Monthly Archives: May 2010

Announcing my Next Point of Inquiry Guest: Elaine Ecklund | The Intersection

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For my next show, I'm going to be interviewing Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund about her new book, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think. After merely mentioning this book's existence drew over 180 comments on the blog recently, I get the feeling that really digesting Ecklund's findings will make for quite a show. It is worth noting that this will be the first time a Point of Inquiry show that I've done has gotten into the hotly contested subject of science and religion. My own views on this topic are widely known, have been widely aired and debated, and also sometimes criticized. See, e.g., my POI episode with D.J. Grothe about Unscientific America. In that show I was the guest; but now I'm in the host's shoes at Point of Inquiry, and my goals and responsibilities are very different. Rather than advancing a particular view, my objective will be to include a diversity of voices on science and religion--starting with Ecklund, but extending to include a range of perspectives as I do more shows in the future. That includes interviewing “New Atheists” like Vic Stenger and others. With that said, then, I'm encouraging folks to submit questions for Dr. Ecklund, either here ...


Owl be seeing you | Bad Astronomy

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[Please check the bottom of this post for a related issue...]

I know, it’s Caturday, but I’ve expanded the concept — it’s my blog, y’know — to include all animals that I want it to. So here’s a pair of cuties for you:

Click to enhootenate.

These owlets — actually, Great Horned Owlets — are nested in a hollow stump about 5 meters off the ground along a creek not too far from my house. My wife heard about them, and we told her brother Chris, and he ran down there to get this and some other great pictures of them.

Mama and Papa Owl are usually nearby, in another tree, keeping watch. I was down there last week to see, and also spotted a hawk, a muskrat… and this guy:

greatblueheron_fish

That’s a Great Blue Heron — a lot of birds around here are Great — and I saw it standing in a lake not far from the creek and the owl. As I watched, the heron suddenly stuck its head into the water and came up with that fish (anyone know what kind that is?). That’s a pretty good meal! I noticed another heron a bit farther away, and I wonder if they’re mates. A little while later I saw one of them flying around, and in the air they are simply amazing. Graceful and huge, and I stood there and gawked at it.

All in all, that was a nice day to be out walking. Boulder in the spring is lovely (even if it snowed the other day; it melted in an hour or two though), and I have to remember to take some time to walk away from this accursed computer/internet/web thingy and actually breathe in some real life. There’s a lot of life out there.

[Note: John Billingsley, the actor who played Dr. Phlox in "Enterprise", sent me a note (!!) that he and several other Star Trek actors (Armin Shimerman, Robert Picardo, and Ethan Phillips) will be celebrating the LA Audubon Society's 100th anniversary with an afternoon picnic and birdwatch on May 9th. The first 30 people to sign up to help will join them in this fun afternoon... it's $150 per person and proceeds go to the society. Call Martha at 1-888-522-7428 or send an email to books "at" laaudobon "dot"org for details.]


Bolden Gets Flak on Astronaut Benefit Plan

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NASA Chief Draws Fire for Rich Benefits Plan, WS Journal

"In last week's statement, NASA said Mr. Bolden was responding to recommendations first made several years ago by various NASA officials and reiterated recently by the agency's top medical officer. Currently, only about 70% of former astronauts are part of NASA's long-term health project. NASA says the legislation aims to increase that level of participation by offering former astronauts more incentives to provide data and giving the agency more opportunities to directly monitor health changes. "If enacted, the legislative proposal would apply to [Mr. Bolden] and his family," according to NASA. "The office of the general counsel has reviewed [the matter] and did not identify ethical or conflict-of-interest issues," NASA said."

Introduction to the New Moderators

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Moderating comes with a lot of responsibilities to oversee: threads, comments, flagged items, private questions, etc. I believe that they should be recognized for their commitment to CR4. Without further ado, I would like to introduce the new moderation team that has been handling your questions

"Boutique" Auto Makers

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In Massachusetts, a startup company is taking advantage of revolutionary changes in supply chain technology. Applying open source concepts from software to hardware, they are gearing up to manufacture "personalized" vehicles. Will "crowd sourcing" capture a share of the worldwide automobile market?

Who's the Next Car King?

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Just when Toyota was claiming to be the world's biggest automaker, it went into a major skid over quality. And after nearly going out of business, GM paid off its government loans well ahead of schedule. Ford, you say, is on the upswing and gaining market share, yet it lags behind companies like VW

Five reasons why Stephen Hawking and everyone else is wrong about alien threats

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Okay, I'm trying to take a much needed break from blogging, but as Popeye once said, "That's all I can stands and I can't stands no more!"

I felt that I had to say something about Stephen Hawking's recent injunctive against making contact with extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs). For those living in a cave, Hawking is arguing that humanity may be putting itself in mortal peril by actively trying to contact aliens (an approach that is referred to as Active SETI).
Hawking has said that, "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans." He's basically arguing that ETIs, once alerted to our presence, may swoop in and indiscriminately take what they need from us -- and possibly destroy us in the process; David Brin paraphrased Hawking's argument by saying, "All living creatures inherently use resources to the limits of their ability, inventing new aims, desires and ambitions to suit their next level of power. If they wanted to use our solar system, for some super project, our complaints would be like an ant colony protesting the laying of a parking lot." It's best to keep quiet, goes the thinking, lest we attract any undesirable alien elements.
A number of thinkers have since chimed in and offered their two cents, writers like Robin Hanson, Julian Savulescu, Paul Davies, David Brin and many others. But what amazes me is that everyone is getting it wrong.
Here's the deal, people:

1. If aliens wanted to find us they would have done so already

First, the Fermi Paradox reminds us that the Galaxy could have been colonized many times over by now. We're late for the show.

Second, let's stop for a moment and think about the nature of a civilization that has the capacity for interstellar travel. We're talking about a civ that has (1) survived a technological Singularity event, (2) is in the possession of molecular assembling nanotechnology and radically advanced artificial intelligence, and (3) has made the transition from biological to digital substrate (space-faring civs will not be biological -- and spare me your antiquated Ring World scenarios).

Now that I've painted this picture for you, and under the assumption that ETIs are proactively searching for potentially dangerous or exploitable civilizations, what could possibly prevent them from finding us? Assuming this is important to them, their communications and telescopic technologies would likely be off the scale. Bracewell probes would likely pepper the Galaxy. And Hubble bubble limitations aside, they could use various spectroscopic and other techniques to identify not just life bearing planets, but civilization bearing planets (i.e. looking for specific post-industrial chemical compounds in the atmosphere, such as elevated levels of carbon dioxide).

Moreover, whether we like it or not, we have been 'shouting out to the cosmos' for quite some time now. Ever since the first radio signal beamed its way out into space we have made our presence known to anyone caring to listen to us within a radius of about 80 light years.

The cat's out of the bag, folks.

2. If ETIs wanted to destroy us they would have done so by now

I've already written about this and I suggest you read my article, "If aliens wanted to they would have destroyed us by now."

But I'll give you one example. Keeping the extreme age of the Galaxy in mind, and knowing that every single solar system in the Galaxy could have been seeded many times over by now with various types of self-replicating probes, it's not unreasonable to suggest that a civilization hell-bent on looking out for threats could have planted a dormant berserker probe in our solar system. Such a probe would be waiting to be activated by a radio signal, an indication that a potentially dangerous pre-Singularity intelligence now resides in the 'hood.

In other words, we should have been destroyed the moment our first radio signal made its way through the solar system.

But because we're still here, and because we're on the verge of graduating to post-Singularity status, it's highly unlikely that we'll be destroyed by an ETI. Either that or they're waiting to see what kind of post-Singularity type emerges from human civilization. They may still choose to snuff us out the moment they're not satisfied with whatever it is they see.

Regardless, our communication efforts, whether active or passive, will have no bearing on the outcome.

3. If aliens wanted our solar system's resources, they would haven taken them by now

Again, given that we're talking about a space-faring post-Singularity intelligence, it's ridiculous to suggest that we have anything of material value for a civilization of this type. They only thing I can think of is the entire planet itself which they could convert into computronium (e.g.Jupiter brain) -- but even that's a stretch; we're just a speck of dust.

If anything, they may want to tap into our sun's energy output (e.g. they could build a Dyson Sphere or Matrioshka brain) or convert our gas giants into massive supercomputers.
It's important to keep in mind that the only resource a post-Singularity machine intelligence could possibly want is one that furthers their ability to perform megascale levels of computation.
And it's worth noting that, once again, our efforts to make contact will have no influence on this scenario. If they want our stuff they'll just take it.

4. Human civilization has absolutely nothing to offer a post-Singularity intelligence

But what if it's not our resources they want. Perhaps we have something of a technological or cultural nature that's appealing.

Well, what could that possibly be? Hmm, think, think think....

What would a civilization that can crunch 10^42 operations per second want from us wily and resourceful humans....

Hmm, I'm thinking it's iPads? Ya, iPads. That must be it. Or possibly yoghurt.

5. Extrapolating biological tendencies to a post-Singularity intelligence is asinine

There's another argument out there which suggests we can't know the behavior or motivational tendencies of ETI's, therefore we need to trudge very carefully. Fair enough. But where this argument goes too far is in the suggestion that advanced civs act in accordance to their biological ancestry.

For examples, humans may actually be nice relative to other civs who, instead of evolving from benign apes, evolved from nasty insects or predatory lizards.

I'm astounded by this argument. Developmental trends in human history have not been driven by atavistic psychological tendencies, but rather by such things as technological advancements, resource scarcity, economics, politics and many other factors. Yes, human psychology has undeniably played a role in our transition from jungle-dweller to civilizational species (traits like inquisitiveness and empathy), but those are low-level factors that ultimately take a back seat to the emergent realities of technological, demographic, economic and politico-societal development.

Moreover, advanced civilizations likely converge around specific survivalist fitness peaks that result in the homogenization of intelligence; there won't be a lot of wiggle room in the space of all possible survivable post-Singularity modes. In other words, an insectoid post-Singularity SAI or singleton will almost certainly be identical to one derived from ape lineage.

Therefore, attempts to extrapolate 'human nature' or 'ETI nature' to the mind of its respective post-Singularity descendant is equally problematic. The psychology or goal structure of an SAI will be of a profoundly different quality than that of a biological mind that evolved through the processes of natural selection. While we may wish to impose certain values and tendencies onto an SAI, there's no guarantee that a 'mind' of that capacity will retain even a semblance of it's biological nature.

So there you have it.

Transmit messages into the cosmos. Or don't. It doesn't really matter because in all likelihoodno one's listening and no one really cares. And if I'm wrong it still doesn't matter; ETIs will find us and treat us according to their will.

More on the Fermi Paradox.

Beyond Petroleum Spill Beyond Disastrous

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The Gulf Oil spill is now of epic proportions.  If you want to blame it on anyone besides BP, blame it on the Republican dislike of energy regulations, especially of the last administration.  Dick Cheney and the Bush administration had a hand in incredible disaster.  “. . . . yet another classic example of Bush/Cheney Era deregulation wreaking havoc on the planet.”    Via Daily Kos:

Mike Papantonio, an environmental lawyer on the Ed Show just now: An ‘acoustic switch’ would have prevented this catastrophe – it’s a failsafe that shuts the flow of oil off at the source – they cost only about half a million dollars each, and are required in off-shore drilling platforms in most of the world…except for the United States. This was one of the new deregulations devised by Dick Cheney during his secret meetings with the oil industry at the beginning of Bush’s first term.

Here is the link to the clip from the Ed Show: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36879861#36879861

This reinforces the post below about the lack of backup safety measures on oil rigs. This lack of an acoustic switch was not an accidental oversight; it was left off oil rigs operating in and near the U.S. quite deliberately.

How bad is this oil spill?  The oil is now washing up on shore and the slick itself has tripled in size, as seen from space.  BP is already being accused of downplaying the severity of the disaster.  Watch 10 minutes of CNN today and you will see worry and anger on the faces of people in the Gulf Coast region, including the worry and anger on the face of Republican Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana.   (pictured on the right).  Jindal said this isn’t just a threat to the environment of the region, but a “threat to our way of life.”   That’s a little more serious than people like Sarah Palin can comprehend.

More on the growing oil spill, including recent photos, can be found here.

Climate Progress is calling this “Oilpocalypse”, and I don’t disagree with that title at all.

It will be the biggest energy and environmental news story for the foreseeable future.  Eleven people are already dead and if yesterday’s Wall Street Journal story, “Experts: Oil May Be Leaking at Rate of 25,000 Barrels a Day in Gulf” (subs. req’d, excerpted below) is accurate, then the scope of the environmental disaster is far beyond anything we’ve imagined.

I don’t think anyone alive today has witnessed fossil fuel-caused destruction like this before, unless you count how the burning of it is also destroying our climate and lessening the ability of all conscious life on earth — not just us — to survive in the future.

We really do need to move Beyond Petroleum, starting now.  As BP’s shares continue to dive on the stock markets, it’s time for the U.S. to seriously invest in renewable energy for the future.  Enough of this fossil fuel use.  We are smarter than [...]