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Rolla Peace News April 16, 2019 |
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Dear Friends: http://tomsager.org/Peaceletters/peaceletter041619.html In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019 2. CITIZENS CLIMATE LOBBY: THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 6:30PM 3. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) Science: Worshiping at the Altar of False Gods 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019 We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office, THIS THURSDAY, APRIL 18, FROM NOON TO 1:00 PM (and most subsequent Thursdays until peace is established). Please try to join us. The temperature is predicted to be around 60. If you do not feel comfortable standing with us in front of the Post Office, please consider driving by and showing your support for our message by honking your horn and flashing a peace sign. 2. CITIZENS CLIMATE LOBBY: THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 6:30PM Newly formed Rolla chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby will meet in the meeting room of the Rolla children's library at 6:30pm, Thursday, April 18. Everyone is welcome. 3. MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) SCIENCE: WORSHIPING AT THE ALTAR OF FALSE GODS Here is a sequel (of sorts) to the article I wrote two years ago about the March for Science.“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” —Mark Twain Last week I read this article in Science about how archaeologists are trying to “re-engage” with folks who believe in Atlantis and ancient alien civilizations on Earth. Great idea! I am in favor of non-violent engagement. Unfortunately, these engagements don't always seem to be non-violent. Apparently, you can receive hate mail and death threats for stating beliefs about the distant past. This is really not surprising. As George Orwell put it: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” I'm not sure what is meant by re-engagement; but from the article it sounds like re-engagement means explaining to all the “deplorables” [Hillary's word, does not appear in article] who believe in Atlantis, why their belief system is so totally wrong. Whoa! Hold on a minute. Just how do you know that there was never an ancient civilization of Atlantis? And just how do you know that aliens have never visited the Earth? You don't. Science can never prove a negative. [Mathematicians can; but that's a story for later.] Well, you might argue that Science has a pretty good record of explaining things hitherto unknown (like how an atom is made up of individual particles); and its more technical side (engineering) has a pretty good record of making things hitherto impossible (like thermonuclear bombs that can kill millions of people in one pop). But Science is often wrong. Here are two of my favorites: With nuclear energy, we can produce electricity “too cheap to meter.” (Really??? Including capital expenditures, decommissioning, cleaning up after accidents like Fukushima, etc. nuclear power is among the most expensive.) In the computer age, no one will have to work more than two hours a day. (Huhh??? Tell that to someone whose job has gone South and works three jobs flipping burgers and still can't make ends meet.) There are plenty of others, such as the Boeing 737 Max, in which engineers tried to fix a faulty aerodynamic design with faulty computer software, killing hundreds of people. (Hold on to your hats folks, computer driven vehicles, coming next to a highway near you.) And then there is Yoshihiro Sato, a researcher in osteoporosis who published hundreds of papers containing bogus results and even had medically accepted treatment protocols based on his work. And here are two very recent articles in Science attacking the governments of Nicaragua and Iran respectively for their human rights records. No mention in Science of Israel or Saudi Arabia which have far worse human rights records. Is it a coincidence that the United States has slated Nicaragua and Iran for regime change, while Israel and Saudi Arabia, for all their human rights violations, are our allies? I don't think so. Toadying up to the worst elements in the federal government may get you somewhere. It may even get you grant money. And as for Archaeologists: Aren't you the guys who believed in the Piltdown Man for 40 years which, unlike global warming, turned out to be a real hoax, probably perpetrated by one of your own. [Oh, yes, I know, that couldn't happen today, because now we are so much wiser.] We mathematicians also have our problems. Seems we've been doing statistics all wrong for the past 200 years. Seems we've been getting the p-values all mixed up. At least that's what some statisticians say. If you'd like to send me your favorite scientific hoax, I'll print it next week. But getting back to “re-engagement:” if I wanted to re-engage with folks who believe in alien civilizations on Earth, and introduce them to the scientific method, I would invest truly massive amounts of capital in science education from kindergarten on up. That seems to be the last thing on the agenda of a government bent on destroying or privatizing what is left of public education. Well, if you've gotten this far, you may understand why I liken faith in Science to the worshiping of false gods. You may understand why I cringe every time I hear someone remark that “Scientists say we only have 12 more years to tackle climate change.” Here's an exercise: Ask how they conclude we have only 12 years. You might be surprised at some of the answers (and non-answers) you get. And you might be surprised at some of the solutions: Nuclear energy (with more Fukushimas, Chernobyls and Three Mile Islands and little decrease in our carbon footprint). Geoengineering (doping the atmosphere with reflective particles with very uncertain and possibly devastating results). Either way, someone is going to make billions off of these unlikely solutions. As a card-carrying member of the “Deplorables” who don't rule out Atlantis or ancient alien civilizations on Earth, here are my unscientific thoughts on the matter: No, we don't have 12 years. We don't even have one year, or even one minute. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases at greater than two parts per million per year. Global temperatures rise. Extreme weather events get worse and more frequent. Wars become more and more likely. The time is now. The world must get rid of its militaries, stop burning fossil-fuels, stop eating meat, plant lots of trees, and build lots of windmills and solar cells. No one is likely to get very rich from these low-tech solutions; but they just might save us all from disaster. A note on Tom Lehrer: Lehrer is best known for songs like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "The Elements" and "I Got It From Agnes." His biting iconoclastic wit is second to none. The video linked to above contains some of his lesser-known songs and was recorded at a party for Andrew Wiles who proved the famous Fermat conjecture that there are no integral solutions to the equation an+bn=cn, for n>2. (See comment above about how in Mathematics it is possible to prove a negative.) “Sociology” appears on the video at 7:10-10:20. The final song contains a tribute verse to Andrew Wiles. Those who think that the derivative was invented by Wall Street shysters, should listen to the first song. If you ever took a class from me, the third song on the video might bring back old memories. Rolla Peace News is distributed by email once a week on Tuesday evenings (except on rare occasions) and is posted on the web at http://tomsager.org (click on Grassroots Rolla: at the top of rightmost column). If you don't wish to get notices of peace events in the Rolla area, let me know and I'll take you off this list. If you want to be added to this list, let me know. Wage peace, Helen helenm (at) fidnet.com |