this is only one interpretation of the word safe. Is it safe to “treat” children and their families with homeopathy at the expense of them not getting properly vaccinated against H1N1 or the seasonal flu? Whether or not it was there intention, their use of the term “drug-free children” certainly appears to advocate this approach, and therein lies the biggest danger of all.
Alternative cures can be attractive when confusion and contradictions abound, which is the case with H1N1 flu right now. And it takes no effort to state that a magic vial of water or a special brew of herbs and plant extracts can cure your ills. It is small wonder that there are so many “miracle cures” around, all trying to cash in on the uncertainty (see also this recent Globe and Mail article).
Beware of easy answers. Important decisions on how to tackle a potentially fatal illness should not be made lightly. Contagious diseases put you, your families and your communities at risk. Having said all that, if you really want an easy answer, try this: If an alternative medicine can be shown to work, it is just called medicine.
Recommended reading:
The end of homeopathy?
Homeopathy – Still Crazy After All These Years
Homeopathy Awareness Week
Interpreting the bogus
The legal battle between the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) and the science writer Simon Singh slogs on. The BCA brought the libel case against Singh for his article in the Guardian which referred to certain chiropractic treatments as bogus (see Science misjudged).
It looks like a David and Goliath fight between the freelance journalist seeking the truth and the menacing power of an entire organisation with a lot of self interests to protect. One wouldn’t have blamed Singh if he had bowed out of the fight as soon as his mighty opponent entered the ring; this legal farce has probably cost him dearly and it is still ongoing. But the crowd is definitely on his side, cheering him on at every hook and jab, many of whom have given their support in a petition to see the English libel laws changed. One high-profile advocate is Richard Dawkins, who recently spoke at the Liberal Party conference in England calling for reforms to the law.
The latest turn of events came on the 14th of October at the Royal Courts of Justice, where Lord Justice Laws rejected the interpretation of Singh’s article by Mr Justice Eady. Eady’s interpretation was that Singh had alleged the chiropractics were knowingly practising treatments for which they knew there was no proof of efficacy. The new interpretation is that the article was fair and in the public interest, which now grants Simon Singh the right to appeal the earlier ruling.
It’s not over yet, but there is reason to be optimistic, not only for the diminutive science writer as he stands in the shadow of a mightier adversary, but for all who see this as a fight that should be fought in open debate, with good evidence as the gentlemanly weapons of choice.
Further reading:
[Times Online] Simon Singh legal victory
Jack of Kent’s blog
[The Guardian] Science writer Simon Singh wins ruling in chiropractic libel battle
