The latest “scientific breakthrough” scam — water gas

The gullibility of the scientifically challenged media and buying public never ceases to amaze. Spurred perhaps by sharply higher gasoline prices, backyard inventors and shady promoters are pushing the latest wonder technology, “HHO gas,” otherwise known as water gas, Brown’s gas or Klein’s gas.

For a tidy investment of a few hundred dollars, one can adapt a car to run on HHO, or for a few thousand, one can buy a device to produce HHO at home for transportation or for welding. Cars apparently can run for miles on mere puffs of HHO, and torches can burn holes in seconds through most metals.

I would encourage anyone buying such devices to first watch videos of the Graf Hindenburg accident in 1937 or the Shuttle Challenger accident in 1986, to get an idea of the Promethean power of HHO gas.

Wait, 1937? Isn’t HHO supposed to be a new technology? you ask. Nope. In fact, the principles behind the production of HHO have been known and used for close to 200 years. If you were lucky, you might have even made some in middle school science class.

If you run electric current through water, you break water down into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen, both gases at standard temperature (20 C) and pressure (1 atmosphere). Very little current is required; a 6-volt lantern battery does the trick nicely, although quite slowly.

The science class experiment generally involves upending two test tubes over the positive and negative electrodes submerged in the water. Hydrogen collects over one electrode, and oxygen over the other one. (Hydrogen ions are positively charged; oxygen ions negatively.) Since there are twice as many H atoms in water as O atoms, the volume of the hydrogen (H₂) gas is twice that of the oxygen (O₂) gas.

Frequently the experiment also involves pulling the H₂ test tube out of the water and placing a burning wooden splint near its mouth to ignite the H₂, producing a characteristic whooping sound and some water vapor that condenses on the glass tube.

Placing a glowing wooden splint into the O₂ tube will result in the splint bursting into flame, as the oxygen-rich environment accelerates the combustion process.

As well as being less dense than air, hydrogen is a highly flammable gas. H₂ mixed in air is a “weaker” form of HHO gas, since air is a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. A spark or a flame will immediately ignite any H₂ around by providing just enough energy for the H₂ and O₂ present to recombine into water.

Test tube amounts of H₂ produce whooping noises. An airship the size of the Hindenburg (at right) can produce a much more dramatic effect, as it did on the fateful day in 1937 when the airship burst into flame as it came in for a landing.

Mixing pure H₂ and pure O₂ increases both the temperature and the speed of the reaction, which is the key to HHO’s success as a welding gas, automobile fuel, and rocket propellant.

The space shuttles use “HHO” in their main engines. At launch, each shuttle is attached to a huge external fuel tank containing cryogenic vessels filled with liquid H₂ and liquid O₂. Igniting the H₂/O₂ mix produces a lot of thrust for the money, and the byproduct is just water.

The downside is the explosive danger of a pure H₂/O₂ mix, as the Challenger accident so tragically demonstrated. Flames from a leaky solid-rocket booster on that day burned a hole through the external fuel tank, which then exploded just minutes after launch (at left), killing the seven astronauts on board.

So, I would I think twice about running around town with a tank of HHO in the trunk of my car, or producing HHO in my basement for storage. Gasoline is safe and stable in comparison.

HHO gas is not the cure-all that its promoters say it is. Sure, it is a clean-burning fuel. It can be an effective welding gas. And cars can in fact burn HHO either mixed with gasoline vapor or by itself. But HHO gas will not end our dependence on foreign oil or substantially reduce pollution, no matter what anyone says.

You need electricity to produce HHO. To produce large quantities of HHO is a reasonable time, say a few hours, you need a lot of current, which does not come cheap. Your power company supplies current to your home and office by burning, for most communities, fossil fuels like coal or oil. If you’re drawing a lot current to fill your bomb-like container of HHO gas, the power company has to burn more oil or coal to supply the electricity. You can’t get something from nothing.

Now, if the power company used hydroelectric generators or a nuclear power plant to provide the current, you might be able to justify pulling all those amperes to electrolyze your water into HHO. You are still gong to have to pay the light bill, though, so the economics of producing HHO at home might not be any better than just filling up at the local gas station for $3 a gallon.

In short, dear reader, caveat emptor. HHO gas is a scam. It is not a miracle technology or a cure for our gasoline dependence. At best, it is a deception, a way for clever promoters to make money, and endanger the unwary consumer.

Why ID is not science …

Ed Brayton has an excellent essay on Dispatches from the Culture Wars explaining why intelligent design and creationism are not real sciences. If you know any creationists or ID supporters, refer them to this essay. It minces no words.

Statistics tell the truth; there is no “war on Christians”

In the wake of the Nevada graduation speech tempest, rightwing pundits, like Sean Hannity, are once again declaiming there is a “war on Christianity.” It’s just a lot of hot air.

Christians run afoul of the Constitution and the legal system, not because they are some kind of special group, but because they are simply the loudest and most obtrusive group. In other words, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.

Suppose we take a sample of 100 individuals representative of the US population. According to the statistics at this site, of that sample, there would be 84 Christians, two Jews, two Muslims and one Buddhist. The rest would presumably be “other,” Hindus, wiccans, pagans, atheists and what have you.

Of the Christians, we could expect 52 to be Protestant, 24 to be Catholic and 2 to be Mormons. I’m not sure where eastern Orthodox would fit in.

Now, let’s analyze this population sample. Of these 100 individuals, who would be most likely to proselytize, insist their religious practices should be public events, and demand their beliefs achieve primacy in US law and US schools.

The Buddhist? Nope. Buddhists are pretty mellow. Ditto Hindus, if you make the possible exception of the Hare Krishnas.

Muslims, with the exception of the Nation of Islam, do not typically proselytize among non-believers, at least in the US. Given current global politics, trying to win converts to Islam would be unwise, to say the least. Nor do they insist that their children’s public schools call off school lunches during Ramadan.

Jews are also among the non-proselytizing faiths. Those two in our sample might absent themselves from work or school during High Holy Days, but Jews do not demand schools and government offices close for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

What about our two Mormons? In many towns, young Mormon men spend a year or two as “elders,” essentially missionaries and all-around helpers for the local Latter Day Saint churches. In my experience, these fellows are among the most polite and gentle souls among us. They are hardly firebrands, threatening fire and brimstone among the gentiles.

Catholics, being in the minority in many towns, tend to avoid proselytizing, which is not to say Catholic missions and children’s homes don’t try to win a few souls over. When you see persons walking around your neighborhood, carrying Bibles and asking for a few moments of your time, they are not Catholic.

So, we are left with the largest group, almost half of our sample, the Protestants. We can get a better picture of these folks using this set of demographic data: about 17 would be Baptist, 8 Methodist, five Lutheran, three Presbyterian, two Pentecostal/Charismatic, two Episcopalian, and the remaining split up among the Church of Christ/Congregational, United Church of Christ, Jehovah’s Witness, Assembly of God, and yet smaller groups.

OK, let’s ignore the so-called “lukewarm,” mainstream congregations. Out of the 100, we are left with 17 Baptists, two Pentecostals and maybe one Assembly of God member, all of whom could be fairly characterized as belonging to proselytizing faiths. In fact, the noisiest televangelists tend to be from one of these three groups.

That’s 20 individuals out of 100. For the purpose of argument, let’s assume five of them — one quarter — have the “fire” and want to preach their faith, witness to others, give inflammatory graduation speeches, and run for office on the “family” platform.

These are the ones who are going to run afoul of the legal system. And they are the ones who are basically asking for it.

Let’s face it, if you’re are going to witness for your faith, you should expect some flack. The prophets in the OT had a hard time, and we know what happened to Jesus and all those Catholic martyrs. So this whole meme about the “war on Christians” or the “war on religion” is just a lot of humbug.

If you’re going to be a soldier for your faith, take the abuse, withstand the wounds and quit your bellyaching. We in the other 95% of the population have other things to worry about.

Tom Ritter evolution debate may happen

I blogged about this anti-evolution debate way back when. Tom Ritter is a fellow high school physics teacher in Annville, Penn., who challenged a pro-evolution expert — any expert — to debate Ritter publicly. The Constitution Party of Pennsylvania is the sponsor of the debate.

After deadlines came and went, it seemed as if the debate would fizzle out, but Tony Whitson, who teaches graduate courses at the University of Delaware School of Education, came forward and will debate Ritter on Thursday. The Lebanon, Pa., Daily News has the details.
Under the terms of the debate, each participant puts $1,000 into the pot and the winner takes all. A jury of high school students will determine who wins the debate.

Ritter will argue that evolution is a matter of faith, not science, and that as such science teachers should be allowed to teach alternative explanations for the development of life. Whitson, while not a biologist, is a member of the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has the chops to argue that evolution is in fact a science and the only valid explanation for life’s development.

Oddly, the Constitution Party has nothing about the debate on its website, although the party promised an announcement about it late last month. For what seems to be a victory for them and Ritter, they seem to be very closemouthed about it. I was rather hoping people out there would just ignore the Party and Ritter and let the issue die a peaceful death. Little of great significance will be accomplished during this debate, although the event may be a big thing for the local community. Whitson may in fact sway some members of the audience into accepting evolution.

Having students serve as the jury seems a bit dodgy, in my opinion, though. An impartial panel of science teachers might make for a more qualified jury, but the rules seem fair. So, it appears Ritter will have no obvious advantage.

As they say, stay tuned for further developments.

It’s like the song that never ends …

Two small-potatoes news items demonstrate that the on-going attacks on evolution are not over, despite the substantial legal defeat of intelligent design in Pennsylvania.

The two events are minor in scope and media coverage, compared the Dover, Pa., school controversy, but they highlight the tenacity of anti-evolutionists.

One, coincidentally in Pennsylvania, involves a public school science teacher proposing a public debate on whether evolution is science or a faith, since it is atheistic. (Their words, not mine!)

The other, in Lancaster, Calif, involves “teaching the controversy” about evolution in the local public schools, by allowing student challenges and questions about evolution in class.

Both developments demonstrate the level of obfuscation anti-evolutionists reach in their war on science.

Tom Ritter teaches high school chemistry and physics at Annville-Cleona High School in Annville, Pa. Last month, he and the Constitution Party of Pennsylvania announced they would stage a debate in May between Ritter and a challenger on whether evolution is a science or a faith.

The exact wording of the resolution is convoluted, which might explain why no one has yet taken up the challenge, despite the possibility of winning a $2,000 pot. The party is also offering a $500 finder’s fee, the deadline for which ends tomorrow.

The question reads, “Unless the teacher acknowledges an alternative, teaching materialistic evolution as an explanation for the origin of life, the variety of sexual species or the existence of the human mind is an article of faith.”

Or to put it more clearly, “Resolved: Materialistic evolution is a matter of faith, not of science, unless another explanation for the development of life is acknowledged.”

On the surface, this viewpoint is worth discussion, since it might provide some clarity about what constitutes science and what constitutes faith. The venue and the underlying rationale for the debate, however, lead one to question if Ritter and the Party have any clue what science (or faith) is.

Before detailing my problems with the views of Ritter and the Party, I should say that I sent Ritter, a fellow member of the American Association of Physics Teachers, an e-mail asking him to clarify some statements he made to his local newspaper. He replied that he did not have the time to answer my six questions, and directed me to the Party website. So, in keeping with the request, my comments will directly address the arguments on their website.

They are attacking evolution on three simultaneous fronts: first, evolution is not scientific; secondly, materialism cannot answer all questions; and thirdly, evolution is a religion, a matter of faith.

They contend that evolution cannot demonstrate three critical points:

1. No one has demonstrated that life can evolve where none existed before.
2. No one has demonstrated that a new sexual species can evolve.
3. Evolution theorizes the human brain evolved from lower forms of life. Over 50 years into the age of computers, we can build machines that can crunch numbers far better and faster than humans, recognize and use language and tools, and beat us in chess. Yet science has yet to build even a rudimentary computer than can contemplate its own existence, the hallmark of the human brain.

Then, the website brings in theory of the Big Bang, and implies there is a fatal weakness in the materialist conclusions of the theory:

… there will come a predictable time in the future when the universe will run out of useful energy and all reactions will cease for a lack of energy. This so called Heat Death and the Big Bang are recognized by virtually all physicists around the world and serve as a bookends to our present existence. So can materialism explain what there was before the Big Bang, what there will be after the Heat Death, and what caused this present interval of existence?

Finally, the Party (and we must presume Ritter as well) make the connection between evolution and atheism as a religion.

… when the evolutionists say that a Creator cannot exist, they are saying God cannot exist. This is a profession of Atheism.

Evolution may be right, at least in parts. But it is not treated as science and materialism is a faulty theory to rely upon. Thus anyone who insists it is the only possible explanation employs evolution as an article of faith.

Frankly, I could see this debate, if it is actually held, going on for days to address all these presumptions and conclusions. In the meantime, let me summarize the California situation before critiquing them both.

On March 22, the five-member Lancaster, Calif., school board, at the urging of a parent, voted unanimously “to implement a ‘philosophy’ of science instruction that encourages students to question Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and that permits science teachers to insert critiques of the long-standing and accepted scientific theory into the curriculum,” according to local newspaper reports.

The parent, Alex Branning, championed the policy as a way to give students the “thinking skills” to compete in today economy and to ensure the local schools give them a “world-class education,” according to the Antelope Valley Press.

Board member Mel Kleven said the “new philosophy will bring ‘scientific reality to the classroom’ and promote an ‘open environment’,” the Press said.

Well, there are so many wrong premises and conclusions inherent in both the Pennsylvania and California cases that it is hard to know where to begin.

Let’s start with Ritter-Party accusation against materialism, one of the basic foundations of modern science.

Methodological materialism, in a nutshell, says science can only base its conclusions on real-life experiments and observations. Theories like evolution and the Big Bang depend solely on “hard” evidence for support. As in criminal cases, investigators must sometime infer logical conclusions from limited available evidence, but these conclusions need to be consistent with existing scientific understanding.

We have no evidence for what came before the Big Bang, or for what might have caused the Big Bang, so there are no scientific theories that address either question. Current theory does an exceptional job in explaining what happened after the Big Bang, however.

Philosophical materialism holds that science can only address questions that are based on real-life phenomena, what our five senses and our instruments can detect. Materialism rejects debate over supernatural influences and explanations, since by definition there can be no natural (scientific) evidence for either.

Thus, scientists argue that debating what happened before the Big Bang or what will happen after the Big Crunch or the Heat Death is a matter for religion or philosophy, not for science.

Essentially, then, the Ritter-Party argument against materialism has no merit. Likewise, their contention that science denies the existence of a Creator is overly simplistic. Materialism denies the need for and advisability of invoking divine or supernatural causes. It says nothing about whether such causes exist, since the question lies outside the parameters of science.

Scientists who believe in God typically do not mix their religious beliefs with their professional methodology. This practice does not make them atheists, or science atheism.

The Ritter, et al., protests that evolution cannot “demonstrate” (1) abiogenesis, (2) new sexual species and (3) human intellect similarly belie a fundamental misconception of how science operates.

There is a naive view, perhaps fostered by textbook renditions of the scientific method, that science depends solely on laboratory experiment. Without concrete experimental results, this naive view contends, scientific conclusions are merely speculation, or opinion, or “just a theory,” or as Ritter, et al., contend, a matter of faith.

This view is more materialistic than methodological materialism is. In other words, it’s a “show me” definition of science. Show me life evolved from chemicals. Show me a sexual species evolving before our eyes. Show me how the human brain got such a large cerebral cortex.

Well, we can’t do that, at least with multi-cellular species. Evolution, of life or of the universe, has occupied billions of years of time. That time scale makes it impossible to conduct neat little laboratory experiments to verify our conclusions. We can model evolution and the universe with mathematics and computer simulations. We can study the genetic diversification of bacteria and viruses in real time, since they evolve so quickly. We can make logical inferences from the available evidence. It’s still science, even without the show-me experiments.

To draw an analogy from a popular television show, CSI, let’s suppose our investigators find a dead body, blood on the floor, and an abandoned pistol. There are two possible “materialist” hypotheses. The victim shot himself, or someone else shot him. (A non-materialist would perhaps further add, a demon, alien or ghost shot him.)

The investigators test the blood, examine the pistol for fingerprints, record the placement of the gun and the nature of the entry wound, and check the scene for other less obvious evidence. They conclude, based on the available evidence, that the victim’s jealous wife did him in.

Did they actually see her do it? No. Can they recreate the crime, using her and her husband as the subjects? Not if one of them is dead. Yet, the available evidence and the investigators’ inferences from it would lead to criminal charges and a trial.

It’s still science, and it’s still admissible, as they say in legal circles.

The California situation demonstrates other misconceptions about evolution and particularly how it should be taught. Those who question evolution consider it to be equivalent to a legislative proposal or legal argument, and that the teaching of it is “one-sided.” They want to “teach the controversy.”

Scientifically speaking, there is no controversy about evolution. With rare exception, scientists accept evolution as a valid explanation for the development of lie on Earth; the preponderance of evidence supporting evolution makes any other conclusions speculative at best.

The science as presented in most textbooks represents a condensation of the prevailing attitudes and theories of the day. Scientists have already worked through any controversies by the time the science enters the textbooks.

As an example, my father’s physics text from the mid-1930s addresses nothing about Einstein’s theory of relativity or quantum mechanics, which were both in their infancy when he attended high school. Both are discussed in some detail in present-day physics texts, because the controversy is over. Relativity and quantum mechanics are part of the “canon” of modern physics, despite there being some aspects of both that have not yet been fully verified experimentally.

The theory of evolution is not like a legal case or a legislative bill to be judged on its acceptability to a majority. We can debate its scientific merits and methodology, as long as stay within the parameters of scientific thought. In other words, we cannot challenge evolution with non-materialist arguments of divine creation or intelligent design, and still call it a scientific debate.

To bring in another analogy, evolution is closer in spirit to the concepts that humans cannot be slaves and that all adult citizens can vote. At one time, slavery was legally, socially and morally acceptable, and women and former slaves were believed to be intellectually incapable of understanding political issues.

The controversies regarding both issues were worked out long ago. The pertinent amendments to the Constitution bear witness that the controversy is now largely over. No history teacher would entertain discussion that slavery is now actually a good thing or that women and non-whites are now intellectually inferior to white male property holders. Such ideas are archaic, and potentially explosive issues .

Likewise, a school or a science teacher, if they actually understand what science is, should present evolution for what it is, the best available scientific explanation for the development of life on Earth. It is a theory supported by a multitude of “facts” — evidence — that is no longer scientifically controversial.

Evolution, like women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery, is part of our modern age. To a large extent, its validity is not open to debate. Accept it. We’re in the 21st century now. It’s time to move on.

In Ohio, Science 1, ID 0

Ohio, which borders our fair Commonwealth, has come to its senses and rejected the attempts by Intelligent Design advocates to weasel ID into the public school science curriculum. The Ohio Board of Education voted, 11-4, to remove a pro-ID lesson plan and pro-ID science standards from the state curriculum.

The board had a month earlier voted, 9-8, to retain the material, which essentially gave ID proponents a way to introduce discussion of ID as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

Reactions, as they say, were mixed. From The New York Times:

Darwin’s defenders celebrated the reversal as a sign of a backlash against the inroads made last year by critics of evolution. But leaders of the Discovery Institute, the intellectual home of intelligent design, warned that Ohio’s move would create a backlash of its own.

“It’s an outrageous slap in the face to the citizens of Ohio,” said John G. West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the institute, referring to several polls that show public support for criticism of evolution in science classes.

“The effort to try to suppress ideas that you dislike, to use the government to suppress ideas you dislike, has a failed history,” Mr. West said. “Do they really want to be on the side of the people who didn’t want to let John Scopes talk or who tried to censor Galileo?”

Um, well, right. Good choice of comparable situations, there. Scopes was tried (in State of Tennessee v. John Scopes, in 1925) for violating state law by teaching evolution and Galileo was tried for violating ecclesiastical law by teaching that the Earth orbited the Sun. So, West is saying the Ohio Board of Ed is acting like the state of Tennessee and the Catholic Church by quashing scientific debate? West needs to choose his comparisons more carefully.

Scopes had assigned readings on evolution, from a state-approved text, no less, to his class. He agreed to be the subject of a test case challenging the state’s anti-evolution law. The resulting trial pitted two bulldog lawyers, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, in a well-publicized battle. Darrow won the arguments, though he and Scopes technically lost the case. The Scopes “Monkey Trial” is generally regarded as a serious blow to the teaching of creationism in public schools, so in the end Scopes was vindicated.

Galileo, convinced that the heliocentric theory was correct since he actually had first-hand evidence supporting it, was the Carl Sagan of his day. He published popular, easy to read books denigrating the geocentric model and praising the heliocentric model. The Church knew he was correct (after all, the new heliocentric theory was the work of a Catholic cleric, Copernicus), but found Galileo’s disregard for Church authority and overall cheekiness threatening. The Church basically had to shut Galileo up. Like Scopes, Galileo lost his case, but in the end was vindicated.

Why were they vindicated? Because THEY BOTH WERE RIGHT! The ID folks have yet to show scientifically that their proposal — that life and the universe in general is the work of a unnamed designer — has any validity at all. They are in fact trying to sneak their religion into the public schools, by suggesting evolution is a weak theory. Scopes and Galileo, for their part, fought against prevailing religious intolerance by teaching real science.

So, the ID folks have lost their battles in Pennsylvania and Ohio. For now, they are on the defensive, but will likely start other skirmishes against evolution. A fellow blogger, Future Geek, suggests Kentucky could be next battleground. We have all the right conditions: a governor in favor of teaching ID in the schools, laws on the books permitting prayer, Bible readings and creationism, ID heavyweight William Dembski at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and a strong Bible Belt tradition. You just wait.

Reality 1 – Stan Deyo 0

Stan Deyo is one of those self-promoting “psychics” who claims, in his case, to be able to predict earthquakes days in advance. Deyo says his system of monitoring global ocean temperatures permits him to forecast when and where earthquakes are likely to hit about 75% of the time. Me, I’m doubtful, since geologists are lucky if they get an inkling just hours in advance.

Deyo made this prediction on his site last week:

February 3, 2006
By Stan Deyo
Home http://standeyo.com

WARNING: USA
San Francisco is the hot spot of today’s forecast. There is a STRONG signal between Mendocino and San Francisco along the San Andreas Fault. The signal shows the stress is from the Pioneer Fault Zone just below the Mendocino Fault Zone. People in the immediate area of this location should prepare to leave their homes should a major quake strike SF in the next 5 days…. possibly even tonight.

Well, it’s been six days and, unless I’ve missed the news, the Bay Area seems OK. In fact, I wonder if anyone has independently verified his success rate. There are a lot of people who seem to think he’s the shiznit when it comes to earthquake forecasting.

To be fair, Deyo does not claim infallibility. He includes this disclaimer after his forecasts:

Disclaimer: Some of the forecast stress areas can be in error up to 30% due to cloud cover variations and false signals from buoys.

With that in mind, he could have missed the SF quake by 1.5 days either way. I may be premature then in discounting his abilities, but I’m not too worried.

Deyo does not apparently attempt to make money off his predictions; he offers them as a public service. He publishes books, makes appearances at fringe-science/doomsday/UFO/end times conferences and gives radio interviews, so the earthquake forecasting is just a sideline. He’s a real end-times kind of guy, and his wife, Holly, seems to be some kind of emergency preparedness expert/marketer, so the earthquake gig must bolster the family business some.

Deyo has a pretty sizeable following, and I expect his fans in the Bay Area got out of town in a hurry, which worries me. Someone with confidence in his system should be willing to have an independent observer measure his success rate, though. It’s reckless to tell people to move out in a hurry when there is such a large margin of error. No one panicked that I know of, but in these days of constant nagging fear, Deyo should be more circumspect.

Their crystal balls are cracked

At the end of each year (on the Gregorian calendar, anyway), there are a bunch of self-styled psychic experts who prognosticate events for the coming year. Usually, they are wrong far more times than they are right, yet they manage to sucker the public into believing in the psychics’ supernatural accuracy. The experts play up their infrequent successes, and just fail to mention the times they are wrong.

There is a great website here that keeps score. The author has not yet updated it for 2006, but the results for 2005 are convincing enough.

And by the way, Happy (Chinese) New Year. Kung hei fat choi!

It’s not just here …

From the BBC comes this disheartening news. According to a recent survey, just under half of the Brits surveyed accept evolution as the best explanation for the development of life.

And in case you thought the British public was more sophisticated than the folks in Kansas and Dover, Pa., more than 40% of those surveyed believe intelligent design or creationism should be taught in school science classes.

Ironically, the BBC’s Horizons program commissioned the survey for a program about the ID controversy in the States.

According to the BBC report,

Over 2,000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:

* 22% chose creationism
* 17% opted for intelligent design
* 48% selected evolution theory
* and the rest did not know.

Asked what explanation of the development of life should be taught, the respondents replied

* 44% said creationism should be included
* 41% intelligent design
* 69% wanted evolution as part of the science curriculum.

Let’s hope that the IDists in the States don’t use this survey as more ammunition for including ID in high school science classes.

Let’s also hope that educators, both here and in the UK, take the results to heart. We are apparently not doing a very effective job convincing the public that evolution has merit or validity.

Does God play poker?

Einstein once said that God does not play dice with the universe. He was critical, at the time, of the emerging quantum theory, which states that we cannot know everything about the motion, position and energy states of subatomic particles.

So I wonder if God may be a poker player. The creationists/intelligent design folks discount the role chance might have played in the evolution of life. Now the main problem is, “how much time did the designer/universe have available to try all these different combinations of CHONP?” The theory of evolution suggests that life took about 1 billion years to form from simple organic molecules. Creationists and ID folks use a much shorter time span, since they tend to believe the earth is much, much younger than the accepted 4.6 billion years.

As a crude analogy, suppose God had an honest deck of 52 and dealt out five cards every second. According to Mathworld, the odds of dealing a royal flush (KQJ10A) is 1 in 649,739 deals. In other words, roughly speaking within every 649,739-second time block one hand has to be a royal flush. Now 649,739 seconds is about 7.5 days (hmmm, God got lucky on that 6th day!). So, if He continued to deal once a second for a year, He would deal about 48 royal flushes a year, or 48 billion in 1 billion years.

Here’s my point. Combining CHONP atoms randomly to “deal” a prokaryote is pretty unlikely, but given a timescale of 1 billion years, the odds were good enough that at least one combination must have been a winning hand. It’s entirely logical to assume random chance could have created life some 3 billion years ago, since we are the end result of that winning hand.

With a shorter time period, say 10,000 years, it would have been extremely unlikely such random deals could have created a living organism. In that respect, creationism and ID are probably right. Creating self-sustaining organisms from just five atoms is a lot more difficult than playing poker, after all.

For another opinion, see this blog entry at Skeptico.