E=mc2? Not on Conservapedia
Religious believers have quite the love/hate relationship with Albert Einstein. You'll often hear them quoting the physicist's comments about God not playing dice with the universe to support their own views – despite the fact that Einstein himself said, "I do not believe in a personal God." One young-Earth creationist site even uses an Einstein quote in a diatribe against evolution. Now the pendulum is swinging over to hate as Einstein goes the way of Darwin, becoming an unlikely Christian enemy.
It seems that the folks at Conservapedia – a sort of conservative alternative to the more familar online encyclopedia Wikipedia – are not fans of Einstein's most famous theory, general relativity. In fact, they view it as a far-reaching liberal conspiracy.
The website TPMMuckraker recently drew attention to a page on the site titled "Counterexamples to relativity". It says: "The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world."
In a footnote, this comment is followed up by: "Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold."
Does relativity really steer people away from God? Or maybe – and this is just a theory, to use their favourite phrase – the same kinds of people who study general relativity are simply less likely to consult the Bible for answers to the questions of the universe.
Action at a distance
The Conservapedia page then lists 30 counterexamples to general relativity, any of which, it claims, "shows that the theory is incorrect". Many of these are bizarre, such as "the action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54." Apparently, Jesus's ability to instantaneously heal a child from a distance – his healing powers travelled through space faster than the speed of light – was evidence enough to rule out Einstein's theory. Of course, Jesus wasn't the only one to appear to violate Einstein's cosmic speed limit. So-called entangled quantum particles do it in labs all the time. (Church of the Entanglement, anyone?)
Scanning further pages on Conservapedia, it seems that the religious right's beef with Einstein runs deep. Just as evolution dissenters say they are being deprived of their "academic freedom", relativity deniers claim they are now in the same boat. "Despite censorship of dissent about relativity, evidence contrary to the theory is discussed outside of liberal universities," reads the website's main article on relativity.
In reality, general relativity has passed every experimental test to which it's been put – but Conservapedia isn't satisfied. They refer to a 1919 solar eclipse expedition that bore out the theory's prediction that starlight would be bent by the sun's gravity as "a dramatic but later discredited claim by Sir Arthur Eddington of experimental proof of general relativity". It's true that Eddington's results had large uncertainties, but the experiment has been tested and retested and the data holds up every time.
It seems that the folks at Conservapedia – a sort of conservative alternative to the more familar online encyclopedia Wikipedia – are not fans of Einstein's most famous theory, general relativity. In fact, they view it as a far-reaching liberal conspiracy.
The website TPMMuckraker recently drew attention to a page on the site titled "Counterexamples to relativity". It says: "The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world."
In a footnote, this comment is followed up by: "Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold."
Does relativity really steer people away from God? Or maybe – and this is just a theory, to use their favourite phrase – the same kinds of people who study general relativity are simply less likely to consult the Bible for answers to the questions of the universe.
Action at a distance
The Conservapedia page then lists 30 counterexamples to general relativity, any of which, it claims, "shows that the theory is incorrect". Many of these are bizarre, such as "the action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54." Apparently, Jesus's ability to instantaneously heal a child from a distance – his healing powers travelled through space faster than the speed of light – was evidence enough to rule out Einstein's theory. Of course, Jesus wasn't the only one to appear to violate Einstein's cosmic speed limit. So-called entangled quantum particles do it in labs all the time. (Church of the Entanglement, anyone?)
Scanning further pages on Conservapedia, it seems that the religious right's beef with Einstein runs deep. Just as evolution dissenters say they are being deprived of their "academic freedom", relativity deniers claim they are now in the same boat. "Despite censorship of dissent about relativity, evidence contrary to the theory is discussed outside of liberal universities," reads the website's main article on relativity.
In reality, general relativity has passed every experimental test to which it's been put – but Conservapedia isn't satisfied. They refer to a 1919 solar eclipse expedition that bore out the theory's prediction that starlight would be bent by the sun's gravity as "a dramatic but later discredited claim by Sir Arthur Eddington of experimental proof of general relativity". It's true that Eddington's results had large uncertainties, but the experiment has been tested and retested and the data holds up every time.
Enter Obama
Read further and you will find this astonishing piece of information, clearly the smoking gun of the Einsteinian liberal conspiracy: "Barack Obama helped publish an article by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe to apply the relativistic concept of 'curvature of space' to promote a broad legal right to abortion".
Wait. What? The article in question is "The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What lawyers can learn from modern physics" (pdf) by Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School. Published in 1989 in the Harvard Law Review, the paper includes a "thank you" to Barack Obama in the acknowledgments, an unsurprising fact given that Obama was the journal's editor at the time.
In the article, Tribe uses metaphors of space-time curvature in the context of constitutional law, including an analysis of Roe v. Wade. "I do not address the subject because I am determined to bring science or mathematics into law," he writes. "Rather, my conjecture is that the metaphors and intuitions that guide physicists can enrich our comprehension of social and legal issues."
General relativity proposes that space-time is not an inert stage upon which the world plays out but rather a dynamic medium that is warped and curved by the presence of matter and in turn affects matter's motion. Tribe argues that constitutional law is likewise not only the backdrop against which the nation's affairs play out but a dynamic force that shapes those very affairs. In summary, Tribe writes, "The question is whether the state's combination of acts and omissions, rules, funding decisions and the like, so shaped the legal landscape in which women decide matters bearing on their reproductive lives as to violate the constitution's postulates of liberty and equality."
Wait. What? The article in question is "The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What lawyers can learn from modern physics" (pdf) by Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School. Published in 1989 in the Harvard Law Review, the paper includes a "thank you" to Barack Obama in the acknowledgments, an unsurprising fact given that Obama was the journal's editor at the time.
In the article, Tribe uses metaphors of space-time curvature in the context of constitutional law, including an analysis of Roe v. Wade. "I do not address the subject because I am determined to bring science or mathematics into law," he writes. "Rather, my conjecture is that the metaphors and intuitions that guide physicists can enrich our comprehension of social and legal issues."
General relativity proposes that space-time is not an inert stage upon which the world plays out but rather a dynamic medium that is warped and curved by the presence of matter and in turn affects matter's motion. Tribe argues that constitutional law is likewise not only the backdrop against which the nation's affairs play out but a dynamic force that shapes those very affairs. In summary, Tribe writes, "The question is whether the state's combination of acts and omissions, rules, funding decisions and the like, so shaped the legal landscape in which women decide matters bearing on their reproductive lives as to violate the constitution's postulates of liberty and equality."
The next best thing to oil
A renewable carbon economy? Surely that's a pipe dream? Perhaps not, now that solar power facilities are cropping up in deserts across California, Spain and North Africa. The idea is to use the sun to power chemical plants able to split carbon dioxide. Combine the resulting carbon monoxide with hydrogen and you have the beginnings of a solar fuel that could one day replace oil.
Since 2008, a European consortium led by Athanasios Konstandopoulos at the Centre of Research and Technology in Hellas, Greece, has been operating a 100-kilowatt pilot plant that generates hydrogen from a combination of sunlight and steam. The plant is sited at a concentrating solar power tower – the Plataforma Solar de Almeria, near Seville in Spain – which houses a series of mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays onto solar panels beneath.
The same technology can also be used to split CO2 – the resulting CO can be combined with the hydrogen to form hydrocarbon fuel, they say.
The pilot plant contains a ceramic reactor riddled with a honeycomb network of channels coated in a mixed iron and cerium oxide. Concentrated solar energy heats the reactor to around 1200 °C, releasing oxygen gas, which is pumped away. The reactor is then cooled to around 800 °C before steam is fed through the honeycomb – the depleted material steals back oxygen and in the process converts the steam into hydrogen gas.
Since 2008, a European consortium led by Athanasios Konstandopoulos at the Centre of Research and Technology in Hellas, Greece, has been operating a 100-kilowatt pilot plant that generates hydrogen from a combination of sunlight and steam. The plant is sited at a concentrating solar power tower – the Plataforma Solar de Almeria, near Seville in Spain – which houses a series of mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays onto solar panels beneath.
The same technology can also be used to split CO2 – the resulting CO can be combined with the hydrogen to form hydrocarbon fuel, they say.
The pilot plant contains a ceramic reactor riddled with a honeycomb network of channels coated in a mixed iron and cerium oxide. Concentrated solar energy heats the reactor to around 1200 °C, releasing oxygen gas, which is pumped away. The reactor is then cooled to around 800 °C before steam is fed through the honeycomb – the depleted material steals back oxygen and in the process converts the steam into hydrogen gas.
Pilot plant
The team has run the pilot plant in several week-long bursts since its launch as part of the European Commission-funded Hydrosol II project. They claim that it is possible to convert up to 30 per cent of the steam into hydrogen.
Now, Konstandopoulos and colleagues have successfully used the same reactor technology and process to split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide in the lab. Two reactors running simultaneously could generate hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which could be combined into synthetic fuel using one of two established chemical processes, says Konstandopoulos.
In the Sabatier process the two gases are heated at high pressure in the presence of a nickel catalyst to produce methane or methanol, while in the Fischer-Tropsch process an iron-based catalyst is used to generate liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
The process would help to make better use of the CO2 captured from power plants, which otherwise might simply be buried underground. Konstandopoulos says it could also solve the problem of storing and transporting hydrogen once it is produced – a problem that could prevent the development of a hydrogen economy.
Now, Konstandopoulos and colleagues have successfully used the same reactor technology and process to split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide in the lab. Two reactors running simultaneously could generate hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which could be combined into synthetic fuel using one of two established chemical processes, says Konstandopoulos.
In the Sabatier process the two gases are heated at high pressure in the presence of a nickel catalyst to produce methane or methanol, while in the Fischer-Tropsch process an iron-based catalyst is used to generate liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
The process would help to make better use of the CO2 captured from power plants, which otherwise might simply be buried underground. Konstandopoulos says it could also solve the problem of storing and transporting hydrogen once it is produced – a problem that could prevent the development of a hydrogen economy.
Nature's choice
"Hydrocarbons are the best energy carriers that we have available – nature has already proven that," he says. "We just have to find a way not to use them as our primary energy source."
Generating hydrocarbons this way would also mean few changes are needed to cars and existing fuel infrastructure, he says.
Other teams are investigating different reactor designs for producing solar fuel, including rotating rings of cerium oxide. A team led by Aldo Steinfeld at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, has built a 10-kilowatt plant in which steam and carbon dioxide are reacted with zinc oxide to produce synthetic gas in one step. They plan to test a 100-kilowatt version next year.
Konstandopoulos and colleagues are now working to scale up their technology and build a 1 megawatt hydrogen-producing plant, in a project known as Hydrosol 3D.
Generating hydrocarbons this way would also mean few changes are needed to cars and existing fuel infrastructure, he says.
Other teams are investigating different reactor designs for producing solar fuel, including rotating rings of cerium oxide. A team led by Aldo Steinfeld at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, has built a 10-kilowatt plant in which steam and carbon dioxide are reacted with zinc oxide to produce synthetic gas in one step. They plan to test a 100-kilowatt version next year.
Konstandopoulos and colleagues are now working to scale up their technology and build a 1 megawatt hydrogen-producing plant, in a project known as Hydrosol 3D.
Fallible DNA evidence can mean prison or freedom
YOU are the juror: would you trust DNA evidence? Most people regard it as near infallible- it produces the right result or no result, exonerating the innocent and securing convictions where other evidence fails.
But DNA is not as objective as you might think. In the first of a two-part investigation, New Scientist reveals that much of the DNA analysis now conducted in crime labs can suffer from worrying subjectivity and bias. We asked forensic analysts to interpret a sample of real DNA evidence and found that they reached opposing conclusions about whether the suspect matched it or not. Our subsequent survey of labs around the world also shows that there are significant inconsistencies in the guidelines on how to interpret a sample. The findings suggest that the difference between prison and freedom could often rest on the opinions of a single individual.
But DNA is not as objective as you might think. In the first of a two-part investigation, New Scientist reveals that much of the DNA analysis now conducted in crime labs can suffer from worrying subjectivity and bias. We asked forensic analysts to interpret a sample of real DNA evidence and found that they reached opposing conclusions about whether the suspect matched it or not. Our subsequent survey of labs around the world also shows that there are significant inconsistencies in the guidelines on how to interpret a sample. The findings suggest that the difference between prison and freedom could often rest on the opinions of a single individual.
Mind-reading marketers have ways of making you buy
Why ask people what they think of a product when you can just scan their brains instead? New Scientist explores the brave new world of neuromarketing
TAKE A look at the cover of this week's New Scientist magazine (right). Notice anything unusual? Thought not, but behind the scenes your brain is working overtime, focusing your attention on the words and images and cranking up your emotions and memory. How do we know? Because we tested it with a brain scanner.
In what we suspect is a world first, this week's cover was created with the help of a technique called neuromarketing, a marriage of market research and neuroscience that uses brain-imaging technology to peek into people's heads and discover what they really want. You may find that sinister. What right does anyone have to try to read your mind? Or perhaps you are sceptical and consider the idea laughable. But neuromarketing, once dismissed as a fad, is becoming part and parcel of modern consumer society. So we decided to take a good look at it - and try it out ourselves.
That is how several New Scientist readers ended up in a darkened room in London, wired up to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine and being shown various magazine cover designs. Our aim - with the help of the European arm of neuromarketing company NeuroFocus, based in Berkeley, California - was to observe their reactions on a level that would not normally be possible. "I've been involved in market research for about 25 years," says Thom Noble, managing director of NeuroFocus Europe. "Every few years a new methodology comes out. Frankly, they're incrementally different. This is transformationally different."
Market research has traditionally relied on methods such as questionnaires and focus groups to gauge how consumers will respond to new products. These tools have their strengths, but they share one fatal weakness: they depend on asking people what they think. "What people say and what they think is not always the same," Noble says. "Conventional research really struggles with this."
It's not just that people are inclined to say what they think others want to hear, and to give answers that they think reflect favourably upon themselves. According to Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, the problem is that much of the decision-making process happens at a subconscious level, and experiments reveal that people are generally not very good at explaining the thinking behind their choices. "Sometimes they simply don't know why they chose things," he says. "They concoct explanations after the fact, or make up explanations that are socially acceptable. I do think there's loads of information contained in the brain that simply doesn't make it out."
The great hope of neuromarketing is to extract this hidden information directly from people's brains. "We're not asking questions at all - we're recording responses at a deep subconscious level," Noble says.
The approach used by Noble and other neuromarketers originated in university labs where, for over a decade, neuroeconomists have been trying to figure out what is going on inside our heads when we make economic decisions. Using brain-imaging techniques such as fMRI - which records brain activity via changes in blood flow - they have made all kinds of surprising discoveries.
TAKE A look at the cover of this week's New Scientist magazine (right). Notice anything unusual? Thought not, but behind the scenes your brain is working overtime, focusing your attention on the words and images and cranking up your emotions and memory. How do we know? Because we tested it with a brain scanner.
In what we suspect is a world first, this week's cover was created with the help of a technique called neuromarketing, a marriage of market research and neuroscience that uses brain-imaging technology to peek into people's heads and discover what they really want. You may find that sinister. What right does anyone have to try to read your mind? Or perhaps you are sceptical and consider the idea laughable. But neuromarketing, once dismissed as a fad, is becoming part and parcel of modern consumer society. So we decided to take a good look at it - and try it out ourselves.
That is how several New Scientist readers ended up in a darkened room in London, wired up to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine and being shown various magazine cover designs. Our aim - with the help of the European arm of neuromarketing company NeuroFocus, based in Berkeley, California - was to observe their reactions on a level that would not normally be possible. "I've been involved in market research for about 25 years," says Thom Noble, managing director of NeuroFocus Europe. "Every few years a new methodology comes out. Frankly, they're incrementally different. This is transformationally different."
Market research has traditionally relied on methods such as questionnaires and focus groups to gauge how consumers will respond to new products. These tools have their strengths, but they share one fatal weakness: they depend on asking people what they think. "What people say and what they think is not always the same," Noble says. "Conventional research really struggles with this."
It's not just that people are inclined to say what they think others want to hear, and to give answers that they think reflect favourably upon themselves. According to Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, the problem is that much of the decision-making process happens at a subconscious level, and experiments reveal that people are generally not very good at explaining the thinking behind their choices. "Sometimes they simply don't know why they chose things," he says. "They concoct explanations after the fact, or make up explanations that are socially acceptable. I do think there's loads of information contained in the brain that simply doesn't make it out."
The great hope of neuromarketing is to extract this hidden information directly from people's brains. "We're not asking questions at all - we're recording responses at a deep subconscious level," Noble says.
The approach used by Noble and other neuromarketers originated in university labs where, for over a decade, neuroeconomists have been trying to figure out what is going on inside our heads when we make economic decisions. Using brain-imaging techniques such as fMRI - which records brain activity via changes in blood flow - they have made all kinds of surprising discoveries.
Feel the love
One of the most important is that our decisions are much less rational than traditional economics suggests. "We find that emotions are really important," says Mirja Hubert, a consumer researcher at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany. "Even rational decisions are not possible without emotion." Emotions are also key to the elusive concept of "brand loyalty" - the often irrational preference for one version of a product over essentially identical competitors.
In a famous study published in 2004, Read Montague from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, got loyal Coke drinkers to take the "Pepsi challenge" inside an fMRI machine. When they didn't know which drink they had been given, Pepsi triggered the most activity in the areas of the cortex responsible for rational thought and people said they preferred it. But when Montague told them in advance which cola was which, Coke provoked stronger activity in the emotion-related limbic system, and their stated preference switched (Neuron, vol 44, p 379). By triggering positive emotions, successful brands can override our rational choices.
Further research indicates that we build long-term emotional bonds with brands. These are established and maintained by messages that constantly associate the brand with positive emotions. Think of all those feel-good ads for cellphones, drinks, airlines and any number of other products. They are not trying to sell you a phone, a soda or a flight but to woo you into a long-term relationship.
In a famous study published in 2004, Read Montague from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, got loyal Coke drinkers to take the "Pepsi challenge" inside an fMRI machine. When they didn't know which drink they had been given, Pepsi triggered the most activity in the areas of the cortex responsible for rational thought and people said they preferred it. But when Montague told them in advance which cola was which, Coke provoked stronger activity in the emotion-related limbic system, and their stated preference switched (Neuron, vol 44, p 379). By triggering positive emotions, successful brands can override our rational choices.
Further research indicates that we build long-term emotional bonds with brands. These are established and maintained by messages that constantly associate the brand with positive emotions. Think of all those feel-good ads for cellphones, drinks, airlines and any number of other products. They are not trying to sell you a phone, a soda or a flight but to woo you into a long-term relationship.
Briefing: Anyone for a cloned steak and milkshake?
he UK's Food Standards Agency says the recently revealed sale of beef and possibly milk from the offspring of cloned cattle is unlawful. So what is all the fuss about?
What is a clone?
Clones are exact genetic copies of organisms. They occur naturally when bacteria, plants and insects reproduce asexually, and when mammalian embryos split and go on to develop into identical twins. Growing a plant from a cutting is also a form of cloning.
Why clone animals?
Cloning by a method known as "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNF) has become a fundamental research tool with numerous applications, including in human medicine.
Conservationists have used cloning to help protect endangered species such as the mouflon sheep.
Farmers might clone elite cattle, sheep or pigs that can be used for breeding to create animals with higher milk yields, leaner meat or higher resistance to disease. In May, a Spanish breeder produced the first cloned bull created for bullfighting.
Why is it suddenly front-page news in the UK?
The New York Times reported last week that an unnamed British diary farmer had claimed to be selling milk from a cow bred from a clone. The UK's Food Standards Agency says beef from the offspring of a cloned cow entered the food chain last year. The FSA says this is illegal because "novel foods" must have special authorisation before being sold. European Commission officials believe the FSA's interpretation of current laws is mistaken. The European Parliament voted for a ban on food from clones and their descendants last month, but this has yet to become law.
Are there any health dangers associated with eating food derived from cloned animals or their descendants?
There is no evidence of any health dangers. In 2008, following a five-year investigation, the US Food and Drug Administration declared meat and milk from cloned cows and their offspring to be indistinguishable from that from traditionally reared livestock.
When animals are cloned, epigenetic changes can occur. These are not the same as permanent genetic mutations but can lead to changes in the number or type of genes expressed in the cloned animal. If the clone reaches maturity and reproduces naturally, epigenetic changes will often be reset, returning the sperm and egg nuclei to a state in which they can differentiate into all types of tissue. So even if a cloned cow's meat or milk has some as yet unidentified harmful characteristic, this should be less likely to be present in produce from any of its descendants.
What about the welfare of cloned animals?
Cloned animals are more likely to die during pregnancy and after birth than those that are bred naturally.
Abnormalities include breathing, kidney and brain problems. Offspring can also be unusually large and heavy. This is thought to be linked to damage caused in the handling of embryos. Defect levels vary according to species and procedures, and appear less common in cloned cattle than in other cloned animals such as sheep.
However, recent advances in cloning techniques mean rates of abnormalities are now significantly lower than they were when Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was created in 1996 by Ian Wilmut and his team in the UK.
What is a clone?
Clones are exact genetic copies of organisms. They occur naturally when bacteria, plants and insects reproduce asexually, and when mammalian embryos split and go on to develop into identical twins. Growing a plant from a cutting is also a form of cloning.
Why clone animals?
Cloning by a method known as "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNF) has become a fundamental research tool with numerous applications, including in human medicine.
Conservationists have used cloning to help protect endangered species such as the mouflon sheep.
Farmers might clone elite cattle, sheep or pigs that can be used for breeding to create animals with higher milk yields, leaner meat or higher resistance to disease. In May, a Spanish breeder produced the first cloned bull created for bullfighting.
Why is it suddenly front-page news in the UK?
The New York Times reported last week that an unnamed British diary farmer had claimed to be selling milk from a cow bred from a clone. The UK's Food Standards Agency says beef from the offspring of a cloned cow entered the food chain last year. The FSA says this is illegal because "novel foods" must have special authorisation before being sold. European Commission officials believe the FSA's interpretation of current laws is mistaken. The European Parliament voted for a ban on food from clones and their descendants last month, but this has yet to become law.
Are there any health dangers associated with eating food derived from cloned animals or their descendants?
There is no evidence of any health dangers. In 2008, following a five-year investigation, the US Food and Drug Administration declared meat and milk from cloned cows and their offspring to be indistinguishable from that from traditionally reared livestock.
When animals are cloned, epigenetic changes can occur. These are not the same as permanent genetic mutations but can lead to changes in the number or type of genes expressed in the cloned animal. If the clone reaches maturity and reproduces naturally, epigenetic changes will often be reset, returning the sperm and egg nuclei to a state in which they can differentiate into all types of tissue. So even if a cloned cow's meat or milk has some as yet unidentified harmful characteristic, this should be less likely to be present in produce from any of its descendants.
What about the welfare of cloned animals?
Cloned animals are more likely to die during pregnancy and after birth than those that are bred naturally.
Abnormalities include breathing, kidney and brain problems. Offspring can also be unusually large and heavy. This is thought to be linked to damage caused in the handling of embryos. Defect levels vary according to species and procedures, and appear less common in cloned cattle than in other cloned animals such as sheep.
However, recent advances in cloning techniques mean rates of abnormalities are now significantly lower than they were when Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was created in 1996 by Ian Wilmut and his team in the UK.
