Blogs / Bad Astronomy

Too cool: NASA has released a bunch of computer images of various vehicles being built to go back to the Moon. Check out the cutaway view of the Orion Service module:

Cooooooool. I hope they get a chance to actually, y’know, build it. With the way the budget’s going for NASA, and they way they’re cutting back on robotic lunar exploration… well. We’ll see.

Oh, I have to add this. Looking through the images, this one popped up:

I only glanced at it, and I thought, "NASA is building the Flying Spaghetti Monster!"

Special note:

Hey! Have you donated to the Shannon Malloy Fund?

Update (Sept 15 2007): Donation button removed.

You Trekkers out there will be glad to hear that Scotty’s remains have been found. Astronaut Gordon Cooper’s ashes were also in the payload launched into suborbital space back in April, only to have the payload lost in the New Mexico scrub. Weather and the rough terrain kept them from finding anything until now. The link above should have more details later today.

Special note:

Hey! Have you donated to the Shannon Malloy Fund?

Update (Sept 15 2007): Donation button removed.

Special note:

Hey! Have you donated to the Shannon Malloy Fund?

Update (Sept 15 2007): Donation button removed.

Note: I originally misspelled Ken Ham’s name. That has been fixed. He is, however, still an antiscience evildoer.

Y’all know how I feel about creationists. Yea, verily. So you can imagine how I feel about Ken Ham, a noted shill for antiscience, who has built the Museum of Creation in Boone County, Kentucky. And you can really imagine how I feel when I tell you it cost $26 million! We have science education centers in this country looking for spare change under the sofa cushion, and those liars have money getting shipped to them by the wheelbarrow full!

Several groups have planned a peaceful protest of the museum, including the "Rally for Reason", a protest for "…Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists and other non-believers — as well as religious, civic and educational organizations that support good science". I have said many times that it’s the religious people who should be protesting creationism the most — it’s the fundamentalists who are stealing their religion away from them in the public eye. The protest is Monday, May 28th, starting at 9:00 a.m. according to the article linked above (there is more info there, so go read it).

Needless to say, the creationist group Answers in Genesis, which is sponsoring the museum, aren’t happy with the protests. See if you can spot all the logical fallacies and untruths on that page. I’ll give you one for free:

When Dr. Scott and the NCSE claim that students who believe in a creation view will need remedial instruction in science, they are completely off base. A scientist’s perspective on origins has nothing to do with whether or not they can perform empirical research. Many great scientists of the past believed in a Creator. Increasing numbers of scientists today also affirm belief in the creation account in Genesis. These stand as a powerful testimony against their misguided claim of the need for remediation.

As an additional example, consider the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging system) which was invented by Raymond Damadian who is a strong creationist. Does this machine work differently because its inventor believed in a Creator? Of course not.

There are two problems with this reasoning. So, the inventor was a creationist. OK then, what did he base that invention on? Magnetism, and quantum mechanics. These are both scientific fields, and both of which, in every way possible, point to the Universe being older than 10,000 years. The decay rates of uranium, magnetic fields in stars (and pulsars), the magnetic field frozen in to the rocks of the Earth near the mid-Atlantic ridge, and on and on. So the inventor was able to use some fields of science to create a wonderful device (which has been used on me more than once, I’ll add), but was able to completely ignore all the other ramifications. Amazing.

The other part of this statement that’s wrong is using this as an example that brainwashing kids into creationism doesn’t stop them from great scientific advances. I will guarantee you that the man who invented the MRI was a very, very smart fellow (deluded, but smart). What proportion of the population can do stuff like that? A very tiny fraction. Using him as an example of the fine creationist science education is like the Lottery Commission holding up the 250 million-to-1 winner and saying "This could be you!" Sure, it could be. But it won’t be.

If we really just let them teach what they want, the vast majority of the kids cultivated into creationism would not be able to parse the science well enough to figure out they’re being lied to. We’re having enough trouble educating kids in science as it is.

Interestingly, the AiG page several times mentions that the National Center for Science Education — a group that fights religious fundamentalism in the form of creationism and ID from taking over our schools — is planning on protesting, but I saw nothing on the NCSE site. I’ll have to find out what they’re doing. I can’t make it, but any critical thinkers in the Boone County, Kentucky area would be most welcome.

Fraser Cain of the wonderful Universe Today website is hosting the current (and next) Carnival of Space, a collection of the best blog posts about What’s Out There. I went through and read a half dozen of those posts in a row, and they’re really good. Go read it!

This is important. Please take five minutes and read it through to the end.

Last Saturday, I blew it.

I wrote a blog entry which I meant to be focused on how we ascribe supernatural causes to statistical events, and how the words we use tend to wriggle into our brains and take on a reality they don’t deserve. The motivation for this was a newspaper article about a young women who suffered a horrific car accident, and despite her statistically remote chance of survival, she has been making a remarkable recovery. The words "miracle" and "luck" were used many times, and I wanted to talk about those words and how I think they get misused.

Somewhere down the line, though, for whatever reasons, my writing took on a snarky tone. I will give no excuse for it, except to say that it was stupid of me. It had several repercussions: it distracted people from what I was trying to say, lessening the impact of the actual content. It riled up people needlessly, as well, of course. But the dumbest part of all this was that somehow, I forgot that at the other end of that article was a real human being who was going through a personal version of hell that I can’t even imagine.

Sometimes you need a kick in the butt to see the obvious. That kick came when Shannon Malloy, the woman who had the accident, left a comment on my blog (and her friend Twyla also left several salient comments). And yes, I was skeptical as well, but through various means I have determined it was in fact Shannon who left the comment.

The sense of my own stupidity that hit me was palpable. It is so easy to be a keyboard commando, as they say, and write whatever you want and not think of the repercussions. But I have always tried to be above that, to be at the very least polite. It’s not always easy, of course, when dealing with the kind of stuff I do. And I’ve slipped a few times, sure, but never like this. I was really disappointed in myself.

I updated the blog entry, and issued an apology in the comments. But there are over 100 comments there, and mine got lost in the crowd. It deserved its own entry, so here it is.

Science, skepticism, and critical thinking are all about admitting when you’re wrong, and taking action to correct them.

I was able to track down Shannon’s mother and send her a note expressing my regrets over my own callousness. It turns out that she is a gracious and warm woman, and we resolved our issues in a friendly and I dare say upbeat manner. It’s ironic, but after feeling so miserable, I now feel just the opposite, knowing that there really are good people out there. Even better: today I talked to Shannon on the phone as well! We only talked for a few minutes, but it’s clear that she has a lot of gumption and strength. It is no exaggeration to say that she is an inspiration.

I see an onslaught of bad thinking, histrionic attacks on reality, personal insults (like you can’t imagine), and other assorted bile every day. It can be difficult. But seeing what Shannon and her friends and family have gone through, I can handle my own load better now. I think I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m stating so publicly.

And now, after all this, I want to do something positive for Shannon. Her mom told me that she has a vast amount of surgery left to go through, and it’s expensive. Very expensive, six figure expensive. Saturday’s blog post got over 100 comments, which means a lot of people read it, which means, I think, a lot are reading this.

So: got any spare cash? A donation fund has been set up in Shannon’s name at the Denver Wells Fargo bank to help her pay for medical bills. If you want to donate to it, send a check to Wells Fargo. Make it out to "Shannon Malloy Benefit Fund" and put the fund number in the memo field: 303 666 0508. The address is

Wells Fargo
7150 Leetsdale Dr.
Denver, CO
80224

But I can make it even easier. I have a PayPal account, and if you send money to that, I will collect it and send it to Wells Fargo myself. I will of course keep your info secret; I won’t disclose who sent how much. Since I am moving next week, and expect I’ll be busy, I’ll leave the button up on the top of this blog at least until next Wednesday, May 22. If donations are still rolling in, I’ll keep it up until after my move.

Here you go. Give.

Update (Sept 15 2007): Donation button removed.

Getting tenure at a University is tough. There are a million hoops to jump through, and those hoops can be set mighty high. Even being a brilliant scientist doesn’t guarantee you tenure… and certainly, promoting complete and utter antiscientific drivel doesn’t help. Guillermo Gonzalez, an advocate of Intelligent Design, has been denied tenure at the University of Iowa Iowa State. The Discovery Institute claims it’s from bias.

I certainly hope so. I want to see scientific departments being biased against antiscience.

But you don’t need to know my opinion of all this; it’s obvious enough. So instead go read what Christopher O’Brien, Rob Knop, and Ed Brayton have to say. I imagine this will be quite the topic on science blogs for a day or two.

Hey, I’m on Skepticality again! I like going on there, and Swoopy likes me (and need I say it? MMMMMmmmm, Swoopy). Oh, and there’s that guy on there too. Derek something.

We had fun chatting about my impending life changes, the big supernova news last week, Scotty’s ashes, and just being critical thinking types in general. Michael Shermer is the guest before me, and since he’s their sponsor, I’ll let it slide.

You can get the file from the link above, or from iTunes (go to Podcasts; Skepticality is one of the top podcasts so it won’t be hard to find).