Monthly Archives: December 2012
Climate Change Denialists Scolded by IPCC
But not as severely as they should have been.
The IPCC, as you know, comes out with a set of reports every five years. The reports are written by groups of experts. Draft reports are widely accessible to people who register themselves as “experts” and there is no quality control in that process, in order to keep things as transparent as possible. This means that the worst climate change denialists can simply sign up as “experts” and flood the scientists trying to write these reports with irrelevant and stupid comments, thus, I presume, wasting valuable time and effort. But, such is the cost of transparency, which is important.
But, even the climate change denailits, who tend to be a rowdy group with with only a vague grasp, if any, on ethics and who generally have very little respect for truth, have to promise to not release any part of the draft that they have had the privilege to see and comment on. This is very important for reasons that are so blindingly obvious I won’t bother explaining them here.
Well, over the last few days, one of the denialsts, in comments on one of the famous denialist blogs, released sections of the report. The part he released, essentially, said:
“There is this idea X which suggests that Y happens. There is no evidence that this is true but we looked carefully at it and there is still no evidence that this is true.”
But by cherry picking and providing a lie as context, the climate change science denier (CCSD) made it say:
“There is t his idea X which suggests that Y happens. Y means global warming is not real. This is in the ICPP report. This is a game changer.”
Below I’m going to give you links to a handful of the blog posts out there that explain exactly what happened, as well as a document just released by the IPCC expressing regret that one of the “expert reviewers” did this thing that should not have been done.
I wonder if that person’s “expert” status will remain in place. It probably should. The whinging and moaning that would result from someone violating the rules being tossed out, from the CCSD afflicted community, would be more annoying than letting the jerk continue to pretend that he is an “expert” on something.
Landmark climate change report leaked online
Leak of Climate Panel Drafts Speaks to Need for New Process
IPCC report leaked then cherry-picked
Major IPCC Report Draft Leaked Then Cherry-Picked By Climate Sceptic
IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
PDF File of Statement By IPCC is HERE
Quiet down the atheists
When Atheists talk, people listen.
Then, they tell them to shut up.
David Phillip Norris of the Twin Cities recently wrote an article for MNPost called With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists. This was written as a reflection on the just finished and rather dramatic fight against an anti same sex marriage constitutional amendment on the ballot in Minnesota. By today’s electoral standards, the amendment was soundly defeated.
So while I’m thrilled that we can start talking about the possibility of voting “yes” instead of “no” for same-sex marriage in Minnesota, I’m still left feeling frustrated. In addition to being gay, I’m also a secular humanist. And an atheist. With candidates and party conventions making declarations about faith and belief in God, the amount of religious language used this year was alarming, but the marriage-amendment conversation was particularly loaded.
I don’t know how effective the faith-symp strategy was during that campaign, but it was a big part of it. The idea, clearly, was to show that in Minnesota, being religious does not mean being anti-gay or anti same sex marriage. This is true. In fact, not long after I moved to Minnesota, a friend of mine got married in a church. She was gay, her newly wedded spouse was gay, the ceremony was carried out in a Lutheran church by a female minister. I remember thinking, “Wow, Minnesota is progressive.”
Apparently, I had attended a completely illegal activity. The marriage was a sham, because gay marriage was not legal. But, the good people of South Minneapolis apparently chose to ignore that. Still, once “married” my friends would still not have had the rights afforded to others who happened to be in opposite sex marriages.
But I digress. Norris makes this point:
I wondered where my voice was in the conversation, where my link was on websites, and why more atheists weren’t speaking up on my behalf. In September, I attended a public forum on the amendment featuring panelists who shared their reasons for opposing it. All but one – August Berkshire, president of Minnesota Atheists — was religious. His arguments against the amendment were so sound and appealing that I was amazed they weren’t being used in MN United’s talking points. But Berkshire was the only prominent atheist I recall hearing from in the last 18 months about LGBT rights.
I should point out that Minnesota Atheists is the only non theistic group that has provided a legal brief in a law suit being carried out here regarding same sex marriage. Apparently, as Norrris says, the whole same sex marriage debate is a discussion being had among religious people. Go read his post, it’s very good and important. Here, my intention is not to expand on his arguments, but rather, to use this opportunity to point out a different (but very much related) problem: How do non-Atheists react when an Atheists says something out loud, about Atheism or anything relate to it?
You may recall that last summer, Minnesota Atheists (and American Atheists) teamed up with the local minor league team, the Saint Paul Saints, to sponsor a ball game. The Saints have a lot of sponsored games, and they are mutual fund raising activities. They changed their name to the Mr. Paul Aints for the game, and various other adjustments were made. The Saints, or rather, Aints have a lot of fun with their games, and this game was no exception.
But, after it became known that the Saints/Aints wer teaming up with Atheists, a certain amount of fecal matter hit the air moving device. I heard but did not confirm that there was a move in the home town of the team that was to play the Saints that night to forfeit the game rather than to play in an Atheist sponsored event. A couple of local professional journalists wrote columns that were very intolerant, asking why the heck anyone would want to do something with a bunch of atheists.
To our credit, we who often speak out locally on behalf of Atheism responded cooly and calmly and pointed out to those journalists that they were doing it wrong. One approach I took was to re-write one of the journalists columns replacing mentions of “Atheists” or “Atheism” with “Jews” and “Judaism.” That shift in frame made the column look like something from Germany in the 1930s, sort of. This can be a very effective way to point out the true nature of intolerance.
So, now, let’s do something along those lines with the comments on Norris’s post. I’ve screen captured a few of them for you. Note that I did not black out names because these are all public comments on the above cited post. They are shown in order of appearance. You may need more context than I provide here, and that is why you should click through and read Norris’s original essay.
This first one is a bit grammatically flawed (looks like AutoCorrect has had its way with it) but you can get the point:
Let me rephrase:
I have often found Jews to be as dogmatic as the orthodox religious, perhaps a more palatable view (to me) is better expressed by Lutherans.
Well, to each his or her own when it comes to religion, but the author of this comment is saying that often Atheists are unpalatable, presumably not in a cannibalistic sense, but rather, in regard to the things they say. This implies that it would be better (for him) if Atheists remained silent. This, posted on an essay by an Atheists expressing a sense of not belonging and not being listened to could be translated further as:
I do wish that you had not written this post. Please shut up.
OK, let’s look at the next one:
The commenter starts out by putting words in Norris’s mouth. Norris does not say, or imply, that people of faith are not for human rights. Rather, he clearly documents that many Minnesotans of faith were very active in the pro same sex marriage movement. This first statement is also a bit of a smokescreen because he mentions that “…In fact these values are fundamental to Christianity.” So, now we have a “fact” on the table that Christians are all for human rights and equality. But, the anti same sex marriage bill was introduced by members of a very common sect of Christians and supported by many churches. The smoke is rather thin in this case. In fact, he acknowledges this in his next paragraph, but the chance to school the Atheist on how good people of faith are was not deterred by the fact that they often are not so good and that the situation is more complex.
In the third paragraph, he (as did many of the atheists in the comments) restates the mistaken assumption that Atheists are not organized. We are. But here, we see our organizations, which were mentioned explicitly in the post and illustrated with a photograph of the president of the statewide organization and everything, are being ignored. Or, more precisely, set aside. moved out of the way.
Then we are told that we are annoying. Squeaky wheels. And we are going to do it wrong by being condescending. Go read Norris’s post. It is nothing like condescending. But it was an Athiest talking, and when a Atheist whispers, many theists hear … well, at least a squeaky sound, of not something more harsh.
More precisely, we are being told that until we do it right, we will not be acknowledged.
After all this disrespect, we are told this:
The key is that atheists must respect all people and their beliefs.
And it goes beyond that. After mischaracterizing the Atheist Voice, and not even knowing that there is in fact a statewide group of organized Atheists (and many other groups) even though he was just told this, the commenter tells us he will disregard Atheists until they, Atheists, learn all about him and how he thinks and does things. And he does this in a harsh and insulting way:
…. guess what? I’m not going to give a rip about what an atheist thinks if he or she isn’t willing to even attempt to understand what my values are, where they come from and why I hold them so dear. I’m not looking to proselytize. I’m looking for real relationship with the people I’m devoting months if not years of my free time to work with on a campaign or cause. That’s how effective organizing happens.
So, “effective organizing” means ignoring the perspective and presence of an entire group of potential allies, telling them to shut up when they politely ask questions about their position at the organizing table, and insisting that they jump through hoops that you have designed for them. Huh. Didn’t know that.
The next comment is by the same person responding to an Athiest:
The response is very annoying. First, the Atheist is told he is speaking in the wrong tone. To add to the commenter’s (Greene’s) authority, he explicitly approves of a part of the comment. That was nice of him. But in telling the Atheists to shut up, essentially, and after complaining at length about how Atheists are doing it wrong, he scolds that one should not negatively label people if you want them to like you. In other words, STFU and maybe I won’t dislike you, disregard you, and set you aside. And, again, he verifies that he knows nothing about Atheists in Minnesota, even though he insists that Atheists, to be listened to, must first learn about his beliefs.
And finally, we are reminded that Atheists are not recognized because of their own failure, their own negativity. After a campaign in which theists (some, not all of them, of course) were busy being very negative to a portion of our population, and attempting to extend that negativity into the State’s Constitution:
To many, when an Atheist talks, that is a negative thing. To some, Atheists should only talk when they are not being negative.
The question I have, then, is this: If you throw a person in the mill pond and they sink to the bottom, does that mean that they were not an Atheist?
Circumnavigating the Americas in a Smallish Boat: One Island One Ocean
When I was in 5th grade one of my classmates announced that she and her family (they were a family of singing folksingers) planned to take a trip in a boat they had built around the continent. In that class were were all required to give talks on various topics of our choosing, and she gave a talk on that. We were all impressed by many aspects of the planned adventure, but one thing stood out: During this trip the folk singing family would pass dangerously close to Haiti, which was on very bad terms with the US at that time (I believe it was a Soviet Satellite or something along those lines) and storms could blow their boat into Haitian waters and that would be trouble. This was especially impressive to those of us who had transferred into that public school from the Catholic school nearby, because we knew of “Haiti” as a synonym for “Hell.”
The next year she gave the talk again and told the story about how their boat actually did get blown into Haiti, they were picked up by the Haitian authorities, and actually treated quite nicely. Go figure.
I imagine that a lot of maritime stories go that way. There’s a big plan, and a small boat, and a huge ocean, and things don’t necessarily go the way they are supposed to go. But, in May 2009, when a team of scientists, teachers, conservationists, and sailors launched their journey on the good ship Ocean Watch, intending to circumnavigate the entirety of North and South America, their grandiose expectations were destine to be met, for the most part.
This was a voyage designed to make several points, about the ocean, the culture of the littoral, the conservation of the sea, the effects of climate change, and all that. They encountered major storms, cuddly polar bears, ice, and everything. The voyage started out in Seattle and went north, crossing west to east across the Arctic sea. Sea ice might have deterred them but ultimately they would have Nunavet. They rounded the Northern Continent and visited many cites in the US, Puerto Rico and other islands, several South American countries and the Falklands, Mexico, and then worked their way back along the US coast to Seattle. This took 13 months.
And, when they were done, they made an amazing coffee table style picture book called: One Island, One Ocean: The Epic Environmental Journey Around the Americas
The book is nicely printed, 240 pages long, and is a good deal of fun.
Happy 50th Anniversary, Planetary Exploration!
Fifty years ago to day a space ship passed by the planet Venus. The Earthlings had named the space craft “Mariner 2” and sent it to Venus for purely scientific purposes. Interplanetary domination was never the intention of this or any other Earth mission.
And that began the story of planetary exploration as we know it.
I believe Mariner 2 was the 13th exploratory un-personed space mission by NASA.
Amazingly cute new primate species in Borneo
The Slow Loris (Genus Nycticebus) is a category of prosimian (primates that are neither monkey or ape) that lives in southeast Asia. Most prosimian species live on the island of Madagascar, but there are several African and Asian forms, all of which are nocturnal. The Slow Loris is special because it is the only primate we know of that has a toxic bite.
The total number of nocturnal primates known has increased considerably over the years and I’d wager there are many more to be found. “Technological advances have improved our knowledge about the diversity of several nocturnal mammals,” said Rachel Munds from the University of Missouri Columbia. “Historically many species went unrecognized as they were falsely lumped together as one species. While the number of recognized primate species has doubled in the past 25 years some nocturnal species remain hidden to science.”
Tomorrow, a paper will be released providing the diagnosis of a new species of slow loris. From the abstract:
The slow lorises … once included only two species, but recent taxonomic studies resulted in the description of three additional species; … The Bornean loris in particular is characterized by pelage and body size variation. In this study, we explored facemask variation in the Bornean loris (N. menagensis). Differing facemask patterns, particularly influenced by the amount of white on the face, significantly clustered together by geographic regions, separated by notable geographic boundaries. Our results support the recognition of four species of Bornean lorises: N. menagensis, N. bancanus, N. borneanus, and N. kayan. Genetic studies are required to support these findings and to refine further our understanding of the marked variability within the Bornean loris populations
Previously, one species of Bornean slow loris, with three subspecies, was recognized. The present study elevates the three subspecies to species status and add the fourth as a new discovery. Obviously, this significantly increases our conception of diversity in the nocturnal Bornean rainforest. One of the biggest threats to these animals is the pet trade. “The pet trade is a serious threat for slow lorises in Indonesia, and recognition of these new species raises issues regarding where to release confiscated Bornean slow lorises, as recognition by non-experts can be difficult,” said co-author Professor Nekaris, from Oxford Brookes University.
The study used 25 photographs and 27 museum specimens including the type specimens for two of the previously designated subspecies. A large number of features were examined and measured, of which eight showed variation across the sample, thus showing promise to use as in classification. Here is an example of one of the traits, called “Crown”:
Various fancy statistical analysis were done to produce two “functions” (combinations of variables) that separate the samples as indicated in this graph:
These traits clearly sort out the groups, and these groups have geographical distinctions as well.
Group 1 is on the island of Bangka and in the southwestern portion of Borneo south of the Kapuas River and east to the Barito River; this group’s boundaries appear not to extend all the way east to Barito River. Group 2 is found in central Borneo, north of the Kapuas and Mahakam Rivers. It is often found in higher ele- vations, but is not restricted to them. The boundary of Group 3 overlaps in part with Group 1, as it is found north of the Kapuas River, but its range ex- tends as far east as the Barito River. Finally, Group 4 inhabits the southern Philippines and northern and eastern Borneo, primarily in coastal and low- land areas. It does not range south of the Mahakam River.
So there are now four species: N menagensis, N. bancanus, N. borneanus and N. kayan. That last one is the new designation, and is named for a river flowing through the region in which it lives..
The conservation and research project responsible for this work has a web page with cute pictures, interesting videos, and more information on conservation related matters: Prof Anna Nekaris’ Little Fireface Project
Munds, Rachel, Nekaris, K.A., & Ford, Susan (2012). Taxonomy of the Bornean Slow Loris, with new species Nycticebus kayan (Primates, Lorisidae) American Journal of Primatology, 75, 46-56 : 10.1002/ajp.22071
Two Space Robots To Crash Into Moon Monday
Ebb and Flow, the Twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Space Ships, which have been employed to provide detailed gravitational mapping of the Moon’s geology, have apparently served their purpose and will be reprogrammed in a few hours from now to crash into the moon on Monday.
PASADENA, Calif. — Twin lunar-orbiting NASA spacecraft that have allowed scientists to learn more about the internal structure and composition of the moon are being prepared for their controlled descent and impact on a mountain near the moon’s north pole at about 2:28 p.m. PST (5:28 p.m. EST) Monday, Dec. 17.
“Controlled Descent” means “Crash Into the Moon.” At least they might have one final glimpse of Moon Santa before their fateful demise.
Ebb and Flow, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission probes, are being sent purposely into the lunar surface because their low orbit and low fuel levels preclude further scientific operations. The duo’s successful prime and extended science missions generated the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The map will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.
NASA has one hell of a retirement policy. Take note future Space Robots!
“It is going to be difficult to say goodbye,” said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “Our little robotic twins have been exemplary members of the GRAIL family, and planetary science has advanced in a major way because of their contributions.”
If this is what they do to the “exemplary” Space Robots, I’d hate to see what becomes of the slackers.
The mountain where the two spacecraft will make contact is located near a crater named Goldschmidt. Both spacecraft have been flying in formation around the moon since Jan. 1, 2012.
That’s “Goldschmidt” as in “Hermann Goldschmidt, a nineteenth century astronomer and painter famous for discovering a bunch of asteroids. I don’t think he saw this coming.
They were named by elementary school students in Bozeman, Mont., who won a contest. The first probe to reach the moon, Ebb, also will be the first to go down, at 2:28:40 p.m. PST. Flow will follow Ebb about 20 seconds later.
Clearly, it is not a good idea to name farm animals or Space Robots.
Both spacecraft will hit the surface at 3,760 mph (1.7 kilometers per second). No imagery of the impact is expected because the region will be in shadow at the time.
Whut?
Ebb and Flow will conduct one final experiment before their mission ends. They will fire their main engines until their propellant tanks are empty to determine precisely the amount of fuel remaining in their tanks. This will help NASA engineers validate fuel consumption computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.
So, their last job is to be a pair of glorified gas station inspectors.
“Our lunar twins may be in the twilight of their operational lives, but one thing is for sure, they are going down swinging,” said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Even during the last half of their last orbit, we are going to do an engineering experiment that could help future missions operate more efficiently.”
Because the exact amount of fuel remaining aboard each spacecraft is unknown, mission navigators and engineers designed the depletion burn to allow the probes to descend gradually for several hours and skim the surface of the moon until the elevated terrain of the target mountain gets in their way. The burn that will change the spacecrafts’ orbit and ensure the impact is scheduled to take place Friday morning, Dec. 14.
That’s interesting. So it’s going to be more of a Wiley Coyote thing, then.
“Such a unique end-of-mission scenario requires extensive and detailed mission planning and navigation,” said Lehman. “We’ve had our share of challenges during this mission and always come through in flying colors, but nobody I know around here has ever flown into a moon mountain before. It’ll be a first for us, that’s for sure.”
Boys and their toys.
The NASA press report is here.
How to draw birds
Tired of merely watching birds? Ever consider trying to draw them? There’s a method to do so. John Muir Laws is very good at this and he’s written a book that can help you get started, maybe even become good at it yourself:Laws Guide to Drawing Birds 
In case you were wondering, Laws’ name does not connect him genealogically to the famous John Muir; his parents named him that. But apparently, there is a connection between names and what people do, and John Muir Laws is in fact a naturalist.
This book covers all the usual methodology of illustration but with birds. There are a gazillion “chapters” each one or two pages or so in length, divided into sections: Bird Drawing Basics, Mastering Bird Anatomy, Details and Tips for Common Bird, Birds in Flight, Field Sketching, and Materials and Techniques.
In teaching physical anthropology, anatomy, or archaeology, I’ve found it to be very useful to require students to draw things. Even if they don’t become master scientific illustrators (that is a rare bird indeed) they learn about the objects that are central to the study in a more intimate and details way than possible by just looking. I would be willing to bet that the average bird watcher can improve his or her birdwatching skills by taking a bit of time drawing their quarry. In the old days, of course, this was done by first shooting the bird so it stops moving, then drawing it in the studio. This is no longer recommended, but that makes it harder. Instead, Laws recommends “spending time with living bird in natural conditions” which will “help you develop an intuitive feeling for and kinship with the living animal that you cannot get from photographs alone.”
By the way, of you need a source of photographs to help you in your drawing efforts, check out the blog 10,000 Birds, especially the Galleries section.
Laws is also the author of Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada
Happy sketching.
Religious Politics and Secular Values
Why is the inclusion of creationism and “intelligent design” still a viable proposal for American biology curricula? What other secular policies are at risk of religious intrusion? NCSE board member Barbara Forrest dissects the issue with a panel of experts, including Barry Lynn, Chris Mooney, and John Shook. Where: Center for Inquiry, Washington, DC. When: 10/22/2011
The Hobbit and Science
The Hobbit, the movie, opens tomorrow in a theater near you. This is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, which chronicles the adventure of Bilbo Baggins. To many, this constitutes a prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which many read (or saw in movie form) before finding out about The Hobbit; this prequel-esque aspect of The Hobbit is reified in the production of the movie following the distribution of the Lord of the Rings movie. Notably, however, The Hobbit was written first, and The Lord of the Rings is a proper sequel. (Interestingly, the Hobbit was revised to accommodate The Lord of the Rings.)
This entire story takes place in Middle Earth, a richly described fantasy universe that has become the interest, sometimes obsession, of many minds since Tolkien. If you find Middle Earth interesting (and you should) then there is a book you absolutely must read about it. I’m talking about Henry Gee’s “The Science of Middle Earth: Explaining the science behind the greatest fantasy epic ever told.” Henry Gee wrote this book a few years back and you may have read it then, perhaps like me you have a dog eared paperback version of it on the shelf next to your copies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. But Henry has produced a second edition of the book, available for the Kindle, and at present, sold in the Amazon UK store (at the link provided above).
Gee covers what you would expect. Elf magic, Orc reproductive biology, Dragon pyrophysiology, Middle Earth social networking and communications technology (such as seeing-stones) and so on. But Gee takes also takes a broader view of “Science” than one might find in a typical “Science of some book or movie” treatment. For example, he interrogates Tolkien’s linguistics very closely, and carries out what amount to Anthropological and Ethnographic studies of Middle Earth Culture.
Here’s a sampling of some silmarillion science:
Elvish science reached its peak in the First Age with Fëanor, universally regarded as the brightest and most powerful of all the Elves…who created the Silmarils, the great jewels over which the first wars against Morgoth were fought. The … Seeing Stones were givts from the Elves to the Faithful of Numenor, having been made long before in Valinor …. It was Celebrimbor of Holin, a descendant of Fëanor, who forged the Three Rings of Power…
The Lord of the Rings contains many passing references to the relative hardness of materials, but this hardness has a mythic quality in that it directly correlates with technological sophistication of the smiths associated with that substance. For example, the Ents easilyidetroy the country rock that forms the outbuildings and walls of Isengard, but they are unable to ake a dent in Orthanc, a tower built by th elong-vanished Numenoreans, a tower with Gandalf says cannot be destroyed from without… But when Wormtongue tosses the palantir of Orthanc from an upstairs window, it makes a distinct chip in the Numenorean step on wich it falls — a step against which the rage of Treebeard has had no effect at all.
Gee addresses the idea that Tolkien had an anti-science bent, and turns that idea on its head, or at least, its pointy ear, and grounds that discussion in both scientific and literary context. Relating this question to Orc reproductive physiology:
In terms of science, these various grades of Orc-human mixture can be read as a savage critique on evolution itself – or, at least, the view of evolution as ‘progressive’, leading to inexorable improvement in form and function. This is the view of evolution that would have been current in the first half of the 20th century, and most especially between 1900 and the end of the Second World War, encompassing Tolkien’s most productive years as a writer. I have shown elsewhere that this view of life is profoundly antithetical to what we now understand of the Darwinian model of evolution by natural selection, and has indeed been exposed as illogical by theorists working from the 1950s onwards…
And here is a sample of Henry’s linguistic and anthropological treatment:
When technical papers on incontinence, authored by a Dr. Splatt and a Dr. Weedon, were drawn to the attention of New Scientist magazine, its readers were invited to send in other examples of what became known as ‘nominative determinism’. This Jungian phenomenon illustrates how satisfying it can be when a name is more than a label, but illustrates some property of the thing named. Nominative determinism is amusing because it points up a distinction we usually take for granted. That is, that the name and the thing named are actually different things; that the effort of connecting the two is greater than we might imagine; and so it is satisfying when a person has a memorable name that records some distinctive property of the thing named, making it more than an arbitrary combination of sounds. Tolkien was as sensitive to this distinction as anyone: even in the first few pages of The Hobbit, Gandalf castigates Bilbo for remembering the name ‘Gandalf’, while forgetting that he, the wizard, ‘belonged’ to it.
There is a branch of science in which correct nomenclature is everything, and on which the whole of natural history is based. That discipline is taxonomy. The job of taxonomists is to provide names for species of living creatures. In ages past, the lack of any standard nomenclature made it hard for scientists to get the measure of the natural world. When the same creatures were known by host of names in different languages, it was impossible to know whether the same creature was being referred to in each case: as Elrond offers several names for Bombadil, Gandalf offers several names for himself, giving the origin of each. Gandalf is his name only among Men of the North, but he is called ‘Incanús’ in the South, ‘Tharkûn’ by the dwarves, ‘Olórin’ in the ancient West, and so on…. We know that all these names refer to the same person only because Gandalf tells us that this is so, not by some external reference. Were we to meet a southerner who mentioned having met Incanús, for example, we should only discover that we were talking of Gandalf by comparison of his attributes: both Gandalf and Incanús would have a staff, bristling eyebrows, a pointy hat and a silver scarf, suggesting (but not proving) that we were talking of one and the same person. But if Gandalf were known by the same name everywhere, this confusion should never arise, preferably by a name that reflected one or other of his attributes. As an aside, Tolkien got the name Gandalf from the Icelandic Völuspá —the same source for all the Dwarf names in The Hobbit. The name Gandalfr, however, seemed to stand apart, as an argument could be made for its meaning ‘Wand-Elf’ —in other words, a Wizard, rather than a Dwarf
This new edition of The Science of Middle Earth is not heavily revised from the first edition, but there are corrections and minor changes throughout. Most notably, it is the eBook edition (there is no eBook form of the earlier edition). Also notably, and thank you Henry for this, it is quite inexpensive.
Henry Gee is a member of the Tolkien Society and editor of it’s journal, Mallorn. He also works for another journal you may have heard of (“Nature”) where among other things he edits the regular science fiction feature “Futures
Do you know where your .emacs file is? UPDATED
I just reconfigured my laptop with a new system (a form of Linux) and, almost as important, a new power brick. That second item may be more interesting than it sounds for some of you; I’ll write that up later. This change also meant trashing my emacs configuration file. I didn’t have to trash it, of course, but it made sense to do so. I don’t use my laptop in any way that requires that I pay attention to data saved on it. It is a data-free appliance. Sort of. Or, at least, if I took the hard drive out of it and put it in a blender, I would not lose anything important other than a blender which would surely break. In order to achieve this state, I manage certain data not by backing it up but by ignoring it. If I toss the hard drive and put in a new one and install a new system, my emacs configuration file(s) can be gotten off of another computer. Or, preferably, just recreated from scratch.
Why would I want to recreate my emacs configuration files from scratch? Because a) it is fun and b) with the newest version of emacs, a number of things that required excessive messing around with before have become normal. Thus, the configuration files are less cumbersome and easier to manage.
In case you are still reading this post about emacs (good for you!) but don’t know much about it let me explain a few things. If you are already an emacs expert, you may want to skip down to my .emacs file and get right into ridiculing it.
emacs is the best text editor in the world for a number of reasons, but mainly because pretty nearly everything is configurable, and it is very cleanly associated with a very powerful programming language that you can write programs in to make your emacs text editor do amazing things like manage your email, carry out sophisticated statistical analyses on data, make coffee, or stand in for an operating system. Or, you can do like I do; find where other people have written these things and graciously made them available for others to use.
But emacs also suffers from a logical conundrum I call The emacs Paradox. Here is how it goes:
emacs is wonderful because you can configure it any way you want.
emacs keybindings (what happens when you press certain keys) are the most efficient possible therefore you must not change emacs keybindings.
We know this is an interesting paradox because right after hearing all about how emacs keybindings are wonderful, the first thing you will be told to do if you read the introductory material on emacs is to swap the caps lock and control keys, and the second thing you will be told to do is to replace the alt key with any one of a number of alternatives “so you won’t have to squish up your fingers” while executing “meta” commands. This duality (’emacs is perfect ’emacs is flawed) is part of what makes emacs a religion.
Like this:
That’s the guy who invented emacs.
OK, back to the point. emacs out off the box is probably pefect for some people. emacs with two or three hundred lines of elisp code in various files, some compiled, is perfect for others. But I use emacs to write, not program, so my needs are met by the out of the box version with a hadnful of changes.
My emacs file is below, and it is annotated to make it clear what each step does. This is all hand-codedd. Many of these changes can be made by selecting configuration options from the emacs menu.
Included in the file are a few comments of possible additional changes I may or may not make. I’m agnostic as to whether these changes are worthwhile; I go back and forth. The comments are in there as reminders.
The file is called .emacs and resides in the home directory on a Linux computer with all the other “dot” files, which are by default hidden from view in many file managers (unless you specify otherwise).
And here is mine (UPDATED to make CUA work better within emacs and between apps:
;
;
; This is a text editing-focused .emacs file
; a ";" means "comment" if it is in the first position
;
;---Reload the .emacs file after messing with with alt-x reload-dotemacs
(defun reload-dotemacs()
"Reload .emacs file"
(interactive)
(load-file "~/.emacs"))
; do not display the annoying startup screen
(setq inhibit-splash-screen t)
; get rid of annoying box cursor
; replace it with a nice bar cursor
(set-default 'cursor-type 'bar)
; type face size needs to be bigger on this laptop
; number (190)/10 = point size
(set-face-attribute 'default nil :height 190)
; scroll bar on right where all other scroll bars
; in the universe ever are
(set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
; make Visual Line Mode work in text mode all the time
; (this means, make the text wrap as in a normal
; text editor)
(setq text-mode t)
(global-visual-line-mode 1)
(cua-mode t)
;
; Make sure ctrl-a selects all
;
(global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'mark-whole-buffer)
;
;
; turn automatic spell checking on more or less universally
(defun turn-spell-checking-on ()
"Turn flyspell-mode on."
(flyspell-mode 1)
)
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-spell-checking-on)
; turn on "CUA mode" ... so control -c, -v, -x, -z and
; a few other things work as they do in virtually all
; other software ever
(setq cua-auto-tabify-rectangles nil) ;; Don't tabify after rectangle commands
(transient-mark-mode 1) ;; No region when it is not highlighted
(setq cua-keep-region-after-copy t) ;; Standard Windows behaviour
; Make the keys work even if CUA does not:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c") 'copy)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-v") 'paste)
; Make emacs use the system clipboard even if CUA does not:
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
; associations
; add later some minor modes for certain kinds of files
;
; macros
; add later some handy markdown and html macros and functions
;
; make ctrl f cause forward "search"
(global-set-key (kbd "C-f") 'isearch-forward)
; make ctrl s save the current document
(global-set-key (kbd "C-s") 'save-buffer)
; some other time make the escape key stop commands in process
;
; Don't make the files with the #'s in the names
; a default emacs behavior we don't want
(setq auto-save-default nil) ; stop creating those #auto-save# files
; make a hidden backup to a directory mirroring the full path
; of files edited
(defun my-backup-file-name (fpath)
"Return a new file path of a given file path.
If the new path's directories does not exist, create them."
(let* (
(backupRootDir "~/.emacs.d/emacs-backup/")
(filePath (replace-regexp-in-string "[A-Za-z]:" "" fpath )) ; remove Windows driver letter in path, e.g. “C:”
(backupFilePath (replace-regexp-in-string "//" "/" (concat backupRootDir filePath "~") ))
)
(make-directory (file-name-directory backupFilePath) (file-name-directory backupFilePath))
backupFilePath
)
)
(setq make-backup-file-name-function 'my-backup-file-name)
; make the titlebar (window frame top) show the name of the file in the buffer.
(setq frame-title-format "%b")
;
;
;
; Line by line scrolling. By default, Emacs scrolls off the visible buffer by several lines. This is annoying
; This causes the scroll set to be whatever you want, in this ase, 1
;
;
(setq scroll-step 1)
;
;
; also, make the middle mouse wheel scroll only one line at a time
;
;
(setq mouse-wheel-scroll-amount '(1 ((shift) . 1)))
;
; later:
;
; make home and end buttons work better
;
; figure out how to make emacs work better with markdown
;
; Tabs, fast tab switching
;
The Nile Isn't Just A River in Egypt Any More. It's also on the moon
But not that moon. Saturn’s moon. And it is not really the Nile. But, just as the Nile is one of the longest rivers on Earth, this new river is the longest river observed anywhere other than the earth. Yay Earth, you have the Longest Rivers known to Earthlings! Continue reading The Nile Isn't Just A River in Egypt Any More. It's also on the moon
Could there be an "Out" Atheist in the US Senate?
Tea Party leader South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is stepping down from his position in the US Senate to take on leadership of the Conservative Heritage Foundation. That itself is kind of strange, since being a US Senator is a Big Huge Deal and being the head of some think tank is only a moderately big deal. But no matter. Since he is leaving office, he needs to be replaced, and that job, in South Carolina, goes to the Governor, Nikki Haley, one of those enigmatically female Republicans. One of the candidates she is apparently considering for the job is Jenny Sanford, the ex wife of Mark Sanford. Remember him? He’s the guy ow disappeared in 2009 while he was governor to visit his mistress in Argentina. That would be funny.
Meanwhile, the Charleston City Paper is running a poll to see who should be selected to fill this seat. The poll is here. Naturally, one of the names proposed in that poll is Stephen Colbert, the TV comedian guy, who happens to be from South Carolina. At present, he has 11% of the vote and as such is in distant second place to Herb Silverman.
Who is Herb Silverman, you may ask? He’s the president of the Secular Coalition for America, and while technically one does not have to be an Atheist to have that job, he is one. And, he has 87% of the vote in the City Paper’s poll!
I understand that the Secular Coalition for America, on Silverman’s behalf, has challenged Colbert to a debate. They are in touch with Colbert via his twitter handle @StephenAtHome and the conversation is happening with the hashtags #SenatorHerb and #senatorcolbert … you might want to go join the fun.
By the way, Richard Dawkins has come out with an endorsement of Silverman.
“South Carolina has recently shown itself to be a leader in political diversity, with an Indian-American Governor and the only African-American Republican in Congress,” Dawkins said, according to the Charleston City Paper. “I think the time is now ripe for South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to appoint Herb Silverman as the first acknowledged Jewish Atheist in the United States Senate.”
I am not holding my breath, but I am making popcorn!
See also this.
Why are some animals rare, and why is this very important?
A friend of mine told me this story: As a special forces soldier, a Green Beret, he was alone and traveling through a dense area of jungle in or near Viet Nam during the 1960s. Enemy soldiers were nearby and he intended to pass through their patrol area to arrive at some safe destination, but he fully expected to run into a trip wire, a sentry, or a squadron of hostiles. His rifle was loaded and ready to fire at any moment. Continue reading Why are some animals rare, and why is this very important?
Is Childhood The Most Important Human Adaptation?
Human infants require more care than they should, if we form our expectations based on closely related species (apes, and more generally, Old World simian primates). It has been said that humans are born three months early. This is not accurate. It was thought that our body size predicted a 12, instead of 9 month gestation, and some suggested that Neanderthals would have had such, but this research conclusion has been set aside based on new analysis. But it is still true that developmentally, human children do not reach a stage of development that allows some degree of self care for a very long time compared to apes. The actual sequence of development is not directly comparable: It is not the case that after a certain amount of time humans reach a specific stage reached earlier in the lifecycle by Chimpanzees, as the differences are more complicated than that. For the present purposes, we can characterize the human condition for early development like this: Human babies are more helpless in more ways and for longer than comparable ape babies.
Continue reading Is Childhood The Most Important Human Adaptation?