I get mail:
German physicist Peter Heller wrote a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear power issue, published in German here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
With Dr. Heller’s permission, I’ve translated it in English. But having gone over the content, I think his plea is worthy of a much wider audience – more than what NTZ can offer. So I send this to you with the kind request that you consider publishing it at WUWT.
Best regards,
P Gosselin
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German physicist Peter Heller makes a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear energy issue. He wonders if ignorance and fear will cause us to abandon the legacies of Einstein, Heisenberg and others.
Fukushima
By Dr Peter Heller, http://www.science-skeptical.de
Astronomer, Physicist
There’s no place on earth I would rather be right now than at Fukushima – right in the atomic power plant, at the centre of the event. I say this because I am a physicist and there is no other place that could be more exciting and interesting for a physicist. The same goes for many, if not most physicists and engineers, on the planet.
Already at a young age I knew one day I would study physics. As a boy, I received a telescope for Christmas, and from that point on my view was fixed on the night sky; gazing at star clusters, nebula and galaxies was my favourite preoccupation. It was only later that I learned that these lights and the twinkling in eyepiece were actually the expressions of a chaotic and violent force of nature – the direct conversion of matter into energy during the fusion of an atomic nucleus.
My curiosity carried me, as if on a high, through 10 semesters of study and subsequent graduation. It was a time of discovery that involved the tedious task of understanding. At times I felt exasperation and self doubt with respect to the sheer complexity and breadth of what there was to learn. Yet, there were times of joy whenever the fog lifted and the clarity and beauty of physical descriptions of natural phenomena moved in its place. It was a time that, unfortunately, passed all too quickly and is now some years in the past.
The great minds that accompanied me through my studies were Planck, Sommerfeld, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, and a host of others who, for us physicists, are still very much alive today. They are great thinkers who contributed to unravelling the puzzles of nature and the forces which keep the world together through the most minute structures. I devoured the stories of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, of Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller – to name a few – and on how they created completely new technologies from theoretical concepts, how the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom could be used for the good of man and how it became possible in a single process to tap into this source of affordable, clean and plentiful energy on a large scale as never seen by man. Electricity illuminates our world, drives our machines, allow us to communicate over great distances, thus making our lives easier and more comfortable. It is a source of energy that staves off poverty and enables prosperity.
Electricity: manufactured by splitting atomic nuclei with neutrons, gained through the direct conversion of mass into energy. It is the principle by which (via the reverse process of fusion) the stars twinkle in the night sky, a principle by which our sun enables life on our planet.
As a physicist it fills me with great joy and pride to see how man is able to rouse this force of nature at the most minute structural level, then amplify, control, and use it for our benefit. As a physicist I have the fundamental understanding of the processes – I can imagine them and describe them. As a physicist I have neither fear of an atomic power plant nor of radioactivity. Ultimately I know that it is a natural phenomenon that is always around us, one we can never escape – and one that we never need to escape. And I know the first as a symbol of man’s capability to steer the forces of nature. As a physicist I have no fear of what nature has to offer. Rather I have respect. And this respect beckons us to seize the chances like those offered by neutrons, which can split nuclei and thus convert matter into energy. Anything else would be ignorance and cowardice.
Dark times in history
There were times in history when ignorance and cowardice overshadowed human life. It was a time when our ancestors were forced to lead a life filled with superstition and fear because it was forbidden to use creativity and fantasy. Religious dogma, like the earth being the centre of the universe, or creationism, forbade people to question. The forbiddance of opening a human body and examining it prevented questions from being answered. Today these medieval rules appear backwards and close-minded. We simply cannot imagine this way of thinking could have any acceptance.
But over the recent days I have grown concerned that we are headed again for such dark times. Hysterical and sensationalist media reporting, paired with a remarkably stark display of ignorance of technical and scientific interrelations, and the attempt by a vast majority of journalists to fan the public’s angst and opposition to nuclear energy – pure witch-burning disguised as modernity.
Freedom of research
So it fills me with sadness and anger on how the work of the above mentioned giants of physics is now being dragged through the mud, how the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century are being redefined and criminalized. The current debate in Germany is also a debate on freedom of research. The stigmatization and ostracism of nuclear energy, the demand for an immediate stop of its use, is also the demand for the end of its research and development. No job possibilities also means no students, which means no faculty, which then means the end of the growth of our knowledge. Stopping nuclear energy is nothing less than rejecting the legacy of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and all others. It is tantamount to scrapping it, labelling it as dangerous – all in a fit of ignorance. And just as creationists attempt to ban the theory of evolution from the school books, it almost seems as if every factual and neutral explanation in Germany is now in the process of being deleted.
The media suggests a nuclear catastrophe, a mega-meltdown, and that the apocalypse has already begun. It is almost as if the 10,000 deaths in Japan were actually victims of nuclear energy, and not the earthquake or the tsunami. Here again one has to remind us that Fukushima was first hit by an unimaginable 9.0 earthquake and then by a massive 10-meter wave of water just an hour later. As a result, the facility no longer found itself in a highly technological area, but surrounded by a desert of rubble. All around the power plant the infrastructure, residential areas, traffic routes, energy and communication networks are simply no longer there. They were wiped out. Yet, after an entire week, the apocalypse still has not come to pass. Only relatively small amounts of radioactive materials have leaked out and have had only a local impact. If one considers the pure facts exclusively, i.e. only the things we really know, then it exposes the unfounded interpretations of scientific illiterates in the media. One can only arrive to one conclusion: This sorrowful state will remain so.
In truth, this does not show that the ideologically motivated, fear-laden admonitions and warnings were correct. Fukushima illustrates that we are indeed able to control atomic energy. Fukushima shows that we can master it even when natural disasters beyond planning befall us. Still, at Fukushima the conflict between human creativity/competence continues to clamour against the bond energy in atomic nuclei. It’s a struggle that that shows what human intelligence, knowledge gained, passion, boldness, respect, and capability to learn allow us to do. Personally this does not fill me with apprehension, but with hope. Man can meet this challenge not only because he has to, but most of all because he wants to.
Even though I have not practiced physics for some time now, I will never be anything other than a scientist and researcher, and there would be no other place I would rather be than on site at Fukushima. There is no other place at the moment where so much can be learned about atomic energy, which keeps our world together deep inside, and the technical possibilities to benefit from it. Do we have the courage to learn? Do we accept – with respect and confidence – the opportunities we are confronted with? Fukushima will show us possibilities on how to use the direct conversion of matter into energy in a better and safer way, something that Einstein and others could have only dreamed of.
I am a physicist. My wish is to live in a world that is willing to learn and to improve whatever is good. I would only like to live in a world where great strides in physics are viewed with fascination, pride, and hope because they show us the way to a better future. I would only like to live in a world that has the courage for a better world. Any other world for me is unacceptable. Never. That’s why I am going to fight for this world, without ever relenting.
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Translated from the German, with the permission of Peter Heller, by Bernd Felsche and Pierre Gosselin. Original text appeared here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:21 am
James Sexton says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:08 am
Dr. Heller bemoans the fact that some things weren’t allowed to be questioned.——
Is your version of Creationism allowed to be questioned?
==============================================
Of course it is allowed. And it has been questioned. The Father of freedom allows you to be wrong. It isn’t for me or anyone else to attempt to take that freedom.
“History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”—— Edward Gibbons.
That we should learn from history and not repeat the same crimes, follies, and misfortunes would be an assertion I don’t question.
It is the height of hubris and hypocrisy that we bemoan the fact that we are ridiculed and slurred for questioning the dogma of climate science in one hand all the while slurring and ridiculing others for questioning a different dogma in the other.
Anthony:
Cannot a thread be created, titled:
“Religious and Scientific Dogma – Pros and Con” so that members who feel it is vital to discuss these topics, will have a thread to do so? It’s not that I don’t find such discussions interesting. It is just that they tend to distract discussion from the topic at hand. Just a suggestion. GK
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:04 am
“No such explanation that is amenable to testing for its predictive capability is known to my knowledge. Many other pseudo-scientific notions, e.g. astrological planetary influences, electric universe, NAP, etc, suffer from the same problem.”
Would you care to clarify this statement? Most readers will naturally assume that you have made a full investigation because of your position as a PhD in heliophysics, etc..However the fact is, very specific predictions have been made and confirmed, using simple electrical principles as applied to comets and planets as charged bodies moving in an electric field. Your statements are inaccurate as they stand, until you care to demonstrate that you have specific Electric Universe predictions in mind which have not come to pass. On the contrary, Wal Thornhill was the only scientist on the planet to accurately describe what would happen when Deep Impact struck the comet Tempel One with a copper projectile. He did so in great detail. He also predicted that Saturn’s north pole would be hot, despite receiving no sunlight for fifteen years. The predictions are accompanied by cogent explanations using lab observations of z-pinch particle beams.
“The Electric Universe predicts, experimentum crucis, that BOTH poles should be hot, not one hot and the other cold.” That extraordinary prediction was confirmed in a report in Science on Jan 4. Such unusual predictions have become a hallmark of the Electric Universe paradigm and establish it as a first class theory.”
All are chastened by the recent events in Japan. How was it possible for whole towns to be swept away before our very eyes? How could the model of a modern high-speed railway have disappeared with all its passengers? Or a cruise liner with its hundred tourists? What was a fishing boat doing, sailing across the fields and overtaking a doomed pantechnicon? How could a nuclear reactor have had its safety compromised, threatening to contaminate the region with radioactivity?
Japanese engineers have mastered earthquakes to a high degree. Tokyo emerged essentially unscathed from a tremor 8 000 times stronger than that which levelled Christchurch only a few weeks before. Yes, the high rise buildings rocked and rolled, but they did not collapse. The nuclear reactors went into a safe shutdown, just as they were supposed to. But power lines and many other services failed, so there is more work for the engineers to do, to make the infrastructure earthquake proof.
The real problem was the tsunami. We did not understand its possible magnitude. We had not realised that Aceh was merely a sneak preview. We had forgotten that, in 1883, Krakatoa caused waves 35m above normal sea level. In 1958, at Lituya Bay in Alaska, a wave reached 516m as a result of a landslide triggered by an earthquake of magnitude 8.3.
And you should not think that it is only around the Ring of Fire, the shores of the Pacific, that tsunamis strike. In 1751, an earthquake destroyed Lisbon, and the ruins caught alight. The citizens fled to the banks of the River Tagus to avoid the blaze. An estimated 20 000 died when the tsunami roared up the river.
Japan has already spent billions of dollars on anti-tsunami seawalls. They line at least 40 percent of its coastline and are up to 12 meters high. However, the March 11 tsunami washed over the top of many walls, and caused some to collapse.
Critically, it washed over the seawall at Fukushima Daiichi, a nuclear power plant. When the earthquake struck, the reactors were immediately shut down. The earthquake broke the power lines, but the emergency generators kicked in to keep the essential cooling water flowing. But 55 minutes after the earthquake, the tsunami arrived, flooded the generators for four of the six reactors, and stopped the cooling of those reactor cores. Two of the staff, who were presumably outside the reactor buildings at the time, have disappeared.
The seawalls held the tsunami at bay at the remaining two of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, at the four Fukushima Daini reactors next door, and at the three Onagawa reactors further up the coast, even closer to the centre of the earthquake. All these reactors shut down safely, the emergency generators kept functioning, and they will almost certainly be started up again.
All four of the reactors that lost emergency cooling have suffered catastrophic damage. There has been some release of radioactivity into the surrounding environment. The release has been far less that at Chernobyl, which in turn was far less than the radioactivity spread around the globe by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The catastrophic damage was caused by explosions of gaseous hydrogen. Many metals react with water when they are very hot, and the reaction produces hydrogen. This caused a build-up of pressure in the reactors. The operators took the decision to reduce the pressure, by releasing the gas along with some radioactivity into the secondary containment building. The hydrogen-air mixture then exploded and destroyed the secondary containment.
It is a miracle that no-one was killed in these explosions. When the building round Reactor 1 exploded, four people were injured, none seriously. When the hydrogen from Reactor 3 blew up, eleven were injured, one of whom had to be hospitalized. None were injured in the explosions that destroyed the buildings around Reactors 2 and 4. To prevent build-up of hydrogen in the Reactors 5 and 6, the owners have improved the ventilation of the secondary containment.
The workers trying to bring the plants under control are being exposed to significant quantities of radiation. The Japanese Government has just raised the limit to 250 millisieverts per worker. To put this in context, most of us are exposed annually to about 5 millisieverts from natural sources. A single whole-body dose of 5 000 millisieverts will kill half the population, but the death rate falls off rapidly below that level. It is unlikely that any of the workers will suffer serious consequences from their exposure.
The radioactivity that has been released is detectable in food grown within 30km of the failed reactors. The activity is primarily that from the iodine isotope I131, half of which disappears every 8 days. The releases are dropping as cooling is restored, which means that the food grown in that region will be safe within about 2 ½ months, if no further significant releases occur.
At this stage, the only deaths that have occurred at the damaged reactors appear to be those who were swept away by the tsunami. This is the essential message. We should be absolutely terrified of tsunamis. They are far worse than earthquakes, in the loss of life and destruction of property they cause. They are far, far worse than any nuclear disaster.
We have to learn from our mistakes. We need to bolster our defences against tsunamis. We can now do a pretty good job of designing against earthquakes. And the recent events have shown that most nuclear reactors can survive that greatest of cataclysms called a tsunami. Some reactors were compromised, but the fix is obvious.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:21 am
As I understand it Creationism is an all or nothing proposition and if you are a believer cannot be subject to doubt. Perhaps I’m wrong on this. You tell me.
===============================================
And, now we are veering into a different realm, atypical from what is usually here. But I feel compelled to answer this part of your question, and I’ll leave it at this.
Leif, you’re conflating two different levels of thought. Which, given the views expressed by Dr. Heller, yourself and others, it isn’t surprising. The history has left a horrible mark. Scientific inquiry typically, as I understand it, teaches us to question most everything. And to attempt to explain why things are the way they are.
To hold a belief of any kind, without any doubt, requires no scientific explanation, but rather, faith instead. I do not gain my faith from any science. And I don’t come to an understanding of science by faith.
Cheers.
James Sexton says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:56 am
all the while slurring and ridiculing others for questioning a different dogma in the other.
I take it you mean the dogma of Creationism. It is also clear that discussion on this is fruitless. I asked for specifics and all I get are banal generalities.
Zeke the Sneak says:
March 21, 2011 at 12:02 pm
until you care to demonstrate that you have specific Electric Universe predictions in mind which have not come to pass.
The most blatant error is the EU assertion that the Sun is powered from the outside rather than from nuclear fusion in the core.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 21, 2011 at 12:32 pm
James Sexton says:
“I take it you mean the dogma of Creationism. It is also clear that discussion on this is fruitless. I asked for specifics and all I get are banal generalities.”
There are some very talented people who publish as Creationists. What they try to do is develop measures of complexity for various parts of reality including various kinds of protein molecules and you name it. Then they argue that random selection could not produce the level of complexity found in the protein or whatever. Developing measures of complexity is actually sort of interesting at times and might prove valuable. However, I have not actually studied it and will probably not have time to. As for their efforts regarding Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, they want to show that it is improbable. This effort is not something that has interested me. That is all I know.
G. Karst says:
March 21, 2011 at 12:01 pm
“Anthony: Cannot a thread be created, titled:
“Religious and Scientific Dogma – Pros and Con” so that members who feel it is vital to discuss these topics, will have a thread to do so? It’s not that I don’t find such discussions interesting. It is just that they tend to distract discussion from the topic at hand. Just a suggestion. GK”
Actually, you are off topic. The topic of Heller’s essay is set forth very clearly here:
“But over the recent days I have grown concerned that we are headed again for such dark times. Hysterical and sensationalist media reporting, paired with a remarkably stark display of ignorance of technical and scientific interrelations, and the attempt by a vast majority of journalists to fan the public’s angst and opposition to nuclear energy – pure witch-burning disguised as modernity.”
The topic of Heller’s essay is thought control as manifested in the insanely hysterical behavior of the MSM in reporting on the Japanese tsunami. They are exercising thought control through a rabid campaign against nuclear energy. I, among others, have been criticizing thought control in the areas of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and Creationism. If your topic is not thought control, you are in the wrong forum. However, be my guest. We are all adults and can determine when a post does not address the desired topic.
Theo Goodwin says:
March 21, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Then they argue that random selection could not produce the level of complexity found in the protein or whatever.
The notion of ‘random selection’ is completely wrong. The mutations are random, the selection is extremely directed [not random] as determined by the environment and the competition for resources. If the mutation does not help in that respect, it is not selected. If the mutation gives a calf on the steppe fins rather than legs, the calf dies.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, they want to show that it is improbable.
A good book by Richard Dawkins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climbing_Mount_Improbable takes care of that argument.
Dr S, as an authority you have made a statement about the lack of testable predictions in Electric Universe theory. I presented two predictions which were confirmed by observations in space. If you were not aware of these successful predictions, you have made an error and need to correct it. Otherwise, it will give the unfortunate appearance to all here that you utilized your academic authority to class EU with astrology, without having familiarized yourself about the predictive power of electrical interpretations of energetic events in the solar system.
Again, it was predicted that when the comet Tempel 1 struck the copper projectile placed in its path, the following phenomena would be observed:
1. There would be a bright flash from an electrical arc before the projectile hit the surface of the rocky body – this occured, and swamped the sensors on the spacecraft
2. Jets on the comet would be moved: “The discharge would initiate a new jets on the nucleus (which will be collimated – filamentary – not sprayed out) and could even abruptly change the positions and intensities of other jets due to the sudden change in charge distribution of the comet nucleus.”
3. There would be more than one crater formed by the impact
None of these are explainable by current “dirty snowball” or “rubble aggregate” comet theories held by NASA.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:04 am
“The distinction is not that ‘it has attained some renown’, but that the theory is a useful shorthand [a way of describing very many things with very few statements] for a large body of facts as the facts are know at this time.”
I can accept this. However, I do worry that you might say that String Theory is not a theory. I would say that it is a theory but not the accepted theory, not our “useful shorthand for cosmology.”
“Should enough new facts be discovered, the theory would be abandoned and possibly replaced by a better theory.”
It might happen that an old theory can be retained as a special case of a new theory, as Kepler’s Laws of Motion are deducible from Newton’s Theory of Gravity. It is always possible that future observation will prove a theory false.
“The notion that a theory has been ‘proven’ is nonsense.” Right. I did not suggest that.
“Creationism [in the weak form discussed here – i.e. no creation in 6 days, no young earth, and all the rest] could be a elevated to a theory if the non-randomness [that some people latch on to] could be formalized: who or what determines when a non-random event should happen and under which circumstances. No such explanation that is amenable to testing for its predictive capability is known to my knowledge.”
Yes. Agreed.
The bottom line for me is that I do not like to talk about theories in the common way, as if it were one big concept. It is not possible to do critical work on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I prefer to break them down into individual hypotheses and discuss those. In other words, I have no criticisms of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution but I have some major criticisms of individual hypotheses. Finally, my point in all this is just to say that science should be presented as science, as a work in progress that is usually messy, but not as the truth.
Zeke the Sneak says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Dr S, as an authority you have made a statement about the lack of testable predictions in Electric Universe theory. I presented two predictions which were confirmed by observations in space.
These ‘predictions’ are not unique to the EU. There could be many other explanations, so they do not constitute confirmations. I brought up the source of the sun’s energy as a problem where EU has a unique mechanism. That source then becomes a crucial test. And there the EU fails.
Theo Goodwin:
And yet the title of Heller’s essay is: Fukushima
And I disagree with your plucking of the theme. But hey, have at it. I’m sure it will illuminate the Fukushima event, and it’s portrayal, on public opinion. GK
Roger Sowell says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:00 pm
“nuclear power is … very, very dangerous”
Roger, a few years ago 160,000 people died in China after the failure of a hydroelectric dam.
This is orders of magnitude more than the total number who have died from all nuclear power plant accidents in history. Before you reach for your Chernobyl tract, less than 200 people verifiably died from Chernobyl. (I did my PhD on radiation biokinetics and dosimetry, visited Chernobyl, advised and collaborated with Ukraine’s radiation measurement laboratories, so if you dont agree, go ahead punk, make my day.) The rest of the claimed thousands of deaths are mathematical artefacts of assuming, falsely, the LNT linear no threshold hypothesis of radiation carinogenesis, whose assumption that ionising radiation is carcinogenic in an additive way down to zero dose is abundantly falsified by the existence of no relationship or even a negative relationship between background radiation exposure (bananas etc.) and cancer incidence.
Would you characterise hydroelectric power as “very very dangerous”? Thought not.
You are using your scientific and intellectual knowledge to defend a position driven by deep underlying predjudice, which is not consistent or honest. OK nuclear weapons are dangerous, weapons generally are, that is the idea of making weapons. But nuclear electric generation is not. The risks of very low dose carcinogenesis or mutagenesis, on which the whole edifice of anti-nuclear witch-burning terror depends, rest on the LNT (linear no threshold) hypothesis which is political driven antiscientific nonsense in the same category as AGW. The earth will not continue its transient cyclical warming regardless of CO2, and nuclear power is part of the future of a sentient humanity.
Mr Lynn says:
March 20, 2011 at 6:06 pm
‘Agreed. Shephard Smith on Fox News’s 7 PM (Eastern) report was foaming-at-the-mouth hysterical over the ongoing or impending “nuclear disaster.”’
Yep. I did not watch Fox again after that disgusting incident. The entire MSM was a waste of time. It was as if no tsunami had occurred. They were obsessed with nuclear disaster. Unbelievable. Unforgivable.
With all due respect to the expertise of the Japanese,
it can seem at times that common sense is lacking…
New Smoke Seen At Nuclear Plant…. link below:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80015.html
So, they’ve been soaking the entire place with sea water for days,
then when they plug the electricity back in they wonder what caused the smoke ?
Anything electrical soaked in sea water for days and then plugged in is gonna smoke, believe me. I wouldn’t try flipping the circuit breakers on seawaterlogged electronics without removing all salt residue beforehand. It sounds like, “let’s just plug it in and see what happens…” That’s scary… and irresponsible. But I’m not there, nor do I have all the facts. I really hope it’s not just sloppy work, but I wish them the best in the recovery efforts. Maybe it’s just the “FOG OF WAR”…
Most of those reactors sound permanently damaged and could have a good future at the bottom of the Mariana Trench to be eventually subducted back into the earth’s mantle. Use a helicopter. It won’t meltdown down there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench
Just my view from here.
Jon says:
March 21, 2011 at 10:16 am
REPLY: yeah, sure, whatever. TMI was a failure of humans and technology, Fukishima was a result of an act of nature, big diff. – Anthony
Sticking a nuclear power plant in such a seismically active area is definitely a failure of humans!
REPLY: Yeah, sure, on the moon then right? That’s really the goal here, to get nuclear power off the planet. For that matter, power of all kinds except unreliable wind/sun – Anthony
So Anthony, are you suggesting the only places known to man that are not seismically active are on the moon?
When I see someone adopting that sort of logic I generally stop taking them seriously.
What Fukupshima shows is that , even with the best will and best engineering, something unexpected can still happen. What Rumsfelt would probably call an unexpected unknown.
To imagine one can anticipate and control every eventuality is hubris.
The fact that fission reactors are inherently unstable , are operated on the knife edge of criticality and need an active, working control system to shut down and maintain them in a safe state in an emergency, will always be a big risk.
A more sensible form of reactor would be Carlo Rubbia’s energy amplifier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_amplifier
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Roger, a few years ago 160,000 people died in China after the failure of a hydroelectric dam.
It doesn’t seem fair to point out a disaster from Chinese workmanship.
Theo Goodwin says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:24 pm
I can accept this. However, I do worry that you might say that String Theory is not a theory. I would say that it is a theory but not the accepted theory, not our “useful shorthand for cosmology.”
In a sense it is not a Theory as it does not summarize a large body of facts. I consider it more of a hypothesis. But that might be quibbling.
“Should enough new facts be discovered, the theory would be abandoned and possibly replaced by a better theory.”
It is not possible to do critical work on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I prefer to break them down into individual hypotheses and discuss those.
There is really no such thing today. Darwin himself only used the word ‘evolve’ once [it was the last word of his great opus]. More correct one should say that Darwin introduced the concept of ‘natural selection’. He did not know about DNA, the genetic code, genes, and all those things which we have discovered are necessary for the mechanism of natural selection to work. We are now working on the details of this very complex problem and people can have differences about those details, but the foundation is ‘natural selection’, governed by natural forces. No ‘guiding hand’ is needed, just the pressures of changing environment and competition for resources. There is no ‘great chain of being’ striving after ever greater perfection. Just adjustments to a hostile environment. Almost every species eventually go extinct, probably humans too at some time in the future. A dark horse in this is our growing knowledge that we can transmit across generations and [if we want to – and some people may abhor playing God like that] can be used to direct the future evolution in ways we today cannot foresee. So, in the end, we may end up with ‘intelligent design’ [of our own making].
“Sure I believe in God. Someone had to create Charles Darwin.”
~Dennis Miller
Alexander K says:
March 21, 2011 at 3:55 am
[Thanks, Dr Heller, for a wonderful piece of common sense and perspective. ——-
At the moment, the disaster-obsessed voices of the MSM seem like a Greek chorus of evil; the maxim that ‘ truth sets us free’ seems a good one to follow right now, but the doom-mongers make it difficult to find the truth.
Posts such as Dr Hellers and the calm, matter-of-fact post from Anthony outlining the facts about radioactivity and its measurement point the way forward.
Lengthy reconstructions of the failures in Japanese engineering design are not incredibly helpful right now, particularly to the unfortunate Japanese who have suffered a double disaster of unimaginable proportions. As a Kiwi, I thought the Christchrch earthquake was bad, but I struggle to understand the magnitude of the events in Japan and the resultant level of devastation.]
———————————————————————-
Alexander K
I heartily agree with your comments. Firstly, Dr. Heller’s writing was heartening and a reaffirmation in one’s faith in humanity.
Then Anthony’s comments which anchor this discussion in common sense.
Next, I concur with your identification of these unhelpful reconstructions of Japanese scientific and engineering ‘failures’ at this stage that are so negative.
Like you I am a New Zealander from Christchurch. I have relatives who have lost their homes and one who was rescued from a collapsed building where her workmates were killed in that recent earthquake. The quake and tsunami in Japan is incomprehensible to me with an incredible loss of life. I have nothing but admiration for the skill and courage of the Japanese.
But I am appalled that the ‘vultures’ are out to condemn their undoubted scientific and engineering skill at this early stage after an event of such magnitude. Some similarly did so for Ch.Ch. Sheesh! So far there is little evidence of a nuclear disaster of scale. Dr. Heller would have wished to learn from the event. I know that the Japanese will learn. They are good at that.
Douglas
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:25 pm “These ‘predictions’ are not unique to the EU. There could be many other explanations, so they do not constitute confirmations.”
There is no one else who predicted anything of the sort, so they are indeed “unique to EU.” And what are the other explanations for an advance flash, which was so brilliant that it saturated the camera’s detector? That was an electric arc discharge as predicted. There were two bright flashes and the jets moved and relocated on the comet nucleus. No explanation has been given for this.
In short, this is not the behavior of an icy body sublimating in the sun; this is the behavior of an electrically charged rocky body moving in an efield.
Zeke the Sneak says:
March 21, 2011 at 2:39 pm
There is no one else who predicted anything of the sort, so they are indeed “unique to EU.” And what are the other explanations for an advance flash, which was so brilliant that it saturated the camera’s detector? That was an electric arc discharge as predicted. There were two bright flashes and the jets moved and relocated on the comet nucleus. No explanation has been given for this.
Any time two bodies collide at hypervelocity a large amount of kinetic energy is released as a flash which certainly can saturate a detector. What are the observations that show it to be ‘an electric arc’? If the comet is a rubble pile, the jets would certainly shift and relocate.
But you are avoiding the elephant in the room: the most characteristic of the EU assertions is the source of the Sun’s power. Here the EU is a dismal failure. To wit: your reluctance to take it on.
In short, this is not the behavior of an icy body sublimating in the sun; this is the behavior of an electrically charged rocky body moving in an efield.
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:34 pm
“OK nuclear weapons are dangerous, weapons generally are, that is the idea of making weapons. ”
I’ll make the argument that nuclear weapons have saved millions of lives. Two were used in war to end a war. There is a respectable argument that several hundred thousand lives were saved by this act alone.
After that, the presence of nuclear weapons prevented the world from being taken over by totalitarian slavemasters whose record is many tens of millions of deaths of their own people at the hands of their “government”.
Consider also that nuclear weapons put the politicians effectively in the front line. They may survive in their bunkers only to be eaten later by the starving bands who remain. As I’ve never had a desire to be an infantryman in a giant re-run of World War 2 I’m thankful for the existence of nuclear weapons and to those in the free world who stood or flew nuclear alert missions in the Cold War.