Believers

Just a short one:

Why do Believers expect special treatment, purely on the grounds of their belief? 

• They expect to have their opinions listened to over secular voices.
• They expect their opinions to shape government policy without being subject to the democeatic process.
• They expect legal protection for acts that contravene Human Rights legislation
• They demand that those who question their faith be banned from doing so in law, whilst simultaneously attacking the questioners.
• They expect non-Believers to provide evidence for their claims, yet expect their own claims to be accepted without quedtion.

So; why?

Innocent?

What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

In a civilised nation, the authorities have to prove you broke the law, you don't have to prove your innocence.

The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance emailed Mr Wilson a document demanding the designs be "removed from public access" until he could prove he had not broken laws governing shipping weapons overseas by putting the files online and letting people outside the US download them.*

Never mind the issues surrounding the fake scare over printing a gun, the way the USG are dealing with the issue is unquestionably wrong, especially in a country that is a signatory of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

Sort it out, America.


*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22478310

Goldilocks - the Deceitful Harlot of Science.

I love Science, and I hope you, dear reader, agree with me that, as well as a proper basic education in the facts and processes of Science, it is important to be able to keep up to date with news and developments in Science.

Most people have neither the time nor inclination to be regular readers of the main Science journals,  so we rely on good Science journalism, in the news and documentaries.

Tabloid media are notorious in their narrow focus on the disastrous side of Science; before the LHC was switched on, tabloids fovused on the possibility that it would create planet-eating black holes. Now the Higgs is all but identified, the same journalists raise it as proof that our Universe will be destroyed by the imminent emergence of another Universe within our own.

One particularly annoying, and wide-spread feature of Science reporting (and, I fear, of certain branches of true Science, and thus the focus of this rant) is an ongoing obsession with Goldilocks.

Two of the great motivations in Science are the search for the origins of Life on Earth, and the hunt for Life elsewhere in the Universe. Every time tge discovety of an extra-solar planet is reported, somebody mentions alien Life, and finds some reason for it to be impossible - too hot, too cold, spinning too fast, too much radiation, too little light, all of these get cited as reasons for Life to be unique to our home planet.

Scientists happily reel off lists of factors required for Life to be possible - a temperature just and so, an atmosphere made up of this and that, a particular chemical make-up of the crust.  These Scientists present themselves as experts, as "astrobiologists".

Even tonight,  Brian Cox, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect as both a Scientist and as a populariser of Science, has fallen for the allure of the Harlot of Science; Goldilocks.

There is a persistent meme within astrobiology that there exists a "Goldilocks Zone", a set of conditions, only within which can Life meaningfully exist. Brian Cox's slip was to claim that an atmosphere of free oxygen is essential for complex Life.

I'm sorry, Brian, and all the others with a claim to expertise in astrobiology, but that's bollocks. The Goldilocks Zone doesn't even exist here on Earth. Life thrives in temperatures
from tens of degrees below freezing to hundreds of degrees above,  from pressures of tonnes per square centimetre to almost vacuum, in conditions from corrosive alkali to acid strong enough to strip the flesh from your bones. Inside solid ice, on the surface if Sun-seared rocks. Wettest swamp to driest desert. In months-long daylight to eternal darkness.

You get the idea.

We have yet to find a set of conditions that is naturally devoid of Life.

True, if you transplant a soft coral from the North Sea to the Atacama Desert or the mineral pools of Yellowstone, it won't last long, it won't last long, but that's not the point. It not that there is something that can live everywhere, but that,  everywhere,  there is something that can live.

The Goldilocks Zone is an illusion. It's an attractive illusion, one that panders to humanity's sense of pride, but an illusion all the same.

So, what's the truth?

Simply, to lift a quote from Jurrasic Park; "Life will find a way".

It will be Life, Jim, but not as we know it (sorry, I couldn't resist that one).

Astrobiologists, and the popularisers of Science, have a very narrow definition of Life; mainly water-soluble biochemistry, based on complex carbon-spined molecules, running on glucose metabolised with oxygen.

I prefer, though, a different, simpler definition; it has a reproductive process which involves a mechanism for heritability of traits, and there is, within that mechanism, the possibility of mutation and, thus, evolution.

Life (as we know it) makes exclusive use of DNA, but past forms, we believe, used the simpler RNA. Why could it not employ chemistry based on other molecules? Or a stream of digital information? Who says the mechanism of heritability is even required to reside within the actual organism?

I put it to you, dear reader, there is but one limitation on the existence of Life across the Universe; simply,  whether, should we encounter it, we would recogise it as Life at all?

One thing I do know; it won't have curly blonde hair.

Scheduling Creativity

I was thinking today about being creative.

Creativity, I hope you will agree, is a Good Thing. It provides us with most of the worthwhile aspects of human experience - arts, design, humour, sport, and even science.

Some large companies (Google et al) set aside a portion of the working week for employees to be independently creative.  Others have corporate days for employees to hack, tinker and be generally creative on the company shilling.

At my school, creativity is seen as the highest level of thinking, and teachers are expected to plan sessions of cerativity into most lessons.

Therein lies the problem, though.

I consider myself to be a creative person, but I can rarely be creative on demand - I find it very hard to sit down and come up with an idea for a project fron nowhere on demand.  I have 160 projects published on Instructables,  and maybe 200 more in the form of scribbled notes and unpublished one-line projects,  but they come to me unpredictably. I even call one the 4am Robot, because that's when I woke up with the idea.

How can I, then, expect my students to be successfully creative within a prescribed section of a timetabled lesson? How can managers expect anything more than a workforce spending 20% of their day worrying that they haven't had a cool idea?

Instead, a brave step needs to be taken.

Stop scheduling creativity, just accept and welcome it when it happens.

Let employees suddenly down keyboards or headsets, and wander off to an open-access creative space to pursue an idea that occurs to them. As long as they keep a log or diary of their ideas, a company's more creative staff should even be allowed to phone in absent because they've woken up with a cool idea and need to spend the day in the shed.

An even braver step could be taken by schools, allowing pupils to walk away from the timetable to do the same. Now, I'm not a fool, I know that there are a lot of students who would use a "creativity out" to avoid certain lessons, or to get time off school, so maybe a voucher system could be used. Each pupil gets an actual voucher to give to a teacher to get out of the lesson and go to one of a selection of designated creative spaces (depending on the pupil's inspiration). If the time spent away from the lesson results in something positive,  then the pupil gets another voucher issued for next time inspiration strikes. If not, if the time is wasted, then the pupil does not get a replacement voucher, and must remain constrained by the traditional timetable until they can demonstrate the results of a creativd act they undertake on their own time, unrelated to the curriculum.

Recognising and rewarding creativity in this way would need schools (and employers) to demonstrate an unusual level of resilience and flexibility in their approach. In fact, it might require a school to step completely away from the traditional curriculum and timetable.

I know of only one school working in the way I envision - Brightworks in San Francisco (see http://sfbrightworks.org/ ).

I wonder if they're hiring?

Obligatory

I would like to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Carry on.

I'm a generous sort at heart, so I thought I'd give you all the chance to share in a wonderful business opportunity that has just come my way;

Dear Sir/Madam
 
 Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus christ. 
 
 
I apologize if the contents in this mail are contrary to your moral ethics,

which I feel may be of great disturbance to your personal life, But please treat

with absolute secrecy and personal. I pray that this email reaches you in the best

of health.
 
I am Samuel Kofi Atta Mills 24years of age, i'm the son of the late President of 

Ghana Professor John Evans Atta as i will like to discussed a mutual business 

transaction that would benefit the both of us as this is 100% risk free.
 
This is of ulmost important and need urgent attention and if interested do contact

me on my private e-mail ( attamillssamuelkoffi@yahoo.com.hk   )
 
 
Thanks and God bless as i look forward to hear from you Asap.
 
 Yours Sincerely,
 
 Samuel Kofi Atta Mills.

(I've got to wonder - is there anybody left on the planet that would take up an offer like this?) 

It's a park, Jim, but not as we know it.

We spent an afternoon in Golden Gate Park.  It's a cracking place, but not what we expected...

OK, folk were playing games, strolling around, but things were so much more organised.

It wasn't a few kids kicking a ball, it was a load of kickball teams, cheerleaders and everything.  The few kids throwing a frisbee were actually teams of Ultimate players.

There are groups of friends who gathered in a corner of the park with folding chairs to sit and chat.  There was a wedding party of over fifty guests, cycling around behind a bike laden with a sound system and bubble-blowers.  Ten minute's walk away, a Shinto wedding ceremony was packing up.

Extended families with tables, table-cloths and barbeques, at least three kids birthday parties, complete with bouncy castles.

It's like a whole chunk of San Francisco moved their lives into the park for the day.

It was odd, but in a really good way.

We didn't penetrate far into the park, just as far as the Bison Paddock (about half way, I think), but it's such a nice place to be.  There's a hothouse, a design museum, a science centre, an open-air concert hall, areas set aside to practice your cycling, a shuttle-bus for the tired, and, as I mentioned, the bison.

And that's only half way through the park!

Later in the month, we spent time in several parks - Duboce, Force Mason Green - and they're all the same.

I suppose it's obvious, since so many homes here have neither yard nor garden, but I never expected this.

I like it.