Miscellaneous

Scientific theories, intelligent design and story time

At the end of this post, I am going to share one of the coolest moments in my life as well as the unquestionably dorkiest moment in my life. Both of which I was reminded of when, over the weekend, I stumbled upon an article talking about how some scientists happened upon another test which Einstein's Theory of General Relativity passed.

This article called to mind my post from last week wherein I bitched about the teaching of Intelligent Design in the science classroom. While I think ID is utter hogwash, I have no problem with it being discussed in religious circles. I may not believe the beliefs of others and, while I'm an asshole who might mock them for said beliefs, I also stand behind their right to believe what they will. But that doesn't change the fact that ID is not science. The Theory of Evolution, meanwhile, is science and, using the scientific method, it can be tested. And so far, it passes all tests.

Anyway, the article I mentioned talks about a unique situation in space, where two pulsars (massive remains of dead stars) happen to live incredibly close to each other (they're only twice the distance from each other as the Earth is from the moon). This gave scientists a unique opportunity to test a prediction of General Relativity, and the prediction matches the observed results. As one of the scientists notes, "It's not quite right to say that we have now 'proven' General Relativity. However, so far, Einstein's theory has passed all the tests that have been conducted." And that's the difference between evolution and Intelligent Design - evolution has passed tests while ID hasn't passed shit.

And yes, for those who are physics wonks, I realize that this same argument could be used to belittle string theory. But while we don't have any tests for the key components of those various theories yet, they originate from scientific ideas and principles, not religion. And it's because of the fact that they remain untested that it's not only right, but necessary, that they be taught and studied as mere possibilities at this point. But again, they're based and rooted in science. Intelligent Design is not.

Anyway, on to my self-indulgent story time. This article was also heartwarming to me because (a) it's about pulsars, which I studied in my "I'm gonna be an astrophysicist days" and (b) it resulted from observations taken at the Green Belt Telescope (the "GBT") in West Virginia. I spent a weekend at the GBT, and we got to work with a smaller radio telescope on the same campus and this is what led to the two moments I mentioned above.

One of the coolest moments of my life -- we were using this little telescope to record some data and, as we studied what had been recorded, we realized that we had picked up this weird motion that we couldn't account for. After a few hours of mucking around with the data, we eventually realized that what we had observed and recorded was the rotation of our galaxy. That moment of realization was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced, awesome in the truest meaning of the word. It's that aspect of scientific study that I miss the most in my post-scientist days.

The dorkiest moment of my life -- we then decided to point the telescope all the way to the ground, and our whole group got in front of it. The human body gives off tiny amounts of radiation which a strong enough telescope, like this one, can pick up. So we took the "image" (a time-based graph) of the data of our collective radiation and made it into our own group photo, and eventually put that image on t-shirts. Yes, Maude, I'm a card-carrying fucking dork (in fact ... we also made laminated "astrophysicist" wallet cards that summer, too. ...holy hell, it's a wonder I'm not still a virgin living in my parents' basement).

Full post as published by Quiz Law on July 07, 2008 (boomark / email).