It’s an old joke but does it ever really happen?
My son’s science homework for last night was to build some Lewis dots using Froot Loops. This morning, the dog ran out and managed to take a couple of bites of a Lewis dot before we were able to fend him off . . .
My boy is researching a paper on Darwin’s theory of evolution.
“How’s the research going?” I ask.
“I discovered an error and had to start over,” he says.
“You discovered an error in your paper or you discovered an error in Darwin’s theory?”
“Well, Internet Explorer discovered an error and had to close.”
“Because if you discovered an error in Darwin’s theory, there’s probably a Nobel Prize in it for you. Be sure to mention me in your acceptance speech.”
“Shut up.”
“[Imitating his voice] ‘I’d like to thank my dad, who always encouraged me to do my best.’”
“Shut up.”
Some famous scientist — I wish I could remember who — said that new theories supplant old theories not on merit, but only when everyone who believed in the old theory has died.
Hence — don’t expect people to embrace your new idea. People hate new ideas. The good news is — eventually a new idea becomes an old idea.
Once people start to say, “Oh, that idea’s been around for a while,” or die, whichever comes first, they become more receptive to it.
Xkcd will sell you a T-shirt with this slogan on it.
My son loves it. He thinks his 8th grade science teacher should get one.
“That’s a great idea,” I say, “if he wants to get fired.”
“He could just cross out BIZNATCHES and write KIDS instead,” he suggests.
Just in time for Mother’s Day, Save the Children has published its seventh annual State of the World’s Mothers report on newborn mortality.
As usual, the U.S. takes a beating:
Continue reading HW Explains the U.S. Newborn Mortality Rate
E = mc2, the world’s most famous equation, is 100 years old. According to this BBC article:
Einstein showed in a handful of lines that as you accelerate an object, it not only gets faster, it also gets heavier.
. . . the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist’s work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a ‘controversy’ to teach.
Continue reading How the Intelligent Design Hoax was Perpetrated
An open letter to the Kansas School Board on an alternative theory of Intelligent Design, i.e., that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The creationists’ fondness for ‘gaps’ in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
‘There are forces, Lucius, infinitely more powerful than reason and science.’
‘Which?’
‘Ignorance and madness.’
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlasting punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.
Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published on this date in 1859.
If by “sound,” you mean vibrations in air pressure capable of being interpreted as sound, then yes, it does make a sound.
If by “sound,” you mean CRRRRRRRRASSSSSH!, then it doesn’t.
According to the British Journal of Ophthalmology, wearing a too-tight necktie may increase the risk of glaucoma by boosting blood pressure inside the eyes.
Ouch!
Who volunteers for this kind of thing? Choked blind with your own necktie!?
I had no idea we were still launching space shuttles until Columbia blew up yesterday, which is one way of reviving people’s interest in the space program.
President Bush says “the cause in which they died will continue,” meaning manned space flight.
“Send him up there,” my wife says.
OC Family’s Special Annual “10 Teachers Making a Difference” issue is out . . .
I don’t believe this at all. There aren’t enough genes to cover all the human frailties we’ve blamed on genetic causes.
As I was walking to the coffee machine, I overheard one of our developers trying to explain to a development manager that acceleration due to gravity is independent of horizontal motion.
He was illustrating the concept with a well-known example: that a bullet dropped from a given height will hit the ground at the same time as a bullet fired horizontally from a gun at the same height.
“I don’t agree with that,” the manager said.
“Agree with it?!” the developer said. “The law of gravity doesn’t depend on you agreeing with it.”
When I got my coffee and walked back, the manager was starting to waver.
“Okay, I believe that they would hit at the same time,” he said, “assuming there was not a lot of wind affecting the bullets.”
Not surpisingly, this is completely consistent with his management style, in which he forms opinions independent of physical reality, and then tries to bluff his way through the resulting chaos.
Ironically, one of the reasons I got into software development in the first place was the opportunity to work with bright, educated people . . .
Thus spoke The Programmer.
Only one in five high school seniors has a solid grasp of science, according to the results of a national test released today.
Related link: Having It All!
