Skulls in the Stars

I just saw this article on CNN the other day: Planes slow down to save fuel. Apparently airlines are finally starting to feel the pinch of higher gas prices, and are learning that going at a slightly slower speed can save significant money.

This isn’t a new observation: young folks today probably aren’t aware of the fact that the former national 55 mph speed limit was originally implemented in 1974 not for safety, but to conserve fuel in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.

The reality is that air resistance becomes a major limiting factor on fuel efficiency at high speeds.  Roughly speaking, the drag force increases as the square of the velocity at high speeds, which means that driving 100 mph results in 4 times the drag force that driving at 50 mph causes.

I drive a hybrid Civic, and the dynamic mpg gauge on the vehicle gives me significant insight into how air resistance kills fuel efficiency.  I typically find that, driving steady at 55 mph, I can get 40-50 mpg.  Once I push the car up past 70 mph, and into 80 mph, I’m lucky to get 35 mpg.  At low speeds, the car can ‘coast’ for appreciable distances without using fuel, but at high speeds, the engine must constantly work against the drag force.

These numbers, over long periods of time, add up: driving a little slower on a day-to-day basis can save you some significant money in the long run.

Blake over at Science After Sunclipse has written an excellent essay about the real threats and intimidation that people have experienced when speaking out in favor of evolution.  The makers of the idiocy that is the film Expelled would like the public to believe that good scientists are being persecuted unfairly for speaking out against evolution.  Remember, though, that a vast majority of people, both in and out of academia, are Christian, and many of the cases Blake highlights are of people who are Christian being punished and threatened apparently for being insufficiently dogmatic.  Blake’s essay is well-worth a read.

This headline caught my eye, as I grew up in the Chicago area. I’ll eagerly await reports from my family as to the horrific shocks they no doubt felt in the suburbs…

According to CNN,

The earthquake occurred in the Wabash Valley fault system, adjacent to the New Madrid Seismic Zone, Applegate said.

That zone, named for the town of New Madrid, Missouri, was the site of a series of huge tremors in 1811 and 1812.

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Via Pharyngula, I see that the Expelled Exposed website, which points out the flaws and lies in the new Ben Stein creationist claptrap Expelled, has ‘gone live’ and added lots of new content, including a depressing film about the ouster of Texas science director Chris Comer for criticizing ‘intelligent design’ (aka ‘creationism’).

For the first time last night, I saw a commercial on television for Expelled during The Daily Show on Comedy Central. It’s amazing how much B.S. they can fit into a 30-second spot. A frizzy-haired stereotypical professor is discussing evolution when Ben Stein raises his hand and asks, “But how did life start?” The question throws the fake professor into an apoplectic fit, and he sends Stein to the principal’s office. The problem with this is: evolution does not address the question of abiogenesis at all, and any real professor of biology would be happy to tell you that. Evolution is a theory of how existing species change as a result of mutation and natural selection. Abiogenesis, the origin of life itself, is an open scientific question.

Criticizing evolution for not explaining abiogenesis is about as sensible as criticizing the theory of gravity for failing to explain the existence of pirates.

So Expelled manages to fit at least two misrepresentations (evolution and academic response) into a 30-second spot. If that trend holds for the 90-minute movie, we’re looking at at least 360 misrepresentations for the whole film. Way to go, Ben.

Via Pharyngula, I see that Scientific American has posted a number of reviews of the creationist propaganda film Expelled, and as one would suspect, none of them are good. One statement by John Rennie on the matter caught my eye, though, and seemed worth mentioning in a post:

Rather, it seems a safe bet that the producers hope a whipping from us would be useful for publicity: further proof that any mention of ID outrages the close-minded establishment. (Picture Ben Stein as Jack Nicholson, shouting, “You can’t handle the truth!”) Knowing this, we could simply ignore the movie—which might also suit their purposes, come to think of it.

Emphasis mine. I found these observations particularly wise, and pertinent to an issue that constantly plagues the comments of various science blogs: when dealing with creationists and cranks, should scientists ignore them, engage them, or simply insult them? Which strategy avoids playing into the hands of the propagandists?

The quote above suggests that there is no straightforward strategy, and that the best answer one can typically give is: “It depends.”

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The blogs are all abuzz with a recent kerfuffle amongst PZ Myers of Pharyngula and Matt Nisbet of Framing Science. For those who haven’t been following it, a brief summary follows: PZ was ‘expelled’ from the soon-to-be-released creationist claptrap Expelled. The irony of someone being barred from a movie that pretends that creationists suffer such treatment was lost on no one, and the story has been significant news over the past few days, appearing in The New York Times and even appearing briefly on the news bar at the IMDB! A further irony is the fact that Richard Dawkins, even more prominent atheist and biologist, went right in to see the show.

Matt Nisbet started the kerfuffle (it’s a word - look it up - I have no idea how I knew it) by suggesting that Myers and Dawkins are very poor spokespeople in the battle between creationists and scientists, presumably because they’re unappealing atheists, and that they should be quiet. To quote,

If Dawkins and PZ really care about countering the message of The Expelled camp, they need to play the role of Samantha Power, Geraldine Ferraro and so many other political operatives who through misstatements and polarizing rhetoric have ended up being liabilities to the causes and campaigns that they support. Lay low and let others do the talking.

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Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, writer of numerous books including the iconic 2001, passed away today in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Reading various comments around the internet today, I almost get the feeling that Clarke will be remembered as much, if not more, for his influence on the perception of science as much as for his actual science fiction writing. This is certainly true for me personally.

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Just a quick note: a friend of mine pointed me to a very nice National Geographic article on animal intelligence, which can be read here.

The article discusses the well-known case of Alex the parrot, but also discusses other surprising species skills: border collies that have a 300-word vocabulary, and crows that can fashion tools. Well worth a read!

For those who don’t read the Bad Astronomy blog, I feel duty bound to share an image taken by the HiRISE camera currently orbiting Mars.  They caught a picture of several avalanches on steep cliffs on Mars:

It’s also worth looking at the full set of pictures, which shows the wide-angle shots and the zoomed-in shots of two avalanches, giving a better sense of how far the orbiter was when the pictures were taken.   Modern technology is quite amazing, isn’t it?  (I may have found my newest desktop background.)

A few recent articles got me thinking about the prevalence of crackpot science and medical quackery in modern society, and I thought I’d just write a post with some general thoughts and observations on the subject.

The articles that got me thinking again: McCain jumps into autism controversy, rejects science and evidence, via The Carpetbagger Report, the ‘return’ of the Lizard Man in Lee County, South Carolina, and Bad Statistical Reasoning about Weather and Climate, via Good Math/Bad Math.

Let me summarize each of these reports briefly after the fold, and then speculate what they (and other unscientific arguments) have in common.

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