The Appliance Of Science…

“Creationism should be discussed in school science lessons, rather than excluded, says the director of education at the Royal Society.”

Professor Michael Reiss is or was the director of education at the royal society. He is also a biologist and Church of England minister. I was going to write about this today, but events changed somewhat by the fact that Prof Reiss quit the post today following the controversy over his recent comments on creationism.

Part of these comments were that Creationism should be discussed in Science classes along side Evolution. Prof Reiss said:

“When young people ask questions about creationism in science classes, teachers need to be able to explain to them why evolution and the Big Bang are scientific theories but they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis.”

“I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview’; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility.”

A number of Scientists have supported Prof Reiss stating that there was an opportunity for  a reasoned debate, but simply put creationism has no place in the science class; it is completely unsupportable as a theory, and the only reason to even mention creationism in schools science lessons is to enable teachers to demonstrate why the idea has no basis in evidence.

In fact the Royal Society reiterated that its position was that creationism had no scientific basis and should not be part of the science curriculum. “However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific.” It stated.

This is an interesting statement as it seems to support what Professor Reiss had said. But I would suspect that comments coming from a Church of England minister muddied the waters a little bit.

Supporters of Prof Reiss have also said that the Royal society has been diminished by Prof Reiss stepping down, but my view is that the Royal society was diminished the day they let him take up the post.

Creationism must only be taught only within the context of religion rather than science. As for creationism’s lovechild “Intelligent design”, that load of nonsense should never be taught  at anytime, or anyplace, ever.

The World Will End on Wednesday Part Deux.

We’re still here. Fancy that.

Seriously, I think I may be wired differently to the various personnel who commented that WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE on the first posting regarding this subject(incidently, I chose not to publish those comments), but the only thing that would worry me is not some magnetic ring in Europe, but the other doomsday device we created in 1945: Nuclear weapons. More nations have them than in the cold war…more unstable nations that is.

If one of them decides to release its stockpile of “instant sunshine” on us, I only hope I’m not around to see the aftermath.

This is exactly how it happened.

Click here to find out…

Borrowed from the impolite Conversation Blog.

The World will end next Wednesday.

Thats because the worlds largest Hadron Collider will go online, which will be capable of creating black holes that will suck the Earth and the Universe into it.

We’re doomed! Doomed I tell ya!

Right, just had to get that off my chest. So silly scaremongering aside, Here’s the Science:

The 17-mile-long ring, located 100mtrs below the French-Swiss border is the world’s most powerful—and most talked about—particle accelerator will begin collecting experimental data. The LHC’s research potential is staggering, with physicists hoping to use the accelerator’s extremely high-energy proton collisions to generate a range of theoretical particles. Some of those particles could help us to understand the nature of mass, including the as-yet-undetectable dark matter that accounts for so much of the universe’s mass. Other particles might prove the existence of extra dimensions, or lead to entirely new theories or physical laws.

Physicists have pointed out that the microscopic black holes the collider could generate would disappear almost instantly, without wreaking any havoc on the accelerator or the rest of world.

There has been some doom mongering from various sources, which I do find amazing, and the following comment from some fellow struck me:

“I have come to the conclusion that human beings will always conduct experiments no matter how dangerous they are. We will keep pushing until an experiment doesn’t go as planned and destroys all life on this planet.“

The same could be said for the “Manhattan Project”, a few minutes before the first detonation of the bomb, one of the scientists believed that according to his calculations the bomb would destoy the entire world. This obviously turned out not to be entirely true. It did however destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

06-09-2008 Update:

I have Some more information on the Hadron Collider. A set of fantastic pictures can be viewed here.

A good article by Professor Brian cox can be viewed here.

And finally, an excellent article on the Collider from a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, Michio Kaku. The article can be viewed here.

10-09-2008: Update Number 2.

This second update can be viewed here!

Cleaning up it’s act?

The Schwarze pump power station in Northern Germany will soon making a little piece of industrial history. This mini power plant is a pilot project for carbon capture and storage (CCS), the first coal-fired plant in the world ready to capture and store its own CO2 emissions.

This is how it works:

A cloud of pure oxygen will be breathed into the boiler. The flame will be lit. Then a cloud of powdered lignite will be injected. The outcome will be heat, water vapour, impurities, nine tonnes of CO2 an hour, and a landmark in clean technology.

Because the CO2 will then be separated, squashed to one 500th of its original volume and squeezed into a cylinder ready to be transported to a gas field and forced 1,000m below the surface into porous rock where it should stay until long after mankind has stopped worrying about climate change.

Big questions however hang still need to be answered regarding the technology overall, but particularly over where the CO2 will be stored and who will pay the high costs of building and running the CCS plants. Greenpeace is among the environmental groups expressing reservations.

“Our concern is that this technology is used to justify the construction of more coal power plants,” says Tobias Munchmeyer. “It’s too expensive, it will come too late and it will divert money from the real solutions, renewable energies and energy efficiency.”

The EU wants to see 10-12 full-scale power plants demonstrating CO2 capture within the next few years. But although a number of other firms will soon join the race with pilot projects, no full-scale CCS coal plant has yet been commissioned. The British government has promised a decision in October on how it will fund a full-scale CCS in the UK.

“We need CCS urgently because the world is building a whole new generation of coal power plants and unless we find out whether this technology operates at scale and we can make these plants zero-carbon in the future, those will be a liability,” says Nick Mabey of the think-tank e3g.

Whether the politicians and the citizens of “western” countries are prepared to use this technology which will inevitably mean paying a higher price for it remains to be seen,  we in the west do have a habit of abandoning our “principles” such as our commitment to reducing Co2 when we realise that the price of such a commitment is higher fuel bills.

The real test of CCS, though, is not in Europe. It’s in developing countries such as China who are building power stations, firstly to share this technology and secondly whether countries like China will accept this technology and the associated costs that go with it.

And Slowly and Surely, They Drew Their Plans Against Us.

Something has been found on Mars by the Phoenix Probe. While the TEGA experiment has confirmed the presence of water, apparently it has also made a “compelling discovery.”

You can read the whole article here.

Whatever this discovery is, they have taken the findings to the top: the White house.

It is a possibility that some form of life or the conditions for sustaining some form of life has been found. What if they have found some sort of life form? All good reasons for taking this to the White house.

You can imagine the scientist in charge: “we’ve found a “simple form” of life. We need to find someone who can communicate with it.

“Get me the President.”