Uncommon Descent Contest Question 15: Can Darwinism - or any evolution theory - help us predict life on other planets? Winner announced

Go here for the contest and here for the results.

Uncommon Descent Contest Question 14: Is backwards or forwards time travel really possible? Winner announced

The question was,

For a free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD, about the unique position of Earth, provide the clearest answer to this second question: Is backwards or forwards time travel really possible, even for particles? Why or why not? What are the consequences if it is true?

Go here for the contest and here for the results.

Uncommon Descent Contest Question 13: The Large Hadron Collider is back up and running, but why? Winner announced

The question was,

For a free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD, about the unique position of Earth, provide the clearest answer the following question: Nine billion dollars and 15 years later, what is the Large Hadron Collider likely to tell us that is worth the cost and trouble?

Go here for the contest and here for the results.

Cosmology: A memo from the End of All Things Is at Hand Department

We are advised as follows at New Scientist, in "Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way" (22 November 2009):

THE Milky Way's neighbourhood may be teeming with invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own.

In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about 1 million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Now it appears the object is massive enough to be a galaxy itself.

Called Smith's cloud, it has managed to avoid disintegrating during its smash-up with our own, much bigger galaxy. What's more, its trajectory suggests it punched through the disc of our galaxy once before, about 70 million years ago.

I can't wait till the movie comes out, and I also want to collect the DVD.

More cosmology stories here.

Three new Uncommon Descent contests: Lots of fun for physics buffs

Win a free Privileged Planet DVD, courtesy the producers, for the best post answering any of the following questions:

Uncommon Descent Contest Question 13: The Large Hadron Collider is back up and running, but why?

Nine billion dollars and 15 years later, what is the Large Hadron Collider likely to tell us that is worth the cost and trouble?

Uncommon Descent Contest Question 14: Is backwards or forwards time travel really possible?

Two physicists have suggested that Hadron's woes are due to particles travelling back in time. Their theory has been received with the amusement one might expect, but it raises an interesting question, one that is a staple of sci-fi literature - is forward or backward time travel possible, even for particles?

Uncommon Descent Contest Question 15: Can Darwinism - or any evolution theory - help us predict life on other planets?

At Britain's Telegraph (November 04, 2009), Tom Chivers advises that "Darwinian evolutionary theory will help find alien life, says Nasa scientist."

Here are the contest rules, not many. Winners receive a certificate verifying their win as well as the prize. Winners must provide me with a valid postal address, though it need not be theirs. A winner's name is never added to a mailing list. Have fun, and enter as many as you like.

Cosmology: We have now identified the evil universe. Stand by to open fire.

And just when I thought cosmology could not get any sillier, ... Stuart Fox of PopSci (10.16.2009) assures us that "Physicists Calculate Exact Number of Alternate Universes There are 10^10^16 of them (but #1,000,443,163,313,125,343,132 is the evil one)"

For some time, physicists have theorized about the existence of alternate universes. In fact, some models of physics require multiple universes, to explain some rarely observed phenomena. But, other than obvious ones like The Man In The High Castle Universe where the Nazis won WWII, the Earth-295 Age of Apocalypse Universe, and the Terran Empire "Mirror Mirror" Universe, just how many alternate universes are there? Well, some Stanford University physicists have answered that question, and the magic number is: 10^10^16 other realities.

Glad someone else has a sense of humour about all this nonsense.

Large Hadron Collider: If this "backwards time travel" is not a joke, it should be

Woes of God particle physics

Here's a fun piece on the large Hadron Collider's woes, when a passing bird dropped a piece of bread on it, via Commentary Magazine - "Big Bang Machine Felled by Frenchman from the Future" by Anthony Sacramone (11/16/09):

So efforts by scientists to re-create the big bang — that moment, if one can speak of a moment, as in time, before there was time, or at least a decent wristwatch, when energy, or some hot gooey primordial stuff, spewed out a burgeoning universe, eventuating in the birth of galaxies, the advent of life, and the eventual cancellation of Charles in Charge — have failed once again.

It seems that the quixotic quest to find Higgs Boson, once thought to be the front man for an Air Supply tribute band, but which turns out to be the “God” particle,” has come to a crumbling halt.

First, about a year ago, the Large Hadron Collider (not to be confused with the Medium Hadron Collider and Omnidirectional Shower Head) went phffffff when, shortly upon whiz-banging, hydrogen began to leak from its cooling thingee, ruining a good pair of chinos and an autographed picture of Carol Channing.

Go here for more. The funny part is the explanation offered:

As the narrator of this CNN piece relates:

According to two physicists, the culprit could be the Higgs-Boson Particle traveling back in time to destroy itself.

Hey, I do that all the time, but I generally try to defuse embarrassing social situations and documents, and do not drop bread on anyone. Succeed or fail, I have an advantage over the Higgs Boson particle. I definitely exist.

Golly, I can remember the days when science was not ridiculous. Here's another interesting comment.

Coffee!! Bird drops piece of bread: Adds to Large Hadron Collider (God Machine) woes

A friend sends me this note about the woes of the Large Hadron Collider, with the caution that one couldn't make this stuff up:

The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.

Hey, Hey, I feel the physicists' pain. Neighbours feed pigeons, squirrels, and feral cats - and guess what? They become a nuisance.

It's one of the most expensive and technologically-complex machines in the world, but that didn't prevent the Large Hadron Collider from coming a cropper thanks to our feathered friends.

The £4.4 billion 'God Machine' overheated after a passing bird dropped a piece of bread into a high voltage installation which was powering a cooling unit.

Scientists looking into a failure of the cryogenic cooling plant found a piece of baguette had caused the malfunction.

You gotta see the bird here with a mouth crammed with - I would say - too much bread. But birds don't have teeth or shopping bags and - Collider? - I guess the bird would only be interested in getting the bread back or maybe getting a whole baguette.

Exoplanets: The recent pilgrimage to Darwin's shrine

At Britain's Telegraph (November 04, 2009), Tom Chivers advises that "Darwinian evolutionary theory will help find alien life, says Nasa scientist."
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution may give pointers in the search for alien life, says a Nasa astrobiologist. Here, we learn two competing views:

And so the limits of Darwinian evolution will define the range of planets that can support life – at least Earth-like life."

but

... alien life may not be entirely Earth-like. Dr Baross said: "I'd like to point out there are many different ways for non-Earth-like life to not use light or chemical energy but use some other form like radiation energy, wave energy, or ultraviolet energy."

. And then how can we know that the way they proceed is by Darwinian evolution?

We also learn

"I think all of us really believe that rocky planets, like Earth, are going to be found at some point," said Baross.

Well, lots of people have really believed lots of things that never happened. I happen to agree with him re rocky planets, because in a galaxy the size of ours, we will doubtless find lots of things, possibly extraterrestrial life ...

I am a little more concerned about the underlying agenda in some cases. NASA could be undermining its chances via Darwin worship.

Some more exoplanet stories:

Does our solar system occupy a unique position in the universe or just an ordinary one?

Rare? Solar systems like ours are rare?

Astronomer argues that we can test whether Earth is fine-tuned as a science lab

Serious push to find more exoplanets

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare?

Hat tip The Mustard Seed.

Cosmology: If you needn't worry about paying the rent Friday, you can worry about this stuff

In "Seven questions that keep physicists up at night" (New Scientist, 23 October 2009) Ivan Semeniuk reports from the Quantum to Cosmos Festival at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario:

Here are the seven questions:

1. Why this universe?

2. What is everything made of?

... But the discovery of dark energy, which appears to be speeding up the expansion of the universe, has created a vast new set of puzzles for which there are no immediate answers in sight. This includes the nature of the dark energy itself and the question of why it has a value that is so extraordinarily small, allowing for the formation of galaxies, stars and the emergence of life.

3. How does complexity happen?

4. Will string theory ever be proved correct?

5. What is the singularity?

6. What is reality really?

7. How far can physics take us?

It strikes me that these questions vary in levels of worth. How complexity happens (3) is an important puzzle; whether string theory is ever proved correct is of interest only to string theorists and skeptics (4). As to how far physics can take us (7), I am not Madam Rosa the psychic, so do not pretend to predict the future.

The "Quantum to Cosmos" festival is online here.

Other cosmology stories at Colliding Universes:

Cosmology: Science's leader in things that don't make sense

Cosmology: Crisis of the month: gravitation

Cosmology: Multiverse - getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique.

Cosmology: I seem to have yanked particle physicist Lawrence Krauss's chain

Cosmology: Wow. It takes guts to wage warwith Stephen Hawking. He appeared in Star Trek

Cosmology: Arguments against flatness (plus exposing sloppy science writing)

Cosmology: If the universe has free will, where do I go to file a claim for damages?

(Note: I wasn't able to keep this blog up recently, due to various projects, but am now back. )

Unmissable Ivy League lectures

Here are 100 Ivy League lectures I am told you shouldn't miss. Some of the science and medicine ones (#15-30) do look quite interesting. Anyway, it is free.

Okay, okay, some may be missable. That is not my fault.

Lynn Margulis challenges neo-Darwinists and teaches somewhere now - but she has interesting ideas

And she was once married to Carl Sagan - "consummate egotist" gossip warning.

Here's an intriguing article about origin of life researcher Lynn Margulis in the University of Wisconsin alumni news magazine, "Evolution Revolution" by Eric Goldscheider. We learn, among many other very interesting things,

Symbiogenesis theory flies in the face of an accepted scientific dogma called neo-Darwinism, which holds that adaptations occur exclusively through random mutation, and that as genes mutate in unpredictable ways, their gradual accumulation sometimes results in useful attributes that give the organisms an advantage that eventually translates into evolutionary change.

What tipped Margulis off that new traits could arise in another way was the fact that DNA, thought to reside only in the nucleus, was found in other bodies of the same cell. This realization led to research showing not only how crucial symbiotic relationships can be to the immediate survival of organisms, but also that one of the most significant sources of innovation — indeed, even the origins of new species — occurs when, over time, symbiotic partners fuse to create new organisms.

In other words, complexity at the cell level is not the result of lethal competition from lucky mutants, but rather interactive chemistry that begins as symbiotic relationships between gene sets that together accomplish things that would otherwise have been impossible.

That sounds more plausible to me, though it all but wrecked her career.

Margulis’s observation that constituent parts of the same cell had different genetic histories was largely written off as crank science in 1964 when she started submitting her paper on the topic to academic journals. No one wanted it. After more than a dozen rejections, the Journal of Theoretical Biology published “On the Origin of Mitosing Cells” in 1967, and then something very interesting happened. Requests for reprints started pouring in, more than eight hundred in all. “Nothing like that had ever happened in the Boston University biology department,” Margulis says. Although she was a part-time adjunct professor there at the time, she won a prize for faculty publication of the year. Eventually, a full-time position that lasted twenty-two years followed.

But in spite of, or maybe because of, this modicum of recognition, the scientific establishment viewed her skeptically, if not with outright hostility. Her grant proposals weren’t funded. Margulis tells of being recruited for a distinguished professorship at Duke University, only to have it subverted at the last minute by a whispering campaign.

She ended up at the University of Massachusetts, so at least she had a job.
One thing that mars her theories, in my eye, is is statements like

“Man is the consummate egotist,” Margulis has written. “It may come as a blow to our collective ego, but we are not masters of life perched on the top rung of an evolutionary ladder.” Instead, she likes to say that “beneath our superficial differences, we are all of us walking communities of bacteria.”

. Aw c'mon! I'm always hearing from enviro-fruitcakes and anti-nuclear nutcakes who think humans will soon destroy the planet.

So walking communities of bacteria will destroy the planet? I am sure not getting involved in the squabble over the planet's fate in that case. I can only communicate with creatures that have brains.

A question related to this interesting article will shortly be posted as Contest Question 11 at Uncommon Descent.

Mars: The endless kvetch about life on Mars

Here is a NOVA show : Is There Life on Mars?

After four decades of fly-by probes, orbiters, landers, and rovers, the quest for life on Mars is as tantalizing as ever. With unique access to the NASA Phoenix and Mars Exploration Rover missions, NOVA shows scientists and engineers in action, directing the operations of spacecraft millions of miles away, as the robotic explorers drill into rock, claw into soil, analyze samples, and trundle across the rock-strewn landscape in search for signs that Mars once or maybe even still harbors some form of life. NOVA goes behind the scenes of the latest NASA missions to the Red Planet to reveal new clues and challenges on the road to answering this ultimate question: Is there life on Mars? See some of the finest images ever taken of the martian surface—including Phoenix's most famous—on the program's companion website.

If it takes this long to figure out, maybe the answer is, no.

Like, how long would it take to figure out if there is life on Earth? Clue: Bacteria live at high altitudes and latitudes that few even notice. Here on the level ground we kill zillions of life forms every time we wash our hands or sterilize a piece of equipment. And no one cares because there are plenty more where they came from.

If a planet has life, you will know, pretty quickly.

My favourite sci-fi writer, Rob Sawyer, writes to say ...

FLASHFORWARD TV SERIES PREMIERE

The TV series FLASHFORWARD, based on my novel of the same name, premieres in the
United States (on ABC) and Canada (on CTV's A channels) on Thursday, September 24, 2009, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific (7:00 p.m. Central).

UK viewers: watch for it on Five this fall.

I remember interviewing Rob about the novel some years ago. Maybe I was a bit "forward," but ... I couldn't quite contain myself.

I interrupted to ask, "Okay, I have listened to your story and I agree that it is interesting, that people could see where they will be in twenty-five years. But surely in twenty-five years, some - perhaps many - people will just plain die. So what do they see?"

As it turns out, nothing. And that is exactly what happens to his lead character. Who sets out to change his fate ... which many sages say no man can do, however god-like. That goes back to the Epic of Gilgamesh . And I will spoil no more for you. Watch the show.

Cosmology: Science's leader in things that don't make sense?

Of New Scientist's (02 September 2009 ) list of "13 more things that don't make sense" by Michael Brooks, here, a surprising number relate to cosmology - 7 of 13.

They are, in order of make-senselessness,

1. Axis of evil: Radiation left from the big bang is still glowing in the sky – in a mysterious and controversial pattern

2. Dark flow: Something unseeable and far bigger than anything in the known universe is hauling a group of galaxies towards it at inexplicable speed

4. Fly-by anomalies: Space probes using Earth's gravity to get a slingshot speed boost are moving faster than they should. Call in dark matter

8. Antimatter mystery: The big bang should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts – so why didn't the universe disappear in a puff of self-annihilation?

9. The lithium problem: The universe only contains a third as much lithium as it's supposed to

10. MAGIC results: High-energy radiation from a gamma-ray burst reached Earth 4 minutes later than the lower-energy rays. That's not how Einstein said it would be

12. Noise from the edge of the universe

New Scientist is a fun read, but based on its treatment of subjects I know a bit about, like non-materialist neuroscience, I wouldn't take it too seriously. Still, these anomalies really are anomalies - at least. Maybe harbingers of big discoveries to come?

New podcasts on fine tuning of the universe

Two interesting ones here, from the Discovery Institute:

Cosmological Fine Tuning and the Multiverse Model

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Dr. Scott Chambers, who discusses his current research and his interest in the debate over evolution, which began in college and continues through this day.

Dr. Chambers explains how the evidence for intelligent design from the fine-tuning of the universe and the fundamental constants of physics "smacks of design," and he addresses the multiverse hypothesis.

Click here to listen.

Also, Is the earth uniquely situated for scientific observation? Do we live on a privileged planet?

On this episode of ID The Future we have a short clip about the book The Privileged Planet. In the book, authors Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez suggest that earth was designed for scientific discovery. They introduce a new idea that more than just being rare in the universe, the earth is ideally located for scientific observation.

Go here to listen.

Here are some other stories on the controversy over whether the universe is fine tuned or whether there are many universes:

Gravity doesn't make sense? Hold on to that thought!

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

Can the laws of physics evolve?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

(Note: If you follow me at Twitter, you will get regular notice of new Colliding Universes posts, usually when I have posted five or so stories.)

Uncommon Descent Contest Question 9: Is accidental origin of life a doctrine that holds back science?

For a free copy of Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009), help me understand the following:

Accidental origin of life is the basic thesis of origin of life researchers. Life all just somehow sort of happened one day, billions of years ago, under the right conditions - which we may be able to recreate. But there is a constant, ongoing dispute about just what those conditions were.

Here is the problem I have always had with accidental origin of life: It amounts to spontaneous generation. However, banishing the doctrine of spontaneous generation played a key role in modern medicine's success. If we assume that life forms (for medical purposes, we focus on pathogens) cannot start spontaneously, then they must have been introduced. Hence, we can develop procedures for a sterile operating room or lab.

If life can be spontaneously generated, why isn't it happening now? Conditions for life today are probably as good as they have ever been, and maybe better. For over 500 million years they have obviously been good for complex life forms, and for billions of years they have been good for simple ones.

Go here to enter.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Origin of life: Current efforts to create life, or else find alternative life

In "Second Genesis: Life, but not as we know it," Bob Holmes (New Scientist, March 11, 2009) provides a summary of attempts to create artificial life (paywall).

We're still stuck with Life 1.0, the stuff that first quickened at least 3.5 billion years ago. There's been nothing new under the sun since then, as far as we know.

That looks likely to change. Around the world, several labs are drawing close to the threshold of a second genesis, an achievement that some would call one of the most profound scientific breakthroughs of all time.

However,

Venter's team at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, plans to remove the genome from an existing bacterial cell and replace it with one of their own design. If successful, this will indeed result in a novel life form, but it is a far cry from the ultimate goal of a second genesis, as Venter would be the first to admit.

Other teams, however, are striving directly for that ultimate goal. The most ambitious of them do not even rely on the standard set of molecular parts, but seek to redesign a living system from first principles. If successful, they would provide an entirely new form ...

Meanwhile, others look for a shadow biosphere, an independent type of life sharing the planet with us.

My sense is that the people who use existing manufactured parts will have the best luck with their work.

Here's University of Colorado (Boulder) philosophy prof Carol Cleland'sargument in Astrobiology Magazine (12/01/06) for looking for a shadow biosphere:

The discovery of a shadow microbial biosphere would be philosophically and scientifically important. It is clear that familiar Earth life has a common origin, and hence represents a single example of life. Logically speaking, one cannot generalize on the basis of a single example. If we are to achieve a satisfactory understanding of the general nature of life, we need examples of unfamiliar forms of life.

Also, Holly Hight asks ("Does Earth harbour a shadow biosphere of alien life," Cosmos: The Science of Everything, 16 February, 2009 ):

Finding life that doesn't fit with the types we already know would be a strong indication that life developed more than one time here on Earth, increasing the chances of finding it elsewhere, said Paul Davies, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University in Tempe.

But nobody has ever seriously searched for microorganisms - or any form of life - different from the carbon-based, DNA-centred type of life about which we have long known.

If we do look, Davies said, "It's entirely feasible that we'll find a shadow biosphere," he told reporters at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago.

"Our search for life [has been] based on our assumptions of life as we know it. Weird life and normal life could be intermingled, and filtering out the things we understand about life as we know it from the things we don't understand is tricky."

It must be hard to write science fiction these days.

Guillermo Gonzalez on mutual eclipse seasons in three planets during the International Year of Astronomy

Gonzalez, author of Privileged Planet, has a new academic publication here.

Here's the abstract:

Mutual eclipses in the solar system

Guillermo Gonzalez 1

Copyright © 2009 Royal Astronomical Society

ABSTRACT
Guillermo Gonzalez notes another astronomical reason why IYA2009 is special: mutual eclipse seasons at Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.

Abstract

Eclipses between the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn are occurring this year. The circumstances of these eclipses are compared to terrestrial solar eclipses. Suggestions for observing these events are presented.

Best-observed solar eclipse in human history?

NASA Science News for July 20, 2009 advises that

The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century takes place this Wednesday, July 22nd. The path of totality crosses many major cities, setting the stage for possibly the best-observed eclipse in human history.

FULL STORY here.

Origin of life: Quantum mechanics provided the ... ooomph!! ?

In "The Quantum Life" (Physcisworld.com, July 1, 2009), Paul Davies, astrobiologist and director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, examines the case for quantum mechanics kickstarting the origin of life (Q-life):

But why should quantum mechanics be relevant to life, beyond explaining the basic structure and interaction of molecules? One general argument is that quantum effects can serve to facilitate processes that are either slow or impossible according to classical physics. Physicists are familiar with the fact that discreteness, quantum tunnelling, superposition and entanglement produce novel and unexpected phenomena. Life has had three and a half billion years to solve problems and optimize efficiency. If quantum mechanics can enhance its performance, or open up new possibilities, it is likely that life will have discovered the fact and exploited the opportunities. Given that the basic processes of biology take place at a molecular level, harnessing quantum effects does not seem a priori implausible.

It's intriguing, the way he attributes to "life" and, elsewhere, "evolution" the attributes of a planning and thinking intelligent agent.

He almost persuades himself but

Although at least some of these examples add up to a prima facie case for quantum mechanics playing a role in biology, they all confront a serious and fundamental problem. Effects like coherence, entanglement and superposition can be maintained only if the quantum system avoids decoherence caused by interactions with its environment. In the presence of environmental noise, the delicate phase relationships that characterize quantum effects get scrambled, turning pure quantum states into mixtures and in effect marking a transition from quantum to classical behaviour. Only so long as decoherence can be kept at bay will explicitly quantum effects persist. The claims of quantum biology therefore stand or fall on the precise decoherence timescale. If a system decoheres too fast, then it will classicalize before anything of biochemical or biological interest happens.

.So we are now into the business of persuading ourselves that, based on a few studies, that would not be the normal fate of Q-life. And in the end,

How would Q-life evolve into familiar chemical life? A possible scenario is that organic molecules were commandeered by Q-life as more robust back-up information storage. A good analogy is a computer. The processor is incredibly small and fast, but delicate: switch off the computer and the data are lost. Hence computers use hard disks to back up and store the digital information. Hard disks are relatively enormous and extremely slow, but they are robust and reliable, and they retain their information under a wide range of environmental insults. Organic life could have started as the slow-but-reliable “hard-disk” of Q-life. Because of its greater versatility and toughness, it was eventually able to literally “take on a life of its own”, disconnect from its Q-life progenitor and spread to less-specialized and restrictive environments — such as Earth. Our planet accretes a continual rain of interstellar grains and cometary dust, so delivery is no problem. As to the fate of Q-life, it would unfortunately be completely destroyed by entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

All this reminds me of a beautiful Edith Wharton short story, "Fern Seed", which I can't find on line, or worse, it might be wrecked by some clueless "ethnicity/class/gender" analysis.

The point of "Fern Seed" is that it looks as though a ghost drove a story character to suicide - but there is no actual evidence. (If you ever think of writing a ghost story, take Wharton as your guide. What make her stories work is: No one can prove anything happened, apart from catastrophic emotional impacts, and yet everyone is sure that something happened.)

Gravity doesn't make sense? ... hold that thought!

At New Scientist, Michael Brooks tells us "Seven Things That Don't Make Sense About Gravity," including

- If gravity were a tiny bit stronger, the universe as we know it would not exist

- From plants to quail, life of all stripes seems to need gravity to work properly

Uh ... so then gravity doesn't make sense because ... why, exactly? Because there wasn't supposed to be a solution to those problems? Why not?

It reminds me a bit of this earlier kvetching about gravity.

Fine tuning is a big problem for these people.

Cosmology: Crisis of the month - Gravitation

Cleaning out the In box, I noticed "Study Plunges Standard Theory of Cosmology Into Crisis" (ScienceDaily (May 5, 2009), in which we learn:

“The only solution would be to reject Newtońs classical theory of gravitation,” says Pavel Kroupa. “We probably live in a non-Newton universe. If this is true, then our observations could be explained without dark matter.” Such approaches are finding support amongst other research teams in Europe, too.

It would not be the first time that Newton’s theory of gravitation had to be modified over the past hundred years. This became necessary in three special cases: when high velocities are involved (through the Special Theory of Relativity), in the proximity of large masses (through the theory of General Relativity), and on sub-atomic scales (through quantum mechanics). The deviations detected in the satellite galaxy data support the hypothesis that in space where extremely weak accelerations predominate, a “modified Newton dynamic” must be adopted. This conclusion has far-reaching consequences for fundamental physics in general, and also for cosmological theories.

Astrophysicist Bob Sanders from the University of Groningen declares: "The authors of this paper make a strong argument. Their result is entirely consistent with the expectations of modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), but completely opposite to the predictions of the dark matter hypothesis. Rarely is an observational test so definite."

Well, this is a nice change from speculation.

See also: "Time for a New Theory of Gravitation? Satellite Galaxies Challenge Newtonian Model" (ScienceDaily, Apr. 23, 2009) where some of the same cast of characters note the this problem:

The team of scientists looked at the distribution of these satellite dwarf galaxies and discovered they were not where they should be. “There is something odd about their distribution”, explains Professor Kroupa. “They should be uniformly arranged around the Milky Way, but this is not what we found.” The astronomers discovered that the eleven brightest of the dwarf galaxies lie more or less in the same plane - in a kind of disk shape - and that they revolve in the same direction around the Milky Way (in the same way as planets in the Solar System revolve around the Sun).

Professor Kroupa and the other physicists believe that this can only be explained if today’s satellite galaxies were created by ancient collisions between young galaxies. Team member and former colleague Dr Manuel Metz, now at the Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- and Raumfahrt, also worked on the study. “Fragments from early collisions can form the revolving dwarf galaxies we see today” comments Dr Metz. But he adds that this introduces a paradox. “Calculations suggest that the dwarf satellites cannot contain any dark matter if they were created in this way. But this directly contradicts other evidence. Unless the dark matter is present, the stars in the galaxies are moving around much faster than predicted by Newton’s standard theory of gravitation.”

Most interesting, but I'm not clear on what the "crisis" is.

Oh never mind. By fall, a different crisis.

You never know what'll turn up useful ...

In "Science, Spirituality, and Some Mismatched Socks" (Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2009)", Gautam Naik explains how "researchers turn up evidence of 'spooky' quantum behavior and put it to work in encryption and philosophy.":

Last year, Dr. Gisin and colleagues at Geneva University described how they had entangled a pair of photons in their lab. They then fired them, along fiber-optic cables of exactly equal length, to two Swiss villages some 11 miles apart. During the journey, when one photon switched to a slightly higher energy level, its twin instantly switched to a slightly lower one. But the sum of the energies stayed constant, proving that the photons remained entangled. More important, the team couldn't detect any time difference in the changes. "If there was any communication, it would have to have been at least 10,000 times the speed of light," says Dr. Gisin. "Because this is such an unlikely speed, the conclusion is there couldn't have been communication and so there is non-locality."

Right, so there is no common-sense explanation of quantum mechanics. About the encryption?

Some researchers are using the uncertain state of photons to solve real-world problems. When encrypting sensitive data such as a bank transfer, both the sending party and the receiving party must have the same key. The sender needs the key to hide the message and the receiver to reveal it. Since it isn't always practical to exchange keys in person, the key must be sent electronically, too. This means the key (and the messages) may be intercepted and read by an eavesdropper. An electronic key is usually written in the computer binary code of "ones" and "zeros." Quantum physics permits a more sophisticated approach. The same "ones" and "zeros" can now be encoded by using the properties of photons, like spin. If someone intercepts a photon-based message, the spins change. The receiver then knows the key has been compromised. MagiQ Technologies Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., refreshes its quantum keys as often as 100 times a second during a transmission, making it extremely hard to break. It sells its technology to banks and companies. Dr. Gisin is a founder of ID Quantique SA in Switzerland. The company's similar encryption tool is used by online lottery and poker firms to safely communicate winning numbers and winning hands. Votes cast in a recent Swiss federal election were sent in a similar way.

We live in a mysterious world, where uncertainty is better for security than certainty - but at the quantum level only. The person who left his keys stuck in the front door all night is one dumb bunny and can be grateful that most thieves wouldn't expect to get so lucky, which is why he was the first person to discover the problem in the morning.

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

In "How to map the multiverse" (04 May 2009), Anil Ananthaswamy explains:

Greene's transformation is emblematic of a profound change among the majority of physicists. Until recently, many were reluctant to accept this idea of the "multiverse", or were even belligerent towards it. However, recent progress in both cosmology and string theory is bringing about a major shift in thinking. Gone is the grudging acceptance or outright loathing of the multiverse. Instead, physicists are starting to look at ways of working with it, and maybe even trying to prove its existence.

If such ventures succeed, our universe will go the way of Earth - from seeming to be the centre of everything to being exposed as just a backwater in a far vaster cosmos. And just as we are unable to deduce certain aspects of Earth from first principles - such as its radius or distance from the sun - we will have to accept that some things about our universe are a random accident, inexplicable except in the context of the multiverse.

Also

However, if our universe is part of a multiverse then we can ascribe the value of the cosmological constant to an accident. The same goes for other aspects of our universe, such as the mass of the electron. The idea is simply that each universe's laws of physics and fundamental constants are randomly determined, and we just happen to live in one where these are suited for life. "If not for the multiverse, you would have these unsolved problems at every corner," says Linde.

Let's see. We don't need to prove fine tuning. It's just there. But there's no evidence for the multiverse; it is an attractive idea because it makes our current cosmological values and fine tuning appear random. I love this line: " ... starting to look at ways of working with it, and maybe even trying to prove its existence".

Question: How fit are people in this state of mind to evaluate what they are seeing?

Podcast in the intelligent design controversy: origin of life

Origin of Life Chemistry Shows Intelligent Design

Click here to listen.

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Baylor University chemist Dr. Charles Garner on new findings in origin of life research and the plausibility of the chemical origin of life scenario. Listen in as Dr. Garner shows the speculation and imagination materialists employ to explain the origin of life.

For more information, read some of Dr. Garner's comments here at Evolution News & Views.

Those Evil Discos - eviller and eviller

Origin of life: This time it's salt water

One of these days, I am going to make a list of all the implausible origin of life scenarios I have heard, but here is one, involving ice particles on one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus :

These salty ice grains suggest that the interior of the moon may have liquid water that is washing salty minerals out of rock into a subterranean sea.

The scientists write that the presence of alkaline salt water, along with the organic compounds and thermal energy that have been observed at the south pole, "could provide an environment well suited for the formation of life precursors."

For way more origin of life stories, go here.

Cosmology: Who really cares how it washes out at the end?

At the Canadian Science Writers’ Association convention in Sudbury, Ontario, our Sunday dinner speaker was American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who presented sample clips from famous sci-fi films. And a whole lot more.

Would you be astonished to learn that the films portray implausible or impossible physics? No?

Filmmakers value audience numbers more than atomic numbers. H

is clips entertained, but did not surprise:However, his talk frequently targeted religion and politics: although he professed to respect theists, he offered snarky asides suggesting that fear of science is growing in Canada (because it might damage religion), adding, "In many ways I hope it does, but it wasn't designed to do that."

Dr. Krauss also told the assembled science communicators that in many key science controversies, there is only one side and journalists confuse matters by seeking out both sides.Not so. New discoveries in science often result from minor, not major, deviations from an expected result.

Read more here.

New discoveries in science

At the Canadian Science Writers’ Association convention in Sudbury, Ontario, our Sunday dinner speaker was American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who presented sample clips from famous sci-fi films. And a whole lot more.

Would you be astonished to learn that the films portray implausible or impossible physics? No? Filmmakers value audience numbers more than atomic numbers. His clips entertained, but did not surprise:

However, his talk frequently targeted religion and politics: although he professed to respect theists, he offered snarky asides suggesting that fear of science is growing in Canada (because it might damage religion), adding, "In many ways I hope it does, but it wasn't designed to do that."

Dr. Krauss also told the assembled science communicators that in many key science controversies, there is only one side and journalists confuse matters by seeking out both sides.

Not so. New discoveries in science often result from minor, not major, deviations from an expected result.

Read more here.

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Response to search engine query: What is this blog about?

I was asked to define it for a "deep" search engine group, Feedmil, and replied as follows:

Colliding Universes takes a critical look at cosmology, especially its many unexplained assumptions. Here’s one:

Earth is not special. There must be many planets that host life forms.

Now, what if we find 3000 exoplanets and none host life forms.

Does that suggest that Earth is special?

No, many cosmologists would say. We just haven’t looked hard enough. Find 3000 more.

It becomes obvious that their research is intended to confirm the “not special” view, and that – for both practical and philosophical reasons – it cannot be disconfirmed.

The practical reason is that they can always argue, “They’re out there somewhere.” The philosophical reason is that they are determined to believe what they want to believe.

That’s fine, but don’t call it science.

Incidentally, even if, after a search of 6000, two other planets were found that had life forms, we would know that there are three special planets, ours being one.

But don’t expect the pop science media to interpret it that way.

See also:

"Privileged planet" astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez: Dissing St. Carl Sagan in his own church

Study: Sun not special, therefore alien life should be common?


Galactic habitable zone not unique, computer sim suggests

Does our solar system occupy a unique position in the universe or just an ordinary one?

Rare? Solar systems like ours are rare?

Astronomer argues that we can test whether Earth is fine-tuned as a science lab

"Serious push to find more exoplanets

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare?

Extraterrestrial life: Immanuel Kant, meet Frank Drake and Carl Sagan

From "Looking for planets like ours", a review by Michael Brown of Alan Boss's The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets:

Even if the Kepler and COROT missions do find an abundance of planets, the Kantian revolution will not be complete. The new planets might be exactly the same size as Earth and orbit their stars at the same distance, and although an astronomer might be willing to call such a thing Earth-like, most people will look for more. Does it have liquid water? Does it have a recognizable atmosphere? And, inevitably, could it — does it — support life?

Finding the answers to these questions will take decades. Kepler and COROT are merely steps along the way. In the meantime, we can take solace from Kant: "I am of the opinion that it is not particularly necessary to assert that all planets must be inhabited. However, at the same time it would be absurd to deny this claim with respect to all or even to most of them."

It took nearly 250 years to prove him mostly right the first time. With a little luck and perseverance — and, as Boss shows, a lot of work by astronomers around the world — the final step may just come a little faster.

I wonder whether Kant would regard the discovery that bacteria had once lived on Mars or might live elsewhere - if it is made - as evidence for his position.

See also:

Alfred Russel Wallace on why Mars is not habitable

See also: Boldly go, but why, exactly?Extraterrestrials:

Several million UFOs later - the state of the question

Younger astronomers less likely to believe than older ones?

So what if fossil bacteria are found on Mars? Polls show many Americans expect Star Trek!

Some scientists hope that the aliens are NOT out there!

Increase in UFO sitings in Canada - what's behind that?

Recession? Finally, big science gets the picture: Think payload

From a Nature editorial:

Whether dealing with the Labour government or the Conservative opposition, UK scientists as a whole need to avoid giving the impression that they are impervious to the requirements of the nation and that any outsider should simply give them the money and leave them to get on with it. This will be especially true over the next 12 months, as the country heads towards a general election and as both main political parties plan future expenditures.

Yes, exactly. The growing ranks of the unemployed do not oppose science, but they do want to know its payload. Will their children be more likely to have jobs if they study science? Or is it just an expensive hobby for science profs?

That's a difficult question because often no one really knows whether a given pioneer research project will lead anywhere. Electricity led somewhere; phrenology did not. At the time, who knew? Tactful and honest answers are very well advised.

Conference: Quantum to Cosmos Festival

The Q2C or Quantum to Cosmos Festival (October 15-25, 2009) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, promises to be an extravaganza. Sponsored by the Perimeter Institute

Q2C will take you from the strange subatomic world of the quantum to the outer reaches of the cosmic frontier. All events will be streamed online live and on demand 24 hours a day.

Judging from the speakers' list, I expect we will be hearing everything we have heard before online, but Waterloo is a great venue.

Time and space: Can we cure everything by advanced technology?

Jason Rennie's Sci Phi Journal offers Catch!, a short story by Mark Brandon Allen, about how far we can/should go in creating a "world" for a person in a damaged brain state. It is read by Mike Huberty of the band Sunspot. Catch! It if you can.

“Strange how the mind works,” Brad mused. He looked questioningly at the scan technician.

The Ensign smiled at Brad as she continued to work the scanner. “This was the right thing to do, she said.”

No Spoiler alert.

Uncommon Descent Contest 4: Can we save physics by dumping the Copernican principle? - Winner announced

The question is here. It looks at “Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?” by physicist Timothy Clifton and astrophysicist Pedro G. Ferreira, who argue just that: If we give up the Copernican principle, we do not need dark energy to explain the composition of the universe.(Scientific American, March 23, 2009)

The winning entry is by KeithDP:

I liked it because he made a number of pertinent points that less often raised than they should be:

- "The problem with the principle is how do you define special?" The fact that Earth is the only known home of life should cause it to be classified as special, at least for now.

- "Unlike the multiverse, the theory [re the existence or necessity of dark energy] is testable and efforts are underway to confirm or dismiss it." Indeed. Consider the upcoming SNO+ experiment in Sudbury, Canada, whose awesome facilities I toured recently - which aims to trap a particle of dark matter. That would be a good beginning.

- " ... will we also discover that Earth’s place in the centre of a vast cosmic void is another necessary precondition for life?" That too would be useful, because we could revise current estimates of where to look for life. Too many estimates have been Drake equation-style "choose your own parameters." Fun, sure, but science fiction.

So KeithDP needs to provide me with a current postal address at oleary@sympatico.ca to receive his free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD.

I will shortly judge Question 5: Darwinian fairy tales: Why middle-aged men have shiny scalps: "What is the down side for serious Darwinists to just cutting the “evolutionary psychology” psychodrama loose, and focusing on what real science can say about evolution?"

Now here is KeithDP's entry:

Copernicus’ modest proposition was that the solar system is heliocentric and not geocentric. Centuries later came the Copernican principle: the idea that Earth does not occupy any special position in the universe. In the last few decades this principle has been expanded to include the idea that there is nothing special about humans or the Earth. This idea is often called the Copernican principle of mediocrity. In recent years some astronomers have taken the idea further still and have popularized the notion that there is nothing special about our universe, as it is just one among an infinite number of other universes: a multiverse. Although no evidence supports the theory, and as it is not testable no evidence is ever likely to, it is considered the natural and ultimate culmination of the Copernican principle.

The problem with the principle is how do you define special? In the Rare Earth hypothesis, scientists Ward and Brownlee identify no less than a dozen factors that make complex life possible on Earth. In their view these factors make the Earth, if not special, than certainly very rare. Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez goes further and identifies factors that make the Earth particularly suitable for scientific discovery. In his view the Earth is more than a rare planet; it is a privileged one. Recently some astronomers have questioned the standard model of the universe that holds that at least 70% of the universe is composed of mystery material. They propose this material is unnecessary if we ignore the Copernican principle and assume instead that the Earth lies at or near the centre of a vast cosmic void with far lower density than other regions of space.

Unlike the multiverse, the theory is testable and efforts are underway to confirm or dismiss it. Considering what we have learned about what makes the Earth’s particular location in the solar system and in the galaxy especially suitable for life, will we also discover that Earth’s place in the centre of a vast cosmic void is another necessary precondition for life?

Do we have further need of the Copernican principle? Or is it instead merely a personal philosophical position about humanity’s place? Does it tell us more about the belief system of those who hold it than it does about the universe?

OFF TOPIC but maybe of interest: Swine flu: Why are nearly all deaths in the developing world?

Here is my most recent MercatorNet column:

Now that the World Health Organization has declared swine flu (virus H1N1) a pandemic, their first since 1968’s Hong Kong flu, we might consider how it emerged.

But first -- Panic Alert: [nonsense avoidance]: People who are not already frail will probably be sick for about 48 hours if they get swine flu. They will not likely die. Symptoms are typical flu symptoms. When visiting anyone in frail health, please observe all sanitary precautions that medical authorities advise, especially if the frail person is in a hospital already. Shouldn’t that tell us something?

So let’s not panic. The main message is, in a global society, we cannot have completely different health standards on the same continent. Now let’s talk about two cities -- Mexico City and Winnipeg, Canada, where the virus was first identified.

Health care differs greatly between the two. In Winnipeg, every sick person — rich or poor — just goes to “the hospital,” and is examined by a nurse practitioner and/or a physician who can order lab tests and a ward bed -- in an isolation unit, if necessary. It’s all tax-supported, so no one goes bankrupt using the system.

But it is all different in Mexico.

Yes, it is a tale of the difference between Canada and Mexico. Read more here.

Origin of life: The misnaming of the Great Oxidation Event - which maybe never happened

British physicist David Tyler writes,

The true story of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has yet to be told. Most researchers have been brought up to believe the Miller-Urey model of abiogenesis, which required the Earth to have a reducing atmosphere to facilitate the spontaneous generation of life. The atmosphere was then considered to be neutral for over a billion years. The evolution of organisms capable of photosynthesis was the next important step, with rises of oxygen levels triggering the flowering of eukaryotes, the rise of the Ediacaran fauna and then the Cambrian Explosion. The first significant rise is understood to be abrupt and sufficient of a milestone in Earth history to warrant a name of its own. Richard Kerr's comments below lead us to the new research by Ohmoto and colleagues: [quote]The first living things did not require oxygen to "breathe," but early life on Earth never would have gotten much beyond pond scum without free oxygen in the atmosphere. Conventional thinking has oxygen produced by photosynthesis gaining the upper hand 2.4 billion years ago, nearly halfway into Earth history. But new laboratory results reported in tomorrow's issue of Science challenge the late arrival of this "Great Oxidation Event."

Ohmoto's hypothesis is that significant quantities of free oxygen were present in Earth's atmosphere prior to the GOE. He represents a minority position, but he continues to provide leadership in this area and a regular stream of relevant papers. One of the issues concerns patterns found in sulphur isotopes. Here is Kerr again: "Then in 2000, geochemist James Farquhar of the University of Maryland, College Park, came up with a nifty technique involving sulfur isotopes. The proportion of one isotope to another of the same element can change during a chemical reaction. Normally, the change depends on the masses of the isotopes. But Farquhar found isotopic shifts among three sulfur isotopes before 2.4 billion years ago that hadn't depended on isotope mass. As far as anyone knew, such "mass-independent fractionation" (MIF) could have happened only under solar ultraviolet radiation in an oxygen-free atmosphere - and MIF sulfur disappeared 2.4 billion years ago."

The new paper, with Farquar as one of the co-authors, proposes an alternative origin for these isotopic signatures that keep the door open for discussion of an early, oxygen-rich atmosphere. "The significance of this finding is that an abnormal isotope fractionation (of sulfur) may not be linked to the atmosphere at all," says Yumiko Watanabe, research associate [and co-author], Penn State. "The strongest evidence for an oxygen poor atmosphere 2.4 billion years ago is now brought into question."

Read more here.

Time: Can time flow backwards in quantum physics?

In a Viewpoint article, "Weak measurements just got stronger", for This Week in Physics ( April 27, 2009) Sandu Popescu, Physics 2, 32 (2009) In the weird world of quantum mechanics, looking at time flowing backwards allows us to look forward to precision measurements:

In 1964 when Yakir Aharonov, Peter Bergman, and Joel Lebowitz started to think seriously about the issue of the arrow of time in quantum mechanics [1]—whether time only flows from the past to the future or also from the future to the past—none of them could have possibly imagined that their esoteric quest would one day lead to one of the most powerful amplification methods in physics. But in the weird, unpredictable, yet wonderful way in which physics works, one is a direct, logical, consequence of the other. As reported in Physical Review Letters by P. Ben Dixon, David J. Starling, Andrew N. Jordan, and John C. Howell at the University of Rochester this amplification method makes it possible to measure angles of a few hundred femtoradians and displacements of 20 femtometers, about the size of an atomic nucleus [2].

[ ... ]

Viewed from one angle, this story is all about fundamental philosophical ideas. Does the spin indeed have a value larger than 1/2 or is the result simply an error in the imprecise measuring device used? Does the spin indeed have both the x spin component and the z one well defined? And, above all, does time indeed flow in two directions in quantum mechanics? To be sure, the strange outcome of the measurement of Sπ/4 in this pre- and post-selected ensemble could indeed be obtained as an error in the measurement, an error in which the pointer of the measuring apparatus moved more than it should have. The explanation can be fully given by standard quantum mechanics, involving regular past-to-future-only flow of time. But the explanation is cumbersome and involves very intricate interference effects in the measuring device. Assuming that time flows in two directions tremendously simplifies the problem. As far as I can tell, Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman hold the view that one should indeed accept this strange flow of time. I fully agree. Not everybody agrees though, and this is one of the most profound controversies in quantum mechanics.Viewed from one angle, this story is all about fundamental philosophical ideas. Does the spin indeed have a value larger than 1/2 or is the result simply an error in the imprecise measuring device used? Does the spin indeed have both the x spin component and the z one well defined? And, above all, does time indeed flow in two directions in quantum mechanics? To be sure, the strange outcome of the measurement of Sπ/4 in this pre- and post-selected ensemble could indeed be obtained as an error in the measurement, an error in which the pointer of the measuring apparatus moved more than it should have. The explanation can be fully given by standard quantum mechanics, involving regular past-to-future-only flow of time. But the explanation is cumbersome and involves very intricate interference effects in the measuring device. Assuming that time flows in two directions tremendously simplifies the problem. As far as I can tell, Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman hold the view that one should indeed accept this strange flow of time. I fully agree. Not everybody agrees though, and this is one of the most profound controversies in quantum mechanics.

Hubble Space Telescope: An introduction

Here's a PowerPoint recommended to me.

Never mind the hesitant kid intro. It's pretty good stuff.

History moment: The moon landing recalled

In "The Moon and Sparrows," David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen reflects on the comments of the men who first landed on the moon, forty years ago:

To be fair, more was established by the research of Riley and Olsson, although their other results will surely be challenged. They are further convinced, by Commander Armstrong’s continuous movement and body language while speaking, that his line was not rehearsed. This would mean it wasn’t “scripted by the White House,” as two generations of the mildly paranoid have earnestly believed. It was the genuinely spontaneous poetical effusion of an engineer from Ohio, rising to a historic occasion.

My own view — not the product of forensic linguistics, but rather of mere literary criticism — was, and remains, that this line was prosaic, even corny. I do not condemn it on this account, however. It was a humble attempt at the grandiose, of just the sort one might expect from such a speaker, stepping out on the lunar surface, with a billion souls watching on TV. And it was beautiful for that reason.

There was high poetry, too, but it had been delivered less self-consciously, a little earlier, as the vehicle containing Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down. Paradoxically, that line gained all its poetry from being spoken, not in poetical language, but in mission jargon. It was:

“Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

I wonder if, once we get around to mining the moon, we will still want to call the base Tranquillity.

Can the laws of physics evolve?

A friend writes to say that in "The unique universe" (PhysicsWorld.com, 2 June 2009), Toronto-based cosmologist Lee Smolin attempts to develop a different view of time that allows him the laws of physics tp evolve in time. My friend wonders, "Presumably this is an alternative way of addressing the design challenge of fine tuning?"

Here's the essay's At a Glance:

Against the timeless multiverse

- Many cosmologists today believe that we live in a timeless multiverse - a universe where ours is just one of an ensemble of universes, and where time does not exist

- The timeless multiverse, however, presents a lot of problems. Our laws of physics are no longer determinable from experiment and it is unclear what the connection is between fundamental and effective laws

- Furthermore, theories that do not posit time to be a fundamental property fail to reproduce the space-time that we are familiar with

- Many of these puzzles can be avoided if we adopt a different set of principles that postulates that there is only one universe and that time is a fundamental property of nature. This scenario also opens the way to the possibility that the laws of physics evolve in time.

Well, some people go to a lot of trouble to evade the implications of fine tuning of the universe (= design).

Here is what I wrote about Lee Smolin's work in By Design or by Chance?:

New Universes Sprout Only in Black Holes?

Cosmologist Lee Smolin is a bit more conservative than Tegmark. He speculates that new universes might erupt—but not just anywhere that a particle goes one way rather than the other. Perhaps only in the middles of cosmic black holes. The new universes are disconnected from our universe, because the laws of physics break down in black holes. That is why we don’t know about them.

Smolin believes that the eruption of new universes in black holes follows the principles of Darwinism (natural selection). He explains:

"It seemed to me that the only principle powerful enough to explain the high degree of organization of our universe—compared to a universe with the particles and forces chosen randomly—was natural selection itself. The question then became: Could there be any mechanism by which natural selection could work on the scale of the whole universe?"

In other words, natural selection (the outcome of law acting on chance), lurking in a black hole, organizes a complex universe, excruciatingly fine-tuned for life. Smolin does not claim that the black hole spouts millions of them. Alternatively, he is attracted to the idea that the universe organizes itself:

"I believe more in the general idea that there must be mechanisms of self-organization involved in the selection of the parameters of the laws of nature than I do in this particular mechanism, which is only the first one I was able to invent. "

All these universes popping up in the clouds in our coffee, in the torment of a black hole, in the futility of an escaped balloon—their existence guarantees that our universe is a product of chance. If only they would exist . . . if only they would exist . . . (pp. 34-35)

Here are some more fine tuning stories:

Astronomer vs. pop science TV

Materialism strikes back: We create the universe, not God

The universe has hallmarks of desgn: And what can anyone do about it?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

Uncommon Descent Contest 4: Can we save physics by dumping the Copernican principle?

In "Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?" physicist Timothy Clifton and astrophysicist Pedro G. Ferreira argue just that: If we give up the Copernican principle, we do not need dark energy to explain the composition of the universe. (Scientific American, March 23, 2009)


Copernican principle? Dark energy?


Copernican principle: That's the idea that Earth does not occupy any unusual position in the universe. Indeed, the point was driven home in a recent talk I attended at a science writers' convention. The Copernican principle is widely believed, to be sure, but that tells me nothing one way or the other about whether it is well supported by evidence. And I already know good reasons for doubting it. (Note: It has nothing whatever to do with Copernicus, who wouldn't likely have agreed with it.)


Dark energy? "Dark" means we are in the dark about it. According to the current model, we don't know what 70 percent, approximately, of the cosmos comprises. Whatever that 70% is, it does not respond to light. It also does not answer e-mail, phone mail, or letter mail. Bummer.
Many physicists believe that maybe 25% of this unknown substance is dark matter. The rest is dark energy.


Actually, we don't even know what dark matter is, according to the cautious SNO Plus physicists who are building a huge underground facility in the Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Canada, to trap a particle a year of the stuff. So they hardly wish to give tell-all interviews on dark energy.
Anyway, here are some excerpts from Clifton and Ferreira on whether we need assume that dark energy even exists:

... the existence of dark energy is still so puzzling that some cosmologists are revisiting the fundamental postulates that led them to deduce its existence in the first place. One of these is the product of that earlier revolution: the Copernican principle, that Earth is not in a central or otherwise special position in the universe. If we discard this basic principle, a surprisingly different picture of what could account for the observations emerges.

Most of us are very familiar with the idea that our planet is nothing more than a tiny speck orbiting a typical star, somewhere near the edge of an otherwise unnoteworthy galaxy. In the midst of a universe populated by billions of galaxies that stretch out to our cosmic horizon, we are led to believe that there is nothing special or unique about our location. But what is the evidence for this cosmic humility? And how would we be able to tell if we were in a special place? Astronomers typically gloss over these questions, assuming our own typicality sufficiently obvious to warrant no further discussion. To entertain the notion that we may, in fact, have a special location in the universe is, for many, unthinkable. Nevertheless, that is exactly what some small groups of physicists around the world have recently been considering.

[ ... ]

In the conventional picture, we talk about the expansion of the universe on the whole. It is very much like when we talk about a balloon blowing up: we discuss how big the entire balloon gets, not how much each individual patch of the balloon inflates. But we all have had experience with those annoying party balloons that inflate unevenly. One ring stretches quickly, and the end takes a while to catch up. In an alternative view of the universe, one that jettisons the cosmological principle [a generalization of t he Copernican principle], space, too, expands unevenly. A more complex picture of the cosmos emerges.

[ ... ]

The possibility that we live in the middle of a giant cosmic void is an extreme rejection of the cosmological principle, but there are gentler possibilities. The universe could obey the cosmological principle on large scales, but the smaller voids and filaments that galaxy surveys have discovered might collectively mimic the effects of dark energy. Tirthabir Biswas and Alessio Notari, both at McGill University, as well as Valerio Marra and his collaborators, then at the University of Padua in Italy and the University of Chicago, have studied this idea. In their models, the universe looks like Swiss cheese uniform on the whole but riddled with holes. Consequently, the expansion rate varies slightly from place to place. Rays of light emitted by distant supernovae travel through a multitude of these small voids before reaching us, and the variations in the expansion rate tweak their brightness and redshift. So far, however, the idea does not look very promising. One of us (Clifton), together with Joseph Zuntz of Oxford, recently showed that reproducing the effects of dark energy would take lots of voids of very low density, distributed in a special way.

Does Guillermo Gonzalez have clones? Is this legal?


Well, never mind that for now. For a free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD, here is the question:

To what extent is the Copernican or cosmological principle held for emotional reasons, and not because the evidence supports it? In 400 words, would we be better off or worse off without it?

(Note: I recommend that you read the whole SciAm article before commenting.)
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I will shortly be judging Contest 3.

Particle physics: Do electrons have free will?

At Slashdot ("News for nerds. Stuff that matters"), "snahgle" advises,

Mathematicians John Conway (inventor of the Game of Life) and Simon Kochen of Princeton University have proven that if human experimenters demonstrate 'free will' in choosing what measurements to take on a particle, then the axioms of quantum mechanics require that the free will property be available to the particles measured, or to the universe as a whole. Conway is giving a series of lectures on the 'Free Will Theorem' and its ramifications over the next month at Princeton. A followup article strengthening the theory (PDF) was published last month in Notices of the AMS."

Hmmmm. There seems to be a confusion here between "freedom" and "free will."

Freedom just means that no law of nature forces the electron into one path rather than another. Free will requires, at minimum, consciousness and rationality - the ability to observe one's state and form a conscious intention about it.

We better keep this straight before someone forms a "particle rights" movement , ripping off the animal rights playbook. (Though I think Weed Rights International will probably precede Particle Rights Universal.)

Origin of life: "Primordial soup" belief undermines traditional spirituality?

Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor, alerts us to a study at her university, "God or science? A belief in one weakens positive feelings for the other" (12/15/08):

The researchers conducted two experiments designed to manipulate how well science or God can be used as explanations. In the first, 129 volunteers read short summaries of the Big Bang theory and the “Primordial Soup Hypothesis,” a scientific theory of the origin of life. Half then read a statement that said that the theories were strong and supported by the data. The other half read that the theories “raised more questions than they answered.”

In the second experiment, which involved 27 undergraduate students, half of the study subjects had to “list six things that you think God can explain.” The others were asked to “list six things that you think can explain or influence God.”

All the subjects were then required to quickly categorize various words as positive or negative on a computer.

“What they didn’t realize was that they were being subliminally primed immediately before each word,” Preston said. “So right before the word ‘awful’ came up on the screen, for example, there was a 15-millisecond flash of either ‘God’ or ‘science’ or a control word.”

A 15-millisecond visual cue is too brief to register in the conscious mind, but the brief word flash did have an effect. Those who had read statements emphasizing the explanatory power of science prior to the test were able to categorize positive words appearing just after the word, “science,” more quickly than those who had read statements critical of the scientific theories.

Those who were asked to use God as an ultimate explanation for various phenomena displayed a more positive association with God and a much more negative association with science than those directed to list other things that can explain God, the researchers found. Similarly, those who read the statement suggesting that the scientific theories were weak were extremely slow to identify negative words that appeared after they were primed with the word “God,” Preston said.

“It was like they didn’t want to say no to God,” she said.

Sounds like voodoo to me. And, while the Big Bang is pretty well attested, the "primordial soup" is not a hypothesis in science; it is a materialist creation story, on the level of the cosmic egg. ("Once upon a time, it all just happened, see .. ")