HoodedHawk

A team at Harvard lead by Robert Wood has created a fly-like robot that really flies like, er, a fly. It only weighs 60 milligrams. It’s just a start, since it has no onboard power nor can it be controlled (it flies on a tether to keep it straight). But it does fly! Future uses for such flybots (besides the obvious espionage uses) include the ability to fly into areas to detect toxins, etc. Neat.

Last night I went to a lecture/signing by Dr. Francis Collins for his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, at Olsson’s Books in Arlington, VA. Dr. Collins is the counterpoint to Dr. Richard Dawkins, (See my previous blog post) who recently wrote The God Delusion. While Dawkins is still an atheist, and Collins was once, Collins is now a Christian. Dr. Collins’ discussion about how he came to his belief in God, and how he reconciled this with his belief in science was very interesting. Dr. Collins was prompted by his work with patients (and their religious beliefs) to explore various faiths. He read up on Islam, Judaism, Budism, etc. and was most enticed by Christianity. While it may seem that Dr. Collins believes in “mere” Theistic Evolution, his pronouncement that he is a Christian (and believes that Jesus was also God) shows that he has more of a belief in a personal God (also evidenced by his statement that he prays).

Unlike Creationists (and those thinly-disguised Creationists, “Intelligent Design” fans), Dr. Collins has no problem reconciling his belief in God (and Jesus, and the Bible) with Science (specifically, Evolution). To paraphrase Dr. Collins: “It’s perfectly reasonable to believe that God created man by creating the Universe, and letting Man come into being via evolution. Yeah, it took billions of years to happen, but to God that’s an eyeblink.”

Dr. Collins did touch on the “anthropic principle”, which basically states that the fundamental physical constants of the universe are fined-tuned to exactly support life. Some theorists have proposed that this can be explained away by the concept of a “multiverse”, with an infinite number of parallel universes. If you have an infinite number of universes, then obviously at least *one* of them will result in physical constraints that support life as we know it. I did appreciate Dr. Collins comment that a belief in a “multiverse” (something that can never be proven or tested) is no different than a belief in a God that created our (anthropic) universe.

A question was asked of Dr. Collins: Does he believe in God because it is “useful” or because it is “true”; or rather which of these qualities is more important? Dr. Collins unequivocally stated that it must be “truth”. A belief in God merely because it is “comforting” to believe (and thus be part of a network of like-minded people) would not work for him; he must also believe that it is true.

Amen.

Well, at least two of my photos are. The article below is from the July issue of Scientific American. I’m going to grab a few extra copies of the physical magazine (I’m a subscriber already). The photos of Professors Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins are mine. The one of Prof. Krauss was at a recent debate with Prof. Brian Greene on String Theory (see my recent post). The photo of Prof. Dawkins was at a reading/signing of his book, “The God Delusion“. Cool!

Should Science Speak to Faith?

Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers

By Richard Dawkins and Lawrence M. Krauss

A recent paper in Science [Science 13 April 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5822, pp. 277 – 280] reports that fossil proteins have been found in a leg bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex. In fact, intact collagen proteins have been found in this 68 million-year old specimen. Most fossils of this age contain no soft tissue, since soft tissue would have long ago been replaced by minerals during the fossilization process. Further testing of the fossil protein reveals it is very similar to that found modern-day chickens. This is further evidence favoring the theory that birds are actually living descendants of dinosaurs. Interesting!

A readable account is at The Economist website.

NASA scientists can now predict the color of plants on other planets, and they may well not be green. On Earth photosynthetic plants are primarily green, due to the color of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll in plants is responsible for photosynthesis, which converts the (light) energy of the sun into (chemical) energy of sugars such as glucose. Chlorophyll appears green because it absorbs more red and blue light and less green light (i.e., it reflects more green). Since more red light actually reaches the surface of the earth than green, Nature has optimized chlorophyll to use the most abundant (red) light. However, other planets, circling other stars, may have a different wavelength of light predominant on the surface. Thus, the “chlorophyll” on other planets may have evolved to absorb this light and reflect something other than green.