2012 Cosmophobia

December is upon us, so it's a good time to take a quick look at why some people think that the world may end a year from now. For several years there have been claims on the Internet that a planet--Nibiru or Planet X--will collide with Earth (or make a catastrophic near-miss) in December of 2012. This planet allegedly orbits the sun every 3600 years, and that the collision coincides with the end of the Mayan calendar is just a bonus.

NASA has some nice material on this, especially the "Ask an Astrobiologist" web-page. Whether you are concerned about this yourself, or are just interested in what types of things people get themselves worked up over, head on over and read the Q&A. The short version is that no such planet exists.

You'll also find these two videos.





To put an LDS twist on this, some people think Nibiru or Planet X could be implicated in this statement by Joseph Smith:

There will be wars and rumors of wars, signs in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, the sun turned into darkness and the moon to blood, earthquakes in divers places, the seas heaving beyond their bounds; then will appear one grand sign of the Son of Man in heaven. But what will the world do? They will say it is a planet, a comet, &c. But the Son of Man will come as the sign of the coming of the Son of Man, which will be as the light of the morning cometh out of the east [History of The Church, 5:336-37].

Whatever Joseph's statement means, I think it's pretty safe to say that it has nothing to do with Nibiru or Planet X...since no such planet exists.


And just for fun, I'll end with Robert Frost's poem, "Fire and Ice."

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

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Climategate 2

Two years ago, emails among climate scientists taken from the servers of the University of East Anglia were released to the world, which sparked a pseudo-scandal known as 'Climategate.' The emails, some taken severely out of context, were used to tar the whole field of research and create the impression that climate scientists are an insular group who break the law, falsify data, and suppress opposition in order to keep the global warming hoax alive so that [insert nefarious rationale]. In the intervening time, investigations have largely cleared the scientists swept up in the whirlwind, and the temperature record was recently re-affirmed by an independent analysis. Nevertheless, the storm of controversy had effects that can be seen to this day, with attempts to get all of Michael Mann's emails and files from the University of Virginia working their way through the courts, and commentators like Rush Limbaugh continuing to cite the emails as proof that global warming is a scam.

Now, in time for the holiday season, a new batch of emails has been released. However, like most sequels, Climategate 2 looks likely to be disappointing for those interested in stirring up controversy. The emails appear to be left-overs from the first batch released, and you can bet the scientists involved won't be caught flat-footed this time.

A quick digression: This business of trolling through emails looking for something salacious is understandable. After all, these are supposed to be the unguarded real thoughts of the people involved, and sometimes internal communications really do contain damning information (see: tobacco companies). But it's always struck me how this kind of storm could envelope any area of research. Every field has its contested concepts, its grandstanders, and its controversial figures. Scientific papers are not handed to us on tablets written by God, they are written by people who have to hash out the best way to tell the story--where to put the emphasis, what data to include, and how to contextualize it. In that respect it's a little bit like journalism or the law. (Hey, there's an idea. Imagine the stories we could get out of the internal communications of a decent sized law firm!) Probably nobody will ever care about my own work, but I sometimes imagine what kind of controversy could be spun out of my communications.

Hopefully we're all a little wiser this time. (But maybe not.)


More details:

The Guardian

BBC

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Evolution is an Eternal Principle

Over at NDBF, R. Gary pits evolution against the Millennium: "Evolution requires death and, beginning with the Millennium, there will be no death anywhere on earth." Ergo, evolution will cease. However, this isn't quite right and it gives us an opportunity to think about this a little more in depth.

You only need three conditions for evolution to occur:

1. Variation in traits
2. Heritability of the variation
3. Differential reproduction (i.e. varying degrees of success in passing on the traits)

Natural selection gets most of the attention when it comes to #3, hence the association of evolution with death. (Well, fossils contribute to that, too.) But besides the fact that there is more to natural selection than death, natural selection is only one mechanism of evolution. There are others like sexual selection, where the preference of males or females for certain traits leads to those traits becoming more common. Another one is genetic drift, where simply by random luck some genes become prevalent and others disappear.

Death or no death, when it comes to the Millennium, will variation in traits cease? Will reproduction of those traits cease? Will all traits be maintained in the population in the same proportions? Unless you can answer 'yes' to one of those questions, there will be evolution.

The hymn "If You Could Hie to Kolob" says, "There is no end to race." As long as there is variation, heritability of variation, and differential perpetuation of that variation, there will be no end to evolution.

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Awesome Honesty (About Dishonesty)

This xkcd is good, but the quote when you arrow over the comic is priceless. Regarding CVS pharmacy stocking homeopathic remedies:

Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you're not, because you want their money, isn't just lying--it's like an example you'd make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.

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Mormonism's Conflicted View of Scientific Evidence

[A draft of this post has been hanging around for a couple of years, waiting to see the light of day. I finally decided to dust it off and set it free. My plan is to use it as a springboard for some further discussion.]

In his 1991 book, The Lord's Way, Elder Dallin H. Oaks devoted a chapter to "signs and science." After surveying the scriptures he concluded that although the Bible is ambivalent on whether signs should be used in conversion, modern revelation--especially the Doctrine and Covenants--forbids it.

In our day, God does not use miracles or signs as a way of teaching or convincing the unbeliever. As a result, we should not ask for signs for this purpose, and we should be deeply suspicious of the so-called spiritual evidences of those who do. [p. 86]

But for Elder Oaks, 'signs' are not limited to miracles. He went on to assert that scientific evidences are a type of sign, and a discussion of the inadequacies of science to deal with gospel truths followed. One problem is that scientific evidence must be open and shared, but individual communication with the Spirit cannot (and sometimes should not) be. More importantly for the purposes of this post, he wrote,

This helps us understand why the methods of science are not applicable to establishing the truthfulness of the gospel, the fact of the Restoration, or the origin and truth of the Book of Mormon. President Ezra Taft Benson has declared: "It never has been the case, nor is it so now, that the studies of the learned will prove the Book of Mormon true or false. The origin, preparation, translation, and verification of the truth of the Book of Mormon have all been retained in the hands of the Lord." [p. 91]

Yet as Terryl Givens detailed in By the Hand of Mormon, the early Saints--including Joseph Smith--very much viewed discoveries in American archaeology and antiquities as vindicating the Book of Mormon.

For the time being [mid-late nineteenth century], it appears, Mormons valued the Book of Mormon as faithful history of their own continent, secure in the belief that its historical validity was amply confirmed by the abundant ruins so general throughout the lands of Mesoamerica. [p. 106]

However, caution emerged as New World studies progressed and began to challenge the Book of Mormon. Although some leaders remained optimistic that further research would support the Book of Mormon, the sentiment expressed more recently by President Benson and Elder Oaks grew. But such caution has been difficult to wholeheartedly embrace. Givens again:

Still, even as Mormon scholars affirm on the one hand that no amount of scientific evidence can prove the Book of Mormon true, it is hard to shake the heritage of Joseph Smith's famous claim that "the Lord has a hand in bringing to pass his strange act, and proving the Book of Mormon true in the eyes of all the people. . . . Surely 'facts are stubborn things.' It will be and ever has been, the world will prove Joseph Smith a true prophet by circumstantial evidence, in experimentis, as they did Moses and Elijah. (p.118)

Indeed. Hugh Nibley, for example, in his preface to Since Cumorah stated that the Book of Mormon is "asking for a fight" and is "delightfully falsifiable."

And so we are left with competing expectations about how the Book of Mormon and other religious claims are tied to reality--whether they are scientifically verifiable or falsifiable, even in principle.

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