| Welcome to my new blarg | GrrlScientist "Blog" actually came from the word, "blarg" – that sound people make when they are retching. It only morphed into "blog" as the result of a typographical error ...Like most people, I always wanted to be a success; I was born wanting to accomplish something worthwhile that would justify my existence on this planet. So even though I worked long and hard to make myself into a success, I've only managed to succeed at failure.Even though I managed to work my way through to the PhD and I also managed to win a postdoctoral fellowship, my efforts to progress beyond that stage were stymied. Frustrated with my inability to find a job – any job – I fell back on the one thing I've always done since I first could pick up a crayon: I wrote about it. Except this time, instead of hiding my words under my mattress, I wanted to make my frustrations public. Because I knew thousands of other young scientists also shared my sense of betrayal, I wished to remain anonymous, to give voice to their outrage as well as my own. So I started a blog.I started a blog back when such things were very controversial and I used it to do something that is also quite controversial: rant about my job-seeking frustrations. Besides using my blog to write about my interviews, to publicly correct the bad punctuation and grammar on rejection letters that I received, I also wrote vignettes like this. Unfortunately, word leaked out about this blog. Even though my postdoctoral colleagues who also were seeking jobs were quite amused by it, I was promised in no uncertain terms that I would never again work in either scientific research or academia if I did not immediately stop writing this blog – indeed, stop all writing activities that were not either invested in writing grants or papers. Apparently, my colleagues were not the only people reading my wee blog. My thousands of readers provided valuable support and encouragement that kept me going through the many dark years that followed. Even though I am still unemployed, I did marry one of my many readers and I now live in Germany. Contrary to what many of you know about internet lore, blogs did not actually get their name from a condensation of the phrase, "web blog." No, my friends, the truth is that the word, "blog" actually came from the word, "blarg" – that sound that people make when they are retching, and it only morphed into the word "blog" as the result of a typographical error. An apt name when you think about it, since blogs generally qualify as written retching. So this one typographical error was dutifully copied, pasted and repeated by dozens, then hundreds and now, by millions of people.Since most blogs have typographical errors sprinkled throughout, it seems somehow appropriate that I managed to find my way here, to add my written retches to the "stable" of science blarg writers at The Grauniad. But don't expect my efforts to succeed.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
For the Coda, a Preface in Washington The Coda is supposed to go nearly four miles on a kilowatt-hour; at the average electric generating station in the United States, that would mean emitting about 0.375 pounds of carbon dioxide a mile. feeds.nytimes.com |
Stephen Hawking has not yet disproved God's role in creation The existence of the universe cannot be explained by science aloneAccording to your report, Stephen Hawking claims that God is redundant in explaining the origins of the universe, stating that "the big bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity" (Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God, 2 September). The article publishes an extract from Hawking's new book: "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist ... It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe alight." It seems Hawking believes that a law of nature (ie the law of gravity), rather than an immaterial deity, explains the existence of the natural order.But what is a law of nature? Some philosophers hold that the laws of nature are grounded in the causal capacities of physical objects: the capacity of water to boil at 100C, and the capacity of salt to dissolve in water (to take two very simple examples). Other philosophers claim that laws of nature are simply brute regularities in the natural world, which have no ultimate explanation. On either conception, it is difficult to see how laws could explain the natural order, as they seem to depend for their own existence upon that natural order.Hawking has never told us what he thinks a law of nature is, and until he does so it is impossible to assess his claim that laws of nature can explain the existence of the natural order in a way that renders traditional arguments for the existence of God unsound.I don't imagine that Hawking is in a hurry to answer this philosophical challenge. The opening page of his book proclaims that "philosophy is dead", due to the fact that philosophers have failed to keep up with mathematical developments in physics. This doesn't stop him, and his co-writer Leonard Mlodinow, indulging in some very crude philosophical discussions of free will and metaphysical realism in later chapters. Hawking is right to say that most philosophers don't understand cutting-edge physics. But it cuts both ways: most physicists don't understand cutting-edge philosophy.The report also claims, as has been much reported in the media, that "Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe". However, it is not clear that the quotation from his 1988 bestseller, A Brief History of Time, which is produced as evidence of this alleged theological U-turn, was intended by Hawking in anything other than a metaphorical sense. "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God." Reports of Hawking's dramatic conversion to atheism are somewhat exaggerated.The skills that make one good at physics are not necessarily the skills that make one good at philosophy. What is required in philosophy is a certain capacity for thinking about everyday concepts in abstraction from their everyday context, an ability distinct from the mathematical skill essential for being a good physicist. Hawking is a great physicist. But he has so far shown no signs of being a good philosopher. At any rate, he has certainly not provided us with a good response to the cosmological argument for the existence of God, the argument that begins from the demand for an ultimate cause or explanation of the natural order.Stephen HawkingPhilosophyPhilip Goffguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Canegrowers focus on sugar research models Sugar lobby group Canegrowers says the industry's research and development will need to be more efficient in the future. abc.net.au |
Why Egyptian replicas are as good as the real thing Manchester's Tutankhamun exhibition is full of fakes, but no less inspiring for that"What can you see?" asked the people behind archaeologist Howard Carter as he peered through a newly dug hole into the tomb chamber of the boy king Tutankhamun in 1922. "Wonderful things!" gasped Carter. And it was true.Up to then it seemed that all the tombs of the pharaohs of Egypt in the Valley of the Kings had been ransacked by graverobbers long ago: archaeologists found mummies, but no gold. Somehow this young ruler's tomb had never been touched. Carter found its treasures piled around the walls inside the secret chamber, perfectly preserved in the sealed vault, just as they looked the day the tomb was closed. Now you can see them, quite as perfect, in Manchester – with one catch.The exhibition Tutankhamun – His Tomb and His Treasures, which opened at the Trafford Centre on Friday, boasts the very room that amazed Carter 88 years ago. Golden beds, chairs, chariots, chests and portraits are heaped as they were when he peeked through that tiny aperture: the death mask of Tutankhamun, one of the most astonishing works of art on earth, is here. The only trouble is, none of it is real. All the marvels are reproductions, modelled with digital technology and expertly crafted to mimic the originals, at a cost of £4.4m.Does it matter? Is this exhibition a con, a delusion, a postmodern joke? Is it not a bit rich to sell tickets to a display that is really no more authentic than a horror film with mummies chasing screaming actors through digitally created pyramids? But to get lofty and highfalutin about it is to forget the history of "Egyptomania", the fascination with ancient Egypt that has long gripped western culture. People have been faking Egyptian artefacts for centuries, and mixing those fakes with real relics, in a way that was not stupid, but rather inspired curiosity, discoveries, learning. In the 17th century, sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini stuck an ancient obelisk on the back of a stone elephant, mixing real archaeology with his own art. In the age of Napoleon, every fashionable house had a faked-up, Egyptian-style chaise longue. In Regency London you could visit the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, a simulated Egyptian temple complete with colossal columns and statues, run as a profitable enterprise (today Harrods has its own Egyptian Hall).The Manchester event is in this tradition. If it inspires, it inspires. You can visit the British Museum's Book of the Dead show next month to see how real Egyptian relics match up to its illusions. Egyptomania thrives on sensation, and museums and diggers have benefited from the popularity of this most amazing of ancient cultures. Egyptologists learned long ago that fakes are fine, so long as they generate enthusiasm for the real thing.MuseumsArchaeologyArtHistory and history of artMuseumsManchesterJonathan Jonesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |