Science does not require faith

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Michael

It requires assumptions:

Sometimes you will hear that “science requires faith,” for example faith that our sense data are reliable or that nature really obeys laws. That’s an abuse of language; science requires assumptions, just like anything else, but those assumptions are subject to testing and updating if necessary. If we built theories on the basis of our sense data, and those theories kept making predictions that turned out to be wrong, we would examine and possibly discard that assumption. If the universe exhibited a chaotic jumble of non-lawlike behavior, rather than falling into beautiful patterns, we would abandon that assumption as well. That’s the most compelling thing about science: it always stands ready to improve by casting out an old idea when the evidence demands it.

~Sean Carroll, via The A-Unicornist.

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Secular Coalition for America and the organization of Maine nontheists

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Michael

The Secular Coalition for America has announced that it is seeking to establish chapters across all 50 states:

The Secular Coalition for America is excited to announce the initial organizing efforts for a chapter in Louisiana this month. The state chapter will lobby state lawmakers in favor of a strong separation of religion and government.

The initial organizing call for the Secular Coalition for Louisiana will be held on September 12th at 3:00PM ET / 2:00PM CT. The SCA encourages interested participants to call in. Participation is open to anyone who supports a strong separation of religion and government and wants to get involved, irrespective of personal religious beliefs.

Other state chapters being organized later this month include Delaware, District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Since June, the SCA successfully held initial organizing calls for new chapters in 27 states. Participants will be trained in lobbying state lawmakers, and the chapter will be provided with a website and other materials.

The big effort here, as far as I can tell, is going to be to dampen the negative effects religion has in politics. Namely, the goals will be to kill stealth creationist bills, promote science education, and maybe even support pro-science candidates. Along with this will come to the promotion of Gnu Atheist values.*

I’m excited about this; I’ve already contacted the former Executive Director of the SCA, Sean Faircloth. He is a former Maine legislator and currently heads up strategy and policy for the Richard Dawkins foundation. I’m not 100% of his involvement with the group at this point, but I do know he is being interviewed for an article that will appear in the Maine Sunday Telegram in a couple of days. (I was also interviewed for the piece.) I hope he can help get me started with all this or at least point me in the right direction. Maine atheists, agnostics, and nonbelievers need to be organized.

The current “organization” for Maine atheists and others currently amounts to an Atheists of Maine Facebook page I run with two other people. As far as I can tell, it is the largest collection of atheists in the state, so if you haven’t liked it yet, you should. I plan on utilizing it to do what I can to help establish an SCA chapter in Maine.

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That darned science

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Michael

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The scale of the Universe versus the complexity of life

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Michael

I have often found myself contemplating which is more amazing, the sheer scale of the Universe or the complexity of life? It isn’t easy to find an answer, but I’ll do my best to very briefly explain my thinking on this.

Despite my field being biology, and despite finding nothing more amazing on Earth than the evolution and subsequent complexity of life, I have to fall on the side of the size of the Universe. I think I’m going to be in the minority on this one, but I’ve given it some thought. Here is why I think what I do.

It isn’t possible for an individual to know everything about a single field. I’ve had incredible biology professors who have told me that they are lucky to understand 1/3 of what they read in scientific journal articles concerning biology. This is because in order to become an expert on anything, it requires one to focus on a relatively small subset of facts within a field. Just look at how biology breaks down: microbiology, biochemistry, genetics, cell biology, zoology, botany, anatomy, physiology, embryology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, and so on. This sort of division is going to be true of just about any field. (I can’t think of any exceptions.) How can we expect anyone to understand it all? We simply cannot. But that isn’t to say we can’t understand it all as a species. In principle, we can understand everything that has to do with biology. We can break it down and analyze each bit, no matter how esoteric and specific. That doesn’t mean we necessarily ever will, but there is nothing preventing us from doing so. We have the ability, when we pool all our resources and minds, to understand everything there is to understand about life and its evolution.

I don’t think we can say that same thing about the sheer scale of the Universe. For the sake of argument, I will limit myself to the observable Universe. But right there. Look at what I just did. Without fear of losing any ground in my argument, I limited my scope. Yet my whole point is scope. That’s just how huge the Universe is. And how can anyone truly appreciate that? No human is going to travel any distance from Earth that is notable on the scale of the Universe. Even our space probes that are now on their way to interstellar space have done so little; being impressed by that distance would be like being impressed that an atom moved a tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of its radius to the right. I would say to now imagine that analogy increased trillions upon trillions upon trillions upon…of times, but of course you can’t. No one can. We don’t have any way, in our small lives, to really comprehend something like that. The Universe is enormous. Just enormous.

We can pool our minds together as a species and come to a great understanding of all that surrounds us. All our physicists and astronomers and cosmologists can give us a tremendous understanding, via science, of how it all works. They can even describe, with numbers on paper, how large the observable Universe is. They can show us incredible pictures of thousands of galaxies (in just a small sliver of the sky), each with billions of stars and billions of planets. And it really all is wonderful. But no matter how many brilliant minds we put to the task, we can never appreciate the sheer scale of what is. It is, in every meaning of the word, beyond us.

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Attack of the DNA robots

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Michael

Whereas bombing raids in the early and mid part of the 20th century involved hardly any direction, any bombing that we do today is going to be highly precise. This so-called smart bombing has constituted one of the great military advances over the past several decades. It’s efficient, cost-effective, and saves civilian lives. Now keep that in mind as I move into the non-military world of fighting cancer.

In one form or another researchers have been working to create DNA carrying/laden devices for years now. The application potential is huge, but the area that has received some of the greatest focus has been cancer research. The drugs and treatments we have now are inexact and not always effective. Aside from often killing healthy cells, thus leading to weight and hair loss, general illness, and other negative side-effects, they don’t always kill every cancer cell. Even surgery can be a bad thing at times. Consider for a moment what tumors need. More than perhaps anything is a blood supply. (The same goes for your regular cells; your skin cells are too far from a blood source, hence why they are little more than dead keratin.) In order to get their supply of blood, tumors must induce angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. They do this by releasing certain stimulators. They also release inhibitors, but not enough to overwhelm the stimulators. However, these inhibitors have no problem traveling through the blood stream. The result is often the suppression of secondary tumors, especially if they are nearby. So when a surgeon removes a primary tumor, those other, previously restricted secondary tumors will have a chance to grow. And that is no good, of course. In short, the more exact we can get in destroying cancerous cells, the better off we will be.

Enter DNA nanobots.

I like to think of these as smart bombs of cancer cells. They are bits and pieces of DNA naturally self-assembled into a particular shape (the barrel in the background) that is prepared to deliver a payload. That payload (the purple/pink stuff) is attached to specific strands (the yellow/green stuff) inside the DNA barrel structure. This is all held together by strands of DNA which are programmed to recognize specific molecules on the target cells (in this case, cancer cells). When the DNA attaches to these molecules, it changes shape and opens up the barrel. The payload is then free to enter into the target cell, inducing apoptosis (cellular suicide). Experiments have shown that these DNA robots are able to avoid healthy cells during this process.

There are, of course, limitations to this technology. Take malaria, for instance. It would be difficult to target most strains (such as P. vivax and P. falciparum) because they get inside hemoglobin rather than attach to the outside of anything. That makes them effectively invisible to both our immune system and these nanobots. Strategies for fighting that disease will tend towards the sort of medications we’re using now combined with bed nets and efforts to destroy mosquito habitats.

Still, this is exciting. I say that about most cancer-related advances, but I don’t feel I’m ever overdoing it. Every little bit of progress is crucial, even the bits that don’t pan out. I have hopes for this one, though. Even if it doesn’t end up being pragmatic in application, it still has the potential to 1) increase our understanding of cancer and 2) be used in so many other ways. Three cheers for science.

Sources: Here and here.

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With what does science deal?

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Michael

Why, reality, of course.

If that seems like a simple answer, it’s because the answer is simple. We could break everything down, get more particular, explore general concepts, use specific examples, etc. That would give us a better understanding of how science works, but the answer to the question of with what it is science deals is the same: reality. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this:

Science is great for material things, but by definition it doesn’t deal with immaterial things.

This comes from our friend Neil. I usually reserve him for use in my “Punching Bags” series, but I’m actually still trawling his comment section to find more unique bloggers (not to mention bloggers who actually dare to defend their positions). As a result, I’m not particularly reading his writing – in fact, I’m not going to bother reading the rest of his post – but the above comment did catch my eye. It represents a weak mind.

Making the point that science only deals with material things, not immaterial things, is like saying science only deals with material things, not unicorns. It’s a meaningless statement. Unless, that is, Neil has provided evidence for the immaterial. But wait! Then he would have to use the material world and thus science. Since, by definition, he cannot use these things to study the immaterial (or unicorns), his views are fundamentally anti-science. In fact, the same goes for absolutely anyone who believes in the supernatural. It’s just kooky thinking.

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The data so far

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Michael

via xkcd.

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Breakthrough study of 2011 and the tools for curbing HIV

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Michael

The journal Science has named the HPTN 052 clinical trial, a study looking at the ability of antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV transmission, as the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year:

Led by study chair Myron Cohen, M.D., director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, HPTN 052 began in 2005 and enrolled 1,763 heterosexual couples in Botswana, Brazil, India, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Thailand, the United States and Zimbabwe. Each couple included one partner with HIV infection. The investigators randomly assigned each couple to either one of two study groups. In the first group, the HIV-infected partner immediately began taking a combination of three antiretroviral drugs. The participants infected with HIV were extensively counseled on the need to consistently take the medications as directed. Outstanding compliance resulted in the nearly complete suppression of HIV in the blood (viral load) of the treated study participants in group one.

In the second group (the deferred group), the HIV-infected partners began antiretroviral therapy when their CD4+ T-cell levels—a key measure of immune system health—fell below 250 cells per cubic millimeter or an AIDS-related event occurred. The HIV-infected participants also were counseled on the need to strictly adhere to the treatment regimen.

It was found that those taking the medication while their immune system was still highly healthy were 96% less likely to transmit HIV to their partners. This result was so stupendous that, even though the trial is still ongoing, an early public release of the findings was ordered. It is important that people know how to best combat transmission. That spread of information is what is needed to prevent the spread of infection:

“On its own, treatment as prevention is not going to solve the global HIV/AIDS problem,” said Dr. Fauci. “Yet when used in combination with other HIV prevention methods—such as knowing one’s HIV status through routine testing, proper and consistent condom use, behavioral modification, needle and syringe exchange programs for injection drug users, voluntary, medically supervised adult male circumcision, preventing mother-to-child transmission, and, under some circumstances, antiretroviral use among HIV-negative individuals—we now have a remarkable collection of public health tools that can make a significant impact on the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”

“Scale-up of these proven prevention methods combined with continued research toward a preventive HIV vaccine and female-controlled HIV prevention tools places us on a path to achieving something previously unimaginable: an AIDS-free generation,” Dr. Fauci added.

I added the emphasis to the above excerpt because I am reminded of the utter irresponsibility displayed by PZ Myers on this issue in the past. While I still very much like what the guy has to say on many subjects, he was dead wrong to dismiss any one of the listed tools. In this case, he specifically dismissed the notion that there is any evidence whatsoever that circumcision has any impact on HIV infection rates. As I’ve documented elsewhere, he is absolutely wrong on the facts. That evidence does exist and it is important that it is known. That is why Dr. Fauci noted it amongst all the other ways we must use to combat this disease. HIV/AIDS is one of the most serious epidemics facing the developing world today; no one should be proud to exacerbate the problem, especially when the motivation is ideological in nature – we’re talking about god damned human lives here.

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Science Memebase

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Michael

I’m pretty excited about this: Memebase has added a science section to its site. It’s mostly just neat-o pictures, but still. Neat-o.

Science.memebase.com

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Other ways of knowing

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Michael

It’s a popular meme amongst the sans-science crowd to claim there are ‘ways of knowing’ besides science. They don’t simply mean ways of ‘knowing’ things like whether or not someone loves us, but rather they mean ways of knowing significant, world view-altering things beyond our personal lives. That is, they want to bring their non-methods up to the level of knowing that science gives us (or, perhaps, they want to bring science down to their level). It’s sort of cute, but it never stands up to scrutiny. There is a reason, after all, why no respectable institution teaches that Adam and Eve actually existed – even if genetic facts didn’t tell us they are 100% fictitious, religion offers zero in the way of knowing otherwise.

So that brings me to Deepak Chopra. The anti-science quack is always embarrassing himself one way or another, and he does so in this video in exactly the same way the mainstream religious embarrass themselves when they talk about ‘other ways of knowing’:

The guy is entirely unable to answer the question. He waffles and waddles about, at some point launching into a weak attack of science, implying the entire field needs to evolve to include some weird, unscientific ideas he has. Just like the Expelled creationists, he wants to redefine science to fit the ideas he wishes were true.

The fact is, science is the best way of knowing that we have. It offers concrete methods for coming to conclusions as objectively as humanely possible. Chopra and other religious nutbags (i.e., the mainstream) want to substitute that objectivity for subjectivity – if we cannot confirm or falsify a claim, then all claims become equal, and wouldn’t you know it? that makes everything equal, giving religion and ‘spirituality’ (whatever that is) quite a bit more space to operate.

Filed under: Religions, Science | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

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