Monthly Archive for April, 2010

From Daniel Rourke, 3 Quarks Daily

A face to face encounter, devoid of the warm appeal of flesh. The eyes are glass, a cold blue crystal reflects the light in a way real eyes never would. A muzzle of hair, perhaps taken from a barbershop floor or the hind quarters of an animal. The painted scalp peeks through the sparse strands: there is nothing here one might caress with fumbling fingers, or, a millennia ago, pick between to lovingly tease out a louse or mite. The figure balances uneasily on stumps for legs. Its waxen surface bears no resemblance to skin. It is a shade saturated of living colour. In another shortened limb the figure holds a wooden spear, with a plastic point designed to take the place of the authentic stone tip. Under its beaten brow this creature forever stands. He is a spectacle, a museum attraction. He is not human, he is ‘other’. He is not man, he is Neanderthal.

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From Tom Siegfried, Science News

For better or for worse, science has long been married to mathematics. Generally it has been for the better. Especially since the days of Galileo and Newton, math has nurtured science. Rigorous mathematical methods have secured science’s fidelity to fact and conferred a timeless reliability to its findings.

During the past century, though, a mutant form of math has deflected science’s heart from the modes of calculation that had long served so faithfully. Science was seduced by statistics, the math rooted in the same principles that guarantee profits for Las Vegas casinos. Supposedly, the proper use of statistics makes relying on scientific results a safe bet. But in practice, widespread misuse of statistical methods makes science more like a crapshoot.

It’s science’s dirtiest secret: The “scientific method” of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation. Statistical tests are supposed to guide scientists in judging whether an experimental result reflects some real effect or is merely a random fluke, but the standard methods mix mutually inconsistent philosophies and offer no meaningful basis for making such decisions. Even when performed correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments are often contradictory and confusing.

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From Juli Weiner, Vanity Fair

Today, Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, respectively. According to the Huffington Post, “the agreement would require both sides to reduce their arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons by about a third, from 2,200 now to 1,550 each.” The deal was a bona-fide diplomatic victory: “The presidents agreed that the new treaty marks a higher level of cooperation between Russia and the United States in the development of new strategic relations,” said a statement issued by the Kremlin, as reported in The New York Times.

But are 1,500 nuclear weapons any less capable of completely destroying the world than 2,200 nuclear weapons are? VF Daily checked with two Columbia University nuclear physicists to see what difference, if any, 700 nuclear weapons makes.

Gustaaf Brooijmans, experimental high-energy particle physicist, thinks 1,500 nuclear weapons are more than enough to devastate the planet, although annihilation isn’t a sure bet:

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