The Australian: Textbook case of making our past a blame game [February 01, 2006]
Janet's column in yesterday's Australia is an excellent piece. (Assuming she is fairly reporting what is in her child's history text.)
Teachers are a worry.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Desktop fusion is real
ScienceDaily: Using Sound Waves To Induce Nuclear Fusion With No External Neutron Source
One hopes that this may lead to something useful in terms of energy production in future.
One hopes that this may lead to something useful in terms of energy production in future.
Yes, it was as stupid as it sounds
Toxic fish advice kept secret - National - smh.com.au
This is an update to the post I did questioning the common sense (or lack thereof) in banning fishing in one area of a harbour, as if they can't swim.
And yes, scientists did realise it was stupid not to do more, but nothing happened for years. Great.
This is an update to the post I did questioning the common sense (or lack thereof) in banning fishing in one area of a harbour, as if they can't swim.
And yes, scientists did realise it was stupid not to do more, but nothing happened for years. Great.
More on contraception & abortion
Is Abortion Bad? - Waiting for the condom crusade. By William Saletan and Katha Pollitt
The link above is to a Slate published exchange of letters between William Saletan (whose New York Times article I strongly recommended a few posts ago) and a critic of his approach.
He quotes more interesting poll results from the USA which indicate that the pro choice lobby really won't convince the public of much if it insists on abortion being just unfortunate, rather than an inherently bad thing. And, as common sense would indicate is appropriate, the later the abortion, the worse the public thinks of it.
The link above is to a Slate published exchange of letters between William Saletan (whose New York Times article I strongly recommended a few posts ago) and a critic of his approach.
He quotes more interesting poll results from the USA which indicate that the pro choice lobby really won't convince the public of much if it insists on abortion being just unfortunate, rather than an inherently bad thing. And, as common sense would indicate is appropriate, the later the abortion, the worse the public thinks of it.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Meanwhile, up with the sheep...
It's kind of fun to annoy people by talking about a movie I haven't seen and probably won't. Anyway, Brokeback Mountain was the subject of a decidedly gushing comment piece by John Heard in the Australian a couple of days ago. It is, presumably, not a bad movie, but this (emphasis mine) is a bit over the top, isn't it?:
"This curious tale of unabashed same-sex attraction written for the rigidly heterosexual cowboy genre wasn't just a hit in the obvious places, although the queues in Chelsea, New York City, went around the block on opening night.
Rather, it has been watched and re-watched by thousands in the south and especially in Texas, the most masculine, devout, George W.Bush-rearing state in the union.
The personal testimonies on the film's website, left by surprised, delighted or otherwise deeply moved, deeply ordinary Texans and other cowpokes and ranch folk are wrenching. The thought of "good ole boys" sitting down with popcorn and handkerchiefs to watch what is, ostensibly, a chick-flick in man-drag is stunning."
So how big a hit (commercially) is it? From Rotten Tomatoes, I see that it has earned $51 million in the US after 8 weeks in release, and took $6 million last weekend (presumably, there is a bounce in ticket sales from all the recent awards.) By comparison, something like "Fun with Dick and Jane", a poorly reviewed Jim Carrey comedy, has made $106 million.
My point is: until a movie reaches about $100 million in the US, it doesn't exactly have "big hit" written all over it. (King Kong took over $200 million and is considered a bit of a flop, but then it did cost about that to make. I presume there are few special effects up on Brokeback.) (Gosh it is hard to avoid trying to be funny about that movie.)
Speaking of movie hits, have a look at that Rotten Tomatoes link to see how much money the prominent Oscar nominated films have made this year. Not only has Hollywood seemingly decided to try to annoy all Red States, it has also apparently set poor-to-middling box office performance as a criteria for attention.
"This curious tale of unabashed same-sex attraction written for the rigidly heterosexual cowboy genre wasn't just a hit in the obvious places, although the queues in Chelsea, New York City, went around the block on opening night.
Rather, it has been watched and re-watched by thousands in the south and especially in Texas, the most masculine, devout, George W.Bush-rearing state in the union.
The personal testimonies on the film's website, left by surprised, delighted or otherwise deeply moved, deeply ordinary Texans and other cowpokes and ranch folk are wrenching. The thought of "good ole boys" sitting down with popcorn and handkerchiefs to watch what is, ostensibly, a chick-flick in man-drag is stunning."
So how big a hit (commercially) is it? From Rotten Tomatoes, I see that it has earned $51 million in the US after 8 weeks in release, and took $6 million last weekend (presumably, there is a bounce in ticket sales from all the recent awards.) By comparison, something like "Fun with Dick and Jane", a poorly reviewed Jim Carrey comedy, has made $106 million.
My point is: until a movie reaches about $100 million in the US, it doesn't exactly have "big hit" written all over it. (King Kong took over $200 million and is considered a bit of a flop, but then it did cost about that to make. I presume there are few special effects up on Brokeback.) (Gosh it is hard to avoid trying to be funny about that movie.)
Speaking of movie hits, have a look at that Rotten Tomatoes link to see how much money the prominent Oscar nominated films have made this year. Not only has Hollywood seemingly decided to try to annoy all Red States, it has also apparently set poor-to-middling box office performance as a criteria for attention.
Some more Middle East thoughts
* On Hamas in the Middle East: Salon.com (of course) is trying to blame George W for the success of Hamas and wants to ridicule him over the failure of "democracy" to deliver acceptable outcomes. The argument that you can't expect democracy to have good results unless it is based "on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority" initially sounds plausible, but on closer reflection it is all a bit "chicken and egg" isn't it? I mean, undemocratic governments don't have much incentive to set up well for up a system that is likely to kick them out, do they? And in the case of Iraq in particular, there was not exactly a hell of a lot of time to be spent on establishing the liberal society first before giving democracy a try, was there?
Maybe it comes down, then, to some liberals just believing that the Middle East should be left to flounder in its own mess. Maybe next century they will be ready for democracy..
But one further point that Juan Cole makes in his article (which, incidentally, has a particularly snide header, even for Salon: "How do you like your democracy now, Mr Bush?") perhaps shows the flaw in his pessimism. He writes (emphasis mine):
" To be sure, many Israelis believe that Hamas is only using the truce to rearm, that it will never change its opposition to the very existence of Israel, and that any negotiations with the Islamist group will only weaken the Jewish state. And Hamas' failure to speak clearly about its intentions does nothing to allay such fears. But no one has ever put Hamas to the test. Neither Bush nor Israel have ever made good-faith efforts to resolve the underlying issues, preferring to issue moralistic denunciations that ignore the reality on the ground."
As an article I linked to in a previous post noted, it is the fact that Hamas now has to take responsibility and not hide behind its "government" that actually gives some cautious ground for optimism.
Maybe it comes down, then, to some liberals just believing that the Middle East should be left to flounder in its own mess. Maybe next century they will be ready for democracy..
But one further point that Juan Cole makes in his article (which, incidentally, has a particularly snide header, even for Salon: "How do you like your democracy now, Mr Bush?") perhaps shows the flaw in his pessimism. He writes (emphasis mine):
" To be sure, many Israelis believe that Hamas is only using the truce to rearm, that it will never change its opposition to the very existence of Israel, and that any negotiations with the Islamist group will only weaken the Jewish state. And Hamas' failure to speak clearly about its intentions does nothing to allay such fears. But no one has ever put Hamas to the test. Neither Bush nor Israel have ever made good-faith efforts to resolve the underlying issues, preferring to issue moralistic denunciations that ignore the reality on the ground."
As an article I linked to in a previous post noted, it is the fact that Hamas now has to take responsibility and not hide behind its "government" that actually gives some cautious ground for optimism.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Black holes at the CERN collider - will physicists bring the earth to a premature end?
In December, I did a short post referring readers to this website: www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/index.htm. I found the site intriguing, as the author did appear to have some knowledge of physics and made arguments which, at least on the face of it, appeared plausible and concerning. It's time I did a full post about this.
Background - how black holes may be coming to your neighbourhood
As James Blodgett (the author of the above site) explains, there is a large particle accelerator being built in Europe by CERN called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is expected to come "on line" in 2007. This is a huge project, which was the subject of a recent BBC background report here.
For a relatively straightforward explanation of how it is that black holes might be created by the LHC, see this article from Analog. My explanation (subject always to correction, as I am no scientist) is this:
Since at least 2001, which was presumably well after the LHC project was planned, physicists have realised that if there are large "extra dimensions" to the universe, the energies that might be required to create a microscopic black hole may be within the reach of the LHC. For papers describing this in full technical detail, try this one by Webber, and Blodgett cites others others in different parts of his website. Physicists are excited by the possibility, as it would really be a very new field of inquiry for particle physics.
The idea of there perhaps being large extra dimensions has become a popular theory relatively recently, but there has been a lot of work about it the last, I think, decade or so. (Also, see this search at the arxiv.org site to see the large amount of attention possible black hole production at the LHC is getting.) From what I understand, the large extra dimensions idea is different from, but not inconsistent with, string theory, which proposes that there are very tiny hidden extra dimensions bound up so tightly that no one has any idea yet how they can be verified experimentally.
Black holes are created by compressing stuff so tightly that its gravity prevents anything escaping, even light. (Although there may be a type of radiation from them anyway, as I will note below.) If other matter is nearby, they can suck it in and grow, as indeed is believed to be happening at many astronomically sized black holes throughout the universe. Sounds dangerous, and physicists have thought about the safety aspects of creating a micro black hole.
Back in 1999 there was a bit of media attention given to the RHIC accelerator in the USA, and whether it would cause the end of the earth, or even the entire universe, through production of a "strangelet" or other ways. A risk assessment paper was done on this, and it also considered whether black holes could be created at that accelerator. That paper is here.
The paper quickly concluded that there was no where near enough energy in that accelerator's collisions to create a black hole. They spent much more time on "strangelets", but concluded that they are a very small risk. The argument that clinches this is that cosmic rays (which are tiny, naturally produced, subatomic particles traveling at enormous speed) have been crashing into the planets and our moon for billions of years at much higher energies than what can be achieved in particle accelerators, and they have not caused the destruction of any solar system body yet. Work at lower energies is therefore also presumed safe.
There is a similar "risk assessment" style paper dated June 2002 on the LHC, which is a substantially more powerful collider.
This paper acknowledges that micro black holes might be created at the LHC, but also assumes that they will not be any danger to the earth because they are expected to evaporate (my term, not there's) almost instantaneously with their creation.
(Famous physicist Stephen Hawking predicted early in his career that black holes will, in effect, evaporate due to quantum effects at their edge. It's called Hawking Radiation, or HR in the rest of this post. The smaller the black hole, the faster the HR process, and the theory goes that a tiny black hole created in the LHC would instantaneously evaporate in a spray of subatomic particles. It would be this process by which the detectors would in fact know that a black hole had [very temporarily] been created. Black holes which absorb surrounding matter at a rate faster than they lose weight through HR will grow in size, but once there is nothing around them to "accrete", they will start losing weight again.)
The 2002 paper does not mention the 'cosmic ray' argument except in the context of strangelets. However, at the CERN website there is a page where this argument is referred to in the context of black holes too. See here, where it is said:
"It should be stated, in conclusion, that these black holes are not dangerous and do not threaten to swallow up our already much-abused planet. The theoretical arguments and the obvious harmlessness of any black holes that, according to these models, would have to be formed from the interaction of cosmic rays with celestial bodies, mean that we can regard them with perfect equanimity."
So - what's the problem?
Well, as Blodgett notes, and a search of the arxiv site confirms, that there are credible physicists who doubt that HR actually exists. Although astronomers believe they have strong evidence of massive black holes in the centre of galaxies, HR is too faint to be observed that way.
So, the fundamental problem comes down to this: the CERN risk assessment paper is based on HR definitely happening. They do not consider in any detail what may happen if a micro black hole does not disappear quickly.
What about the cosmic ray argument?
Blodgett notes that if cosmic rays create black holes, they would nearly always be doing it by a very fast particle (a cosmic ray) smashing into a relatively stationary one (a bit of the moon, say.) The micro black hole created that way should therefore have high velocity. This is quite different from the LHC process, which would create its high energy interactions by head-on collisions of 2 streams of particles traveling at similar speeds in opposite directions.
In the case of the LHC, the momentum of the particles would often cancel each other out resulting in potential particles (such as micro black holes) that are moving below the earth's escape velocity.
This is important, because all micro black holes would be so small that no one expects them to be highly interactive with ordinary matter, and a speeding one might zip through a planet in much the same way a bullet might pass harmlessly through a room full of balloons. Ones created in the LHC, on the other hand, have time to settle into the core of the earth, and lots of time to interact with matter there. It is also possible that the LHC will create hundreds of such black holes during its experiments. (Blodgett has obtained definite confirmation on this point from a physicist wrote a paper and who did correspond with him for a time.)
How fast could a stable micro black hole absorb other particles?
Blodgett readily acknowledges that micro black holes may not be capable of absorbing anything at a rate which represents a real problem anyway. His point is, however, that physicists do not seem to have done detailed work on 'worst possible case' scenarios because they assume that HR means this is just not going to be a problem in the first place.
Blodgett points out that at least one paper suggests that a black hole based on the 'extra dimensions' theory could have a larger radius than a 'normal' black hole in a universe without extra dimensions. He also raises the issue of conditions in the interior of the earth and how that would affect a micro black hole's accretion rate.
He worries, although without providing any real detail on his site, that there are some scenarios in which a dangerous accretion rate (with expotential growth of a micro black hole) is possible. Just how fast this may mean that it could eat the earth is not clear. I take it that Blodgett does not think it likely that the earth would disappear in such a hole in a day or a year. However, even if it may mean that the earth could end up as a tiny black hole within, say, 10,000 or a 100,000 years, wouldn't people be a little concerned about that?
What do I think of all this?
During the weeks since I found Blodgett's site, I have had email correspondence with him about his background and motives. He is not a physicist, but does have some qualifications in statistics and other topics. He certainly seems to have better maths than me.
He appears genuine; and not a "nutter".
What I like about his site is that he is open about being willing to be proved wrong.
He told me that he has tried to obtain some publicity for his site, with very limited success. He has tried contacting quite a few physicists, most of whom have been immediately dismissive.
I has some experience of this myself. I raised his site at a 'group blog' run by a bunch of particle physicists called Cosmic Varience. This particular thread was about what the LHC may or may not find. (Some people fear it won't turn up anything very new at all, at great expense.) My first comment was at comment no. 45. It is well worth reading the comments thread from that point on. Note the initial snide reaction of particle physicist Mark (who is one of the group bloggers).
I emailed James Blodgett and told him about the thread. He made a couple of subsequent posts; I think it is fair to say that Mark did not take well to being questioned by a non physicist. I ended with a polite request for further response to articles I found myself indicating that they is a lot of uncertainly about HR as a process, but did not get an answer.
Blodgett says this is fairly typical of the reaction he has received in contacting other physicists.
I have emailed a couple of other physicists who appear to know a lot about black hole theory about the issues (very briefly), and while I did receive an answer from one, it seemed clear that he had not read Blodgett's site in any detail.
There are threads on other physics forums about the issue, but none that I have read seem to have dealt with Blodgett's arguments in adequate detail.
My conclusions:
1. It is clear that the current published paper by the CERN safety committee is inadequate in that it bases its arguments regarding micro black holes solely on the assumption that HR does exist. For this point alone, I think Blodgett deserves praise.
2. I see no published evidence that particle physicists have taken seriously Blodgett's suggestion that the "cosmic ray" argument is a flawed analogy in the case of micro black holes from the LHC.
3. It is possible that, even without HR, accretion rates for micro black holes within the earth's interior might be so slow that the worst possible case is not worth worrying about. But again, I see no clear evidence that they have done the work of looking at "worst case scenarios".
4. It is possible that some physicists have done some calculations on the scenarios that Blodgett suggests and have formed the opinion that there really is no problem. If so, they are doing a terrible job at explaining to anyone asking the question whether Blodgett's concerns are misplaced. It certainly seems that some particle physicists simply don't like to be questioned about this. The fact that there is a huge investment at stake may help explain some of the animosity, although I am not suggesting that a physicist who realised there was a danger would try to hide it. I do wonder, though, whether it makes them not want to look into it in too much detail.
5. One other point I have not yet mentioned: if micro black holes can be created by cosmic rays and do evaporate via HR, then it should already be happening above our heads in the earth's atmosphere. New Scientist ran a story about that here. There is already work underway to see if the decay of such micro black holes can be detected. If it is, it would be a confirmation of HR really working, and the LHC could go ahead confident in that knowledge. It seems to me that a strong case could presently be made for not starting up the LHC until the search for atmospheric decay of 'cosmic ray' black holes has been given a good chance of success.
Also, a very recent article suggest that there might be another way of testing if "extra dimensions" exist. If they are confirmed, it would presumably suggest that the LHC will definitely create micro black holes, although it may not add much to the issue of whether HR works.
An appeal
This issue has not exactly caused me to lose sleep, but I have spent a fair bit of time reading on the internet about the issues, and thinking about it. It does worry me that a published risk assessment paper from CERN about the possible risk of their destroying the earth does seem to be clearly inadequate in detail when addressing micro black holes. Although I think Blodgett is not as transparent on his web site as he could be, his arguments make some intuitive sense to me.
If they re-wrote it to address the issues Blodgett makes, I would be much happier. But I get the impression that this has not yet happened because:
a. relatively few physicists think there is much risk of HR not existing (even though there seem to be quite a few credible papers on exactly this point)
b. the possibility of micro black holes being created at LHC was only realised a few years ago, and papers are still being produced at a great rate with new ideas about their possible character and fate. (Some papers suggest that a "remnant" will be left from the HR process. I guess that these are not thought to be potentially dangerous either, but the exact nature of such a particle has not been clearly explained in anything I have read);
c. Blodgett's questions are being asked by non physicists.
If any reader of this post has any contacts with physicists who are interested in addressing the issues Blodgett raises, please ask them to have a look at it for us. It's only the issue of the future of the earth at stake.
Update: in the interests of showing independence, I did not provide a copy of this to James Blodgett prior to posting. I have advised him of its existence, and invited him to comment if he thinks I have got any point wrong.
Also: only today I found this old thread on a physics forum site which contains posts by Blodgett and some responses he receives. They are well worth reading, especially the last one by him here.
Blodgett's point about the difficulty of trying to work out possible accretion scenarios when quantum gravity is not understood seems very valid. It is the apparent lack of response to these issues that worries me.
UPDATE SEPT 2008: I see that this post is still getting quite a bit of attention from people Googling for information now that the LHC is nearing operation.
Readers should be aware that I made many subsequent posts relevant to the topic after this one. As I don't tag my posts, the best way to find them is to go to the current page for my blog and use the search blog facility for "black holes".
The short story is that I had been somewhat relieved by the work published mid 2008 by Mangano that gave reasons why micro black holes could not be a danger. Then this month, I found that there was potentially a new reason to worry. The status of the Plaga suggestion of how Hawking Radiation itself might be a danger is unclear to me: Mangano says he makes a fundamental mistake, but I find it hard to follow.
Background - how black holes may be coming to your neighbourhood
As James Blodgett (the author of the above site) explains, there is a large particle accelerator being built in Europe by CERN called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is expected to come "on line" in 2007. This is a huge project, which was the subject of a recent BBC background report here.
For a relatively straightforward explanation of how it is that black holes might be created by the LHC, see this article from Analog. My explanation (subject always to correction, as I am no scientist) is this:
Since at least 2001, which was presumably well after the LHC project was planned, physicists have realised that if there are large "extra dimensions" to the universe, the energies that might be required to create a microscopic black hole may be within the reach of the LHC. For papers describing this in full technical detail, try this one by Webber, and Blodgett cites others others in different parts of his website. Physicists are excited by the possibility, as it would really be a very new field of inquiry for particle physics.
The idea of there perhaps being large extra dimensions has become a popular theory relatively recently, but there has been a lot of work about it the last, I think, decade or so. (Also, see this search at the arxiv.org site to see the large amount of attention possible black hole production at the LHC is getting.) From what I understand, the large extra dimensions idea is different from, but not inconsistent with, string theory, which proposes that there are very tiny hidden extra dimensions bound up so tightly that no one has any idea yet how they can be verified experimentally.
Black holes are created by compressing stuff so tightly that its gravity prevents anything escaping, even light. (Although there may be a type of radiation from them anyway, as I will note below.) If other matter is nearby, they can suck it in and grow, as indeed is believed to be happening at many astronomically sized black holes throughout the universe. Sounds dangerous, and physicists have thought about the safety aspects of creating a micro black hole.
Back in 1999 there was a bit of media attention given to the RHIC accelerator in the USA, and whether it would cause the end of the earth, or even the entire universe, through production of a "strangelet" or other ways. A risk assessment paper was done on this, and it also considered whether black holes could be created at that accelerator. That paper is here.
The paper quickly concluded that there was no where near enough energy in that accelerator's collisions to create a black hole. They spent much more time on "strangelets", but concluded that they are a very small risk. The argument that clinches this is that cosmic rays (which are tiny, naturally produced, subatomic particles traveling at enormous speed) have been crashing into the planets and our moon for billions of years at much higher energies than what can be achieved in particle accelerators, and they have not caused the destruction of any solar system body yet. Work at lower energies is therefore also presumed safe.
There is a similar "risk assessment" style paper dated June 2002 on the LHC, which is a substantially more powerful collider.
This paper acknowledges that micro black holes might be created at the LHC, but also assumes that they will not be any danger to the earth because they are expected to evaporate (my term, not there's) almost instantaneously with their creation.
(Famous physicist Stephen Hawking predicted early in his career that black holes will, in effect, evaporate due to quantum effects at their edge. It's called Hawking Radiation, or HR in the rest of this post. The smaller the black hole, the faster the HR process, and the theory goes that a tiny black hole created in the LHC would instantaneously evaporate in a spray of subatomic particles. It would be this process by which the detectors would in fact know that a black hole had [very temporarily] been created. Black holes which absorb surrounding matter at a rate faster than they lose weight through HR will grow in size, but once there is nothing around them to "accrete", they will start losing weight again.)
The 2002 paper does not mention the 'cosmic ray' argument except in the context of strangelets. However, at the CERN website there is a page where this argument is referred to in the context of black holes too. See here, where it is said:
"It should be stated, in conclusion, that these black holes are not dangerous and do not threaten to swallow up our already much-abused planet. The theoretical arguments and the obvious harmlessness of any black holes that, according to these models, would have to be formed from the interaction of cosmic rays with celestial bodies, mean that we can regard them with perfect equanimity."
So - what's the problem?
Well, as Blodgett notes, and a search of the arxiv site confirms, that there are credible physicists who doubt that HR actually exists. Although astronomers believe they have strong evidence of massive black holes in the centre of galaxies, HR is too faint to be observed that way.
So, the fundamental problem comes down to this: the CERN risk assessment paper is based on HR definitely happening. They do not consider in any detail what may happen if a micro black hole does not disappear quickly.
What about the cosmic ray argument?
Blodgett notes that if cosmic rays create black holes, they would nearly always be doing it by a very fast particle (a cosmic ray) smashing into a relatively stationary one (a bit of the moon, say.) The micro black hole created that way should therefore have high velocity. This is quite different from the LHC process, which would create its high energy interactions by head-on collisions of 2 streams of particles traveling at similar speeds in opposite directions.
In the case of the LHC, the momentum of the particles would often cancel each other out resulting in potential particles (such as micro black holes) that are moving below the earth's escape velocity.
This is important, because all micro black holes would be so small that no one expects them to be highly interactive with ordinary matter, and a speeding one might zip through a planet in much the same way a bullet might pass harmlessly through a room full of balloons. Ones created in the LHC, on the other hand, have time to settle into the core of the earth, and lots of time to interact with matter there. It is also possible that the LHC will create hundreds of such black holes during its experiments. (Blodgett has obtained definite confirmation on this point from a physicist wrote a paper and who did correspond with him for a time.)
How fast could a stable micro black hole absorb other particles?
Blodgett readily acknowledges that micro black holes may not be capable of absorbing anything at a rate which represents a real problem anyway. His point is, however, that physicists do not seem to have done detailed work on 'worst possible case' scenarios because they assume that HR means this is just not going to be a problem in the first place.
Blodgett points out that at least one paper suggests that a black hole based on the 'extra dimensions' theory could have a larger radius than a 'normal' black hole in a universe without extra dimensions. He also raises the issue of conditions in the interior of the earth and how that would affect a micro black hole's accretion rate.
He worries, although without providing any real detail on his site, that there are some scenarios in which a dangerous accretion rate (with expotential growth of a micro black hole) is possible. Just how fast this may mean that it could eat the earth is not clear. I take it that Blodgett does not think it likely that the earth would disappear in such a hole in a day or a year. However, even if it may mean that the earth could end up as a tiny black hole within, say, 10,000 or a 100,000 years, wouldn't people be a little concerned about that?
What do I think of all this?
During the weeks since I found Blodgett's site, I have had email correspondence with him about his background and motives. He is not a physicist, but does have some qualifications in statistics and other topics. He certainly seems to have better maths than me.
He appears genuine; and not a "nutter".
What I like about his site is that he is open about being willing to be proved wrong.
He told me that he has tried to obtain some publicity for his site, with very limited success. He has tried contacting quite a few physicists, most of whom have been immediately dismissive.
I has some experience of this myself. I raised his site at a 'group blog' run by a bunch of particle physicists called Cosmic Varience. This particular thread was about what the LHC may or may not find. (Some people fear it won't turn up anything very new at all, at great expense.) My first comment was at comment no. 45. It is well worth reading the comments thread from that point on. Note the initial snide reaction of particle physicist Mark (who is one of the group bloggers).
I emailed James Blodgett and told him about the thread. He made a couple of subsequent posts; I think it is fair to say that Mark did not take well to being questioned by a non physicist. I ended with a polite request for further response to articles I found myself indicating that they is a lot of uncertainly about HR as a process, but did not get an answer.
Blodgett says this is fairly typical of the reaction he has received in contacting other physicists.
I have emailed a couple of other physicists who appear to know a lot about black hole theory about the issues (very briefly), and while I did receive an answer from one, it seemed clear that he had not read Blodgett's site in any detail.
There are threads on other physics forums about the issue, but none that I have read seem to have dealt with Blodgett's arguments in adequate detail.
My conclusions:
1. It is clear that the current published paper by the CERN safety committee is inadequate in that it bases its arguments regarding micro black holes solely on the assumption that HR does exist. For this point alone, I think Blodgett deserves praise.
2. I see no published evidence that particle physicists have taken seriously Blodgett's suggestion that the "cosmic ray" argument is a flawed analogy in the case of micro black holes from the LHC.
3. It is possible that, even without HR, accretion rates for micro black holes within the earth's interior might be so slow that the worst possible case is not worth worrying about. But again, I see no clear evidence that they have done the work of looking at "worst case scenarios".
4. It is possible that some physicists have done some calculations on the scenarios that Blodgett suggests and have formed the opinion that there really is no problem. If so, they are doing a terrible job at explaining to anyone asking the question whether Blodgett's concerns are misplaced. It certainly seems that some particle physicists simply don't like to be questioned about this. The fact that there is a huge investment at stake may help explain some of the animosity, although I am not suggesting that a physicist who realised there was a danger would try to hide it. I do wonder, though, whether it makes them not want to look into it in too much detail.
5. One other point I have not yet mentioned: if micro black holes can be created by cosmic rays and do evaporate via HR, then it should already be happening above our heads in the earth's atmosphere. New Scientist ran a story about that here. There is already work underway to see if the decay of such micro black holes can be detected. If it is, it would be a confirmation of HR really working, and the LHC could go ahead confident in that knowledge. It seems to me that a strong case could presently be made for not starting up the LHC until the search for atmospheric decay of 'cosmic ray' black holes has been given a good chance of success.
Also, a very recent article suggest that there might be another way of testing if "extra dimensions" exist. If they are confirmed, it would presumably suggest that the LHC will definitely create micro black holes, although it may not add much to the issue of whether HR works.
An appeal
This issue has not exactly caused me to lose sleep, but I have spent a fair bit of time reading on the internet about the issues, and thinking about it. It does worry me that a published risk assessment paper from CERN about the possible risk of their destroying the earth does seem to be clearly inadequate in detail when addressing micro black holes. Although I think Blodgett is not as transparent on his web site as he could be, his arguments make some intuitive sense to me.
If they re-wrote it to address the issues Blodgett makes, I would be much happier. But I get the impression that this has not yet happened because:
a. relatively few physicists think there is much risk of HR not existing (even though there seem to be quite a few credible papers on exactly this point)
b. the possibility of micro black holes being created at LHC was only realised a few years ago, and papers are still being produced at a great rate with new ideas about their possible character and fate. (Some papers suggest that a "remnant" will be left from the HR process. I guess that these are not thought to be potentially dangerous either, but the exact nature of such a particle has not been clearly explained in anything I have read);
c. Blodgett's questions are being asked by non physicists.
If any reader of this post has any contacts with physicists who are interested in addressing the issues Blodgett raises, please ask them to have a look at it for us. It's only the issue of the future of the earth at stake.
Update: in the interests of showing independence, I did not provide a copy of this to James Blodgett prior to posting. I have advised him of its existence, and invited him to comment if he thinks I have got any point wrong.
Also: only today I found this old thread on a physics forum site which contains posts by Blodgett and some responses he receives. They are well worth reading, especially the last one by him here.
Blodgett's point about the difficulty of trying to work out possible accretion scenarios when quantum gravity is not understood seems very valid. It is the apparent lack of response to these issues that worries me.
UPDATE SEPT 2008: I see that this post is still getting quite a bit of attention from people Googling for information now that the LHC is nearing operation.
Readers should be aware that I made many subsequent posts relevant to the topic after this one. As I don't tag my posts, the best way to find them is to go to the current page for my blog and use the search blog facility for "black holes".
The short story is that I had been somewhat relieved by the work published mid 2008 by Mangano that gave reasons why micro black holes could not be a danger. Then this month, I found that there was potentially a new reason to worry. The status of the Plaga suggestion of how Hawking Radiation itself might be a danger is unclear to me: Mangano says he makes a fundamental mistake, but I find it hard to follow.
A new book on North Korea
The Japan Times Online
See above for a review of a new book about North Korea from the British diplomat who opened the British embassy there in 2001. Sounds very interesting:
"The "labour camps" and the reports of human-rights violations are described, as is the bizarre and ghoulish way in which the dead Kim Il Sung has been retained as president and is "revered" in ways that make the cults of Stalin and Mao Zedong seem tame."
I would like to know more about that.
In the meantime, North Korea gets a mention in the media recently here (for raising the spectre of nuclear war), and here (in relation to worries that it may well sell plutonium to Iran as a shortcut to Iran making a bomb.) What "interesting" times we live in.
See above for a review of a new book about North Korea from the British diplomat who opened the British embassy there in 2001. Sounds very interesting:
"The "labour camps" and the reports of human-rights violations are described, as is the bizarre and ghoulish way in which the dead Kim Il Sung has been retained as president and is "revered" in ways that make the cults of Stalin and Mao Zedong seem tame."
I would like to know more about that.
In the meantime, North Korea gets a mention in the media recently here (for raising the spectre of nuclear war), and here (in relation to worries that it may well sell plutonium to Iran as a shortcut to Iran making a bomb.) What "interesting" times we live in.
No comment
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Pathetic phalluses
Extracts from the above article (by the maker of a 3 part Channel 4 - where else - documentary on penis size):
"...an entire scene has grown up around so-called penis dysmorphia, and men are having their penises injected with silicone to gain size. For the men posting pictures of the results on the web, it is impossible for such malformed penises to become erect. But that is not the point, they say: they just want everyone to share in the beauty of their mental illness."
Now for some words of encouragement for your "average" male:
"Men born with abnormally large penises almost invariably find that their first sexual experiences are with men. I met men who said that, once they had reached their 20s, they realised they were straight rather than gay; so they suffered years of sexual confusion and misery.
Invariably, what most men would consider a blessing turned out to be a curse. What I found was that an unusually large penis had, without exception, made a misery of the lives of everyone we interviewed."
Have fun making your own comments...
Update: this seems as appropriate a post as any to also refer to the so-astonishing-it's- weirdly-funny body modification fetish of scrotal inflation. I found this last year, actually via a link from Little Green Footballs (just so you know I don't go deliberately looking for this stuff!) If you haven't seen it before, go to this report on an anarchist bookfair in San Francisco, scroll down to photo no. 6, and read the explanation. There's even a link to order your own "scrotal inflation kit".
I also found (by accident) a mention of its complications in the medical literature here. I like this line from the abstract:
"Patients who are considering scrotal inflation, as it is called in the lay literature, should be warned of the potential complications of this procedure."
Yes, but just how many men considering this procedure would first go to their doctor to ask "hey, I am thinking of inflating my scrotum with saline to the size of a melon. Any problem with doing that?"
Extracts from the above article (by the maker of a 3 part Channel 4 - where else - documentary on penis size):
"...an entire scene has grown up around so-called penis dysmorphia, and men are having their penises injected with silicone to gain size. For the men posting pictures of the results on the web, it is impossible for such malformed penises to become erect. But that is not the point, they say: they just want everyone to share in the beauty of their mental illness."
Now for some words of encouragement for your "average" male:
"Men born with abnormally large penises almost invariably find that their first sexual experiences are with men. I met men who said that, once they had reached their 20s, they realised they were straight rather than gay; so they suffered years of sexual confusion and misery.
Invariably, what most men would consider a blessing turned out to be a curse. What I found was that an unusually large penis had, without exception, made a misery of the lives of everyone we interviewed."
Have fun making your own comments...
Update: this seems as appropriate a post as any to also refer to the so-astonishing-it's- weirdly-funny body modification fetish of scrotal inflation. I found this last year, actually via a link from Little Green Footballs (just so you know I don't go deliberately looking for this stuff!) If you haven't seen it before, go to this report on an anarchist bookfair in San Francisco, scroll down to photo no. 6, and read the explanation. There's even a link to order your own "scrotal inflation kit".
I also found (by accident) a mention of its complications in the medical literature here. I like this line from the abstract:
"Patients who are considering scrotal inflation, as it is called in the lay literature, should be warned of the potential complications of this procedure."
Yes, but just how many men considering this procedure would first go to their doctor to ask "hey, I am thinking of inflating my scrotum with saline to the size of a melon. Any problem with doing that?"
How the future should look...
The Venus Project - The Redesign of a culture
If you like watching Thunderbirds because of its 1960's vision of how the future would look, have a look at the site above for nice eye candy of a similar kind.
Seems to be the home page of some self-styled futurist who wants to change the world. The site seems relatively low on detail, but lots and lots of pretty drawings of futuristic cities, building and stuff.
I used to love this sort of thing as a child in the 1960's. I remember one book in particular that had lots of similar drawings in it. It is also why I really liked EPCOT centre in Walt Disney World when I visited there is the late 1980's. (If you have a choice between the original Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida, go for Florida every time. It is like 4 different theme parks all run by Disney on a massive area of land. And you can visit NASA about a 100km away too.)
The future should look like the future, I say. But I have my doubts about Melbourne's Federation Square (not that I have seen it in the flesh yet.)
If you like watching Thunderbirds because of its 1960's vision of how the future would look, have a look at the site above for nice eye candy of a similar kind.
Seems to be the home page of some self-styled futurist who wants to change the world. The site seems relatively low on detail, but lots and lots of pretty drawings of futuristic cities, building and stuff.
I used to love this sort of thing as a child in the 1960's. I remember one book in particular that had lots of similar drawings in it. It is also why I really liked EPCOT centre in Walt Disney World when I visited there is the late 1980's. (If you have a choice between the original Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida, go for Florida every time. It is like 4 different theme parks all run by Disney on a massive area of land. And you can visit NASA about a 100km away too.)
The future should look like the future, I say. But I have my doubts about Melbourne's Federation Square (not that I have seen it in the flesh yet.)
Welcome visitors
A kind reference to this site by Evil Pundit has resulted in my actually having more than a handful of visitors over the weekend. Welcome all. (Makes me wonder what happens if Tim Blair recommends a site!)
One of the fun things about having a site meter with some detail available is spotting where unusual visitors come from. I seem to have a very regular visitor from either Mauritius or South Africa (it shows on the site meter as from Mauritius, but when I search the ISP name it refers to South Africa.) This is assuming that I am not mistaking some automated thing that hits my site frequently for a person.
So Mauritius or South African person, who seems to check my site very frequently, care to make a comment so I know you are a person?
One of the fun things about having a site meter with some detail available is spotting where unusual visitors come from. I seem to have a very regular visitor from either Mauritius or South Africa (it shows on the site meter as from Mauritius, but when I search the ISP name it refers to South Africa.) This is assuming that I am not mistaking some automated thing that hits my site frequently for a person.
So Mauritius or South African person, who seems to check my site very frequently, care to make a comment so I know you are a person?
Daniel Pipes has his say on Hamas etc
The Australian: Daniel Pipes: Region not ripe for democracy [January 30, 2006]
A short, interesting item from Daniel Pipes in the Australian today (see above) about the problem with democracy in the Middle East. The key paragraphs:
"In brief, elections are bringing to power the most deadly enemies of the West. What went wrong? Why has a democratic prescription that proved successful in Germany, Japan and other formerly bellicose nations not worked in the Middle East?
It's not Islam or some cultural factor that accounts for this difference; rather, it is the fact that ideological enemies in the Middle East have not yet been defeated. Democratisation took place in Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union after their populations had endured the totalitarian crucible. By 1945 and 1991, they recognised what disasters fascism and communism had brought them, and were primed to try a different path.
That's not the case in the Middle East, where a totalitarian temptation remains powerfully in place."
His suggested approach:
"Western capitals need to show Palestinians that, like Germans electing Adolf Hitler in 1933, they have made a decision gravely unacceptable to civilised opinion. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians to see the error of their ways."
Not sure how that would work out.
One thing I have never understood is what is it that passes for an economy in Gaza. If they have very little economic activity there, it makes it a bit hard to exert pressure that way. It would seem to me that a solution to the arab/Israeli problem should include giving the Palestinians something with which they can base an economy. But I am not sure if that has been factored in with past suggested "solutions" or not.
And one thing about Pipe's piece: a recent post over at Neo-neocon (a very classy blog, by the way) points out that talk of Hitler being democratically elected rather oversimplifies how he came to power.
A short, interesting item from Daniel Pipes in the Australian today (see above) about the problem with democracy in the Middle East. The key paragraphs:
"In brief, elections are bringing to power the most deadly enemies of the West. What went wrong? Why has a democratic prescription that proved successful in Germany, Japan and other formerly bellicose nations not worked in the Middle East?
It's not Islam or some cultural factor that accounts for this difference; rather, it is the fact that ideological enemies in the Middle East have not yet been defeated. Democratisation took place in Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union after their populations had endured the totalitarian crucible. By 1945 and 1991, they recognised what disasters fascism and communism had brought them, and were primed to try a different path.
That's not the case in the Middle East, where a totalitarian temptation remains powerfully in place."
His suggested approach:
"Western capitals need to show Palestinians that, like Germans electing Adolf Hitler in 1933, they have made a decision gravely unacceptable to civilised opinion. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians to see the error of their ways."
Not sure how that would work out.
One thing I have never understood is what is it that passes for an economy in Gaza. If they have very little economic activity there, it makes it a bit hard to exert pressure that way. It would seem to me that a solution to the arab/Israeli problem should include giving the Palestinians something with which they can base an economy. But I am not sure if that has been factored in with past suggested "solutions" or not.
And one thing about Pipe's piece: a recent post over at Neo-neocon (a very classy blog, by the way) points out that talk of Hitler being democratically elected rather oversimplifies how he came to power.
Friday, January 27, 2006
On the Hamas victory in Palestine
Emanuele Ottolenghi on Hamas on National Review Online
The piece above makes some good points. Forcing Hamas into the open, so to speak, may ultimately be a good thing.
SBS News tonight featured a piece on Mariam Farahat, the newly elected Palestinian mother who happily sent 3 sons to their death to achieve the muder of many Israeli civilians. The reporter used the term "sacrificed her sons" more than once, but without any qualification or doubt expressed that this is the appropriate term. Presumably, this is the term Mariam uses herself, but why doesn't the media use the same caution as they have often displayed when talking of the "war on terror", or the "Axis of Evil", where qualifiers such as "so-called" have frequently been used?
Mariam, by the way, has three other sons still alive and is saying she is willing to use them too.
The fact that she is popular because of the way she tearlessly sent them off to die, achieving nothing but (at least in the case of the one son she appeared with on the famous video) the deliberate killing of non-combatants, suggests that there is something seriously wrong with Palestinian Islamic psychology.
The piece above makes some good points. Forcing Hamas into the open, so to speak, may ultimately be a good thing.
SBS News tonight featured a piece on Mariam Farahat, the newly elected Palestinian mother who happily sent 3 sons to their death to achieve the muder of many Israeli civilians. The reporter used the term "sacrificed her sons" more than once, but without any qualification or doubt expressed that this is the appropriate term. Presumably, this is the term Mariam uses herself, but why doesn't the media use the same caution as they have often displayed when talking of the "war on terror", or the "Axis of Evil", where qualifiers such as "so-called" have frequently been used?
Mariam, by the way, has three other sons still alive and is saying she is willing to use them too.
The fact that she is popular because of the way she tearlessly sent them off to die, achieving nothing but (at least in the case of the one son she appeared with on the famous video) the deliberate killing of non-combatants, suggests that there is something seriously wrong with Palestinian Islamic psychology.
Is there no dark matter after all?
New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Gravity theory dispenses with dark matter
OK now to cosmology. The story above is interesting in that it is about new work suggesting that its the theory of gravity itself which should be modified to explain the strange rotation of galaxies, rather than proposing that there is a huge amount of "dark matter" in the universe.
I had last year stumbled across another effort to deal with the problem this way (called the MOND theory, which is mentioned in the above story too.) It intuitively sounded to me a useful way to go.
The fact that the Pioneer spacecraft aren't travelling as they should also seems a big reason to question current theories of gravity, and this new theory apparently accounts for that anomoly adequately.
All sounds rather promising to me, and if the Pioneer spacecraft behaviour is a significant contributor to an overhall of the fundamental laws of physics, it will really confirm what space adovcates have argued for years - that part of the reason for doing it is for the unforeseen breakthroughs, as well as the more foreseeable one.
Time to start ordering the Australian hovercar?
OK now to cosmology. The story above is interesting in that it is about new work suggesting that its the theory of gravity itself which should be modified to explain the strange rotation of galaxies, rather than proposing that there is a huge amount of "dark matter" in the universe.
I had last year stumbled across another effort to deal with the problem this way (called the MOND theory, which is mentioned in the above story too.) It intuitively sounded to me a useful way to go.
The fact that the Pioneer spacecraft aren't travelling as they should also seems a big reason to question current theories of gravity, and this new theory apparently accounts for that anomoly adequately.
All sounds rather promising to me, and if the Pioneer spacecraft behaviour is a significant contributor to an overhall of the fundamental laws of physics, it will really confirm what space adovcates have argued for years - that part of the reason for doing it is for the unforeseen breakthroughs, as well as the more foreseeable one.
Time to start ordering the Australian hovercar?
Proof that being master of your domain is not as good
New Scientist News - Sex before stressful events keeps you calm
But - it has to be, ahem, PVI (penile-vaginal intercourse). Read the article, it's short.
But - it has to be, ahem, PVI (penile-vaginal intercourse). Read the article, it's short.
More babies needed
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Germany agonises over 30% childless women
From the above story:
"Germany was plunged into an anguished debate yesterday about how to encourage reluctant couples to breed after new figures showed Germany with the world's highest proportion of childless women.
Thirty per cent of German women have not had children, according to European Union statistics from 2005, with the figure rising among female graduates to 40%. Germany's new family minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said that unless the birth rate picked up the country would have to "turn the light out"."
And this:
"In Europe 2.1 is considered to be the population replacement level. This table shows the mean number of children per woman (2004 figures)
Ireland 1.99
France 1.90
Norway 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK 1.74
Netherlands 1.73
Germany 1.37
Italy 1.33
Spain 1.32
Greece 1.29"
Australia's rate: about 1.75.
It would be interesting if anyone could come up with convincing cultural explanations for the variations between the European countries. I can see some pointing towards how "macho" a culture is (reflecting on how much a father is prepared to put in to helping raise a child.) But are Greek men close to Spainish men in this regard? And what about Italians and their supposed fondness for their families? Why is their rate significantly below that of, say, France, which to my mind has much less of a traditional reputation for big happy families? And how about Ireland. Did they hold onto Catholic attitudes to family planning much longer than the Italians themselves did?
Of course, it may just be that looking for such over-arching cultural explanations is a mistake. But it is a fun game.
In any event, Mark Steyn's frequently raised concerns about much of western European committing demographic suicide seems very well placed.
From the above story:
"Germany was plunged into an anguished debate yesterday about how to encourage reluctant couples to breed after new figures showed Germany with the world's highest proportion of childless women.
Thirty per cent of German women have not had children, according to European Union statistics from 2005, with the figure rising among female graduates to 40%. Germany's new family minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said that unless the birth rate picked up the country would have to "turn the light out"."
And this:
"In Europe 2.1 is considered to be the population replacement level. This table shows the mean number of children per woman (2004 figures)
Ireland 1.99
France 1.90
Norway 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK 1.74
Netherlands 1.73
Germany 1.37
Italy 1.33
Spain 1.32
Greece 1.29"
Australia's rate: about 1.75.
It would be interesting if anyone could come up with convincing cultural explanations for the variations between the European countries. I can see some pointing towards how "macho" a culture is (reflecting on how much a father is prepared to put in to helping raise a child.) But are Greek men close to Spainish men in this regard? And what about Italians and their supposed fondness for their families? Why is their rate significantly below that of, say, France, which to my mind has much less of a traditional reputation for big happy families? And how about Ireland. Did they hold onto Catholic attitudes to family planning much longer than the Italians themselves did?
Of course, it may just be that looking for such over-arching cultural explanations is a mistake. But it is a fun game.
In any event, Mark Steyn's frequently raised concerns about much of western European committing demographic suicide seems very well placed.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
More on abortion
Three Decades After Roe, a War We Can All Support - New York Times
By a further co-incidence to my recently posting about abortion, William Saletan (who writes for Slate and has written a book on the abortion issue in America) has written a piece in the New York Times (linked above) with which I can pretty much agree.
An extract:
"The problem is abortion - the word that's missing from all the checks you've written to Planned Parenthood, Naral Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Organization for Women. Fetal pictures propelled the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act through Congress. And most Americans supported both bills, because they agree with your opponents about the simplest thing: It's bad to kill a fetus.
They're right. It is bad. I know many women who decided, in the face of unintended pregnancy, that abortion was less bad than the alternatives. But I've never met a woman who wouldn't rather have avoided the pregnancy in the first place.
This is why the issue hasn't gone away. Abortion, like race-conscious hiring, generates moral friction. Most people will tolerate it as a lesser evil or a temporary measure, but they'll never fully accept it. They want a world in which it's less necessary. If you grow complacent or try to institutionalize it, they'll run out of patience. That's what happened to affirmative action. And it'll happen to abortion, if you stay hunkered down behind Roe."
This is not a million miles from what I said towards the end of my previous post.
He goes on to say (to the "pro choice" side):
"....you can't eliminate the moral question by ignoring it. To eliminate it, you have to agree on it: Abortion is bad, and the ideal number of abortions is zero. But by conceding that, you don't end the debate, you narrow it. Once you agree that the goal is fewer abortions, the only thing left to debate is how to get there."
And the idea is as follows:
"The pro-choice path to those results is simple. Help every woman when she doesn't want an abortion: before she's pregnant. That means abstinence for those who can practice it, and contraception for everybody else. Nearly half of the unintended pregnancies in this country result in abortions, and at least half of our unintended pregnancies are attributable to women who didn't use contraception. The pregnancy rate among these women astronomically exceeds the pregnancy rate among women who use contraception. The No. 1 threat to the unborn isn't the unchurched. It's the unprotected."
This makes a lot of sense. It is also why I could not wholeheartedly support the Right to Life movement, if it is still (as it was many years ago at least) dominated by those who take Catholic teaching against all contraception seriously.
I think Saletan is really spot on in showing a way forward here.
Update: I have corrected my initial mis-spelling of Saletan. I often go back and correct typos and my english after my initial post, and hope no one has noticed before I get to do the correction!
By a further co-incidence to my recently posting about abortion, William Saletan (who writes for Slate and has written a book on the abortion issue in America) has written a piece in the New York Times (linked above) with which I can pretty much agree.
An extract:
"The problem is abortion - the word that's missing from all the checks you've written to Planned Parenthood, Naral Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Organization for Women. Fetal pictures propelled the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act through Congress. And most Americans supported both bills, because they agree with your opponents about the simplest thing: It's bad to kill a fetus.
They're right. It is bad. I know many women who decided, in the face of unintended pregnancy, that abortion was less bad than the alternatives. But I've never met a woman who wouldn't rather have avoided the pregnancy in the first place.
This is why the issue hasn't gone away. Abortion, like race-conscious hiring, generates moral friction. Most people will tolerate it as a lesser evil or a temporary measure, but they'll never fully accept it. They want a world in which it's less necessary. If you grow complacent or try to institutionalize it, they'll run out of patience. That's what happened to affirmative action. And it'll happen to abortion, if you stay hunkered down behind Roe."
This is not a million miles from what I said towards the end of my previous post.
He goes on to say (to the "pro choice" side):
"....you can't eliminate the moral question by ignoring it. To eliminate it, you have to agree on it: Abortion is bad, and the ideal number of abortions is zero. But by conceding that, you don't end the debate, you narrow it. Once you agree that the goal is fewer abortions, the only thing left to debate is how to get there."
And the idea is as follows:
"The pro-choice path to those results is simple. Help every woman when she doesn't want an abortion: before she's pregnant. That means abstinence for those who can practice it, and contraception for everybody else. Nearly half of the unintended pregnancies in this country result in abortions, and at least half of our unintended pregnancies are attributable to women who didn't use contraception. The pregnancy rate among these women astronomically exceeds the pregnancy rate among women who use contraception. The No. 1 threat to the unborn isn't the unchurched. It's the unprotected."
This makes a lot of sense. It is also why I could not wholeheartedly support the Right to Life movement, if it is still (as it was many years ago at least) dominated by those who take Catholic teaching against all contraception seriously.
I think Saletan is really spot on in showing a way forward here.
Update: I have corrected my initial mis-spelling of Saletan. I often go back and correct typos and my english after my initial post, and hope no one has noticed before I get to do the correction!
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
The Left and the religious right
spiked-essays | Essay | The curious rise of anti-religious hysteria
The link is to a decent essay from Spiked on the Left's anti-religious hysteria. (We're talking American Left verses the Christian Right. Islam does not get a mention.)
The essay touches many topics - the somewhat hysterical reaction to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" from some quarters, the reaction against Intelligent Design, and how some on the the Left advocate the promotion of a Left-ish morality to assure those on the right that the Right does not have an exclusive hold on the field.
That last point is interesting, because the writer notes the apparent cynicisim of such approach.
"At the end of the day, politically motivated calls among liberals and the left for morality are not so far from the way in which Christians 'use' The March of the Penguins or The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Both are cynical gestures driven by political calculations rather than by a moral inspiration that comes from the soul. What is particularly cynical is that these attempts to construct a 'moral dimension' are always aimed at others: those who apparently need 'simple' answers and 'meaning'. Such a cynical view of the public was clearly spelled out by William Davies of the London-based Institute for Public Policy research. 'The liberal, secular left has somehow to find ways of supplying citizens with emotional and metaphysical comforts even when it does not itself believe in such things', he warned (6)."
This last point (about the secular left not believing in "metaphysical comforts") seems very important to me, and I will add more to this post later.
The link is to a decent essay from Spiked on the Left's anti-religious hysteria. (We're talking American Left verses the Christian Right. Islam does not get a mention.)
The essay touches many topics - the somewhat hysterical reaction to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" from some quarters, the reaction against Intelligent Design, and how some on the the Left advocate the promotion of a Left-ish morality to assure those on the right that the Right does not have an exclusive hold on the field.
That last point is interesting, because the writer notes the apparent cynicisim of such approach.
"At the end of the day, politically motivated calls among liberals and the left for morality are not so far from the way in which Christians 'use' The March of the Penguins or The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Both are cynical gestures driven by political calculations rather than by a moral inspiration that comes from the soul. What is particularly cynical is that these attempts to construct a 'moral dimension' are always aimed at others: those who apparently need 'simple' answers and 'meaning'. Such a cynical view of the public was clearly spelled out by William Davies of the London-based Institute for Public Policy research. 'The liberal, secular left has somehow to find ways of supplying citizens with emotional and metaphysical comforts even when it does not itself believe in such things', he warned (6)."
This last point (about the secular left not believing in "metaphysical comforts") seems very important to me, and I will add more to this post later.
More confusion over global warming
Baffled Scientists Say Less Sunlight Reaching Earth
Note this from the story:
"Goode's team says there may be a large, unexplained variation in sunlight reaching the Earth that changes over the course of two decades or so, as well as a large effect of clouds re-arranging by altitude.
How do the findings play into arguments about global warming and the apparent contribution by industrial emissions? That's entirely unclear.
"No doubt greenhouse gases are increasing," Goode said in a telephone interview. "No doubt that will cause a warming. The question is, 'Are there other things going on?'"
What is clear is that scientists don't understand clouds very well, as a trio of studies last year also showed.
"Clouds are even more uncertain than we thought," Goode said."
Note this from the story:
"Goode's team says there may be a large, unexplained variation in sunlight reaching the Earth that changes over the course of two decades or so, as well as a large effect of clouds re-arranging by altitude.
How do the findings play into arguments about global warming and the apparent contribution by industrial emissions? That's entirely unclear.
"No doubt greenhouse gases are increasing," Goode said in a telephone interview. "No doubt that will cause a warming. The question is, 'Are there other things going on?'"
What is clear is that scientists don't understand clouds very well, as a trio of studies last year also showed.
"Clouds are even more uncertain than we thought," Goode said."
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