First image from Phoenix

Here is one of the first images from Phoenix showing the Martian terrain and horizon.



Way cool! More images here

The Phoenix Has Landed

The Phoenix landed on Mars today. That is good news. Nasa's site lists four main goals for Phoenix:

--Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars

--Characterize the Climate of Mars

--Characterize the Geology of Mars

--Prepare for Human Exploration

Follow the mission here

Einstein on Religion: Weekly Quote

I know that I said I would post a weekly science quote on Friday, but I've been very busy with finals. I apologize for the delay, but I will post the quote now.

The following is a quote about religion by Einstein. Many people often misrepresent him as a religious man -- by that I mean as a man who believed in a personal God. Even if they acknowledge that Einstein did not believe in a personal God, they often misrepresent Einstein as seeing organized religion, such as the Abrahamic religions, as a good thing. I hope to dispel both of those myths here.

When Einstein says that he was a deeply religious man, or that "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" one must look deeper than the simple quote and read the quote in context to ascertain what he actually meant. This should help put such quotes in context:

Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.

The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.

The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.

We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.

It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees.On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.

After reading the quote by Einstein it should be clear that when Einstein says that "science without religion is lame" he means religion in the cosmic sense. Through reading his works, one can say that his "religious" experiences can be described as the deep sense of awe and wonder you get by contemplating the workings of the universe. In this sense, I am a "religious" person too. The only thing I object to in Einstein's quote is his casual use of the word "religious," as it merely equivocates things.

Root of 3

I saw Harold and Kumar last night, and near the end Kumar read a poem. I must say, that is the best poem I have ever read.

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

Ben Stein's Brand New Gem

This is what Ben Stein has to say now:

[T]he last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science -- in my opinion, this is just an opinion -- that’s where science leads you. ...Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

What do you say about a man who just keeps getting stupider and stupider?

6 Teen Cheerleaders Beat Up a Girl

This is a little off-topic for this blog, but this is an absolutely heinous video.



Here's what the Orlando Sentinel had to say about this:

The Polk County Sheriff's Office released videotape today of a brutal attack by six teenagers on a 16-year-old girl -- an attack that officials said the teens filmed just so they could post on the Internet.



Polk Sheriff Grady Judd called the tape and the attack, "Shocking -- I've never seen anything like it...this is outrageous behavior."

The beating took place on March 30 when the girl was lured to a Lakeland home. There, two of the attackers began yelling at the victim, and another girl began beating her and slamming her head into a wall.

The victim lost consciousness, but when she awoke, a total of six teenage girls began beating her and videotaping the attack -- all while laughing and encouraging each other, according to the sheriff's office. Meanwhile, two teen boys kept watch outside.

The victim suffered a concussion as well as damage to her left eye and left ear, and numerous bruises.

They range in age from 14 to 18 years old. They are:

Mercades Nichols, 16, of Lakeland.

Brittini Hardcastle, 17, of Lakeland.

April Cooper, 14, of Lakeland.

Cara Murphy, 16, of Lakeland.

Britney Mayes, 17, of Lakeland.

Kayla Hassell, 15, of Mulberry.

Zachary Ashley, 17, of Lakeland.

Stephen Schumaker, 18, of Lakeland.

All of the teenagers were charged with felony battery and false imprisonment. In addition, Mayes, Hardcastle, and Nichols also are charged with felony kidnapping, because officials say they forced the victim into a vehicle and drove her to another location after the attack.

Weekly Science Quote

I recently bought Richard Dawkins' The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writings. Apparently the book isn't officially published until May 28th, however it wasn't that hard to get my hands on. I just had to have Barnes and Nobles order it for me.

There are some amazing quotes from scientists in that book. So from hear on out, I will be sharing some of my favorite quotes by scientists on Fridays from the book, and from any source I may read.

An Update

I've been a bit quieter lately. Of course, finals are coming up. In between studying which qualitative tests can be used to distinguish between limonene and eugenol I've been running PCR in the lab. I'm working with selenoproteins, so I'll be working with a radioactive selenium isotope. For this I need to take a radiation safety course. Understandable, but that's a day gone. I also need to go to a seminar on difference gel electrophoresis. This is on the same day as my Linear Algebra test, so in between studying for what constitutes a proper n-dimensional vector space, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and writing linear transformations in matrix form I'll be learning about difference gel electrophoresis. That said, I love working in the lab.

Anyway, this is the reason I've been relatively quiet for the past week. I'm taking summer courses, but I should be updating a lot more frequently over then.