The antipodes of Sir David Attenborough

Not everyone has earned the right to burn oodles of carbon-based fuel in order to travel to both the North Pole and the South Pole. Sir David Attenborough has earned that right, based upon his exquisite, inspiring, nature documentaries. Yes, he's visiting the poles as part of an effort to produce yet another documentary, this one called "Frozen Planet." Here's the report from the U.K. times:

In more than half a century of bringing the world into our living rooms, Sir David Attenborough has travelled to pretty much every far-flung spot you can think of. But one inhospitable place, short on wildlife and good excuses for stopping by, remained unexplored by the veteran broadcaster. Now he has finally realised his boyhood ambition to stand on the top of the world.
If you don't know Sir David Attenborough by name, you'll like know his face and his upbeat warm-hearted scientifically precise commentary. Here's one of my favorite clips, where he describes the anatomy of the blue whale:

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Federal Court rules that the “National Day of Prayer” violates the First Amendment Establishment Clause

Yesterday, I received an email from the Center For Inquiry indicating that, in 2008, Freedom From Religion Foundation had filed a lawsuit (Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc v. Obama) to prevent the federal government from declaring a “National Day of Prayer.” The U.S. District Court, Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin, struck down 36 U.S.C. §119, which establishes a yearly National Day of Prayer. Here’s the text of the statute:

The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

As discussed in the Court’s Opinion, the National Day of Prayer was established in part, due to the efforts of Reverend Billy Graham in 1952. One of Graham’s speeches included the following:

We have dropped our pilot, the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sailing blindly on without divine chart or compass, hoping somehow to find our desired haven. We have certain leaders who are rank materialists; they do not recognize God nor care for Him; they spend their time in one round of parties after another. The Capital City of our Nation can have a great spiritual awakening, thousands coming to Jesus Christ, but certain leaders have not lifted an eyebrow, nor raised a finger, nor showed the slightest bit of concern. Ladies and gentlemen, I warn you, if this state of affairs continues, the end of the course is national shipwreck and ruin.

Congress then took the reins, lead by [appropriately named] Representative Percy Priest, who introduced a bill to establish a National Day of Prayer. Here is the Court’s description:

In addressing the House of Representatives, he noted that the country had been “challenged yesterday by the suggestion made on the east steps of the Capitol by Billy Graham that the Congress call on the President for the proclamation of a day of prayer.” In support of the bill, Representative Brooks stated that “the national interest would be much better served if we turn aside for a full day of prayer for spiritual help and guidance from the Almighty during these troublous times. I hope that all denominations, Catholics, Jewish and Protestants, will join us in this day of prayer.” Representative Peter W. Rodino, Jr., stated that “it is fitting and timely that the people of America, in approaching the Easter season, as God-fearing men and women, devote themselves to a day of prayer in the interest of peace.”

[The Court added a footnote: "This part of the report is not accurate. 1 Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 787(1983) (“[P]rayers were not offered during the Constitutional Convention.”] I downloaded the entire ruling from the federal district court in pdf format and I’m making it available here. The Plaintiff argued that Plaintiff the statute is unconstitutional “because it endorses prayer and encourages citizens to engage in that particular religious exercise.” [More . . . ]

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People Are Idiots. A Cynical Observation

The video below from TED is chilling in many ways. Michael Specter touches on observations about the resistance people have toward anything that seems to threaten their hobbit-hole view of the world. A little of this, as he rightly points out, is fine, even agreeable, but when it burgeons into matters that threaten lives and seek to derail all that has made this present era as wonderful as it is---and it must be stressed, in the face of overwhelming negative press, that we are living in a magnificent period of history---then it loses whatever quaint appeal it might otherwise have. We respect the Amish, but they don't tell the rest of us how to live and try their level best to be apart from the world they disapprove. When you see people filing lawsuits with the intent to halt necessary, beneficial progress because they have bought into some bogeyman horror movie view of science or politics or morality, it behooves us to come to terms with a fundamental reality with which we live today. First, though, the video. Watch this, then read on. Okay, what reality? That many people are just idiots. I cannot think of a more tasteful way to phrase it. But when you consider the list, justifications and rationalizations fade. The Tea Party. The Anti-vaccine Movement. The Birthers. Young Earth Creationists. Medjugorje. Deepak Chopra. PETA. Free Market Capitalism. Global Warming Deniers. Holocaust Deniers. Abstinence-Only. Just Say No. The Shroud of Turin. Astrology. Texas Board of Education. Evolution Deniers. Frankenfood Protesters. Homeopaths. Herbalists. Psychics. Scientology. I could go on. [more . . . ]

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Sam Harris on objectively measurable moral progress

Within a tradition that extends backwards at least to David Hume, many people insist that science is utterly incapable of telling us what we ought to value, and that science is thus unable to weigh in on moral issues. This position has often been referred to as the naturalistic fallacy--the claim that what is "moral" can be defined in terms of natural properties. In this highly-engaging and wide-ranging TED talk, Sam Harris argues that this is a dangerous illusion, because whether humans are experiencing "well being," and whether communities "flourish" clearly depend on facts. He argues that questions of values reduce to facts about the brain functions and specific social circumstances of human beings. Science is thus relevant to values, and as we move further into the future this will be ever more obvious. Harris paused to make it clear that he is not claiming that science will necessarily provide answers to all values questions. He is not claiming that those trying to decide whether to have a second child, for example, will turn to science. On the other hand, meting out corporal punishment on children (which is still allowed by the laws of many southern states) raises a factual question: Whether inflicting pain, violence and embarrassment encourages positive emotional development. He also points to the wearing of burkas under threat of physical punishment as a practice that can can be factually analyzed as not likely to improve well being. Harris doesn't offer a single recipe for a "right" or a "correct" way to run a society. Rather, he suggests that the moral state space consists of many peaks and valleys; there might be many right answers, in addition to many wrong answers. This multiplicity of approaches doesn't mean that there aren't factual truths about the better and worse ways of achieving social well-being, however. He repeatedly makes the point that science has a lot to say about morality, and there is no good reason to be non-judgmental when the facts scientifically show that a particular practice leads to social dysfunction. In many human disciplines, some of the people weighing in are so ill-informed that their opinions shouldn't count at all -- not every person has a right to a wide audience on the topic of string theory. The same thing goes for moral expertise. Those who insist that the best thing to do when their young daughter is raped is to kill her out of shame lack moral expertise. Those who would behead their son because he is gay in order to keep him from going to hell do not have moral opinions that should count. There are right and wrong answers regarding questions of human flourishing (this can increasingly be fleshed out in terms of brain function) and "morality" relates to a specific domain of facts.

It is possible for individuals and even whole culture, to care about the wrong thing. It's possible for them to have beliefs and desires that lead to needless human suffering. Just admitting this will transform our discussion about morality.

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The other side of black holes

What happens to things that fall into black holes? Here is an admittedly highly speculative head-twisting suggestion published by National Geographic. It offers an explanation "certain features of our universe deviate from what theory predicts, according to physicists." I see that Science has reported on the same theory by the same scientist (BTW, his name is Nikodem Poplawski, and he works at Indiana University in Bloomington).

A long time ago, in a universe much larger than our own, a giant star collapsed. Its implosion crammed so much mass and energy together that it created a wormhole to another universe. And inside this wormhole, our own universe was born. It may seem fantastic, but a theoretical physicist claims that such a scenario could help answer some of the most perplexing questions in cosmology.

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