I have been thinking that I should do some sort of end of year wrap up to commemorate the end of 2008 so, even though its a bit late, here are my thoughts. I just listened to the end of year episode of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast and they listed their worst and best for the year from the perspective of skepticism and science, so I’m going to take a bit of a lead from that.
There were two science highlights for they year for me (these were shared with many members of the SGU). The big one was the Large Hadron Collider. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the LHC finished the year non-operational I would have put that number one undisputed by itself, but a certain amount of the kudos must be lost because of the fact that its not working! The other highlight was the Phoenix Mars Mission which was very successful – unlike many Mars missions form the past!
If you want further information on these topics, I have mentioned them before. I blogged about the LHC on 2008-09-13 in an entry titled “Extreme Engineering” and I listed some of the failed Mars missions on 2006-05-30 in “God of War”.
The LHC deserves to be the science highlight of the year because its just so big and impressive, but maybe even more important is the fact that it exists at all. Its a collaboration between many countries and it costs a huge amount but it is designed to answer some of the most academic, speculative and abstract questions imaginable. Its a real achievement that something so important to basic research but so far removed from any immediate mundane benefit has been built. I just hope it can be repaired and run reliably in 2009.
I also like the way the LHC was built across the boundary between France and Switzerland. This symbolises how a project of this magnitude rises above petty national politics and stands above such minor administrative details like national boundaries. Of course, I’m sure that the reality is that politics might have had a lot to do with that, and other aspects of the LHC’s construction.
So that’s the best and so we must now come to the worst! Well, if you follow this blog you will have found there are two groups who consistently annoy me because of their failure to accept facts, their lack of integrity, and well… their plain stupidity! The first group is global warming deniers but I can almost excuse them because the science is complex and involves statistical reasoning. The far worse group, which I can’t excuse under any circumstances, are the creationists!
Yes, the good old creationists continue to annoy me with their cherry picking, ignorance and pure blind stupidity. And their close friends the Intelligent Design crowd aren’t much better. In fact, in some ways they are worse because they pretend that their religious belief is based on science whereas at least most creationists just admit that theirs is based on faith.
So the low point of the year would be Ben Stein and his horrible propaganda piece, Expelled. I haven’t seen the movie because I’m not even sure if it was shown here, but I know a reasonable amount about it so I feel I can comment. Depending on who you listen to the movie could be seen as a success or a failure. It did make a reasonable amount of money considering its general genre, but circumstantial evidence indicated it was mainly viewed by people who were already converted to the cause. Most of the unbiased reviewers severely criticised it because they saw it for the mindless propaganda it really is.
I discussed the movie in a blog entry for 2008-04-21 titled “No Intelligence Allowed” and on 2008-04-04 in “Expelled”. Yes, I was so outraged by this movie I pilloried it twice!
So it has been a mixed year as far as skepticism and science is concerned but on balance I am feeling fairly positive about it.
This entry was posted on January 6, 2009 at 9:13 am and is filed under skepticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Best and Worst
By ojb42I have been thinking that I should do some sort of end of year wrap up to commemorate the end of 2008 so, even though its a bit late, here are my thoughts. I just listened to the end of year episode of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast and they listed their worst and best for the year from the perspective of skepticism and science, so I’m going to take a bit of a lead from that.
There were two science highlights for they year for me (these were shared with many members of the SGU). The big one was the Large Hadron Collider. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the LHC finished the year non-operational I would have put that number one undisputed by itself, but a certain amount of the kudos must be lost because of the fact that its not working! The other highlight was the Phoenix Mars Mission which was very successful – unlike many Mars missions form the past!
If you want further information on these topics, I have mentioned them before. I blogged about the LHC on 2008-09-13 in an entry titled “Extreme Engineering” and I listed some of the failed Mars missions on 2006-05-30 in “God of War”.
The LHC deserves to be the science highlight of the year because its just so big and impressive, but maybe even more important is the fact that it exists at all. Its a collaboration between many countries and it costs a huge amount but it is designed to answer some of the most academic, speculative and abstract questions imaginable. Its a real achievement that something so important to basic research but so far removed from any immediate mundane benefit has been built. I just hope it can be repaired and run reliably in 2009.
I also like the way the LHC was built across the boundary between France and Switzerland. This symbolises how a project of this magnitude rises above petty national politics and stands above such minor administrative details like national boundaries. Of course, I’m sure that the reality is that politics might have had a lot to do with that, and other aspects of the LHC’s construction.
So that’s the best and so we must now come to the worst! Well, if you follow this blog you will have found there are two groups who consistently annoy me because of their failure to accept facts, their lack of integrity, and well… their plain stupidity! The first group is global warming deniers but I can almost excuse them because the science is complex and involves statistical reasoning. The far worse group, which I can’t excuse under any circumstances, are the creationists!
Yes, the good old creationists continue to annoy me with their cherry picking, ignorance and pure blind stupidity. And their close friends the Intelligent Design crowd aren’t much better. In fact, in some ways they are worse because they pretend that their religious belief is based on science whereas at least most creationists just admit that theirs is based on faith.
So the low point of the year would be Ben Stein and his horrible propaganda piece, Expelled. I haven’t seen the movie because I’m not even sure if it was shown here, but I know a reasonable amount about it so I feel I can comment. Depending on who you listen to the movie could be seen as a success or a failure. It did make a reasonable amount of money considering its general genre, but circumstantial evidence indicated it was mainly viewed by people who were already converted to the cause. Most of the unbiased reviewers severely criticised it because they saw it for the mindless propaganda it really is.
I discussed the movie in a blog entry for 2008-04-21 titled “No Intelligence Allowed” and on 2008-04-04 in “Expelled”. Yes, I was so outraged by this movie I pilloried it twice!
So it has been a mixed year as far as skepticism and science is concerned but on balance I am feeling fairly positive about it.
Tags: commentary, comments, science, skepticism
This entry was posted on January 6, 2009 at 9:13 am and is filed under skepticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.