Science & Society

MOJO in a Wristband

2010-06-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

I was walking through a mall this weekend and saw a cute little kiosk with a pretty little sales clerk. Of course, I had to read the sign. I assumed it was a simple jewelry kiosk, some fasion trend I hadn't seen before. But, no. This kiosk claimed the ability to immediately improve my balance, strength and energy just by putting a wristband on my arm. Being "just a little skeptical" I walked up to the kiosk to get the pitch. She explained that the wristbands had a special hologram embedded into them that "worked with my body's natural frequencies" to improve blood flow, my energy, balance and strength. Wow! Who could possibly believe such nonsense. Oh wait, maybe the people that just wouldn't believe in the magical powers of magnets will fall for this instead (more likely the same people would fall for both).

This tendency for people to simply accept that something they don't really understand, like holograms, will have some power that borders on magical is mind boggling to me. I would be better off just accepting that people will believe magical claims to any or all of the "mysteries" I studied in quantum physics classes, electro-optics courses or even just religious history courses and I could make a fortune selling all this magic.... if only I had no conscience.

T. Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Gaians Vs Medeans

2010-01-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

Peter D. Ward has a new book in stores "The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" (Princeton University Press, 2009). Ward is a rare polymath but is usually referred to as a paleontologist. In his new book he presents the Medea hypothesis (named after the murderous mother in greek mythology) which is in direct contrast to the Gaia hypothesis put forth by scientist and futurist James Lovelock, which asserts that life constantly adjusts Earth's control systems to keep the planet in a habitable homeostasis.

Ward claims that most mass extinctions were caused by microorganisms rather than asteroids or comets. According to Ward, when Earth warms up enough that there is a reduced temperature differential between the poles and the tropic, we lose the driver behind ocean mixing. Without mixing, only the uppermost layer of the ocean remains oxygenated, and anaerobic bacteria that producing poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas thrive. The levels of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere eventually become lethal poisoning living creatures and shredding the ozone layer. "This is life killing itself off," Ward says.

Carbon dioxide, the cause of this catastrophic warming, has been supplied by volcanic floods that churned out enough CO₂ to shut down ocean mixing. But thanks to the actions of humankind, the delicate balance that keeps Earth habitable is once again in danger. "All you need is enough [warming] to reduce the temperature difference between the poles and the equator, and the whole system goes down," Ward says.

Volcanic floods were better than we are at putting out the carbon dioxide (and they'll likely prove quite proficient at it again sometime in the future). Experts set 350 parts per million as the maximum acceptable level for atmospheric CO2 while we are already at 390ppm. Geologic events that wiped out life in the past raised the levels to 1,000 ppm. Of course, we are slower, but still effective since things are likely to get very ugly for human life along the way even at our slow pace. Most of us are unlikely to see the near complete anihilation of life by the hydrogen sulfide producing micro-organisms. Instead we will see the more near term and obviously anthropomorphic misery such as displacement, war and famine unless we can learn to cooperate on a global scale with common goals. If we do survive our own political self destructive behaviors and attitudes we will still have to deal with the loss of arable land and the rising sea changing the world's maps, but we will probably have air to breathe.

It is fairly clear to me that the earth's feedback systems do self-adjust to some extent, but extreme Gaianism is nonsense. Unless, you consider that the earth's systems are doing just fine even if one of the adjustments was to eliminate us. It is also fairly clear that living systems do tend to cycle with a self destructive phase as part of that cycle. Again, when the cycle starts over something thrives, even if we aren't there to observe.

Are there any real solutions: Probably not, but there are things that will make life better while it lasts. Nuclear energy production (fusion, if possible, but there are difficult waste issues in either type of nuclear power production), efficient solar energy, better use of microbes to produce food and fuel are a few potential improvements. All of these are currently untenable technologies. Hope is the driver that will make these technologies a reality. Sharing scientific know-how and cooperative research just might make them possible.

If we are complete Medeans and we don't have long term hope for improving this world, we won't do anything. If we are complete Gaians and expect the world will just take care of us, we won't do anything. We only remember the people who did something.

Troy Stark
http://www.starkeffects.com/

What Qualifies as Medicine?

2009-12-12T12:29:00.001-08:00

Debates about the proposed Health Reform bill usually center on the costs or savings anticipated. sometimes they center on the expected changes in performance of the medical community. But Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) added a provision to ensure that alternative medicine providers get their share. Why do we even have to consider this? If a medical procedure can be shown to be effective it won't be "alternative" anymore. Sen. Harkin is the guy who forced Harold Varmus to resign as head of NIH by creating the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). That institution has done at least one thing to aid medicine: They have done a good job of using rigorous placebo-controlled double-blind studies to prove the total lack of efficacy for a long list of herbal "cures". Why don't we just use taxpayer's money to support Kevin Trudeau and his "Cures They Don't Want You to Know About". Oh wait, we did support that millionaire for a while -we gave him room and board and then made sure he couldn't sell actual cures -just the information.

T. Troy Stark
http://www.starkeffects.com

God Believes What You Believe.

2009-12-11T16:17:00.000-08:00

The study of psychology can reveal a lot about us. It often gives us a mirror to help us realize what we are doing from the point of view of others. It can also show us the faults in our own thinking, something god is unlikely to do according to this new study.

" News Office Homepage:
Study: Believers’ inferences about God’s beliefs are uniquely egocentricNovember 30, 2009
Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people’s beliefs, according to new study published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nicholas Epley, professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, led the research, which included a series of survey and neuroimaging studies to examine the extent to which people’s own beliefs guide their predictions about God’s beliefs. The findings of Epley and his co-authors at Australia’s Monash University and UChicago extend existing work in psychology showing that people are often egocentric when they infer other people’s beliefs.
The PNAS paper reports the results of seven separate studies. The first four include surveys of Boston rail commuters, UChicago undergraduate students and a nationally representative database of online respondents in the United States. In these surveys, participants reported their own belief about an issue and their estimation of God’s belief, along with their assessment of beliefs held by others, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Major League Baseball’s Barry Bonds, President George W. Bush, and an average American.
Two other studies directly manipulated people’s own beliefs and found that inferences about God’s beliefs tracked their own beliefs. Study participants were asked, for example, to write and deliver a speech that supported or opposed the death penalty in front of a video camera – an exercise known to affect people’s reported beliefs. Their beliefs were surveyed both before and after the speech.
The final study involved functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the neural activity of test subjects as they reasoned about their own beliefs versus those of God or another person. The data demonstrated that reasoning about God’s beliefs activated many of the same regions that become active when people reasoned about their own beliefs.
The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God’s standards. “The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing,” they conclude. “This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.”
But the research in no way denies the possibility that God’s presumed beliefs also may provide guidance in situations where people are uncertain of their own beliefs, the co-authors noted.
Citation: “Believers’ estimates of God’s beliefs are more egocentric than estimates of other people’s beliefs,” Nov. 30, 2009, early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Nicholas Epley, Benjamin A. Converse, Alexa Delbosc, George A. Monteleone and John T. Cacioppo.”
Funding: University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Templeton Foundation, and the National Science Foundation."

Full Potential

2009-12-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

I'm absolutely amazed at how many people still argue that intelligence is not a valid description of human behavior. Anyone with more than a dozen acquaintances can tell you which of them are the more intelligent. On first meeting someone, most of us quickly evaluate their intelligence, so I'd be very surprised if intelligence is not something that can be objectively measured, with at least as much accuracy and meaning as how good looking someone is. (OK, I actually think IQ can be evaluated a bit more objectively.)

It has been my experience that neither social background nor education has any real impact on intelligence. One's occupation does not seem to predict their intelligence either, though performance in any occupation does. Of course, how long a particular occupation will retain someone of high IQ definitely depends on how interesting that person finds the work and that is quite unpredictable. And, some occupations will be quite limiting for someone without a high enough IQ to perform. For example, you don't find many theoretical physicists with an IQ below 120 though they do come in a wide range of social skill.

Since education, social class and most other environmental factors seem not to have any real effect on IQ, an assertion based only on personal experience, it seems quite reasonable to look for genetic markers. And, since no race is excluded from producing brilliant people those genetic markers must be more basic to humans than are the markers for race. I think the search for such genes is well worth the effort. Note however, that being born with particular traits cannot be blamed entirely on genes. It seems that a great deal of what we are born with is a matter of chance. I'm not even implying environment during development, but rather just chance. I suspect you are born with a particular IQ or g for the same reasons you are born with particular fingerprints.

If I'm right, then a more important question is how to educate people so that we, and they, get the most from what they are born with. I think "no child left behind" should be replaced with "no child's potential left underdeveloped".

-Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com/

Intimidated by Experts!

2009-11-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

Activity in some of your more important brain regions such as the anterior cingulate, a part of the prefrontal cortex involved in critical analysis of what you see and hear, is suppressed at exactly the time that it needs to be engaged. Brain imaging research shows that the areas of your brain that you rely on to “watch for mistakes” are calmed down by the voice of authority. When we perceive someone to be an expert or an authority our defenses against nonsense are lowered. We are much less critical of the advice we receive when it comes from someone we classify as an expert.

Such an automatic obedience response may serve a good purpose in situations where the authority has our best interest in mind but, that doesn’t happen often. Many, if not most, of the interactions we engage in involve authority figures experts. These people advise us on financial matters, fashions, relationships, careers and religious views. A great many of these people we see as experts for no other reason than they told us so. Yet, that is enough for us to dispense with the critical analysis of what they tell us and we end up doing silly things like pouring our money into mutual funds controlled by experts, listening to the critics about movies, taking the advice of political experts and even buying that product you saw on late night TV because the “scientific expert” told you all the benefits.
The reality is our society depends on experts. Unfortunately, the light side of that reality is that experts are less reliable than random chance when it comes to decisions we need to make. Just compare several years of any mutual fund to the S&P 500 or any predictions of political experts or futurists and you’ll see that a blind fold and a dart board would have done better. And, of course, there is the dark side where people masquerade as experts simply because we are more likely to buy what they are selling when they do.

Evidence based decision making is the only way around this problem. Scientific methods absolutely depend on real evidence, but you can’t assume the scientist (expert) really looked at the evidence until you analyze it yourself. Take into account what the experts, authorities and “leaders” tell you, but then wake up and put forth the effort critically analyze what you hear. Such reasoning is not easy and the majority of people in any society will never do it, but that doesn’t have to be you. Question authority. Reason about statements you hear and follow them to their logical consequences. Think –it isn’t illegal yet.

Troy Stark troy@starkeffects.com

Positive Thinking and the Self Development Industry

2009-11-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

I recently read a short book that laid out a more scientific approach to success than I have seen before. The book was Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success". The thesis of the book is that we have been lied to about what creates success and that there is more chance and timing (timing we simply can't control) than we are ever led to believe. Invariably, the stories we hear about success emphasize the character of the person that achieved that success with a suggestion that we will be that successful too, just as soon as we conquer ourselves, but the truth is that success, and I mean really big success, depends on being the right age to accomplish something when the once in history situation arises. Simply put: you must be in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills and you had no way of knowing how to make that happen in advance.

Books on self development have predominently focused on a positive mental attitude telling you "You can achieve anything you believe strongly enough in." These have lead to some absolute nonsense like "The Secret" and others (I love the ones that claim a basis in Quantum Mechanics) proposing the view that you will recieve back from the infinite universe whatever you send by your thoughts to be amplified by that universe. Of course, if you fail, it is your fault for not having the right attitude -you must have held some doubt all along.

Well, reality is what it is and I'm afraid the PMA nonsense leads to the kind of "irrational exuberance" and "pathological hope" that characterises anyone that believes that reality depends on their thoughts (solopsists) and inconvenient physical truths can be overcome by the right attitude or belief -like those with schizophrenia or religious ferver. This PMA stuff also leads to real depression when you must blame yourself for all the failure that you have experienced and all the failure you will experience.

So, I'm going to give you the truth about success as succinctly as I can: If you are going to try to accomplish anything worth accomplishing you are going to fail. You are going to fail more times than you will succeed. Don't "blame" yourself for this, it is simply the way life is. You must make mistakes to learn and you must expect failures on your path. If you are ever going to succeed, you will simply have to learn to adjust and then keep trying. Perseverence is a necessity here. And there is a good use for PMA when it is done right. Your thoughts don't change the universe until you act on those thoughts -and your attitude is nothing more than how you deal with all the failures and struggles. The proper attitude puts things in proper perspective -you expect failure and you intend to keep adapting and trying until you learn how to accomplish your goal. Persistence will overcome many obstacles. Your attitude is a question of how you decide to feel about the things that happen. Oh, here is another important point. It isn't all about chance and timing either, as even Gladwell's book acknowledges that those who succeed are those that put in the time and effort to be ready when chance drops by. If you are not trying to do anything then no opportunity will ever show up. You must have put in the time and effort to develop your skills before opportunity will come along. Which skills you develop should depend on what you actually enjoy doing since there is no way to know in advance what the opportunity is going to look like and I guarantee that hindsight will show you that you developed the wrong skills for most of the opportunities that happen along, but that isn't the point. The point is that you enjoyed developing yourself.

Science & Tech priorities are set by the new admin.

2009-09-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

Peter R. Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget and John P. Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, released a joint memo on August 4th outlining the establishment of scientific priorities for the FY2011 budget.

In the memorandum scientific discovery and innovation are described as, “major engines for increasing productivity, promoting economic growth, safeguarding the environment, improving the health of the population and safeguarding our national security.”

Agencies are asked to redirect resources from, “lower-priority areas,” to scientific and technological activities that are designed to meet four identifiable,“practical challenges,” to administration priorities. Those challenges are described in the memorandum as follows:

·Applying science and technology strategies to drive economic recovery, job creation, and economic growth;

·Promoting innovative energy technologies to reduce dependence on energy imports and mitigate the impact of climate-change while creating green jobs and new businesses;

·Applying biomedical science and information technology to help Americans live longer, healthier lives while reducing health care costs;

·Assuring we have the technologies needed to protect our troops, citizens, and national interests, including those needed to verify arms control and nonproliferation agreements essential to our security

There are four strategic goals outlined to help public agencies meet the requirements:

·Increasing the productivity of our research institutions, including our research universities and major public and private laboratories and research centers;

·Strengthening science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at every level, from pre-college to post-graduate to lifelong learning;

·Improving and protecting our information, communication, and transportation infrastructure, which is essential to our commerce, science, and security alike; and

·Enhancing our capabilities in space, which are essential for communications, geopositioning, intelligence gathering, Earth observation, and national defense, as well as for increasing our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Agencies are to describe the expected outcomes of their budget proposals, ensure transparency in their requests and provide, “quantitative metrics,” where at all possible to support their proposals. It further directs federal agencies to clearly illustrate how federal, “science and technology investments contribute to increased economic productivity and progress,” and how these goals and initiatives outlined in the memo are conducted with the, “highest standards of ethical and scientific integrity.”

I'm looking forward to reading some of these proposals, especially the parts illustrating how science and tech investments contribute to increased economic productivity. I think it is very important that the public become aware of how much we depend on science, and also what we can expect science to contribute in the future. I wonder if there is anyway that the media can make scientists as exciting as they made lawyers in the last decade?

T. Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
www.starkeffects.com

Google remembered his B-Day, Hans Christian Ørsted

2009-08-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hans Christian Øersted: Danish physicist's birthday is being celebrated with a Google Doodle. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

So, here is the question: Does a Google Doodle bring a science issue up to the status of having a real effect on society?

Of course it does. When google deems someone's birthday worthy of note on their home page, that gets noticed and brings even long forgotten scientists into today's coffee shop topics.

If you are a real physics geek like me, then you already know who Hans Christian Ørsted is. Google's Doodle logo is an illustration of his key discovery: If you run a current through a wire, the electricity creates a magnetic field, which deflects a compass needle. In Ørsted's time there was no field of study called electromagnetics. Now, every physics grad student suffers at least two years of hard calculations using Green's functions and geometry and even special relativity to do E/M experiments on paper or in the computer that would be impossible to do on your table top.

Hans Christian Ørsted discovered E/M just that way -on a table top. Like many discoveries, this one was an accident. But, again like many discoveries this accident happened because somebody was working in the lab fiddling with things he didn't fully understand. That's the life!.

Ørsted's discovery led to a great deal of modern life -electro-magnets, electric generators, transformers and even the mag strip on your credit card.

In 1820, Ørsted was a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. While preparing an evening lecture, he noticed that a compass needle moved away from magnetic north and pointed to the wire whenever current flowed from the battery. With enough playing around, he discovered that it pointed the opposite direction when the battery was reversed.

All of this made quite a stir in society at the time. Invisible currents affecting objects at some distance away with no visible connection between them. It created a whole new world for spiritulists eventually leading to today's proponents of "The Secret", but that is anothe story. In London, the Royal Society gave him a medal, and he was also made a knight of the Prussian Order of Merit, of the French Legion of Honor, and the Danish Order of the Dannebrog. On his death in Copenhagen in 1851, he was given a state funeral.

To honour Ørsted, the scientific community named the unit of magnetic induction after him, in what what is known as the CGS system of units. Of course, only a real physics geek would even know of the cgs system (very suitable for E/M calculations, since it uses a very natural set of constants) but most grad students in physics have done calculations in this system.

I'm thrilled to see that Google remembered his Birthday! (I know I forgot).

troy@starkeffects.com

NIH Directory Scares Me

2009-08-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

President Obama nominated a new director for the NIH. Dr. Francis Collins. He comes with wonderful credentials and some troubling beliefs. Dr Collins is noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes, and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). Much has been made of Collins’ oft-stated belief in evolution but, an op-ed in the New York Times gives a very different picture. Sam Harris, best-selling author of The End of Faith quotes from a series of slides Collins used in a lecture on science and belief at UC Berkeley. Slide 2: "God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings."

OMG. To quote Bob Park: "There is no plan! That is the beauty of Darwinian evolution!" No plan is needed.

Collins is a geneticist who has recently made his name by offering himself up as living proof that a rational person can also believe in God with his 2006 book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief which made him a celebrity in “faith versus reason” circles.

Admittedly I have reservations about a director of the NIH that believes in a divine plan. Such a hypothetical plan would not lend itself to research initiatives that question that plan. However, there is no hard evidence that Collins will be inclined to back away from research that other "born agains" would oppose, but the danger is there considering Collins' high profile in religious circles. It is just that I agree with Sam Harris on this point: "...few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion."

Don't take a robot's job!

2009-07-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

James Van Allen was a true American space hero. A year before his death in 2006, he summed-up manned space flight: "It's so old-fashioned." (personal comment to Robert Park)

Bob Park has been harping on this issue for years now on his blog-newsletter, What’s New. In his opinion, manned space flight is absolutely wasteful of our resources and a diversion that prevents real scientific discovery from being achieved. According to Dr. Park, robots are so much better at exploration that humans have no business even trying to explore space –personally that is. It just so happens that we are exploring when we send our robots out there. No doubt they are better than we are: they don’t complain, they can withstand the environment; cold; hot; no air; high radiation; monotony; and possibly dangers we don’t even know about for sure (like the Van Allen radiation belts were). And their eyes and ears and even their sense of touch are better than ours. On top of that, they have senses we never will have. More importantly they can be better at sharing what they find. We humans learn more when we send a robot to do space exploration than we would ever learn by sending another human! Not to mention that losing even one person in a space flight mishap is an incalculable loss, while the loss of a robot is measured in money and time spent by the scientists that create it. It hurts, but we get over it. Actual cost in dollars will always be smaller for sending robots as opposed to humans, more work will always get done when we send a robot and more is learned when we send a robot. –Why in the world would we even consider sending a human to do a robot’s job?

As budgets are planned for our space exploration and domination, we need to realize how much more we get from robots going out there than from people going out there and get more excited about the return for our effort. If we decide that it is more exciting to send a robot, based on the logical reasons for doing so, than it is to send people into that dangerous environment, then maybe our political leaders will be less inclined to take advantage of our emotions with all the grand talk of sending a human crew.

T. Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Group Think -vs- Intelligent Individuals

2009-07-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

Stephen Pratt, a behavioral ecologist at Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences in Tempe.: "All minds, both collective and individual, have limited capacity—they have to use shortcuts and rules of thumb to solve difficult decision problems, and those shortcuts are expected to sometimes cause mistakes, the ant colonies, however, were unfazed by a challenge that often elicits such mistakes in other animals."
"These findings underscore a nonintuitive point—getting lots of information about a problem may not help decision making if you have only limited computational capacity to process it. You might do better with a strategically limited set of information. The trick, of course, is knowing what information to use and what to exclude."

What Pratt was studying is the way an ant colony makes decisions in comparison to the way that humans or other animals make decisions in situations that often elicit irrational choices in humans and other animals. In his study, the ants, with very limited information on an individual basis, made rational choices with proper comparisons on a group basis in the same situation that causes humans to apply comparisons in an irrational manner. Specifically, we will often face a comparison between two nearly equal choices and statistically choose either one about half the time -in this case a proper comparison, however, if we have a third choice that is worse than one of the other choices in some noticeable way, we often show a bias for the choice that was better by comparison with the really bad option. For example, you may be torn between two options for employment: one position pays a little more money, while the other offers a little more security. If a third choice appears offering much less security -many humans are suddenly not torn between the two choices anymore, now they tend to take the job offering the higher security.

See the report at Scientific American's website

www.sciam.com.

Mindless Collectives Better at Rational Decision-Making Than Brainy Individuals

By Charles Q. Choi

This is just one of the ways groups can make better decisions (defined as more rational) than highly intelligent, over informed, individuals. But, be careful how you apply this knowledge. Following the crowd is not always the right way to go!

-T. Troy Stark,
troy@starkeffects.com
www.starkeffects.com

Seduction, Lies and Cellulose

2009-07-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

One of the real problems with having a technologically advanced society populated by people that don't understand science is plain old fraud. Scams, shell games and self deceptions are too familiar in the energy industry. There have been scams like Steorn's Orbo, Cold Fusion schemes, Sam Leach scammed investors out of millions with an automobile that ran on water, Irving Dardik preaches SuperWaves and who could forget the "smartest guys in the room" .

Well, if it works, somebody will try it again. It appears that Cello Energy of Bay Minette, Alabama, was doing just that. The EPA had a hand in this one too. They have a goal of 100 million gallons of cellulosic fuel by the year 2010 and they were counting on Cello Energy to produce 70 million gallons of it. They are not likely to deliver.

Cello Energy has been ordered by a federal court to pay $10.4 million in punitive damages for fraudulently claiming it could produce cheap diesellike fuel from hay, wood pulp and other waste -cellulosic fuel. In 2007 Cello's owner, Jack Boykin built a facility the way Hollywood does, just the showy parts, and then lured pulp producer Parsons & Whittemore Enterprises to invest $2.5 million in an ownership stake. It seems that P&W CEO George Landegger was not impressed, but the money was invested anyway. Samples of fuel were provided by Cello Energy, but they were derived from petroleum. It turns out that the EPA had been expecting too much from a company that will deliver nothing! What is amazing is the showmanship of Boykin and his company. They claimed to be able to produce 70 million gallons while other companies were promising only a million or two. Should have been a dead give away don't you think? Well, to be fair, the EPA was guilty of getting the 70 million number from just the size of the planned facilities. Take note, if you are going to commit fraud, get your victims to make a few assumptions on their own and make the claims really big.

George Huber of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a chemical engineering professor wrote: "There are no magic processes for conversion of biomass into liquid fuels," and "If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is not true." ----But, people seem less prone to invest when they hear the truth, sooooo......send your money to troy@starkeffects.com (paypal will do) and be one of the first investors in my new technology to capture the energy naturally released in the brains of investors when they suffer an imagination fueled endorphin rush while listening to snake oil salesmen.

Troy Starktroy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Evolution. It's just a theory.

2008-06-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

How could anyone doubt the family relationship between us the other apes? My Natalie has always recognized how closely her Daddy is related to this guy.

http://www.starkeffects.com

troy@starkeffects.com

Blonde in Zero Gravity

2008-06-14T17:04:00.000-07:00

Blondes in space. And I thought all the blonde hair at my house was out of control.

She is looking at solar panels in orbit. With oil over $130 a barrel, solar panels are looking better all the time.

troy@starkeffects.com

www.starkeffects.com

Special Education is Special -The average of 6 is 6 and a half.

2008-06-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

I´d love for you to read the whole blog here, but if you´re in a hurry, the last paragraph is the punchline.

For the last two years I have had a pretty reliable inside source telling me what actually goes on in one California High School´s special education class. This class is considered an LH class with students having a relatively wide range of IQ level´s but not including profoundly handicapped or severely handicapped students. Several of the students have been competently diagnosed as autistic. These are not the students usually expected to become scientists or engineers but, in my opinion, their education is still important as most of them will be participating members of society and the people responsible for teaching them should take this responsibility seriously. I'm writing to complain that this responsibility has not been entrusted to the best people for the job.

To begin with, the teacher is more concerned with advancing her career into administration than she is with carrying out the duties of her present position. She spends no time teaching, which I thought was a bad thing, but later on I'll explain why maybe it wasn´t. The aid in class has no understanding of learning disorders or how to help these students at all. She has absolutely no patience with their lack of quick comprehension and she chooses to deliberately undermine the efforts of students she has determined to be unpleasant, and, as you might imagine, many autistic or otherwise behaviorally challenged students are unpleasant to be around.

During most of the class days these learning challenged students are assigned to do independent work. There is no lecture to explain the work, they are simply expected to get their books and work on the assignments themselves. Even the brightest students on campus get more attention from teachers than that. A good number of these students fall into the habit of doing nothing and not being noticed at all. These are sometimes students that would actually enjoy learning, but they don´t ask for help.

When students do ask for help they are ridiculed. Not by the other students, but by the teacher or aid. As a matter of fact, the teacher and one aid were sent to a class on working in this type of classroom where one of the points made was that these students are often bullied, and more often than not the bully is the teacher. As a side note, it was mentioned that maybe these teachers may be bullying out of concern. That side note was all it took for this teacher to justify her bullying methods and ridiculing of students. She seemed to learn nothing from the class. She even led the whole class in ridiculing a student who had decided that putting tissue in his nostrils was preferrable to the annoying runny nose... the whole class was amused by the teacher parading in front of the class with tissue in her nose to show how ridiculous it looked. Embarassment is often used as a teaching method in this room, why?

Assignments are given by the teacher with no clear direction. Assignments so vague that many adults would be lost as to where to start. Assignments like: Make a volcano for science class.

Aids sometimes fall into concern for their own status rather than the learning of the students. One aid got annoyed with students not understanding her explanations of how to do a math problem and then asking the other aid for help. She imposed a new rule to solve the problem: If you start an assignment with one aid´s help, then you can´t get help from the other aid for that assignment. What kind of silly-ass rule is that? Such personal insecurities should not be allowed to interfere with the students progress. This same aid was upset that a student that had not put in any effort during the year was suddenly trying to do math homework and and asking the other aid for help in understanding it. She refused to accept work done out of order and actully vocalised her opinion that the student could not avoid a failing grade now and simply had to learn his lesson.

OK, now I´m going to explain why the teacher may have done the most good she could by not teaching these students. She seems not to understand the condition of each student at all, she labels almost everyone of them autistic, which simply isn´t the case. She creates vague assignments and does not direct the students work at all. And to top it off, here is what happens when she decides to teach math:

"OK class, today we are going to learn how to find an average. As an example, we are going to calculate the average of the girls and the boys in this class. What is the average of the girls and the boys in here?" One student volunteers the obvious information: "There are six girls and seven boys if you include the teacher and two aids." The teacher gives a blank stare at the student for a while then: "How did you get that?" With bewilderment the student answers: "I counted." Well, that wasn´t helping the lesson at all so, on she went: She had the boys stand up and wrote each of their names on the board. Then she had the girls stand up and wrote each of their names on the board. Then she gave a number to each name, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 for the boys and 1,2,3,4,5,6 for the girls. ":Now we have to add them together, 6 plus 7 is 13. Now to get the average of the girls take 6 girls plus the 7 boys divided by the 2 possiblities in the class: 13 divided by 2 is 6 and one half. So the average of the girls in the class is six and a half." The math specialist aid has not said a word. No way to know if she had even noticed this amazing result. Of course, the other aid couldn´t resist: "Which one of the boys is half a girl?"

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Books that Address Science and Society

2008-04-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

The Genius Engine discusses one of the most critical sciences of this century. This is a well written account of a complicated topic with important implications involving the impact of science on society. Much of the book relates recent research and results showing the functioning of the brain and which parts contribute what characteristics to your thoughts and decision making. Law and morality may both be informed and simultaneously twisted by this new knowlege. As an example: consider the criminal that can show his deficient prefrontal cortex or portions thereof contributed to his lack of respect for the law. He simply cannot be expected to act as a responsible citizen because his brain simply does not have that capacity so we have to let him go. Right? Whatever the answer is, we will be much better able to discuss these issues if we share a common understanding of how the mind functions and that common understanding will come through books like this one.

The Canon Is a wonderful journey through the basics of science that everyone should be familiar with. Best of all, Natalie's personality shows through in every paragraph making this a fun trip.

White matter and learning impairment.

2008-03-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

Half of your brain has been neglected and it may be most significant half when it comes to understanding cognition and mental disorders. New research may even make it possible to improve your thinking –steroids for the brain – maybe not such a great analogy.

It seems that we are slowly becoming aware of the importance of the other half of our brains. Of course, popular culture has known for decades of the differences in the roles of each hemisphere and that same pop culture is slowly realizing the importance of even finer divisions of the gray matter including the mapping of regions of the PFC (prefrontal cortex) into lateral, VM (ventromedial), and orbitofrontal and even rostral regions involved in mixing our emotions with our logic, our memories real and imagined and our beliefs, true or not. We, as a society, are even learning how we might best do that mixing in order to improve our ability to reason as well as live and enjoy life –actually quite a complicated interaction. But that is not the other half of the brain that I’m referring to today.
Learning impairment, autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, age related cognitive impairments and even the well known lack of judgment experienced as a teenager may all have origins in the other half of the brain –namely the white matter. We have been aware of the importance of gray matter where the neurons are but our mental performance is actually quite dependent on the white matter where axons that connect different grey matter regions are and where non-neuronal brain cells (glia) are located. Several articles in Scientific American (including the recent March 2008 issue) have discussed the role of glia in cognition. They have also noted the fact that certain outside influences can be detrimental to the myelin sheaths created in the white matter insulating our axons which is essential to clear intelligent thinking. Deterioration of the myelin wrapped around the axons may be causal to many different types of impairments.

Noted in the SciAm article this month by R.Douglas Fields is something I do find rather exciting though. As we age, we wrap our brains in myelin and finally get the complete coating in our 20’s. We are better at learning new things while this is actually being done and we are less adept at learning once this wrapping is complete. There is however a protein, NoGo-A, which is responsible for determining when we are done cooking –or rather wrapping. When that protein is inhibited it may be possible to regain some of our learning capacity. Now that is what I consider exciting and definitely socially unacceptable: Prevent mental maturity, just so I can learn more.

The Golden Compass frightens someone

2007-12-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

I just thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful, imaginative tale with excellent, complex allusions and riveting plot with more symbolism than anyone will catch at first glance. The tale is written by a religious skeptic with an obvious alterior motive to make the viewers think -question. I've noticed a large number of people with dreadful fear of anything that makes people question. They'd rather not know anything that doesn't fit their little world view and they certainly don't want children to start questioning. They have launched a campaign to boycott this great little piece of fiction. If we ever develop a world view that can withstand attacks from new ideas, maybe we won't react with such fear. The fear that reveals our insecurity with a world view that just won't work beyond a little false comfort.
Anyway, the movie was great. I enjoyed it with my little Nicole and was very impressed with Nicole Kidman's performance. Her character was beautiful, slightly vulnerable and extremely dangerous- alot like another Nicole I'm acquainted with. It was fun. I recommend the movie highly!
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com
Think -It isn't illegal yet!

The anthropic principle and a great gift for me!

2007-12-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

I just read another physicist referring to what he probably thinks of as the anthropic principle: That the universe is fine tuned to make life possible. It is true that life as we know it is possible because the universe is the way it is. If it were different, we'd be different or non-existent. This should not suggest to anyone that it was planned that way. We are observing the universe, therefore the universe is capable of supporting observers like us. Unfortunately, we have evolved to assume a purpose for everything so we assign purposes almost automatically which, I think, blinds us to many realities. Oh well, let's get on to something more interesting!

If you want to get me a gift:

This is an extremely exciting technology -If you want to buy me a gift, this is what I want! Amazon's Kindle is a
book reader. It would be a little like carrying around 200 books but in a package smaller than a laptop. I think this is much more exciting than the mp3 players that everyone loves (including me). You buy the books online and pay less than $10. I could save a fortune and not have to add anymore
bookshelves to my house, which already looks like the city library -maybe I could even replace the books I've got
with the electronic version! Anyway, this is something you need! If you happen to know me personally, this is a
gift I would love! For Amazon's Kindle, click here!

I've got to block my NF Kappa B Gene

2007-11-29T23:46:00.000-08:00

I've got to block my NF-Kappa B Gene because, according to a paper in Genes & Development by a team at Stanford University School of Medicne in Californa, it seeems that there really is a genetic program that causes aging. It has long been thought that such a genetic program would have evolved under natural selection and that aging is not just a process of wearing out -since we know we have mechanisms that mitigate that to some extent - but aging is also genetically programmed and now Howard Chang and colleagues have shown that aging of the skin of mice can be reversed (nobody knows yet for how long) by turning off, or rather blocking, a master regulator gene "NF-Kappa B." That is exciting news. I now expect some rhetoric from someone telling me why it is morally wrong to block that gene and reverse aging and I'm taking bets on who will be the first to denounce this new scientific breakthrough.

Why am I so cynical?

- Troy
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Secularists attacking freedoms?

2007-09-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Today I read one of the most twisted articles I have ever seen. David Limbaugh wrote that "The secularists demanding the removal of specks from Christians' eyes are oblivious to the planks in their own. Their paranoid predispositions about Christians lead them to the very type of oppressive behavior they wrongly ascribe to Christians. If anyone is guilty of wanting to foreclose debate and impose their values on others, it is these hyperventilating secularists."

He goes on to say that we secularists claim without warrant that there is a consensus on global warming. OK, the truth is I see a consensus on the subject among climate studying scientists. I doubt there is a consensus on proposed solutions but I'm sure that only ignoring evidence would allow me to promote huge wealth based activities that potentially increase the problem without any reference to at least some responsibility for global warming.

He writes: "...With their absence of self-reflection it must never occur to them that in their professed monopoly on 'science,' they squarely violate the fundamentals of the scientific method by forbidding debate and insulating their theories from scientific scrutiny." Is he kidding? We are talking about the difference between evaluating scientific evidence or simply claiming there is none.

He then claims that we malign "intelligent design" proponents for daring to subject our evolution and geology theories to the re-examination that the scientific method requires. What re-examination is he suggesting. Our theories can and will be examined and corrected in perpetuity but there is nothing to be gained by accepting "It was designed that way." It just so happens that design, at least as we understand it, does nothing to explain the way things are while our theories bring about real progress in understanding and controlling the world around us. Short of prayer, which I've found ineffective, there is no value in starting from the hypothesis that the world was designed this way.

It is true that I believe fear is the motivator behind opposition to societal acceptance of homosexuals seeking the same rights as married couples. But, that is because I have no expectation that homosexuality is going to be taught to or accepted by those of us that are simply heterosexual. Again, scientific evidence suggests there is nothing for me to fear from allowing gay marriage which is likely to be just as successful or not as heterosexual marriage.

Religious people do not have a monopoly on morality. Questions about how people should treat each other including abortion, equal rights between sexes, races, IQ levels, hair color, (redheads are superior but that doesn't mean we should have more rights), whatever the difference you want to look at should be seriously considered and decided based on the value to society rather than on "revealed" truth until such revelation is universal, which it never has been. Secularists do not, in general, disregard morality any more than any religious group you want to name and to suggest so is just fearful hate speach. The only real difference here is that when I do choose an action that is not in line with my moral beliefs, I can't blame any supernatural influence or claim absolution because it was the will of some almighty power.

It is true that my worldview does not embrace revealed truth and I do immediately question any claim of truth based only on faith without the need for evidence. It is also true that in my worldview, what I believe to be the best explanation of observed "facts" is always subject to better observations or simpler more elegant explanations. It is also true that I see only self serving dishonesty among those wanting to legislate based on revealed truth. For David Limbaugh to suggest that by agreeing with Alan Hurwitz that the real problem of leadership now is to find a way for people to believe whatever nonsense they want without hurting each other is in some way trying to exert control over society is fairly obviously silly.

T. Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com/

Mind Reading

2007-07-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

It is official! Science is now on the verge of reading your mind. OK that may be a little of an exaggeration, but the story I'm referring to is still pretty cool. In the August edition of Scientific American, there is an article by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik called Windows on the Mind. The article actually talks more about the discovery over the last century that the little microscopic motions of our eyes are actually essential to our vision. Without them, we would be unable to see anything unless it moved, which we happen to be better tuned to anyway. The article was pretty good at describing the process of going from wrong assumptions to a better understanding -it seems that these motions were initially assumed to be detrimental to our vision. The small part of the article that had anything to do with mind reading showed up in the last couple of paragraphs as little unimportant asides. It seems that those microsaccades are biased in direction toward those objects that are actually the focus of your attention. When it seems that I haven't even noticed that beautiful girl across the room, measuring the bias in direction of the microsaccades of my eyes would likely betray my attentional focus. I'm afraid the result of that betrayal will probably not surprise anyone! But it is still an interesting result even if it never will provide the government with a mind reading machine. For that, they can hire my consulting firm to study the long list of potential technologies which really are getting too close for comfort.

T. Troy Stark

troy@starkeffects.com

http://www.starkeffects.com/

Dolphins are way cool to watch!

2007-06-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

I was reading a recent article about a theory that dolphin intelligence is due to social interaction. This theory isn't too novel, it has been discussed for at least decades just based on my experience.

More importantly however, I was watching dolphins from the beach today. Arroyo Burrow (sic) beach affords a great view from the restaurant, The Brown Pelican, so that you can watch dolphins or whales while you enjoy dinner. Today however, I saw something that I had never seen in the wild before: dolphins were actually jumping out of the water in beautiful arcs just like they do at Sea World. Such a simple sight is still thrilling to me. Human intelligence is fascinating enough --it makes observing other animals so entertaining! At least I like to imagine that my pleasure in such observations is due to intelligence.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

NONSENSE!

2007-05-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

I can't believe the absolute nonsense that I just read in an email designed to get me to buy some "secret revealed" program. Why does quantum mechanics get used like some explanation of magic? This email tried to tell me that quantum mechanics really provides a scientific explanation for "the law of attraction". Even if there were some mystery about the law of attraction -nobody needs quantum mechanics to explain it. I'm quite sure quantum mechanics has only one connection to the world of thought and that is through chemistry- it is a great way to approach chemistry. The law of attraction on the other hand is not misunderstood because it takes quantum mechanics to understand it. It is misunderstood because people want to believe in nonsense. In reality -if you spend your time thinking about something you really want to see happen it still doesn't happen until you DO something to make it happen. The real law of attraction is a law of action--stuff happens when you are out there making it happen. The guys that worked out quantum mechanics were out there making it happen -that was a real creative process of mistakes and triumphs -not some discovery about magic! When you translate your thoughts into action (and what other actions will you have?) then you reap the rewards for those thoughts --and like it or not, most of those rewards will fall short of your desires so --here is the real secret ---keep acting and correcting your actions until you get the result you want! Stop believing in magic since that prevents correct actions.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Orgasms and the Polygraph

2007-05-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever lied about an orgasm? Usually (of course, I wouldn't know about this) someone (she) pretends to have one when in fact it never happened. Well, I have heard from a generally reliable source that a polygraph operator would usually be able to accurately tell if you had an orgasm during a polygraph and then lied about it. That is the best you can hope for from a polygraph. It does not accurately test whether or not a subject is lying. It does often present a false positive. That makes this instrument perfect for destroying careers and useless for catching spies. It just so happens that it never has caught a spy or a terrorist. This poor performance record is exactly the reason our government wants to employ this instrument to test the loyalty of the nations scientists working for government labs:

From Bob Park's What's New: A 30 Apr 07 memo notified Los Alamos employees that random polygraph tests of 8,000 personnel in high-risk categories will be conducted by the DOE as part of a new counter-intelligence program.

Why am I not surprised?

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Science Can't Even Explain Love.

2007-05-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

I've heard complaints lately from a few religiously inclined individuals that I put too much faith in science. "After all, science can't even explain something like love."

I must admit, the scientific exploration of the experience of love is limited to the observable facts of biochemistry and neuro-biology which I find absolutely enthralling. These observables are a step on the road to "explaining" what I think is an emergent property, called emotions, which are based in basic physics and chemistry but are too complex to exist at any lower level. This leaves us with no satisfying explanation of an experience that most of us know when we feel it, but can't really explain. -Just try to tell your best friend what love is. You'll find that you have no idea what it is. You'll still have no idea what love is when you completely explain all of the biochemistry and physics underlying it. You may however, be able to understand why some people are plagued by emotional disorders and be able to help them, but the experience of love will still be no easier to explain than the taste of salt, which could be described at the chemical and neural level but the shared experience is still required to really be able to talk about it.

So, as a scientist I'm left no better off than a poet at providing a satisfying explanation of love. I might even prefer a poet's approach in the situations that count most. But science will be able to help in some situations in a way that I think is important. On the other hand, to tell me that love is a gift from God does no more for me (probably less for me) than to wonder how the experience of love has emerged and evolved. All that really matters is how we enjoy the experience.

troy@starkeffects.com
www.starkeffects.com

Misconceptions

2007-04-29T19:51:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things I learned during my years of teaching physics was how to find the misconceptions that are holding a student back. Every time you try to teach a new physics concept you'll find that the new concept clashes with a previously held belief system. The trick is to ask enough questions of the student to discover just what the concepts are that the student is holding onto which prevent them from understanding the new concept. It is absolutely essential to get down to the basic world view that isn't working to explain reality as well as the new concept does. Without that step, the student will never internalize the new material.

As a society we do the same thing, especially regarding science. For example, scientists know full well that we are not the end-all of species evolution. We are not the perfect creature that evolution was meant to create. Scientists know we are evolving even now and that evolution and natural selection do not have a plan, they are simply a process with no end and no predetermined set of results. Unfortunately, as a society we still hold these ideas which come out in our literature, our movies and our public discussions. These misconceptions prevent us from fully comprehending the scientific theories that do work.

Evolution and natural selection are not the only areas where we hold collective misconceptions. Some other areas are basic mathematics where we don't fully accept Gödel's incompleteness theorems and we still pursue Hilbert's program. We don't comprehend relativity because we don't feel the need to think that way in our day to day activities. We don't understand the basic concept that even hydrogen as a fuel still leaves us with the need for energy coming from somewhere.

We will have to overcome the lazy tendency to assume we know what we need to know and start putting forth the energy to learn and overcome our misconceptions. Our progress depends on it.

enTroy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Sharing

2007-03-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

It is not entirely clear whether Isaac Newton would have ever shared his development of the calculus if he had not been provoked by hearing that Leibniz was publishing his work on the same topic. Newton's brilliance might have never made a difference in the world if his pride and need to show off had not overcome his terrible tendancy to keep his best work to himself just to have an advantage that only he knew about.

We have a similar problem today. ITT, a developer of powerful night-vision and other vision advantage technology has just been fined one hundred million dollars for allowing specifications for components of their technology to be shared with companies outside the U.S. including China. The problem is that such specifications are the heart of U.S. military advantage due to advanced technology. We do have laws that prohibit sharing scientific and technological development that gives us an edge. Of course, everyone knows that without sharing and open discussion, science and technology are slowed down or even stifled entirely condemning future generations to lack advantages that they will never know they could of had. Oh well, I guess if they never know what they are missing, they can't complain.

My disappointment is the fact that I can't argue against our laws that prohibit free exchange of ideas. The fact is, humans are dangerous. Our security depends on our maintaining a technological advantage. Competition is simply a fact of life. We compete as individuals and we choose groups to belong to with whom we cooperate in order to compete with other groups. Competition has been viewed as an evil problem by some. My father used to push for banning competition for grades and other recognition in school, believing that such competition held back those that were not performing well. Sometimes I try to imagine what life would be like with world-wide cooperation on everything rather than competition. Then, I realize, there wouldn't be any humans (or other life for that matter) in such a world. Competition seems to provide the motivation for the pursuit of excellence and the limited cooperation we do enjoy. For now, I'll simply have to settle for seeking out groups for cooperation that will benefit from my input and together we will reach for that next step up in science and technology.

troy@starkeffects.com

www.starkeffects.com

Rules of Engagement

2007-03-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

I recently read an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that was quite thought provoking. It was about the political debate between those against use of embryonic stem cells for research and those for it. In a larger sense it was about the poor methods we all use to communicate our arguments. We seem to shamelessly ignore the facts that don't support our position and deny that any other position has any validity at all. Of course, not everyone is completely guilty of this, but almost everything we see in the media is of this nature. We need to honestly assess why we think the way we do and communicate clearly what has lead us to argue our position. We also need to listen (which will take a good deal of discipline and some waiting for the opposite point of view to be expressed in a clear thoughtful way) to the opposite point of view and get a clear understanding of where the difference of opinion lies. We must avoid grand arguments that dismiss everything "other" out of hand and stop ignoring facts that don't fit our point of view. More than likely, we know of facts that don't fit the opponents point of view and we know them well, but we pretend not to notice facts that don't support ours. If this is the case, then we don't just suddenly agree that our opponent is right, but we should be open to adjusting our own view.

The worst problem I see in debates involving science is simply use of facts that aren't. I see all of the time references to sweeping generalizations that just don't apply to the situation at all simply because it is easier to think and get others to think without the effort to really understand what we are thinking about. Intellectual honesty requires that we question ourselves as well as others. That will still lead to disagreements that cannot be resolved, but at least we should be able to see the real basis for disagreement rather than the nonsense that gets printed in the media.

For an example of what I'm talking about, the Journal article showed that facts that everyone knows on both sides of the issue of embryonic stem cell research are simply not true. Such factoids as "there is a ban on federal funding for any stem cell research" or "abortions are being performed just for science".

troy@starkeffects.com
www.starkeffects.com

Really Big News

2007-02-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

The latest Scientific American had an article about one of the biggest news stories in tech history. It is by Bahram Jalali entitled "Making Silicon Lase". Once this little feat is perfected, we are well on our way to some very exciting new technologies. Real optical circuits replacing the electronic circuits used in computers now requires a laser that can be built right into the optronic chip. To do that, making silicon lase has always been the best possible choice (for what we know now anyway).

Making something lase is actually a simple process. All you have to do is pour in enough energy to raise the material to a population inversion where more of the material is at a higher energy state than is in a lower energy state to which it wants to fall thus creating the amplifying medium, keep it that way long enough for a feedback circuit (optical oscillator cavity, in this case) to build up a huge amplified wave and let some of that light escape in an amplified coherent beam.

The problems are all in the practical application namely in things like heat dissipation and the distribution of available energy levels that don't fit nicely into your useful energy level range. Silicon, for example, has a problem with momentum. The energy bands, upper and lower, which electrons are allowed to occupy, have peaks (for the lower) and valleys (for the upper) which don't have the same momentum. That means that the energy absorbed, being just adequate to raise an electron from a lower to a higher allowed energy level needs to coincide with a phonon (sound energy in the crystal which carries much more momentum)in order to make the transition for both energy and momentum to be conserved. Silicon has another problem as well. Electrons in the upper band have a tendency to absorb passing photons at least as often as they are stimulated to emit by them (wide allowed upper band). Besides these two problems, Auger (pronounced almost like OJ) recombination turns the energy in the upper band into heat instead of photons.

Several imaginative concepts have been tossed around for overcoming the problems with making Silicon lase. Jalali's group has made one of them work. One partial solution to the momentum problem is the use of quantum confinement which effectively allows the electrons in the upper or lower band to have a larger range of momentums, makes photon emission more likely. Creating this quantum confinement can be done in a variety of ways that have to do with structures larger in scale than the overall crystal structure. Making use of the phonons in the crystal, manipulating the energy in them and through them is also a useful technique. Using this Raman effect (interaction of light with phonons) and some phenomena usually associated with photovoltaic cells (to remove unwanted electrons) Jalali has made Silicon work as a laser amplifying medium.

There are improvements needed. One of the most promising is creating photo pumping sources in the IR with narrow wavelength bands somewhere in the range of 2.3 to 7 micrometers. That could be quite a trick, and the one that pulls it off will really get noticed.

Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Gifted Students

2007-01-21T20:38:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed a great piece in the Wall Street Journal by Charles Murray. It was titled "Aztecs vs Greeks" and it was a very provocative opinion article. The main point I want to mention is that we need to make more of our gifted students. Murray pointed out that the only way to develop them properly is to challenge their intellects. Doing that requires that we present them with problems and ideas that are beyond the level of the average student, which brings up a little problem. Before we can present problems beyond the average student we must accept the fact that there are people that are more intellectually capable than the average. Our society doesn't like that elitist attitude. We try to pretend that everyone is able to do anything they want to, but the facts suggest otherwise. Like it or not, there is a wide range of IQ among people and some are simply smarter and more intellectually gifted. Once we can accept that fact we will be able to create challenging curricullum for those students and develop their potential which should benefit society. Of course, the concept that every citizen, including the intellectually gifted, has a responsibility to benefit society needs to be taught as well.

The next step will be to develop every student according to their real potential based an accurate assessment of their innate intellectual abilities as well as their interests and other personal factors. The point here is, not everyone should go to college when they may be better suited to a happier career with less formal education. Rather than try to get everyone to college, we should assess what each young person will be best at and develop their full potential. That should include the developing of the intellectually gifted by challenging their minds, presenting them with intellectual challenges until they find challenges they can't get past. That is the best way to develop not only their ability but their humility which is the only way to prevent that elitist attitude we all hate. Once the brightest realize that not everything will come easy, then they will be better suited to think in ways that help society rather than just themselves.

-Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Crowded Beach

2007-01-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend we tried to go to the beach but it was incredibly crowded. This is the beach just north of Morrow bay with elephant seals everywhere. The drive from Santa Barbara to San Simeon is beautiful and when we got there these animals were fascinating to watch. Well, fascinating for the adults, our little girl was finished watching after 5 minutes and patiently waited for us to get over our wonder.

-Troy Stark troy@starkeffects.com

http://www.starkeffects.com/crowded-beach.jpg

Big Brother All Over Again

2006-11-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

I was visiting a company in Silicon Valley this week which is solving the problems associated with identifying people at a distance. In this case they are using the biometric of iris recognition, see John Daugman's web page: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jgd1000/ for some fascinating information about iris recognition. This biometric has the potential to be more specific and more reliable than any other presently available, including DNA based ID. On top of this advantage, it could be used to identify people at a great distance if you could image a small iris with approximately 10 micrometer resolution. The company I was visiting, AOptix, is developing technology that makes that possible.

The societal issue is one that we have faced many times before, most recently with the advent of cell phones, the location of which can be tracked very closely. Privacy and anonymity are quickly being lost. If you can be uniquely identified by a computer from many meters away while you are totally unaware of the ID being made, then you simply can't go anywhere without being recognized and even tracked by anyone with the technology and infrastructure to do so.

What is the problem? What legitimate purpose could I have for hiding my identity or whereabouts? If I am not paranoid enough to believe that those in power have any reason to prevent my profitable pursuits then is there any reason to hide?

I'm afraid that just may be the problem. Humankind has a terrible history associated with the phenomena of those in power crushing any possible attempt by any potential competitor to upset the order of things. We all want greater safety in our society and technologies like the one mentioned above may offer that increase in security. Like any technology, these can be misused by those that possess them. In my opinion, the best way to prevent such misuse is an understanding of those technologies. An understanding held by a well informed, well educated and involved population.

-Wishing us luck-
Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Choices

2006-10-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Standing in line at the bank the other day, I spoke to a man in front of me and asked if he was getting much reading done while standing in that line. He seemed absolutely engrossed in his book and I just couldn't stand that he was having so much more fun than I was. He showed me the title and told me it was something everyone should read. The Trouble With Physics is apparently a book about how physicists are on the wrong track with "string theory". I mentioned that it sounded similar to the book Not Even Wrong which uses Pauli's famous slight and points it at string theory.

The book he was reading talked about something more important than I realized however; Money. It seems that a great deal of money that could be used in other physics research is being spent by the big university physics departments on research into string theory. This caused be to think about the biggest problem I've always had with life: you must make choices and every blasted choice eliminates an infinite number of other choices.

There is no way around it. You can't do everything, not even in theory, or theoretical physics. When a department decides to put money into a particular field of research it is gambling that that research will yield results that will get future grants or other funding due to prestige or real useful results. Things like string theory, which become very sexy in the eyes of the public, can be very tempting places to put your resources. Of course the problem with the public is that they have no idea what research is going to yield results worth chasing after. That is why physics departments are lead by physicists who are supposed to have a little better idea of where physics is going. But, the truth is: nobody really knows what research in basic theoretical physics is going to lead to. There are good arguments against pouring money into strings since it is not a theory with much hope of proveable results. There are also good arguments for pursuing a theory with such beauty.

In the end, nature will throw you curves no matter which way you go, and there will always be more to understand about nature than our theories and models can tell us. That is why I love science, because we get such beautiful glimpses of nature through it and sometimes that beauty leads to knowledge we never expected. Howevery, I must admit, in my view, string theory is probably too long of a shot to pay off any time soon and we should not let other avenues of physics research get lost while we gamble on string theory.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Certainty vs Wisdom

2006-08-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” - Bertrand Russell

Nothing strikes fear in my heart more than a well publicized pillar of certainty. My town newspaper has never been as informative as newspaper could be, but now they are publishing the brain draining writings of Dr. Laura with her loud assurance that there is only one point of view and if you don't share it then there is something wrong with you. Certainty must be wonderful. You never have to think.

Of course, not every doubting person is terribly thoughtful, but I'm quite sure that most thoughtful people are at least cognizant of other points of view and how they might be legitimately arrived at. Dr. Laura manages to show disdain for any opinion other than hers and then convince those that share hers that she has given the matter her serious deep thoughtful attention and there is no reason for them to even wonder how someone could come to any other conclusion. I like that approach. It is the same approach a good preacher uses to keep his congregation coming back and making their contributions. Sometimes, I wish I could do that, but I'm always aware that I could be wrong.

Asimov's book "The Demon Haunted World" agrees with me, (so of course I bought a copy) saying that scientific progress depends on being aware of fallibility. I am absolutely certain that certainty is "usually" the enemy of wisdom. Probably including this time.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

A Scientist's Obligation & Opportunity

2006-08-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of days I've been attending a class taught by one of the major icons in optical design, Lacy Cook. He said something today that I just had to write about.

Lacy was making the point that if an organization's seasoned engineers don't pass along the lessons they have learned in their career, then the organization is destined to go through the pain of training fresh engineers from scratch which takes an entire career. An engineers value to the organization can increase only if he can and does teach the next generation. It really is our responsibility as older engineers and scientists to pass along what we know. It is also one of the most valuable things we can do. We should be learning from those around us, doing the work that the company needs and teaching what we know about doing that work to the others we work with. It really is that teaching that increases our value to the company and to society. Beside that, engineers and scientists don't become legends and really cool geeks revered among the other geeks without seriously sharing our talent and knowledge with them. That's what creates such legends.
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com/

Animal's Rights

2006-07-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'm continually amazed at the evil people do to each other. I'm even more amazed by the reasons they give for doing it. Of course, all through history we see people using religions (none of which actually espouse doing evil) as their motivation for hurting or killing others. But the most amazing excuse for attacking others is the animal rights issue. How can you twist rationalization so far that you can justify firebombing a research scientist's house -even assuming it is "immoral" to do research on animals.

What really motivates people to hurt others? How does a person come by the desire to harm other people? There must be an explanation that doesn't refer to the devil. My inclination is to look to evolutionary biology, but I haven't yet discovered a good explanation for this anti-social behavior. I'll bet there has been an evolutionary advantage for fanatic certainty of one's point of view in the face of disparaging logic, facts or reality. Maybe it could even make you a president.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Gullibility

2006-07-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

I was just reading my email, actually, I was reading the subject lines of most of my email and I realized that I should be offended. We have become used to advertisers treating us like we are sol gullible that we would accept the nonsense they tell us at face value. Stuff like, “2000 year old secret talisman brings wealth, health, romantic love” etc… It offends me even more when these advertisers pretend that their products are based on science. Apparently this ruse works, since these advertisers keep using this technique. People in general are so unfamiliar with science that claims of scientific backing for absolute baloney are not even questioned. Everything from government scientists defecting to share secret knowledge with the public about: UFOs or psychic powers or ancient ruins on Mars to “research” breakthroughs in psychic powers, attracting the opposite sex or secret money formulas.

It makes sense to advertise such things to the readers of the supermarket tabloids, but I’m a little disappointed that my merely having an email address is reason to believe that I’m this gullible. It seems that the information age is also the disinformation age as well as the age of faster finding and fleecing of the credulous. I have a friend that keeps seeing these things and saying “I’d get rich if I just didn’t have a conscience.” I’ve actually discovered that many of these people, the really successful ones, believe their nonsense themselves. True belief definitely has an advantage, even if it is True Belief in the False.

Troy
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

HPV & Family

2006-07-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

HPV (human papalomavirus) is a sexually transmitted virus (80 different strains, 30 of which are common sexually transmitted strains) which in rare cases can lead to cervical cancer. There is now a vaccine but there are a couple of issues with it. First, developing countries are expected to be the hardest hit by cervical cancer caused by HPV and the vaccine happens to be very expensive.

Second, and this is the issue that annoys me, the virus is sexually transmitted and so the vaccine must be administered to young girls before they become sexually active. Somehow, religious groups here in the U.S. see vaccination as a message to a young girl that you expect her to be promiscuous and now you are making that choice safer. A spokesman for "Focus on the Family" puts it this way: "You don't catch it. You have to go out and get it."

I'm afraid I have seen way too many instances of people convinced that those who suffer, have earned that suffering by disobediance to some revealed law from god. I'm convinced this is just human nature, we look for ways to convince ourselves we are superior to others and one of the easiest ways to be convinced of that is to have that fact revealed from on high. It is interesting to note however, that these same people manage to rationalize their own suffering as merely a test to make them stronger. Wouldn't it be nice if we could accept others, even when they make choices we don't agree with, and make them all part of "our group" so that we can see their suffering in the same light we our own.

Anyway, back to the science & society viewpoint here: Science and the benefits it can convey belong to our larger society beyond our religious and microcultural boundaries. If this vaccine can prevent loss, suffering and negative economic impact for our society as a whole, then supporting the administration of this vaccine is in our best interest, assuming as I do that human behavior will be pretty much what it is now. Witholding public support won't change the behavior, and I'm afraid, contrary to what some of these religious groups believe, the suffering that ensues won't convince anyone that those religious groups were right all along, except people that already believed that anyway.

Some informative links:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18624954.500
http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm

My links and contact info:
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Cooking the Evidence

2006-06-24T21:44:00.000-07:00

I was just reading about an interesting phenomena. People tend to pay much more attention to the facts and observations that confirm what they already believe. That tendency helps us choose our friends and our reading material, but probably does not make us as aware of reality as we should be.

Today I was approached by someone who blatantly lied to himself so that he could validate his world view. In this case he swore that all the medical records and studies of human anatomy showed that men had one fewer rib on one side of their bodies than on the other. Of course his explanation for this was the story in Genesis in which God took a rib from Adam's side to create Eve.

If we are so attached to our world view that reality has no effect on our minds, then we are totally damned in our progress.

I'm afraid that applying the theory of evolution to memes shows that my view is doomed. Truth, or at least theories that take reality and facts into account, have absolutely no evolutionary advantage over fabricated stories that offer absolute certainty, since reality often provides only uncertainty.

I'll just have to live with being unpopular and still having hope for mankind.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Girls in Engineering & Science

2006-06-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

Recently I read a report on a summit for girls in math and science. To my dismay, the report showed little more than a description of the perceived problem: Very few girls and women are motivated to study engineering or science. If the state of our knowledge on this issue is simply a recognition of the obvious, we have a long ways to go before we can see any changes.

Mentioned in the report were several key study results that may indicate where the problem lies. First, is a general ennui felt by both sexes regarding math and science at the middle school level. Second, is the fact that very few young students could name a compelling career that uses math and science. As adults, we ask kids all the time what they want to be when they grow up. According to a brief note in Daniel Gilberts new book we just do that because we are entertained by the fact that whatever they think now has very little to do with what they'll actually end up doing. I guess life treated us that way and now we just find it humorous that it will do the same to these kids. The summit I mentioned as well as other forums for concern imply that unfortunately, math and science must be approached early in our educations if we are to ever become proficient, so it is essential that we have a motivation to do so, a motivation like a compelling future career.

I've been looking at what middle school and high school kids do choose to spend their time on and I don't see any evidence that a compelling future career motivates many of their choices. So, I've uncovered another problem: people generally don't plan a career early in life and prepare for it. Not a big surprise.

I'm thinking that there must be a better way to motivate kids to take math and science seriously. They must experience for themselves the excitement, wonder, fascination and especially the feeling of accomplishment that comes from focusing enough time, energy and attention on mathematical and scientific concepts to achieve that "aha" experience you get when you finally understand a new concept, a new way to look at an event or phenomena, a solution to a real world problem. Without that experience, you can't imagine what it is like to be a successful scientist or engineer. That experience must be earned. Just like the experiences of riding a bicycle, finding your way through a video game, playing a musical instrument, surfing, skiing, or any other accomplishment comes from many attempts and failures and many small victories so do the experiences of coding a clean, efficient computer program, finding the solution to a real world mathematical problem or realizing you just discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that will lead to the next big technological industry. Kids need to see more examples of what scientists and engineers have accomplished, and they need to see more of the path that was followed to that accomplishment. Watching a musician make beautiful, emotionally stirring music, I may get the impression that I could never have done that. But, watching those musicians learn to play that instrument and seeing what they went through to do it makes it seem more possible for me. (I watched 3 of my own kids learn to play beautifully). So too could seeing the images that are possible to obtain from a modern satelite mapping all sorts of data over the face of the earth seem like magic, so far beyond our comprehension are these complex systems that we wouldn't even try to understand them. However, a good overview of these systems, looking at how the relatively simple components work together, and seeing how experts in various disciplines all contribute their part to the system makes it seem much more plausible that a middle school student could put in the effort necessary to become a contributing engineer on one of these fantastic projects.

Democratic Control Of Science Research.

2006-05-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

In general, when you want someone to pay for your work, you must convince them that they will benefit from that work. If we expect taxpayers to foot the bill for scientific research and technology development, we may end up having to convince those taxpayers that they will benefit. The problem we run into here is one of preparing those taxpayers to make complex decisions about what to fund and what not to fund.

It is a sad reality that success in selling products or services has less to do with the value of those products and services than it does with the buyer's perception of value. Just look at the junk filling your email account. You'll find there a ton of hype for products or services that are mediocre at best and completely worthless quite often. Why do you see these ads? Because they work. Now imagine what research will get funded if we let the general population decide based on what they have been told. The only way good research will get funded is if good researchers start employing the psychology of advertising the same way politicians do. I'm afraid, we'd see less educating the public to give them a chance to make informed decisions than we'd see convincing free energy charlatans and quack cure sellers telling us about the big conspiracies trying to keep us in the dark and prevent us from ever seeing all the benefits of pseudo-scientific research.

How, as a whole society, will we ever get past our own ignorance?

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Living the Scientific Life

2006-05-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

I just met grrlscientist. Actually, unlike apparently everyone else in the world, I have no idea who this person is that writes the blog "Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)" but I fell in love with the blog. After claiming that I would never look at another report from World Science I changed my mind to read their story on the link between insanity and reason which I just had to read for reasons that are obvious to anyone that has actually met me. Anyway, while I was on the World Science site I noticed a link titled "Living the Scientific Life" and I followed it. I read several of the postings on this site and thouroughly enjoyed them. The writer is genuinely concerned about science and of course her particular field in environmental studies. If you get a chance, do read her blog, she writes very well.

Another blogger I found very interesting and motivating was The Concerned Scientist. Reading his call to action in the war on science was informative and stimulating. However, the focus was predominantly on the threat to science posed by the Intelligent Design crowd, while I happen to think that the problem is deeper than that and that ID appeals to the masses for the same reason that science does not. Humans en masse have always been inclined to latch onto the supernatural explanation while only a few are inclined to face reality and either become despised or respected depending on how they present themselves to others. The difference between the masses and the gurus is effort. Thinking takes energy and effort and if the reward is not immediate enough, we generally give it up, hence our TV culture.

Today's post is just to point out a couple of new "acquaintances" with whom I'm impressed.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

It Takes alot of Mistakes

2006-04-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

I was just reading letters to the editor of the journal "Physics Today". They brought up a serious problem in our education system, maybe even a problem in our society's educational philosophy. In short, the problem is in how we treat mistakes.

Most of us have experienced the embarrassment of making a mistake in school. If we gave the wrong answer or came up with a new idea for solving a problem and it didn't work, we usually suffered some emotional pain due to how such mistakes are viewed. In reality, all progress in science requires that we come up with some ideas, hypotheses or processes that just don't work out at all. If we didn't try these things, we would never have found out that they didn't work, and we wouldn't have learned just why they didn't work. Without this knowledge, we can't zero in on the ideas or processes that do work.

I suppose we need to accept that we are never quite at our destination when it comes to understanding nature. When we realize that none of our answers are definitive, maybe we can deal with slowly building our knowledge and quit expecting to have a complete answer in our lifetime. The best we can possibly hope for is to contribute some new knowledge either about what does or even doesn't work. Expect to make some mistakes, and do something! Explore an idea, try an experiment and push it far enough to find out just how wrong you are. That is how progress happens.

troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Join the Rebellion

2006-04-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

I just read a wonderful little article in the Wall Street Journal. It described a rebellion in the world of basic science education. It seems that the trend for schools, in an attempt to make science more "accessible" to a broader array of students, to "dumb" down science classes has been recognized by thinking teachers and parents as a flawed solution to a serious problem.

Of course the schools were trying to alleviate a real problem. We will be facing a shortage of scientists and engineers in the near future, a shortage that will be filled by trained workers from elsewhere. Obviously we need more students in science and math classes. The school's solution: make science easier so more students can succeed at it. Unfortunately, this solution ignores the reality that we need a solution that works beyond school. When our students get out of school they face competition in the real world. Results depend on cutting edge science, and that won't be done by young workers whose scientific depth is measured in microns due to their "no math" science classes that they aced in school.

We will be facing a global economy with global competition. Those that master math and science will win that competition, and we make it alot harder for our students to master such subjects when we avoid presenting them with intellectual challenges just so more students can "succeed". Such success is even recognized by newly included students as shallow and so fails even to boost "self esteem", which I suspect is the rationale behind this dumbing down.

Watering down science and math courses is really no different than training your football team against simulated opponents represented by little Bozo the clown punching bags on the field.

Happy to join the rebellion, I'll have to do the same as many other parents, teach math and science at home after school. That leaves us with the same dillemma we faced before public education: only those whose parents already have the skills will be able to learn them.

-Troy
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

More Hope

2006-04-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

My last post was somewhat discouraging regarding the quality of science information available. Unfortunately, I have not changed my mind about that particular scientific news source, but I have cause for an improved outlook. Even on the web, higher quality information is becoming more readily available. Wikipedia.com and Britannica online have both impressed me quite a bit with high quality detailed information.

Even more impressive has been the quality I've found on the shelf of "popular" science books at the local bookstore. I often spend my lunch hour at Borders Books in Goleta (Hollister & Storke, if you're in the neighborhood) and the number of quality of science books as well as the variety of subjects written about has improved dramatically over the last several years, or maybe it has been decades, I am getting up there in years. When I was a kid, the books on science I came across were either dry textbooks (I loved my organic chemistry text I found at the salvation army store) or they were popularized science which was more science fiction than reality. Lately I have found wonderful books on mathematics and physics and biology all written in a style that anyone could understand and they manage to be both exciting as well as accurate. That is exactly what I like to find, accurate descriptions of the fascinating science being done!

Troy@Starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

World Science?

2006-02-21T21:40:00.000-08:00

I recently subscribed to a newsletter. I found it advertised on my website, www.starkeffects.com and had to check it out. It is called "World Science". It claims to send you science information weeks before you'll see it in the newspapers. It is entertaining. Unfortunately, the only newspapers you'll ever see these stories in are the supermarket tabloids.

The first story was great! A genetic defect that turns back the clock on evolution. There was even a video clip showing a victim of this defect. The poor woman was walking around on all fours and babbling some primitive language. I suspect, since the video was supposedly from Turkey, that English would have sounded just as odd to her as her language did to me.

Reading "World Science" is not going to be one of my habits. I'm already less intelligent than I would have been had I skipped the first reading of "World Science" and just read some more spam.

Troy Stark
http://www.starkeffects.com
troy@starkeffects.com

A New Phrase

2006-02-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

I just learned a new phrase from Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column in Scientific American. The phrase is Japanese: "Baka ni tsukeru ku suri wa nai" translated, There is no cure for stupidity. It is true! An entire industry -advertising- is built on taking advantage of that. OK, not every advertisement is big fat lie taking advantage of stupid people, but you'll find that even to move a product with real value, advertisers have to use the principles of the psychology of the masses. Shermer's article this month talks about Kevin Trudeau's new book about natural cures. Kevin is the quintessential advertising expert. He knows that people will buy a book that tells them there is a conspiracy against them and powerful people who studied science are really no smarter than them. Apparently one of the things Kevin says in the book is that we would be surprised at how motivating power and money are. Quite a cute twist.

The point I'm worrying about is that people really enjoy hearing that science doesn't and scientists don't really know any more than the quacks that come up with the cures in Kevin's book. As a society we have quite a bad attitude about those evil people that went to the trouble to learn and get an education. Those evil monsters actually dare to question our societies actions, beliefs and norms. Evil science geeks should have just stayed home and watched sit coms with the rest of us, then they'd be normal.

Without a major shift in our attitudes toward knowledge, we are destined to lose our place as a world power.

With Worry,
Troy Stark
http://www.starkeffects.com
http://www.sciam.com
http://www.skeptic.com
http://www.mathmovesu.com

For Parents

2006-01-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. "The vast majority of top students enrolling in science and engineering schools, like MIT or CalTech, did not attend private High Schools".

This secret carries an implication. If some of the top high school students in the nation are coming from public high schools, then perhaps the public school system is not what is holding the nation's kids back. If some students are doing great, then the opportunity to do well in school and learn math, science, history and language skills exists even for public school students.

The real problem is what our students are doing after school. If we, as students, don't take the time to struggle with the material at home we won't master it. If we spend all of our time after school with entertainment instead of study, we will get the result we earned; entertained ignorance. To master skills in math, science, language, or any other subject, we have to get off the couch, away from the TV, away from the video games and actually put forth some effort. It really isn't all that hard to master these skills, but it doesn't just happen.

As a parent of teenagers myself I have seen how difficult it is for these young students to tear themselves away from the entertainment and focus on school, but I assure you the effort is worth it! As parents we need to facilitate that experience. If we don't ask our kids to focus on homework, or maybe even get away from the entertainment ourselves for a family study time (yes, there are mind expanding studies for us parents as well) then it isn't the school holding our students back, it is us holding them back.

Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

Evolution and Intelligent Design, my View.

2005-12-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

Long before Darwin's time is was quite well known that plants and animals could be altered by selective breeding. Our success as a species was quite possibly the result of our mastering the arts of agriculture which are essentially genetic engineering. In this case, human intelligence had intervened to create conditions which favored the survival of traits we appreciated.

What follows is my version of evolution.

Darwin's genius was to recognize that it was quite possible for species to change over time due to natural pressures, a process he called "Natural Selection".

How is it possible for such complex systems as we find in biology to develop over time? It is possible because we are in the midst of an energy flow. What I'm talking about here is our planets happy circumstance of locally decreasing entropy. Ordered systems can only come about in a location where entropy is decreasing and that happens to be the situation with our earth. Energy from the sun (a high temperature body) impinges on the earth and is eventually reradiated from the earth (a relatively low temperature body) so that, locally, we enjoy a decrease in entropy (at the expense of the rest of the universe, of course). The study of self organizing systems and ordered systems arising due to such an energy flow situation is absolutely fascinating. At the heart of life is this local decrease in entropy.

Natural selection then, is the process proposed by Charles Darwin to explain the history, why the traits we see are the ones that survived. Natural pressures mostly associated with organisms getting their share of the energy flow and thus being able to propagate their own ordered systems, "selected" for the traits that were a combination of efficient and self propagating. The thing that is really exciting about sex is that it makes adaptation efficient. Sexual reproduction is what put natural selection on steroids so that we have the marvelous array of living traits that we see in the world today!

My societal concern with evolution is this: If we dismiss the concept of natural selection because it does not fit in our world view of how we came to be, then we could very well close our minds to understanding biology at all. The fact of evolution and the theory of natural selection lead to experiments and theories that increase our understanding of biological systems and allow us to manipulate them for our purposes. Acceptance of this theory lets us imagine how biological system came about under natural pressures and this imagination game leads to tests and analysis that can tease out the details of these extremely complex systems, systems that are not always logical, and not always efficient, but are always self propagating and efficient enough to survive for now.

If we dismiss the fact of evolution and the theory of natural selection, then we are left with accepting the systems as they are with no concept of why they are that way. It will be much harder to find the details of these complex systems if we can't give them a history.

Nothing is more dangerous than a society that closes it's eyes to tangible evidence because it doesn't agree with what we already know. Such arrogance allows no room for learning. We must be humble enough to realize that we don't know anything yet and we will always be that way. I know that is not comforting. But our progress in knowledge requires that we realize the nature of knowldedge -every piece of the puzzle reveals an ever increasing number of missing pieces.

Of course, absolute certainty about your world view has it's own rewards. No more worrying about your lack of knowledge, no more indecision, -you "know" how it is and you know what must be done. People respond well to that. Nature couldn't care less. Do you wonder why this trait was selected for?

Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com

How do we make math exciting?

2005-12-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

I've been fascinated by good lectures on math and science, lectures that displayed the beauty of the subject. Actually, math has always been driven by aesthetic motivations so it is no wonder that there are many who find the subject absolutely enthralling. Unfortunately, there are a great many more in our country (USA) that will never be able to see how sexy science and math can be. The reason is that a good foundation in these subjects is essential before the deeper beauty can be appreciated.

How can we get young people excited about these subjects? How can they start to enjoy the satisfaction of thinking and the thrill of that "aha" experience you get after hours of trying to solve a math problem and then suddenly you have the answer?

My little website http://www.starkeffects.com is devoted to an attempt at showing how exciting these subjects can be, but I will need help. Right now, my way of asking for help is to offer you a chance to show off. If you have a great article or just a page showing the beauty of these subjects or just a great way to explain a math or science topic or subject then please send it to me. I will be creating a page or several pages to display these articles. Your name and your email address as well as any links in your article will be kept intact since we want to give credit where it is due. This is a chance for you to show off your knowledge, and if you are really involved in science and math, you probably love to show off your knowledge (I think most of us do). Your help in this matter is needed, desired and will be very appreciated.

Thanks
Troy Stark
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com