Science

Warming oceans may REDUCE hurricanes to the Atlantic.

This story was sent to me with the subject “Could someone PLEASE make up their minds???” True dat. I remember well after Hurricane Katrina that Mr. Gore and others very quickly began to blame the storm itself on global warming. Last year the UN climate change report stated that the warming of the oceans would increase the number and severity of hurricanes.

Oops.

Now researchers at NOAA are saying that the warming of the oceans will reduce the number of hurricanes that make landfall in the US.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed Atlantic storms from 1854 to 2006. They found that higher ocean temperatures increase the vertical wind shear of a system, or the rate at which wind speeds vary with altitude, NOAA said in a statement on its Web site. That, in turn, correlated with a decrease in the number of storms that strike land.

“We found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. land- falling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up,” Chunzai Wang, an oceanographer at the center, said in the statement. “This trend coincides with an increase in vertical wind shear over the tropical North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.”

The full (but short) story is here.

Personification of Plants and Animals

Jan 10th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

1 comment

I recently listened again to Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and A Walk in the Woods and I am now listening to Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. One thing I have intended to write about ages ago with regard to Bryson and now Pollan’s book brings it to mind again.

In discussing the development of plant and animal species both authors insist on personifying them and giving them motives. It is all a result of their explanations of evolutionary development. So, for the most recent example, (and remember, I am listening to the audio book so this is a paraphrase) Pollan says that it is really corn that has harnessed humans. For their own purposes of preservation and propagation the plant developed such that it was edible and nutritious for the one species that could best ensure its dissemination throughout the world.

Now I have no beef with evolutionary theory yada yada yada. But why is it that every evolutionary biologist I know talks this way and thus such journalists as Bryson and Pollan mimic them. Do they really think that the corn willfully adapted itself to be more appealing to us. I imagine it this way.

*grunt* *oof* *urrrgh* Says one corn plant.
“What’s wrong?” says the other. “You sound constipated.”
*ooof* “What’s that?”
“I don’t know, but you are making horrible noises.”
“Oh, that. I am just trying to make my niblets bigger so that the hairless apes will find me yummy enough to eat.”

I am sure this is not how they envision it, but why describe it this way then? I realize it is a handy way to create a word picture of what they believe took place, yet I think it really leaves a very wrong impression of what evolution says occurs.

Anyway, it is not a big deal, but it was on my mind. Now to finish the cat and put out the dishes.

More on Creation in School…sort of.

Nov 27th, 2007

by Christian Brady.

1 comment

When Night Falls at School, Should Darwin Go Home?

The return of an adult-education class in the Northport school district teaching creationism may provoke litigation.

(Via NYT > Education.)

University to Teach ‘Intelligent Design’ as Myth | LiveScience

Nov 27th, 2007

by Christian Brady.

4 comments

This should evoke a bit of conversation in the blogosphere, not to mention the rest of the media. (I think I will begin calling them the Medes and then perhaps the internet community could become the Persians. What do you think?)

University to Teach ‘Intelligent Design’ as Myth | LiveScience

By The Associated Press
posted: 22 November 2005 02:30 pm ET

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Creationism and intelligent design are going to be studied at the University of Kansas, but not in the way advocated by opponents of the theory of evolution.

A course being offered next semester by the university religious studies department is titled “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies.”

“The KU faculty has had enough,” said Paul Mirecki, department chairman.

“Creationism is mythology,” Mirecki said. “Intelligent design is mythology. It’s not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not.”

I find it interesting that the department head should have put this in such aggressive terms. Anybody have thoughts on that?

Why not?! NASA Rules Out Repair to Gouge in Shuttle

Aug 17th, 2007

by Christian Brady.

2 comments

NASA Rules Out Repair to Gouge in Shuttle

NASA managers decided last night not to send astronauts on a spacewalk to repair a gouge on the bottom of the space shuttle Endeavour.

My brother, dad (who worked for NASA), and I were discussing this last night. Why on earth (or in space) would one not go ahead and repair the gouge? No one seemed to be arguing that a space walk would cause more damage or be more dangerous than leaving the divot, so why not do it? This strikes me as particularly nearsighted. My (least) favorite quote?

“We don’t clear anything until we have the data to clear it,” John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, said last night at a news conference.

Great, so a computer simulation says it will be OK. Just a bit of melting, but otherwise things will be OK. It’s not like NASA has ever had computer simulations go wrong before…

Pray for astronauts as the begin their return next week.