right and wrong
esiegel | November 11, 2011"After all, facts are facts, and although we may quote one to another with a chuckle the words of the Wise Statesman, 'Lies - damned lies - and statistics,' still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of." -Leonard Courtney, 1895
"The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself." -Philip James Bailey
In the study of any scientific field, there are two great perils that you have to be careful to avoid: fraud and incompetence. Incompetence could be as innocuous as making a simple mistake in your analysis, a contamination of your data…
esiegel | July 18, 2011"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive." -C. S. Lewis
Many of you are a little bit skeptical that I talk about things like the History of the Universe, Inflation, Dark Matter and Dark Energy like they are absolute certainties. After all, isn't it true that there are an awful lot of assumptions that we make in order for these things to be true?
Image credit: NASA.
Absolutely!
That's right, I admit it. We make assumptions when we come up…
esiegel | May 13, 2011"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
For me, personally, it isn't the endless immensity of the seas that calls. It's the endless immensity of space, the Universe, and the stars.
Image credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA).
And I try to not just share my passion for it with my readers and students, but to encourage all of you (and all of them) to follow their passions. Perhaps it's physical science that excites you, like it…
esiegel | March 17, 2011"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?" -Rabbi Hillel
As you all know, it has been one week since the devastating earthquake first struck Japan. And the damage is simply horrific.
The death toll is in the thousands (if not the tens of thousands), there are hundreds of aftershocks still ongoing, and over 350,000 people have been displaced from their homes. National geographic has some heartbreaking pictures here.
And although I haven't asked it of you in years, my dear readers, I am asking you now to join with me and help the…
esiegel | February 20, 2011"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." -Abraham Lincoln
Democracy is hard. There's a reason I became an astrophysicist and not a politician, and it's rare that I talk about politics here. But every once in a while, I see something happening that's so egregious that I have to stand up and speak out for what's right in this world. Bob Marley would likely…
esiegel | November 10, 2010"Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life." -Hal Lewis
The most valuable natural resources we have at our disposal during our brief lives are the following.
That's right, the Earth and the Sun. And if we want life on Earth to continue as we know it, we have to avoid destroying our own natural environment. The big questions are whether we're actually damaging it to the point of devastating destruction, and if so, what we need to do to fix it.
One of the things we've measured reasonably well -- at, for instance, weather stations all…
esiegel | October 11, 2010"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." -Isaac Newton
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean." -Christopher Reeve
Today is Columbus Day here in the United States. And unlike pretty much everyone else I know, I've been looking forward to Columbus Day for weeks, now.
Why's that?
After all, it's not like I get off from work, or that I think Columbus was some idealized version of a human…
esiegel | August 29, 2010They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up. -Martin Niemöller
Most of you reading this know me. How you know me may vary; some of you know me as a scientist, some as a science writer, as a professor, or maybe just a friend or acquaintance. But before I was any of those things, I was born a citizen of the United…
esiegel | October 15, 2009
All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again. --Peter Pan
Much like any new venture where the outcome is uncertain, there are a lot of fears surrounding the LHC. And I know, because it occasionally shows up in my comment threads, in my inbox, or in my office.
Could it form a black hole and destroy Earth? Could we somehow do something in the future that would destroy the past? Or is it just generally unsafe?
The answers to these questions are no, no, and no. The first question -- about creating a black hole and destroying Earth -- requires that we apply the laws of…
esiegel | September 27, 2009I've liked the musician Rufus Wainwright for some time, but I didn't realize that he was the son of Loudon Wainwright, whom I've just recently discovered. Loudon's a singer/songwriter who's been around for even longer, and who I like even better than Rufus. His song Father and Son was written for Rufus, but I think the Peter Blegvad song Daughter that he performs here is more appropriate for today.
Why? Because I just learned about the Asgarda women of the Ukraine, via Planet and Bust magazines.
[Image removed due to copyright claim.]
I take so many things for granted in this country that I…
esiegel | June 24, 2009There is a long history of oppression of women on many fronts in our society. Socially, politically, economically, and legally, among others. There are a number of very good bloggers here who often address gender issues, and I'm not typically one of them.
But two things happened to me yesterday that brings up a gender issue that nobody speaks about: a man's rights in an unplanned pregnancy. I reconnected with an old friend on facebook who had knocked up his (much younger) girlfriend a few years ago, and didn't want a kid. She wanted to keep it, putting him in a catch-22. Either he could…