Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2008

  • Religious Rights Triumphing?

    Worrying news from the UN where it seems that religious rights are in the process of being elevated over human rights. Austin Dacey reports on the developments in the UN’s Human Rights Council. He is eloquent on what he means by respect for religions:
    In the final analysis, it is not religions that deserve our respect. A religion is a collection of metaphysical ideas and moral ideals. Ideas are believed or disbelieved; ideals are pursued or rejected. Admiration, appreciation, perhaps, but respect? No. What deserves respect are persons. Surely, the feelings of persons–individuals believers–can be affected when their beliefs are attacked or ridiculed. These feelings are real and important. However, feelings of offense do not generate a right not to be offended.
     
    Respect for persons does not require that we never hurt their feelings, but rather that we treat them as possessing dignity equal to our own, and therefore hold them to the same fundamental intellectual, ethical, and legal standards to which we hold ourselves, to see them as autonomous, self-legislating creatures. Therefore, respect for a person is not only consistent with criticism of a person’s beliefs; respect for a person sometimes requires criticism of his or her beliefs. Sometimes in order to respect, we must disagree. Anything less is not respect, but indifference.  
    Absolutely. Although I would add that sometimes people do not disagree out of indifference, but also out of fear of the consequences. That is truly worrying. 
     
    The Center for Inquiry has also published a new report on this topic. 

  • The Beauty of Nature

    Carl Zimmer, over at The Loom, draws our attention to the world’s first Fungus Opera…

  • What Makes Us Tick?

    Here’s a terrific talk at this year’s TED conference by Jonathan Haidt. He’s looking at what he sees as the five moral values that underpin how we look at the world and treat each other. Great talk.
     

  • Alien Landscapes

    The Dark Roasted Blend blog has come up trumps with its suggestion for the most alien-looking place on earth: Socotra Island. Fully one third of its flora is found nowhere else on earth. Go and look at the photos – they are spectacular.
     
    (hat tip to Science Punk)

  • No Winners Here

    So the outcome over the remarks by Michael Reiss, a clergyman and Director of Education at the Royal Society is that he is now the ex-Director.
     
    I’ve got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, reading his original remarks, I find them somewhat ambiguous. Certainly, one reading of the text is that he was close to calling for a simplistic "teach the controversy" approach in science lessons. When the shit hit the fan, he issued a clarification which outlined the sensible approach, i.e. be prepared to respond to students’ questions. Nonetheless, the calls for his resignation have been strident, and give no quarter. As Richard Dawkins has written:
    To call for his resignation on those grounds, as several Nobel-prize-winning Fellows are now doing, comes a little too close to a witch-hunt for my squeamish taste. 
    I agree. Watching Dawkins’ recent series The Genius of Charles Darwin, I was struck by how Dawkins tried to engage those students who clearly believed their religion over the facts of evolution – the very approach being advocated by Michael Reiss. What I found truly worrying in the series was the reaction of the science teachers who refused to engage with the students on their misguided beliefs for fear of losing their jobs. That sort of reaction will only allow igorance to take root further. I see that Francis Sedgemore has picked up on the same points.
     
    The Royal Society has not come out of this affair with any credit. This is a self-inflicted wound that does not advance society’s understanding of science one iota.
     

  • Wasted Opportunity

    I see that the BBC’s Horizon programme is continuing its downward spiral into tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Last night saw the first of a new series wherein the conceit was to ask the question "what should science advisors tell the incoming US president?". Not a bad idea in itself, and some scientists who know whereof they speak were duly assembled, but the opportunity was utterly thrown away by the appalling televisual dross conjured up by the programme makers.
     
    As Lucy Mangan says in her review in today’s Guardian:
    A mind, as they say, is a terrible thing to waste. To waste several of the most intelligent, educated and original at once, in the first programme of a new series of a BBC flagship science programme, however, amounts almost to an achievement. 
    It was a total waste of time and the talents of the scientists involved.

  • Our Ken

    A nice article in today’s Guardian about Ken Russell, a British film director that people either seem to love or hate. Me, I love him. It’s been that way ever since I saw his films on the old BBC TV arts programmes Monitor and Omnibus. Films about people such as Isadora Duncan, Delius and Bartok, and the latter two films were directly responsible for sparking a love of their music in me. And all including some masterstroke of visual imagery which had an overwhelming emotional impact on me. That continued when he moved onto the big screen with Women in Love and in subsequent films.
     
    My one regret is that I never got to see The Devils. I thought at the time that it was probably too powerful for me. Alas, it’s never been issued on DVD, so I will just have to carry on waiting for the opportunity.
     
    If you’ve never been exposed to Russell’s visual extravangzas, then the rock opera Tommy (which is available on DVD) is a good choice to see his imagination firing on all cylinders. It’s the filmic equivalent of an opera, a rollercoaster and a ghost train all rolled into one.

  • Knowing The Cost of Everything…

    … and the value of nothing. That aphorism came into my head as I watched the performance of Sir David King, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on Newsnight.  He apparently believes that the money that has been spent on the Large Hadron Collider could have been better spent on more directed research, for instance in combating climate change.
     
    Fortunately, Professor Brian Cox was on hand to pound King’s argument into tiny little pieces. It’s a truly magisterial smackdown. But I’m left with the uneasy thought that if King holds these bean-counter ideals, what’s he doing as president of the BAAS?

  • Not The Day Of Rath

    I see that vitamin pill-pusher Matthias Rath has pulled out of his libel action against Ben Goldacre and the Guardian newspaper. Good news indeed. Read more about the case and the horrifying background over at Ben’s Bad Science blog.

  • Artists’ Passing

    Today’s obituary columns in the Guardian contain two names that register with me: Vernon Handley and Algis Budrys. I have a number of Handley’s recordings of Vaughan Williams in my music collection, and have always liked them. As for Budrys, I remember taking out his book Who? from the public library in Douglas as a teenager, and being intrigued by its exploration of the question of identity. I’m pretty sure that it was a Gollancz publication, with its bright yellow cover. I don’t have a copy of it in my library, just a collection of his short stories: The Furious Future. I should make time today to read one of his stories and to listen to a piece of Vaughan Williams conducted by Handley.

  • Big Scary Trumpets…

    I don’t think that Jesus and Mo have quite got a hold of this thing called the scientific method…

  • Life Through Time

  • WalkThis Way…

    I can’t help but feel that the tabloids will have a field day with this study. Perhaps it’s just me, but a sample size of just 16 women seems very small to hang such claims on, and the language of the study seems to stray dangerously close to woo territory.
     

  • Four Basic Questions

    Jonathan Drori, in his presentation at last year’s TED conference, poses four basic questions related to scientific understanding. They are designed to illustrate that perhaps you don’t know as much as you think you know – because we all make assumptions. As it happens, I got all of them right, but that’s probably because I had a good grounding in science, and then continued to learn as I grew up. As a result, I learned, after I had left school(!), that my boyhood assumption for the answer to question 1 was wrong. The answer to question 2 I knew at a very early age, because I performed the experiment for myself. And the answers to questions 3 and 4 I knew when I was still at school.
     
    I find it worrying that many people do not get all these questions right. In particular, that answer to the second question – I find that completely astounding. It must mean that they have never bothered to try out even simple things for themselves.

  • Omnivore’s Hundred

    Here’s a foodie meme that’s currently doing the rounds. It’s a list of 100 foods that Andrew, over at the Very Good Taste blog considers that every self-respecting omnivore should have eaten in their lifetime.

    I’ve bolded the items that I’ve eaten, and crossed out the items that I doubt whether I could ever bring myself to try…

    1. Venison
    2. Nettle tea
    3. Huevos rancheros
    4. Steak tartare
    5. Crocodile
    6. Black pudding
    7. Cheese fondue
    8. Carp (I may have had this when in Japan, but I’m not certain)
    9. Borscht
    10. Baba ghanoush
    11. Calamari
    12. Pho
    13. PB&J sandwich
    14. Aloo gobi
    15. Hot dog from a street cart
    16. Epoisses (ooh, I must look out for that the next time I’m at Bocholt market)
    17. Black truffle (I may have had a shaving somewhere along the way, and I do have a tin of them in the parlour cupboard)
    18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
    19. Steamed pork buns
    20. Pistachio ice cream (I’ve even had a go at making it)
    21. Heirloom tomatoes
    22. Fresh wild berries
    23. Foie gras
    24. Rice and beans
    25. Brawn, or head cheese
    26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
    27. Dulce de leche
    28. Oysters (raw? no, I don’t think so)
    29. Baklava
    30. Bagna cauda
    31. Wasabi peas
    32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (I’ve had both, but never chowder in a sourdough bowl)
    33. Salted lassi
    34. Sauerkraut
    35. Root beer float
    36. Cognac with a fat cigar
    37. Clotted cream tea
    38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
    39. Gumbo
    40. Oxtail
    41. Curried goat
    42. Whole insects (nope, I draw the line)
    43. Phaal
    44. Goat’s milk
    45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
    46. Fugu
    47. Chicken tikka masala
    48. Eel
    49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (doughnuts, yes; oliebollen, yes; but never a Krispy Kreme)
    50. Sea urchin
    51. Prickly pear
    52. Umeboshi
    53. Abalone
    54. Paneer
    55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
    56. Spaetzle
    57. Dirty gin martini
    58. Beer above 8% ABV
    59. Poutine
    60. Carob chips
    61. S’mores
    62. Sweetbreads
    63. Kaolin (? er, hello, this is a clay)
    64. Currywurst
    65. Durian
    66. Frogs’ legs
    67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
    68. Haggis
    69. Fried plantain
    70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
    71. Gazpacho
    72. Caviar and blini
    73. Louche absinthe
    74. Gjetost, or brunost
    75. Roadkill (like Liz, I have a very healthy fear of liver flukes)
    76. Baijiu
    77. Hostess fruit pie 
    78. Snail
    79. Lapsang souchong
    80. Bellini
    81. Tom yum
    82. Eggs Benedict
    83. Pocky
    84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
    85. Kobe beef
    86. Hare
    87. Goulash
    88. Flowers
    89. Horse
    90. Criollo chocolate
    91. Spam
    92. Soft shell crab
    93. Rose harissa
    94. Catfish
    95. Mole poblano (I’ve made it!)
    96. Bagel and lox
    97. Lobster Thermidor (lobster, yes; thermidor, nope)
    98. Polenta
    99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
    100. Snake

  • Art, What Is It For?

    You may wish to view this piece of evidence before starting your answer.
     
    Thank you (I think) David Thompson.

  • Walking the Tightrope

    Oliver Sacks reviews Hurry Down Sunshine in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. His review has made me add the book to my wish list of books to get. He reminds us that we are walking through life on "a narrow ridge of normality…, with the abysses of mania and depression yawning to either side".

  • Get Ready, Get Set…

    I see that BBC Radio 4 is getting ready for Big Bang Day…

  • We’re All Doomed

    I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised, but there does seem to be an alarmingly large number of people who think that the world is going to end in two days time when the Large Hadron Collider is switched on. Most of them sound simply worried, but I note that the scientists at CERN have also received death threats. I do hope that we are not going to see a real-life equivalent of the plotline in Contact where the first machine gets blown up by a religious nutter.
     
    What I would say is that it is not sensible to hold an opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whilst I understand that much of the language of particle physics is opaque, there does come a time when it is worth accepting the views of experts. The analogy I would give is the design of aircraft wings – I am happy to trust an expert in aerodynamics to get it right rather than offer my own opinion about what shape they should be. It’s really the case that the particle physics community are sensible, rational human beings who go about their research because they believe that exploring the subatomic world is good for our civilization, not to mention interesting. It is also true that if anyone, including myself, had any doubt about the safety of what we are doing, we would stop immediately. I and all my colleagues consider our personal safety and the safety of our families to be FAR more important than the search for the Higgs particle – indeed, if the risk were even as high as 1 in a billion, or whatever people quote, then I would be campaigning with you to stop it.
    Or, as he also has said, somewhat more pithily, and just as accurately:
    Anyone who thinks that the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.
    Quite.

  • Uncle Ken

    Phil Penfold writes the obituary of his uncle, Kenneth Young, in today’s Guardian. A touching tale of a life well lived, I think.