There is a magic rock in St. Cloud, France. It’s made not of stone, but of a metallic alloy that’s 90% platinum and 10% iridium, and it’s magic not through some supernatural force, but because scientists have declared it to have a mass of exactly 1 kilogram. Now many scientists would like to get rid of it. Read More
A Man For All Seasons
Welcome to the last part of our series on The Heartland Institute’s report on global warming. You should read the first three parts if you haven’t already (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). In this series I’ve focused a lot on how the NIPCC report frames the issue. They use emotional hooks to sway readers, focus on opinions rather than data, and use vague references to make it difficult to verify their claims. This was done intentionally to get people to feel that global warming is false without looking at the evidence. It is propaganda, not science. Now, it may be that global warming is false, but it’s clear the Heartland Institute isn’t interested in proving it. They just want you to believe it’s false. But if you’ve made it this far in the series, I assume you’d like to look at the actual science. What does fair and honest research say about climate change? Read More
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
C. S. Lewis was a Medieval scholar. He was also a devout Christian. In 1950 he published a children’s novel called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. At the beginning of the story, four siblings have been evacuated from London during the blitz of World War II. They find themselves at the large country estate of an old professor. During a game of hide and seek, the two youngest siblings, Lucy and Edmund, come across a large wardrobe. When they enter it to hide, they find it leads to a magical world of Narnia. When they return, Lucy tells the story of Narnia to the elder siblings, Peter and Susan. But when they ask Edmund if the story is true, he denies it, saying they were just playing pretend. Lewis intended the novel to be a Christian allegory about the choice one has between rejecting God’s love or being saved by faith, but it’s also a wonderful example of a philosophical conundrum: when there are two conflicting stories, which one do you believe?Read More
Thirty Helens Agree
I want you to think about the following statement: 97% of scientists agree that climate change is man-made and dangerous. It’s a factual claim, but in today’s political climate it is emotionally charged. If you believe climate change you might find the statement compelling. If you are a skeptic of global warming, you probably think this statement is false, and even if it were true that’s not how science is done. Here’s the deal: This statement isn’t true, and it isn’t a good scientific argument. Read More
A Convenient Truth
I got a book in the mail this week. If you’re a scientist or science teacher, you might have too. This Spring the Heartland Institute mailed more than 300,000 of them to K-12 science teachers and university professors. At a retail price of $6.95, that’s more than $2 million worth of books. You can find a PDF copy on the Heartland Institute website. This book has outraged many scientists who see it as an attack on the established science of global climate change. As a scientist myself, I want you to read it. Read More
Supersize It
In our solar system Jupiter is the king of planets. It is 2.5 times more massive than the other planets combined. But it isn’t the most massive planet we know of. In the search for planets around other stars, we’ve found planets with masses up to 20 times that of Jupiter. All things being equal, we can imagine Jupiter-like planets having a fairly even distribution of sizes, but it turns out that’s not the case. Read More
Black Hole Dance
At the heart of most galaxies is a supermassive black hole. These powerhouses have a mass of millions or billions of Suns, and can create brilliant quasars when active. So what happens when two galaxies collide?Read More
Citation Needed
I get a lot of email from folks with pseudoscience claims. It could be that the Earth is actually flat, or that the Sun is powered by electricity, or that Einstein was wrong about gravity. Bonus points if the email also calls me an idiot or part of the astronomical illuminati. But in the world of pseudoscience another popular approach is to make a claim based upon some image. There’s no referenced source or clear history of the image, just a picture and a claim. But even for pseudoscience, this is just being lazy, because in the information age images can often be tracked to their source with minimal effort.Read More