Bodyworlds.

Meet “Tai Chi Man.” He’s a real human body, on display at the Bodyworlds exhibit in the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science. He’ll be on display until May 28th, along with a great many other real human bodies. Bodyworlds is made possible by its creator, Dr. Gunther Von Hagens, who invented Plastination.

Plastination is a scientific process that extracts all bodily fluids and soluble fat from a body, or body part, and replaces it with plastics, such as resin and elastomers; the polymer material then has to be hardened, or cured, by way of heat, gas, or UV light. This process not only halts natural decomposition, but also preserves even the most microscopic details of the specimen.

The figures are all posed in certain ways, emphasizing physical aspects of the body. This gives the viewer a better understanding of his, or her, own locomotive and nervous systems, clearly showing the interaction between the musculature and the bone structure of the human body. In addition to this, other systems of the body are also shown, in detail, by way of manipulating the bodies in certain ways, or adding dyes to emphasize qualities of the digestive, respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

What really makes the presence of actual bodies important, is the fact that the viewer can see all the specific qualities and unique characteristics, such as cancers and tumors, natural deformations, and/or arthoplasty and other artificial alterations, of a certain bodyform.

Even so, there has been heavy debate as to whether the positive scientific benefits outweigh the potential consequences of displaying the bodies in ways that make them appear alive, manipulating them as if in action. Some fear this exploits the men and women who donated their bodies to the process, making them something like a circus sideshow. Still others argue the manipulation has more artistic qualities than scientific.

However, science, by and large, is continually represented artistically. Drawing the human body in physical poses, for example, is an important way to consider the locomotive principles of the muscles, with relation to the bones and other structures of the body. The fact that it’s artistic, and somewhat sensational, plays on the curiosities of people who wouldn’t normally be interested in learning about the human body. It certainly got my attention.

Filed under: Science, Visual Arts & Photography, Bodyworlds

Is Evolution a Threat to Religious Belief?

Is Evolution a Threat to Religious Belief?

I read the above article by Eugene Volokh earlier today, and found his commentary on the evolutionism/creationism debate to be the ordinary and expected polarizing viewpoint purporting science and religion as coexistive. Though his belabored point came across to me, I am highly doubtful that most would understand the real problem here: the fact that there really is no debate between evolutionism and creationism at all. He concludes with:

“Yet scientific popularizers and educators have to deal with the fact that in our society, many people are still religious, and still accept descriptive religion (at least ostensibly). If the popularizers and educators describe science as taking no stand on the existence or influence of God, and as leaving such questions to others, I think they’ll have great success; and, whether they want to or not, they will indeed further undermine descriptive religion. But if they insist, in my view unnecessarily, that the standard scientific theory does take a stand that God is not influencing the world — and that accepting evolution as the best scientific hypothesis while seeing God’s hand in its operation is an inferior conclusion that is worthy of scientific criticism — then they will encounter much more resistance.”

Though he may not be doing so on purpose, he’s really just polarizing the two issues–forcing science into a box he’s created with his straw man argument with regards to the “scientific standard” that evolutionary theory posits. For more on that, please read his article. I did comment directly on the Huffington Post site, however, the response itself–though slightly contingent on his article–is basically self-sufficient; and so here it is:

First of all, the “standard scientific theory” with regards to evolutionary theory is not as stated above; rather, evolutionary theory is simply the frequency of change in alleles—in a given population—from one generation to the next.

You’ve touched on an all too common misunderstanding of evolutionary theory—and science in general, for that matter: that somehow, not dealing with god (and in this case, we are clearly discussing the god of the Abrahamic religions) is synonymous to denying god as a potential mover or designer, and essentially, that god “had no part in this process.” Simply put, given the empirical nature of science, metaphysical things, as such, have no place in scientific theories.

Science deals with the corporeal world and demonstrates said theories by virtue of testability, repeatability and verifiability. “God”—a word, a concept, an idea, a symbol of belief, etc.—cannot be introduced into scientific theory because scientific theory is bound by methodology (cf., scientific method). And what is “scientific theory”? Well, it’s certainly not an opinion or a hypothesis; a scientific theory is simply a collection of correlating facts.

Is creationism a “theory” then? Using our scientific terminology it cannot be—given, the only “evidence” of creationism lies in the Bible. And let’s try not to forget that a) the Bible is not a scientific text, b) the Bible never claims to be a scientific text, and c) the “creationism” referenced here began as a movement in the late nineteen-hundreds, following Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Instead of addressing problems with Darwin’s theory (of natural selection—now considered a mechanism of modern evolutionary synthesis), this movement immediately constructed a red herring by ignoring the premises and jumping at the seemingly abject conclusion—that there is no intelligent designer. Either way, we are talking about apples and oranges here, folks.

Remember people, you can believe in the god of the Abrahamic religions, while accepting modern evolutionary synthesis. You can believe in “intelligent design.” However, you cannot be a “creationist” as referenced in the above article, and accept modern evolutionary synthesis, since this movement of creationism—commonly referred to Young Earth or New Land Creationism—was a knee-jerk reaction to early Darwinian evolutionary theory.

I encourage all interested parties to take a detailed look at reputable references like Wikipedia or TalkOrigins, before perpetuating these detrimental misapplications of evolutionary theory.

Filed under: Science, evolutionary theory

Politics vs. Science

Recently, I posted a commentary on Postmodern Thinking (http://www.postmodernthinking.blogspot.com) concerning Paul Bloom’s article for the New York Times, entitled: The Duel Between Body and Soul. I addressed the philosophical problems of the epistemology of science, i.e., that science is not the be-all-end-all of thinking, insofar is it reliant on sense data, and sense data alone. See the post for more on the philosophical concerns. Here, I will address the political concerns of Bloom’s article.

In short, I agree with Bloom. Politics should not reign over science to such a degree as it truncates our ability to understand and observe natural things, simply because of quasi-religious connotations.

Let’s take the example of stem cell research. The bioethics involved with politics tells us (I am quoting Bloom’s quotation of The President’s Council on Bioethics here) “We have both corporeal and noncorporeal aspects.” This becomes problematic insofar as the issues concerning the philosophical aspects of the “soul” or spirituality are taken for granted because instead of concerning ourselves with the real philosophical problems (e.g., the simple fact that we-as humans-are limited by our body), we simply feed the agenda. The agenda here being the Right-wing Conservative Christian agenda: that Christianity should reign and that Christian authorities should border the boundaries of science.

In other words, instead of focusing on the real philosophical problems, political groups are focusing on what fits their agenda. To say that this is easily remedied is absurd, however, given special interest groups reign anyway.

So what is the solution? In my opinion, the solution lies in understanding ourselves as human beings-furthermore, understanding our flaws and limitations as human beings. Instead of conquering nature and finding ways to cheat it, we might try simply attempting to understand nature, understand it’s essence, it’s substance, it’s very being, if you will. Keeping this in mind, I think, would require us-as human beings-to ask more questions and give fewer answers. Does this solve the problem, directly? Of course not. But it does give a foundational method for approaching these problems.

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics, Science, Paul Bloom

Dinosaur-Era Bird Could Fly, Brain Study Says

Archaeopteryx model

According to National Geographic, there have recently been significant archaeological finds which would prove the Archaeopteryx was really a primitive bird. Debate has gone back and forth for quite sometime, however, the evidence suggests that the Archaeopteryx shared similar characteristics to modern birds-namely, the brain to body size ratio, the acute eyesight, and most importantly, the ability to control balance and movement more effectively, via ear structure and enlarged parts of the brain which perform this function.

I find the short article interesting because it simply further proves that evolutionary theory is a good working model and is adequate in helping determine the history of life itself.

Filed under: Science, Archaeopteryx, evolutionary theory

Hawking Solves Blackhole Paradox

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking expands on his changed theory of black holes at a scientific conference in Dublin on Wednesday. The famed physicist uses a wheelchair because he suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and speaks through a speech synthesizer. Paul Mcerlane / Reuters

This is for all of you interested in famed physicist Stephen Hawking. Hawking recently delivered a speech (well, that is using the term ‘speech’ in an expressive sense, rather than a literal sense *wink*) to roughly 800 physicists, outlining the paradox of black holes. For almost three decades, Hawking has been concerned with whether or not black holes really consumed and destroyed everything which entered them. He even went so far as to place a bet with a fellow colleague that they did in fact do so. However, today he publically announced that he had been wrong about the idea, that black holes do not in fact consume and destroy everything which enters, but instead, will eventually spit all that enters in a “mangled” form.

The paradox involves subatomic theory that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. In essence then, matter can merely be transformed. Interestingly enough, Hawking has just further proved this theory to be true. Unfortunately, for science fiction buffs, however, it seems that less credibility will be given to films like The Black Hole and the like which show the mysteriousness of black holes and conclude they must lead to other universes.

More at MSN.com
An interesting BBC Q&A session on what black holes are
And of course, what story on Stephen would be complete without a link to the hip, groovy and [H]ardcore antics of the M.C. himself? See more at MCHawking.com. W00t!

Filed under: Science, Black Holes, Stephen Hawking