Do not adjust your set

One of the more interesting responses I got to yesterday's post was the following:

In arguing against Dinesh D'Souza's claims that physics suggests the existence of an afterlife, you bring up yet another thing that supports belief in God. That is the fine-tuning of the conditions of the universe to support life. You mentioned Martin Rees' book Just Six Numbers, about the way physical constants are set perfectly to make the universe hospitable.  Don't you find this at all suspicious?  To me this is one of the strongest proofs of God's existence -- that if any one of these constants was just a little different, we wouldn't be here.

I've heard this claim before.  It's called the Strong Anthropic Principle -- that the "fine-tuning" of the physical constants of the universe implies a Fine Tuner.  Far from finding this "suspicious," I simply respond that it's hardly surprising that we live in a universe that has hospitable conditions; without them we would never have come to be.  (This is called the Weak Anthropic Principle -- that human existence is contingent on benevolent values for a variety of physical constants, not the other way around.)

Think, for example, of going outside on a warm, June day, and a friend of yours asks, "Why is the weather perfectly comfortable for humans today?"  There are a variety of possible answers:

1)  Because god wants to be happy, so he made today's weather nice.
2)  Because a divine being fine-tuned the conditions on Earth to mostly create weather which humans will find congenial.
3)  Because if the conditions on Earth were outside of a reasonable range of temperatures and chemical compositions, life could never have arisen here.

These three answers correspond to the three most common responses to the same question writ large (Why does the universe have conditions that support life?):  (1) god as micromanager; (2) the Strong Anthropic Principle; and (3) the Weak Anthropic Principle.  I find it interesting that no one seems to find it very odd that the Earth has (mostly) human-friendly climates, and most people see no need to ascribe that to god's direct intervention -- while Christians with a scientific bent go gaga when they find out that if (for example) the amount of energy released by hydrogen fusion was 5% less, stars would not exist, and therefore neither would we.  The fact that there are many such initial conditions (Rees identifies six, but there are probably others) is seen as admitting only one possibility; god made the universe with us in mind.

Well, I'm not convinced.  There is no underlying reason that physicists have found for why the fine structure constant is equal to 1/137 -- yet.  The big deal Rees makes over the "six numbers" in the title is that they can't be derived from first principles; they seem arbitrary, empirically measured, to have no particular reason that they are what they are.  I wonder very much, however, if this is necessarily true.  It is entirely possible that all of the universal constants will turn out to be derivable, and therefore consistent with an overarching theory that simply hasn't been discovered yet.

However, my arguing from the standpoint of a Grand Unified Theory that may not exist is weak at best, and I'm not going to put too much weight on it.  To me, the only thing that is proven by the values of the universal constants is how dependent the universe's existence is on physical conditions I barely understand.  The Weak Anthropic Principle is fine by me; just as no one wonders why the weather is pleasanter on the Earth than on the surface of the sun, it's no great wonder why we live in a universe that has conditions congenial to the formation of matter, stars, complex compounds, and life.  If any one of those conditions didn't exist, we wouldn't be here to ask the question.

In any case, I highly recommend Rees' book.  It's well-written, and if not exactly an easy read, is at least approachable by the layperson.  And even if the deliberate fine-tuning of the Strong Anthropic Principle doesn't appeal to me, I am still in awe at the delicate sensitivity of matter and energy to the settings on dials we have just begun to understand.

Dinesh vs. the Giant Weasel God

This morning I came across an article describing a book called Life After Death: The Evidence.   When I saw that, I clicked on the link with considerably more eagerness than my pre-coffee state would normally allow.

It wasn't, honestly, that I was expecting anything like a fair and balanced (to borrow a phrase) treatment of the subject.  I doubt that anyone is really completely unbiased on the topic.  However, it wasn't until the end that I realized that the article, and the book, were written by conservative author and Christian apologist Dinesh D'Souza, whose views certainly don't represent the skepticism I would hope to find in writing that claims in its title to be evidence-based.

The main claims of D'Souza's arguments seem to be based upon near-death experiences.  He emphasizes the commonality between different people's accounts of near-death experiences, and discounts the claims of psychologist Susan Blackmore, who first put forth the hypothesis that the similarity of NDEs (such as the well-known "tunnel of white light") come from the effects of brain shutdown as the person dies.

Now, before I proceed, let me state outright that I don't know whether there is life after death or not.  To me, the jury is still out on that one, and frankly, I expect it still to be out until the point when I take that final leap into the dark myself.  At that point I will know, or not (because there will no longer be any "me" left to know anything).  NDEs are intriguing (as are stories about ghosts and hauntings and so on), but at this point, as evidence they strike me as pretty thin.  Still, it's an interesting idea, and should good evidence come my way, I would certainly be willing to reconsider my position -- as befits the attitude of any true skeptic.

After that, however, D'Souza jumps right into the kind of pseudoscientific blather that is so often used to give apparent support to tenuous theories. To wit:

For the Christian conception of life after death to be viable, there have to be realms beyond the physical universe that are quite literally outside space and time. This is what the Christian concept of "eternity" means. God is eternal and heaven is His eternal realm. But in Newtonian physics these concepts made no sense, because time was presumed to extend indefinitely into the past and the future, and space was presumed to stretch unendingly in all directions.

Today, however, you just have to wander into an introductory college science class to see how 21st-century physics has greatly widened our horizons. Today scientists routinely speak of hidden dimensions, multiple realms, and even multiple universes. What do we know about multiple universes? Not a lot, but we know that if they do exist they would have laws radically different from those in our universe.

One of the direct implications of the Big Bang is that not only did the physical universe have a beginning, but space and time also had a beginning. Space and time are properties of our universe. This means that in realms beyond our universe, if such realms exist, there might be no space and no time. Suddenly the Christian idea of eternity is rendered intelligible.

The first thing that is apparent to me from the preceding paragraphs is that D'Souza himself hasn't wandered into any introductory science classes himself lately.  To pick out only the most egregiously false statements from this passage:

• Newtonian physics has nothing in particular to say about god one way or the other.  It doesn't claim that time or space was/is unending, it simply describes how objects in this space move and interact.

• The "hidden dimensions" he refers to probably come from the concepts of string theory, which is based in mathematics of (at my last reading) up to eleven spatial dimensions.  Most string theorists believe that all but three of those spatial dimensions are "curled up" into a space far smaller than the volume of an atom; it's hard to see what those submicroscopic dimensions could affect on the macroscopic scale, far less what bearing they might have on life after death.

• Ditto the "multiple universes."  Both string theory and the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics (which he seems to be referencing) are as yet unsupported by experimental evidence.  Plus, his final statement, that multiple universes, if they exist, are known to have radically different laws, is simply false.  The fact is, we neither know if multiple universes exist, nor if they exist, what kinds of physical laws they might have.  The book Just Six Numbers by Martin Rees explores the idea of what the universe would be like if the physical constants that shape it (such as the strength of gravity) were different.  But given that we don't know why the current universe has its constants set the way they are, it's hard to draw any conclusions about the likelihood of other universes having other laws.  And once again, I'm hard pressed to see what relevance it would have to an afterlife, in any case.

Last, he does a good bit of atheist-bashing, implying that atheists are either blundering about with blinders on, ignoring the "preponderance of evidence," or else are engaging in wishful thinking because they're afraid of being held accountable in the next life for their own misdeeds.  In his words:

I began by leveling the playing field between atheists and believers.  Sure, the believer hasn't been to the other side or questioned any dead people, but the atheist hasn't either.  So what information does the atheist have that the believer doesn't?  None.  The absence of proof is not proof of absence, so the atheist's denial of life after death, like the believer's affirmation of it, is ultimately a faith-based position.

Naturally, I take exception to this stance.  The only "faith-based" part of my own thinking is that I usually try to rely on hard evidence before adopting a stance one way or another; my "faith," if you can call it that, is that reasoning and evidence are the best way to understand the universe.  And while he is correct that "absence of proof is not proof of absence," that well-worn statement becomes a little specious when you apply it to particular situations. Let's try:

• I believe that Bigfoot exists; you don't.  Because belief and disbelief are equivalent, "faith-based" positions, it's up to you to prove to me that Bigfoot doesn't exist.

• There are thousands of first-hand accounts of UFOs, which amounts to a preponderance of evidence. If you can't prove that these people are lying, or deluded, UFOs exist.

And so on.  To me, whether belief and disbelief are equivalent depends entirely on what you're expecting me to believe in.  If you want me to believe that there is a Giant Weasel God who lives at the top of Mt. St. Helens and that He was directly responsible for the 1980 volcanic eruption, then I think that the burden of proof is on you.  On the other hand, if I disbelieve in the existence of the sun, then it's beholden upon me to find evidence to support my relatively non-intuitive viewpoint.  As always, Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence.

Despite my criticisms of D'Souza's claims, no one would be more thrilled than me if there really was hard evidence of an afterlife.  I'm not really all that excited about the concept of Ceasing To Be.  However, to quote Carl Sagan, "It is far better to grasp the universe as it is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying or reassuring."

Weekend wrap-up

Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're keeping an eye on a trio of developing stories.

First, from Peru, we have a report that anthropologist Renato Dávila Riquelme has discovered the skeleton of a twenty-inch-tall "mysterious being" whose "odd, triangular skull is nearly as long as it is."  Here's a photograph of the skull (photo courtesy of Peruvian news agency RPP):

Dávila Riquelme isn't talking, but RPP has interviewed several anonymous Spanish and Russian scientists, who have identified the skull as having belonged to an alien:

It has a non-human appearance because the head is triangular and big, almost the same size as the body. At first we believed it to be a child's body until... doctors came and confirmed that, yes, it's an extraterrestrial being.

Because, obviously, doctors have a great deal of experience with extraterrestrials, and are qualified to identify an alien skull when they see one.

Me, I'm not so sure.  Given the range of peculiar birth defects out there, I'm banking on it belonging to a child with a severe skeletal abnormality, who died very young.  Tragic, but not evidence of spaceships.


All of which will come as a grave disappointment to a Ukranian man who appeared at city hall in Odessa, dressed up as Darth Vader and demanding a plot of land on which he could park his spaceship. 

"I am Darth Vader," he told three guards, who looked at him as if he had lost his mind, which given the circumstances was probably pretty accurate.  "I heard that land is being carved up in the city of Odessa, and that many deputies, city administration, and the mayor have joined the Dark Side.  I have come for my parcel of land for the spaceship."

Lord Vader's appearance seems to have been triggered by Odessa mayor Eduard Hurvits' controversial decision to offer plots of land in the area to citizens of Odessa for free as long as they agree to build houses.  Evidently the policy created a Strong Disturbance In The Force, and Lord Vader had no choice but to come to Earth to kick ass, requiring him to find a place to park his space shuttle.

Odessa City Hall spokesperson Anna Osipchuk was not amused.  "We are not on the Dark Side," Osipchuk said.  "There are only Princess Leias here."  Which is almost as baffling a statement as Lord Vader's was.  Maybe she was referring to the peculiar hairstyles favored by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko:

Which, to my eye, is still better than the Earmuff Braids worn by Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie.

Our last story will undoubtedly cheer up Lord Vader after his being rebuffed in the Ukraine.  Scientists at CERN have reaffirmed the findings from earlier this year, that neutrinos appear to be capable of traveling faster than the speed of light.  Scientists are still being cautious, however, as well they should be.  Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, said:

A measurement so delicate and carrying a profound implication [for] physics requires an extraordinary level of scrutiny.  The experiment OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus), thanks to a specially adapted CERN beam, has made an important test of consistency of its result. The positive outcome of the test makes us more confident in the result, although the final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world.

At this point, I'm sure you have the same question I do, namely: why is it "OPERA" and not "OPETA?"  It turns out that every time I've seen this experiment written, they write it as Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus, which puts me in mind of Calvin & Hobbes' anti-girl club GROSS (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS).  Be that as it may, this reconfirmation of the earlier measurements came as a surprise to me -- as soon as I heard about how this finding was going to demolish relativity, my immediate reaction was, "I doubt it."  But physicists are doing exactly what they should do -- carefully reexamining the experiment and its findings -- and so far, OPERA (or OPETA) has held up to scrutiny.

This, hopefully, should give some much-needed encouragement to Darth Vader, and reassure him that his spaceship can, in fact, achieve hyperdrive when he returns to the Death Star.  And when he goes, I'd like him to take that alien baby skull along with him, because that thing is creeping me out.

An anthrope considers the strange case of couth and ruth

I noticed last week that the spine was torn on my Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology.  It's a case of simple overuse.  Some people will wear out a beloved book from childhood; others will love to death a cherished novel, or memoir, or the bible.  Me, I wear out the ODEE.  It's kind of pathetic, really.

What led me to this unfortunate discovery was a student, predictably, who had asked me why "ruthless" was a word but there was no word for its opposite condition ("ruthful," presumably?).  I didn't know, but it did put me in mind of the following couplet:

We rode in my convertible, my girlfriend Ruth and me,
I hit a bump doing 95, and I went on, ruthlessly. 

 So I went to look it up.  It turns out that the "ruth" in "ruthless" is a cognate of "to rue," meaning "to afflict with contrition or sorrow."  So "ruthless" originally meant "lacking contrition."  The word "rue" only remains in English in the construct "to rue the day," as in, "you'll rue the day you ever double-crossed me, you dastardly and uncouth villain!"

Which brings us to "uncouth."  There's no such word as "couth," however people joke about it.  The current meaning of "uncouth" as "wild-looking, dirty, scary," is because the last part of the word comes from the Indo-European root "kynths," meaning "known."  So "uncouth" really means -- and is a cognate to -- "unknown," not "unkempt" (whose meaning it resembles more closely today).  And, by the way, the "kempt" part of "unkempt" comes from Old Norse, "kembr," meaning "combed."  So as that goes, "unkempt" and "dishevelled" were cousins a millenium ago, and still are; "shevelled" comes from Old French "chevel," meaning "hair."  Both, essentially, meant "having a bad hair day," a narrower meaning than today, when both of them usually simply mean "untidy, rumpled-looking."  (And in case you are wondering, I am both kempt and shevelled today, not to mention highly couth.)

"Disgruntled" is kind of a funny one, because here "dis" is not used in its most common meaning of a negative, but in its far less frequent role of an intensifier -- the only other example I could find was the obscure "disannul."  The "gruntled" part is a cognate of "to grunt" in its old sense of "to complain."  So really, it means "feeling like complaining really loudly."  But it's a pity that it's not one of the opposite-words, like the previous examples.  I think that having "gruntled" mean "cheerful" would just be wonderful.

"Nonchalant," and its noun form "nonchalance," are predictably from French, and were only adopted into English in the 18th century.  The last part of the words comes from "chaloir," meaning "to worry, to be concerned with," so "nonchalant" hasn't changed much in meaning since that time.  Still, you have to wonder why we can't be "chalant."  I certainly am, sometimes.

A lot of "mis" words have no opposites.  You can be a misanthrope, but not an anthrope; a miscreant but not a creant; you can commit a misdemeanor, but not a demeanor.  A mishap occurs when you are unlucky, but only the hapless among us would describe winning the lottery as a "hap."

So anyway, you get the picture.  As usual, the answer to my student's question about why such things happen in languages was "damned if I know."  I doubt much of this was new to you -- probably most of these examples were both toward and heard-of -- but perhaps you had never really stopped to think about the question before, so I hope this post was called-for, and that you were able to make both heads and tails out of it.

PETA, Mario, and El Chupacabra

It is a particularly vexing problem to try to determine my attitude toward a group whose goals I basically agree with, but whose tactics are so bizarre and repellent that I don't even want to have my name associated with them.

I'm referring in this case to PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  I think their aims are laudable -- improving conditions for animals, from pets to farm animals to animals in research to wild animals.  I find their approach hard to fathom, however, especially their deliberate use of shocking imagery, their breaking in to research facilities and releasing caged animals (most of whom probably die in the first days after release), and their treating of all animal deaths as equivalent (remember when they condemned President Obama for swatting a fly?).

They also don't understand the principle of "choose your battles."  Nor, apparently, do they have any sense as to when an extreme stance will cause far more people to laugh at you than to support you.  Because their latest campaign is against...

... Mario.

Yup.  The little Nintendo cartoon guy.  Why?  Because in his latest incarnation, in Super Mario 3D Land, he's wearing a magic fur coat that allows him to jump higher.

Further, they claim that because Mario's fur coat is modeled after the fur of the Japanese raccoon dog (tanuki), that he is directly responsible for the death of tanukis raised for fur in Japan.  So they decided to make their own game, in which a bloody, hairless tanuki is chasing Mario around trying to get his fur back.  And on their website, they have a picture of a crazed Mario holding up a severed tanuki head.

And I'm thinking, "Really?  They're going after a video game character?  Don't they have anything better to do with their time and resources?  Or are they just trying to lose what little credibility they have left?"

Don't get me wrong; I'm a strong advocate of treating animals with respect and kindness, and I think much of the treatment of animals in industry is reprehensible.  But... a video game character?  Wearing a fur suit that isn't real?  It reminds me of what my dad once said to a salesman in a furniture store, when he was being shown a chair upholstered in Naugahyde:  "Aren't you afraid that sooner or later, you'll run out of Naugas?"

On the other hand, the whole ridiculous incident may explain recent happenings in Oklahoma, in which a teenager shot an animal that he thought was El Chupacabra.  On further analysis, it turned out that the dead animal was actually a hairless raccoon.

Maybe the whole El Chupacabra phenomenon can be laid at Mario's feet, you know?  Maybe they're going on the rampage because they're trying to get their fur back, and prevent Mario from getting all those little gold coins, and jumping on the magic boxes, and so on.  We probably shouldn't tell PETA this, however, or they will swarm en masse to the Southwest and begin a "Save the Chupacabra" campaign.

On the other hand, maybe it will give them something to do.

Tea. Panda poo. Hot.

You may have heard about Luwak Coffee, the "most expensive brew on Earth," which is made from coffee beans that were pooped out by an Indonesian species of weasel called a luwak.  Supposedly the beans ferment in the luwak's digestive tract, and this gives the coffee a "distinctive aroma."  (I'll just bet it does.)  To experience this... um... delicacy, you have to be willing to pay $600 a pound.

Now a Chinese tea manufacturer is trying to top this by producing the most expensive tea on Earth.  Inspired by the hard-to-fathom success of Luwak Coffee, An Yanshi has created a tea for which he is charging £ 50,000 per kilo (about $36,000 a pound).

Made from panda poo.

I wish I was making this up, but if you don't believe me, here's the source. 

"Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 per cent of everything they eat. That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients," An explained.  "It has a mature, nutty taste and a very distinctive aroma while it's brewing."

(I'll just bet it does.)

So, I'm sure that given the price, it will become a delicacy.  What is it with the word "delicacy," anyway?  The dictionary definition is that a delicacy is something "pleasing to eat that is a rarity or luxury."  My feeling is that this definition is incorrect; it should be, "something that you should only consume if it is because you stand to win a great deal of money from your buddies for swallowing it."  Examples include the durian fruit of Southeast Asia (which smells so disgusting that it is a crime to cut one open in a hotel room) and hakarl (Icelandic fermented shark meat, which informed sources tell me "has a pungent ammonia smell").

So if you're thinking of going all-out in the delicacy department, you could have some hakarl, follow it up with a bowl of durian, and wash it all down with panda-crap tea.  That would certainly be a "distinctive" meal!  Mmm-mmm!

Myself, I wonder if this will catch on.  $36,000 per pound seems a little steep to have the privilege of drinking stewed panda poop, and I'm not sure how many people out there are both (1) seriously rich, and (2) insane.  But you never know; I thought the same thing about the much-cheaper Luwak Coffee when it came on the market about ten years ago, and there it is, still selling like crazy.  It could be that there are even crazier people with even larger amounts of money who will be willing to buy An Yanshi's poolong tea.

If it does sell, I will find that to be a little discouraging, considering what good things could be done with $36,000.  You could buy a nice car, take a grand vacation, or even just pay down your mortgage -- and instead, there the money goes, for a pound of panda poop.  But to each his own, and a fool and his money are soon parted, and all that sort of stuff.

But for An Yanshi's sake, I hope some of it does sell, because five tons of panda poop is an awful lot to be stuck with.

Hey, you, get offa my cloud

Along Cayuga Lake, near where I live, is Milliken Station Power Plant.  On cool days its smokestack can be seen topped with a plume of steam.  Nearby is Portland Point, a renowned Devonian fossil-collecting site.

It was the fossils that brought a ninth-grade Earth Science class there, some years ago, which I had been asked to help chaperone.  The kids were all happily mucking around in the shale, looking for fossils, when one young lady -- who was known not to be overendowed with brains -- looked over at the nearby power plant smokestack, and said, wonder in her voice, "So that's where clouds come from!"

There are times when my natural compassion and my tendency to guffaw at people who say stupid things do war with each other.  I think I didn't laugh at her, but it was an effort.

But lest you think that this lack of understanding about concepts like "water vapor" and "condensation" is limited to this long-ago student, allow me to introduce you to Diane Tessman.  Now, Diane doesn't think, as our student did, that clouds are manufactured in Ithaca, New York and then exported all over the world.  No, that would be ridiculous.

Diane Tessman believes clouds are manufactured by UFOs as camouflage.

At first, I thought her claims were a joke, intended to make fun of the whole UFO/alien coverup crowd.  Sadly, it is not.  She has written an article (here) in which she describes how alien spacecraft produce clouds to hide within or behind.  These are not oddly-shaped clouds, Ms. Tessman says; no, they are ordinary, puffy white cumulus clouds, because hiding behind an oddly-shaped cloud would call attention to the UFO instead of hiding it.

By this point, you're probably asking yourself: if they don't look any different, how can I tell a UFO cloud from a regular cloud?  Answer:  you can't.  You just have to watch a bunch of clouds, and wait until the camouflage slips and you see a UFO.

It's kind of an odd camouflage, when you think about it.  Picture yourself as the alien captain, on a vital mission to Earth, and there you are, sitting inside a cloud, just drifting along with the other,  non-UFO-generated clouds.  You can't change direction or speed, because it's not like the cloud is going to come along with you.  It means that whatever your mission was intended to accomplish, you'd better hope that it was downwind of your current position, and not needing attention any time soon.

Of course, Ms. Tessman says, we also have to consider the possibility that clouds may not just be camouflage; it's possible that clouds are naturally generated by "dimensional travel."

Whatever that means.

The whole thing is kind of spooky, isn't it?  How many times have we had nice picnics on beautiful summer days, and lain on blankets looking up at the peaceful white clouds sailing by?  Now, you have to wonder how many of those clouds hid evil aliens, spying on us, waiting until we fall asleep so they can steal the oatmeal-raisin cookies we brought for dessert.

At this point, some of you may be questioning Ms. Tessman's credentials.  If so, they're provided at the end of the article.  She states that she is a former public school teacher; one can only hope that her subject wasn't physics.  She participated in many projects with MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network), and after many years discovered that she had a personal reason for her interest; while under hypnosis, she discovered that as a child she had been visited by, and had "shared consciousness with," an alien being called "Tibus."  Tibus has apparently provided her with such vital information as the fact that hurricanes are dangerous and it's a problem when a nuclear power plant explodes.  And now that we've had Katrina and the meltdown at Fukushima, we can definitely all agree that Tibus knows what he's talking about.

But mainly, I'm glad that we now have an explanation for clouds other than Milliken Station Power Plant.  Because frankly, given the demand for clouds in places like the Amazon Rain Forest, it's been hard for Milliken Station to keep up with production quotas.  It's a relief to know that all we have to do is to send some UFOs down there to do "dimensional travel," and there will be clouds aplenty.