Well, this sucks. It’s behaving almost exactly as expected.
Category Archives: General Science
Politicians’ “War On Science”
Who said it, Rubio or Obama? It’s useful to point this kind of thing out, of course, and I’ve always thought that Chris Mooney’s theses were nonsensical — both parties have ideologies that are opposed to scientific reality.
But I disagree with this:
So Obama believes in evolution, and presumably he’d like to teach it in the nation’s public schools, while Rubio suggests that “multiple theories” should be given equal time. But even so, both men present the science as a matter of personal opinion. Obama doesn’t say, Evolution is a fact; he says, I believe in it.
Well, he shouldn’t say that, because evolution is in fact not a “fact.” It, like gravity, is a scientific theory. And it is perfectly philosophically legitimate to say that alternate theories should be taught in school, but it should be done not in a science class but in one on comparative religions (of which science is one). That there is an objective reality about which we can discover things through scientific methods is not a fact, or “truth,” but an axiomatic assumption. Science is a form of faith, but in terms of understanding the natural world, and forging new artificial creations from it, it is a very successful and powerful one.
Ten Chemical Compounds
…with immature jokes for names. Hardy har har.
[Via who you’d expect]
Synchrony
A very interesting demonstration of coupled oscillations.
Long Pork
It was what’s for dinner in pre-historic Britain.
Meteor Watching
Should be a good weekend for the Perseids. The moon isn’t new, but it will be out of the way for most of the night.
Sperm Whales
Sleep vertically. An interesting picture.
Loud Copulation
When I saw this headline, I thought that science had come up with a huge breakthrough, and a great alternative to fly swatters. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
Not Five Sigma After All?
Is the Higgs boson an imposter?
Rainbows
…have seams. An interesting look at how different cultures deal with naming colors.