A friend of mine asked me what I thought of a particular author's argument against genetically engineered foods, in particular GM corn expressing high levels of bacillus thuringiensis toxin to target particular pests. Here's my response (some points may not make sense without reading the original, but you'll get the picture):
Unfortunately, my motto these days is trust nobody. I don't automatically trust any company. There are plenty of people in companies (including most of their scientists) who are honorable and do their best to make a useful safe product. There are also obviously completely amoral people in companies who don't care about anything whatsoever except money. I also don't trust anti-corporate luddites because they typically indulge in shoddy thinking (as indeed you note multiple instances in this guy's rant against BT). On the other hand, I don't like the idea of eating corn containing large amounts of any bacterial protein as a result of overexpression in the corn cells themselves. I also don't like the idea of eating corn sprayed with neurotoxins, or corn covered in fungus containing neurotoxin because it was not sprayed or engineered. As long as we grow food on huge farms, some kind of technology will be used to keep pests off, and it's all at least somewhat dangerous. The alternative is to watch a big chunk of the world starve to death. As long as human beings are trapped in their genetically evolved "Have to make exponentially more copies of myself" mindset, these things are inevitable.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
2012 not
Wow, I really did not blog at all in 2009, what's wrong with me? Anyway, having just seen 2012 I am inspired to point out a few of the more obvious scientific either blunders or at least tremendous unlikelihoods. First and foremost, I can't imagine any way that alignments of the planets would have an effect on the sun's activity. The planets have negligible mass compared to the sun's, so I don't think general relativity would predict any variation in solar output based on position of planets. Secondarily, I'm not aware of any obvious alignments in the planets coming up any time soon. This is more speculative, but I'm not sure whether the mayans actually knew of the planets, in the sense of recognizing that they move differently than other "lights in the sky" and predicting their patterns mathematically moreover.
The exact nature of the solar event is not specified in the movie (lucky for them! I can't pick it apart) but the claim is that it generated a lot of neutrinos. The sun already generates a lot of neutrinos, almost all of which go right through the earth, us, and all regular matter without effect. One thing that does generate bursts of neutrinos is supernova explosions - neutrino detectors place around the earth all saw the burst that preceded the visible appearance of supernova 1987a in a nearby galaxy. By the by, this was a wonderful validation of solar physics theory. I think we would have noticed if the sun had gone supernova. But in the movie these were not ordinary neutrinos, they "mutated" into some other kind of particle that could heat up the earth's core. Well, anything is possible, but I would expect something that could heat the earth's core to fry pretty much everything on the surface first. The core is mostly iron and nickel we think, so maybe these mutated particles just heat up metals. But we have a fair amount of iron in our bodies (all those red blood cells and hemoglobin, for example, plus lots of muscle myoglobin) so we should have heated up too.
Some new kind of solar wind that could do that to the earth's entire core would certainly have fried all communications systems. But tv and cell phones were working in the movie all the way through, as were cars, planes and other metallic engines and motors using electromagnetic induction fields.
More realistically, solar physicist expect the sun to expand into a red giant in a couple (5-10) of billion years. That is a real problem, the sun will grow probably to larger than the earth's orbit, and the earth (plus venus and mercury) will either melt or vaporize. We'll have to do something by then - leave the earth, move the earth, or learn how to control the sun. None is even remotely in our reach today, but a billion years is a long time. The average survival of any species on earth has been about a million years, and we humans aren't even halfway there yet. I myself doubt we'll make it that long, but maybe we will smarten up sometime.
The exact nature of the solar event is not specified in the movie (lucky for them! I can't pick it apart) but the claim is that it generated a lot of neutrinos. The sun already generates a lot of neutrinos, almost all of which go right through the earth, us, and all regular matter without effect. One thing that does generate bursts of neutrinos is supernova explosions - neutrino detectors place around the earth all saw the burst that preceded the visible appearance of supernova 1987a in a nearby galaxy. By the by, this was a wonderful validation of solar physics theory. I think we would have noticed if the sun had gone supernova. But in the movie these were not ordinary neutrinos, they "mutated" into some other kind of particle that could heat up the earth's core. Well, anything is possible, but I would expect something that could heat the earth's core to fry pretty much everything on the surface first. The core is mostly iron and nickel we think, so maybe these mutated particles just heat up metals. But we have a fair amount of iron in our bodies (all those red blood cells and hemoglobin, for example, plus lots of muscle myoglobin) so we should have heated up too.
Some new kind of solar wind that could do that to the earth's entire core would certainly have fried all communications systems. But tv and cell phones were working in the movie all the way through, as were cars, planes and other metallic engines and motors using electromagnetic induction fields.
More realistically, solar physicist expect the sun to expand into a red giant in a couple (5-10) of billion years. That is a real problem, the sun will grow probably to larger than the earth's orbit, and the earth (plus venus and mercury) will either melt or vaporize. We'll have to do something by then - leave the earth, move the earth, or learn how to control the sun. None is even remotely in our reach today, but a billion years is a long time. The average survival of any species on earth has been about a million years, and we humans aren't even halfway there yet. I myself doubt we'll make it that long, but maybe we will smarten up sometime.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
personality type
I'm an ENFJ. That's a particular kind of personality type based on the Myers-Briggs classification scheme (check out Wikipedia for more on the scheme). First question, how reliable is the classification itself. The test involves lots of questions and redundancy, and seeing the outcome I'm reasonably comfortable with this typing.
E means extraverted. I do think a lot about other people though, how they might react to me, what they may be thinking about. If someone describes having a problem I tend to jump in with ideas or suggestions - which can be helpful but obviously not always. I sometimes jump in pre-emptively, to say that I know someone else who knows something or can help with whatever the person I'm talking with is talking about. Networking comes automatically to me.
N is for intuitive. This is a very particular sense of the word according to MB. It refers to the kind of information that is gathered and relied on, whether it's more sensory or more abstract and related to other similar information. I have a strong tendency to make connections between ideas, so that they validate each other. As a scientist (or even as a person) there always has to be validation by real observation, so it's not a matter of ignoring sensory input. But pure observation is overwhelming, I use patterns and schemes to organize it, and these come from internal reflection (as in intuition) but also as I said by cross-checking with other information. Ideally the different kinds of information are orthogonal, that is, based on really independent sources, so less likely to be purely coincidental.
F meens feeling, versus thinking (T). This too has to be understood within the language of the scheme, these aren't the common uses of the words. These have to do with paradigms of decision making. F tends to make decisions from within a situation, rather than from the outside. I'm not too clear about this one, for me to be an F seems a little bit contrary to also being an N. But for the afficianados of MB, there it is.
Finally, J means judging rather than perceiving. This seems to have to do with how one is perceived by others, as logical or more emotional and empathetic. My being a J here makes sense - although I think of myself as quite logical, I'm probably not really perceived that way by others (but feel free to comment!).
In any case, ENFJ types come with fairly specific description in the system. They are sensitive to others, they react to the general tone of a situation, and they are often organizers. In the Keirsey system, which is related to the MB system but focuses more on the practical implications, ENFJs are described as idealists, with a strong bent to being teachers. For sure I have a strong pedagogic streak, I love explaining things. That can be quite tedious if overdone or in the wrong social context. But when I give lectures I spend lots of time on the materials, and try to think about the information that I'm conveying as I want it to be perceived by my listeners.
It gets more interesting when you see how you match up with your partner. There are 16 MB types, so 256 different pairings of course. I don't think MB has something to say about each of these, but it's fun to make the comparisons ourselves.
That's all I have to say about that!
E means extraverted. I do think a lot about other people though, how they might react to me, what they may be thinking about. If someone describes having a problem I tend to jump in with ideas or suggestions - which can be helpful but obviously not always. I sometimes jump in pre-emptively, to say that I know someone else who knows something or can help with whatever the person I'm talking with is talking about. Networking comes automatically to me.
N is for intuitive. This is a very particular sense of the word according to MB. It refers to the kind of information that is gathered and relied on, whether it's more sensory or more abstract and related to other similar information. I have a strong tendency to make connections between ideas, so that they validate each other. As a scientist (or even as a person) there always has to be validation by real observation, so it's not a matter of ignoring sensory input. But pure observation is overwhelming, I use patterns and schemes to organize it, and these come from internal reflection (as in intuition) but also as I said by cross-checking with other information. Ideally the different kinds of information are orthogonal, that is, based on really independent sources, so less likely to be purely coincidental.
F meens feeling, versus thinking (T). This too has to be understood within the language of the scheme, these aren't the common uses of the words. These have to do with paradigms of decision making. F tends to make decisions from within a situation, rather than from the outside. I'm not too clear about this one, for me to be an F seems a little bit contrary to also being an N. But for the afficianados of MB, there it is.
Finally, J means judging rather than perceiving. This seems to have to do with how one is perceived by others, as logical or more emotional and empathetic. My being a J here makes sense - although I think of myself as quite logical, I'm probably not really perceived that way by others (but feel free to comment!).
In any case, ENFJ types come with fairly specific description in the system. They are sensitive to others, they react to the general tone of a situation, and they are often organizers. In the Keirsey system, which is related to the MB system but focuses more on the practical implications, ENFJs are described as idealists, with a strong bent to being teachers. For sure I have a strong pedagogic streak, I love explaining things. That can be quite tedious if overdone or in the wrong social context. But when I give lectures I spend lots of time on the materials, and try to think about the information that I'm conveying as I want it to be perceived by my listeners.
It gets more interesting when you see how you match up with your partner. There are 16 MB types, so 256 different pairings of course. I don't think MB has something to say about each of these, but it's fun to make the comparisons ourselves.
That's all I have to say about that!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
account management
How many accounts do you have? In my case, let's see, just at home I have my main email address, my previous email adddress which is still working even though we changed providers and don't have that service any more, my facebook account, my linkedin account, and my blog. These are just the personal ones, that doesn't include all the various banks and other financial and "home management" ones. At work - don't get me started. And if you're like me, many of them require regular changes of password for "security", but not on the same schedule of course. No one could remember all those changing passwords, so of course we all use shortcuts, common formulas, or even (heaven forbid) postit notes on our desks. My laptop tries valiantly to keep up, but it seems to be rather poor at it, since it tends to auto-fill in the wrong password for many sites I log on to, so I have to repeat it manually anyway. And then of course once you clean up your internet activities by deleting your temporary files, page history, and cookies, it's all gone the next time you fire up the browser. It's not that I prefer a world without computers, it's just that they do eat a fair amount of time for things that were supposedly easy, and also create new frustrations that require new coping mechanisms (besides throwing the mouse against the wall, that is).
I was going to write a nice blog about summer and the flowers in my garden, but it took 15 minutes to remember how to log onto this account since it appears to be irrevocably attached to my previous, not my current email address. This is not obvious because my current email address is there in my profile, but that's not the same as the one the account is formally linked to - and there seems no mechanism to update that, I think I would have to stop this blog and start another one. Arggh. Well, the flowers are very nice but more details will have to wait...
I was going to write a nice blog about summer and the flowers in my garden, but it took 15 minutes to remember how to log onto this account since it appears to be irrevocably attached to my previous, not my current email address. This is not obvious because my current email address is there in my profile, but that's not the same as the one the account is formally linked to - and there seems no mechanism to update that, I think I would have to stop this blog and start another one. Arggh. Well, the flowers are very nice but more details will have to wait...
Sunday, June 15, 2008
fathers
Today is Father's Day. My dad died on april 24 of this year, about one month and a half ago. So this is the first F.D. without him. Some years I gave him gifts, some years I just called. Gifts were never anything major like a car or a vacation, small things like a tie or a pair of gloves or a book I thought he might like. In some ways he was very self-effacing, when I sent a gift he always seemed pleased but also surprised as if he didn't think it was merited. I never actually asked him - did he think gifts were not expected for the day (why not?), or did he think he hadn't been a good enough father maybe? He had his issues as do we all, but as a family we did a lot of things together. The vacation out west to see the National Parks was one of the great childhood experiences of my life, even though all the driving was hard on his back, I hope he still was able to enjoy and appreciate it as much as I did. Going on boy scout camping trips together (and losing his keys on one of them, so we had to drive back with someone else, then he and my mother had to go back with the other car and the spare key to retrieve his car!) Helping me move into my college dorm every year. Advising me on work politics. Inventing equations for me to solve when I was a kid and bored in restaurants waiting for dinner to come. So many things.
I was lucky in a way. He started getting sick a few months ago, but I happened to visit them several times to help out when my mother had knee and then hip replacement surgery. So I was able to spend some time with him. Then when he got a lot worse not long ago, there was enough warning that I made a trip home again to visit him in the hospital and help arrange a nursing home for afterwards. He was pretty out of it between the illness and the strong painkillers he was taking. But he was alert sometimes and knew I was there. We chatted, nothing consequential. We shared one last joke. The meals usually came with little plastic utensils in heat-sealed bags, but one time for unknown reasons the utensils were institutional metal flatware. I commented that they probably used plastic so the patients couldn't escape...this tickled his funny bone and he laughed so hard he almost choked (the illness affected his swallowing so this happened a lot). It's a nice memory to have now.
The doctors thought he had at least several months to go, so I came back to Montreal. Then in the end he only survived a few more weeks, so I missed the end. My mother was unhappy with the nursing home, so she brought dad home and hired a full-time assistant to help with the care. So dad died at home, in his bedroom, surrounded by his life and with mom there. The funeral was upsetting, although the shiva (a jewish wake) was fun in an odd way, a lot of my parents' friends came and I was able to catch up with them. Like the head of my mother's high school science department (long since retired like mom), who had taught me science gadgetry at the local Y when I was a kid. My mom's good friend from college, the two women engineers among the first ever at Columbia University back in the 50's.
Since then my mother has been furiously busy with the legal/financial details of the will, a complicated affair due to trying to minimize inheritance taxes. And she decided to sell the house right away. I went back again to help do a major cleanup of all the spots she couldn't reach (not cleaning, just taking down (or up) boxes, clothes, books, whatever). Now the house is on the market and she's already signed a lease on an apartment to rent starting in the summer. She is moving on with her life full-speed. I on the other hand have come back to my regular life, but determined to make it all worthwhile. I have stopped doing some things (mostly at work) that were simply not worth the trouble. I have started some new things (like the viola) before it's too late. I make sure and tell my wife how much I appreciate and love her. I get every bit of cuddling fun from the cats that I can! My stepson is away, with his biological father for the rest of this school year. So happy father's day dad, if that great ISP in the sky is connected. And I wish myself a happy father's day too.
I was lucky in a way. He started getting sick a few months ago, but I happened to visit them several times to help out when my mother had knee and then hip replacement surgery. So I was able to spend some time with him. Then when he got a lot worse not long ago, there was enough warning that I made a trip home again to visit him in the hospital and help arrange a nursing home for afterwards. He was pretty out of it between the illness and the strong painkillers he was taking. But he was alert sometimes and knew I was there. We chatted, nothing consequential. We shared one last joke. The meals usually came with little plastic utensils in heat-sealed bags, but one time for unknown reasons the utensils were institutional metal flatware. I commented that they probably used plastic so the patients couldn't escape...this tickled his funny bone and he laughed so hard he almost choked (the illness affected his swallowing so this happened a lot). It's a nice memory to have now.
The doctors thought he had at least several months to go, so I came back to Montreal. Then in the end he only survived a few more weeks, so I missed the end. My mother was unhappy with the nursing home, so she brought dad home and hired a full-time assistant to help with the care. So dad died at home, in his bedroom, surrounded by his life and with mom there. The funeral was upsetting, although the shiva (a jewish wake) was fun in an odd way, a lot of my parents' friends came and I was able to catch up with them. Like the head of my mother's high school science department (long since retired like mom), who had taught me science gadgetry at the local Y when I was a kid. My mom's good friend from college, the two women engineers among the first ever at Columbia University back in the 50's.
Since then my mother has been furiously busy with the legal/financial details of the will, a complicated affair due to trying to minimize inheritance taxes. And she decided to sell the house right away. I went back again to help do a major cleanup of all the spots she couldn't reach (not cleaning, just taking down (or up) boxes, clothes, books, whatever). Now the house is on the market and she's already signed a lease on an apartment to rent starting in the summer. She is moving on with her life full-speed. I on the other hand have come back to my regular life, but determined to make it all worthwhile. I have stopped doing some things (mostly at work) that were simply not worth the trouble. I have started some new things (like the viola) before it's too late. I make sure and tell my wife how much I appreciate and love her. I get every bit of cuddling fun from the cats that I can! My stepson is away, with his biological father for the rest of this school year. So happy father's day dad, if that great ISP in the sky is connected. And I wish myself a happy father's day too.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Back to the classics
I have started studying the viola. It's ambitious, starting an instrument at a relatively advanced age. I have been playing other strings for years now, but nothing with a bow and nothing facing up - always facing out. So the strain on my left arm is significant. I'm trying to go slow and be patient, hopefully I'll increase the mobility over time. But I can pick out a simple tune in D major, which is a start. Bowing feels very natural. Also the viola uses the unusual alto clef, not that I read sheet music well anyway. But why not? I love the sound, it's my instrument for sure. Kind of rough and woolly, and in between. Violin is too high, cello is too awkward. It must be the greek thing - moderation in all things including pitch!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
A sucker for romance
I admit it, I'm a sucker for romantic comedy films - date flicks. I seem to have an endless capacity to watch new ones. Maybe a 19th century Englishman travels to the future and courts a 20th century woman in an unusual way (Kate and Leopold). Maybe two people fall in e-love (You've Got Mail). A socialite falls for a pesky journalist (The Philadelphia Story) or a scientist (Bringing up Baby), or a movie star with a nebbish (Notting Hill). The combinations are indeed endless. But in basic story line they are generally the same. As the old Jewish man complained deploring the theater: "First he wants and she doesn't want. Then she wants and he doesn't want. Then they both want and boom! down comes the curtain". If the story is so predictable, then how could anyone watch all these? (OK, Phila. Story does take an unexpected twist.) Not everyone can, I have friends who find the genre tedious, but at least some of us can, or Hollywood wouldn't keep making them.
I believe the answer is that we do in fact care about the details, the sometimes infinitesimal differences between the situations in each of these films. Finding a mate is one of the most essential biological drives, and whether we already have one in our lives or not, it's serious business. We need all the help we can get to find one, or keep the one we have. Seeing others succeed gives us ideas for our own lives - maybe silly ones, but no idea is too silly for some consideration in this critical activity.
I love the series of short documentary style interviews of couples in When Harry Met Sally - particularly the elderly chinese guy who went to great lengths to check out his intended bride before their arranged wedding. And there's the couple in Annie Hall, who tell Woody's character: "I'm shallow and have nothing to say"..."And I'm the same"; they've found each other. I was hiking once in southern Utah with my then current girlfriend, two eastern intellectual types enjoying the outdoors. We happened to cross paths with another couple, two blonde athletic waspy types in spotless white tennis clothes. We went our separate ways, but my friend and I looked at each and burst into simultaneous laughter. It was so...congruous. So the next time I see ads for a film in which a molecular geneticist falls head over heels for an artist he happens to meet on a ferry ride across the arctic, I'll be there. Or at least I'll see it when it hits the video stores.
I believe the answer is that we do in fact care about the details, the sometimes infinitesimal differences between the situations in each of these films. Finding a mate is one of the most essential biological drives, and whether we already have one in our lives or not, it's serious business. We need all the help we can get to find one, or keep the one we have. Seeing others succeed gives us ideas for our own lives - maybe silly ones, but no idea is too silly for some consideration in this critical activity.
I love the series of short documentary style interviews of couples in When Harry Met Sally - particularly the elderly chinese guy who went to great lengths to check out his intended bride before their arranged wedding. And there's the couple in Annie Hall, who tell Woody's character: "I'm shallow and have nothing to say"..."And I'm the same"; they've found each other. I was hiking once in southern Utah with my then current girlfriend, two eastern intellectual types enjoying the outdoors. We happened to cross paths with another couple, two blonde athletic waspy types in spotless white tennis clothes. We went our separate ways, but my friend and I looked at each and burst into simultaneous laughter. It was so...congruous. So the next time I see ads for a film in which a molecular geneticist falls head over heels for an artist he happens to meet on a ferry ride across the arctic, I'll be there. Or at least I'll see it when it hits the video stores.
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