Archive
Sun no longer a star
Apparently, some YECs don’t consider the Sun to be a star:
I also do not agree that the sun is a star, which the author seems to believe. Genesis 1:16 says: “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” If the sun were a star, wouldn’t God have said something different? I guess we’ll find out one of these days.
So sayeth Tina Brown whose claim to fame appears to be having home-schooled six of her seven offspring. Of the moon, she notes ” I didn’t realize there were four phases or that the moon’s features had names” – one can see that her kids are getting a mighty fine science education at home.
Houston, we have a problem
Select results from a recent survey of Britons regarding the Apollo 11 moon landing:
- 44% believe that the money spent on the landing was not worth it
- 25% believe that the landing never occurred
- 11% believe the landing occurred in the 1980′s
- 8% believe the first man on the moon was Louis Armstrong
- 1% believe the first man on the moon was Buzz Lightyear
Details here.
Participate in the first global citizen dialogue on climate change
The following was passed on to me by ASU. I’m posting this as some readers may be interested in participating in this global event. -jml
Residents of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area now have an opportunity to have their voices heard on the issue of climate change. On September 26, 2009, day-long citizen deliberations will take place in over 40 countries as part of World Wide Views on Global Warming. Arizona State University is the location for one of seven forums being conducted in the United States, and is being organized by ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. Applications are now being accepted for the demographically reflective group of 100 participants. Interested members of the public can apply easily by filling out a short survey online at cspo.org/wwvapplication, or they may call (480) 727-9010. The deadline for applying is July 30, 2009. Selected participants will be notified in mid-August. Participants will receive a stipend to offset their expenses for the day, and lunch will be provided.
Saturn and environs
The Big Picture has gorgeous shots taken by the Cassini probe. Above is Rhea.
A good start … now let’s keep going.
Obama said: “My administration will not deny facts — we will be guided by them”
And then actually began to do something about climate change.
A good start.
Solargraphy
Solargraphy is the art of using long-exposure pinhole cameras to record the path of the sun across the sky. The above example (click through for enlarged version over at APOD) is a six month exposure taken in Bristol, UK. Here are instructions to do it yourself – no processing required beyond use of a scanner after exposure.
Spirit and Opportunity Still Going …
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the landing of NASA’s Spirit on Mars. Its sibling, Opportunity, will celebrate five years on January 24th. Expected to last 90 days on the hostile Mars surface, as this article reminds us, they are still going strong and have been awoken after their winter hibernation.
Martian winds occasionally have cleared Spirit and Opportunity of suffocating dust, which was expected to coat their solar panels eventually and make them useless.
"So, that’s part of the reason: darn good engineering and a little bit of luck," [Phil] Christensen said.
Phil Christensen is a colleague here at ASU who is currently operating instruments on four probes roving or orbiting the planet. Wander on over to his website to find out more about the THEMIS, TES and MINI-TES instruments that are providing data on the Martian environment.
International Year of Astronomy
2009 is not just the Darwin Bicentennial, it is also the International Year of Astronomy. As APOD reminds us,
This year was picked by the International Astronomical Union and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization because it occurs 400 years after Galileo turned one of the first telescopes toward the heavens. Peering through that small window, Galileo discovered that the Moon has craters, Venus has phases, Jupiter has moons, and Saturn has rings.
ASU is hosting a series of events celebrating Darwin, and April will see a big symposium on origins, but I’m not aware of anything celebrating the IYA.
ID and Global Warming – No contest
Over at Uncommon Descent, “DaveScot” has attempted to make the case that “public interest in global warming evaporates”. By his own measure, public interest in ID barely exists.
Obama answers questions on science & technology policy.
Sheril has just announced that Barak Obama has answered fourteen questions posed by the Science Debate 2008 team. I haven’t had a chance to read his responses yet, so wander on over yourself to see what he has to say.
History of Science and American Science Policy
Tim @ Deltoid beat me to posting about the new (online at least) Naomi Oreskes talk in which she discusses the tactics of the Western Fuels Association (go here), so instead I’d like to take the opportunity to highlight a paper she and Zuoyue Wang contributed to the Isis Focus section on the value of history of science. The abstract reads:
Historians of science have participated actively in debates over American science policy in the post-World War II period in a variety of ways, but their impact has been more to elucidate general concepts than to effect specific policy changes. Personal experiences, in the case of the debate over global warming, have demonstrated both the value and the limits of such involvement for the making of public policy. To be effective, historians of science need to strive for clarity in public expression, to accept the importance of engaging with the public at all levels and through diverse media, and, above all, to recognize that the nature of such debates will make normal scholarly nuance hard to achieve. Moreover, in the current political climate, historians may be surprised to find themselves defending sciences, when the usual stance of historians is to be critical.
The full paper is available for free online and Will Thomas has already commented on the Wang & Oreskes piece.
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