Arquivo da tag: ciência

A nova partícula que pode mudar o que sabemos sobre o Universo (BBC Brasil)

22/03/2016Uncategorizedciência, Físicarenzotaddei

Da BBC Mundo – 21 março 2016

Reuters

Se for confirmada a existência de uma nova partícula, especialistas acreditam que poderá ser aberta uma porta para um mundo ‘desconhecido e inexplorado’ (Reuters)

O Grande Colisor de Hádrons (LHC, na sigla em inglês) – um acelerador de partículas gigantesco que fica na fronteira entre a França e a Suíça – causou fortes emoções entre físicos teóricos, uma comunidade que geralmente é muito cautelosa quando se trata de novas descobertas.

O motivo: “batidinhas” detectadas pelo Grande Colisor de Hádrons. Essas batidas, evidenciadas nos dados que resultam da aceleração dos prótons, podem sinalizar a existência de uma nova e desconhecida partícula seis vezes maior do que o Bóson de Higgs (a chamada “partícula de Deus”).

E isso, para o físico teórico Gian Giudice, significaria “uma porta para um mundo desconhecido e inexplorado”.

“Não é a confirmação de uma teoria já estabelecida”, disse à revista New Scientisto pesquisador, que também é trabalha na Organização Europeia para Investigação Nuclear (CERN).

A emoção dos cientistas começou quando, em dezembro de 2015, os dois laboratórios que trabalham no LHC de forma independente registraram os mesmos dados depois de colocar o colisor para funcionar praticamente na capacidade máxima (o dobro de energia necessária para detectar o Bóson de Higgs).

Os dados registrados não podem ser explicados com o que se sabe até hoje das leis da física.

Depois do anúncio desses novos dados foram publicados cerca de 280 ensaios que tentam explicar o que pode ser esse sinal – e nenhum deles descartou a teoria de que se trata de uma nova partícula.

Alguns cientistas sugerem que a partícula pode ser uma prima pesada do Bóson de Higgs, descoberto em 2012 e que explica por que a matéria tem massa.

Outros apresentaram a hipótese de o Bóson de Higgs ser feito de partículas menores. E ainda há o grupo dos que pensam que essas “batidinhas” podem ser de um gráviton, a partícula encarregada de transmitir a força da gravidade.

Se realmente for um gráviton, essa descoberta será um marco, porque até hoje não tinha sido possível conciliar a gravidade com o modelo padrão da física de partículas.

Extraordinário?

Para os especialistas, o fato de que ninguém conseguiu refutar o que os físicos detectaram é um sinal de que podemos estar perto de descobrir algo extraordinário.

“Se isso se provar verdadeiro, será uma (nota) dez na escala Richter dos físicos de partículas”, disse ao jornal britânico The Guardian o especialista John Ellis, do King’s College de Londres. Ele também já foi chefe do departamento de teoria da Organização Europeia para a Investigação Nuclear. “Seria a ponta de um iceberg de novas formas de matéria.”

Mesmo com toda a animação de Ellis, os cientistas não querem se precipitar.

AFP

Image captionEsta nova partícula seria seis vezes maior que o Bóson de Higgs (AFP)

Quando o anúncio foi feito pela primeira vez, alguns pensaram que tudo não passava de uma terrível coincidência que aconteceu devido à forma como o LHC funciona.

Duas máquinas de raios de prótons são aceleradas chegando quase à velocidade da luz. Elas vão em direções diferentes e se chocam em quatro pontos, criando padrões de dados diferentes.

Essas diferenças, batidas ou perturbações na estatística são o que permitem demonstrar a presença de partículas.

Mas estamos falando de bilhões de perturbações registradas a cada experimento, o que torna provável um erro estatístico.

Porém, o fato de que os dois laboratórios tenham detectado a mesma batida é o que faz com que os cientistas prestem mais atenção ao tema.

Boas notícias

O Grande Colisor de Hádrons volta a funcionar nesta semana

Além disso, recentemente os cientistas dos laboratórios CMC e Atlas apresentaram novas provas depois de refinar e recalibrar seus resultados.

E nenhuma das equipes pôde atribuir a anomalia detectada a um eventual erro estatístico.

São boas notícias para os especialistas que acreditam que essa descoberta seja o início de algo muito grande.

O lado ruim é que nenhum dos laboratórios conseguiu explicar o que é esta misteriosa partícula. São necessárias mais experiências para qualificar o evento como um “descobrimento”.

O lado bom é que não será preciso esperar muito para ver o fim da história.

Nesta semana, o Grande Colisor de Hádrons sairá de seu período de hibernação para voltar a disparar prótons em direções diferentes.

Thinkstock

Uma das hipóteses é que esta nova partícula estaria relacionada com a gravidade (Thinkstock)

Nos próximos meses o colisor oferecerá o dobro de informação em comparação ao que os cientistas têm até agora.

E se estima que, em agosto, eles poderão saber o que é essa nova e promissora partícula.

Statisticians Found One Thing They Can Agree On: It’s Time To Stop Misusing P-Values (FiveThirtyEight)

12/03/2016Uncategorizedciência, Estatística, Matemática, Métodos de pesquisarenzotaddei

SCIENTIFIC METHOD 10:23 AM MAR 7, 2016

By CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN

Little p-value

What are you trying to say

Of significance?

— Stephen Ziliak, Roosevelt University economics professor

How many statisticians does it take to ensure at least a 50 percent chance of a disagreement about p-values? According to a tongue-in-cheek assessment by statistician George Cobb of Mount Holyoke College, the answer is two … or one. So it’s no surprise that when the American Statistical Association gathered 26 experts to develop a consensus statement on statistical significance and p-values, the discussion quickly became heated.

It may sound crazy to get indignant over a scientific term that few lay people have even heard of, but the consequences matter. The misuse of the p-value can drive bad science (there was no disagreement over that), and the consensus project was spurred by a growing worry that in some scientific fields, p-values have become a litmus test for deciding which studies are worthy of publication. As a result, research that produces p-values that surpass an arbitrary threshold are more likely to be published, while studies with greater or equal scientific importance may remain in the file drawer, unseen by the scientific community.

The results can be devastating, said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. “Patients with serious diseases have been harmed,” he wrote in a commentary published today. “Researchers have chased wild geese, finding too often that statistically significant conclusions could not be reproduced.” Faulty statistical conclusions, he added, have real economic consequences.

“The p-value was never intended to be a substitute for scientific reasoning,” the ASA’s executive director, Ron Wasserstein, said in a press release. On that point, the consensus committee members agreed, but statisticians have deep philosophical differences¹ about the proper way to approach inference and statistics, and “this was taken as a battleground for those different views,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford. Much of the dispute centered around technical arguments over frequentist versus Bayesian methods and possible alternatives or supplements to p-values. “There were huge differences, including profoundly different views about the core problems and practices in need of reform,” Goodman said. “People were apoplectic over it.”

The group debated and discussed the issues for more than a year before finally producing a statement they could all sign. They released that consensus statement on Monday, along with 20 additional commentariesfrom members of the committee. The ASA statement is intended to address the misuse of p-values and promote a better understanding of them among researchers and science writers, and it marks the first time the association has taken an official position on a matter of statistical practice. The statement outlines some fundamental principles regarding p-values.

Among the committee’s tasks: Selecting a definition of the p-value that nonstatisticians could understand. They eventually settled on this: “Informally, a p-value is the probability under a specified statistical model that a statistical summary of the data (for example, the sample mean difference between two compared groups) would be equal to or more extreme than its observed value.” That definition is about as clear as mud (I stand by my conclusion that even scientists can’t easily explain p-values), but the rest of the statement and the ideas it presents are far more accessible.

One of the most important messages is that the p-value cannot tell you if your hypothesis is correct. Instead, it’s the probability of your data given your hypothesis. That sounds tantalizingly similar to “the probability of your hypothesis given your data,” but they’re not the same thing, said Stephen Senn, a biostatistician at the Luxembourg Institute of Health. To understand why, consider this example. “Is the pope Catholic? The answer is yes,” said Senn. “Is a Catholic the pope? The answer is probably not. If you change the order, the statement doesn’t survive.”

A common misconception among nonstatisticians is that p-values can tell you the probability that a result occurred by chance. This interpretation is dead wrong, but you see it again and again and again and again. The p-value only tells you something about the probability of seeing your results given a particular hypothetical explanation — it cannot tell you the probability that the results are true or whether they’re due to random chance. The ASA statement’s Principle No. 2: “P-values do not measure the probability that the studied hypothesis is true, or the probability that the data were produced by random chance alone.”

Nor can a p-value tell you the size of an effect, the strength of the evidence or the importance of a result. Yet despite all these limitations, p-values are often used as a way to separate true findings from spurious ones, and that creates perverse incentives. When the goal shifts from seeking the truth to obtaining a p-value that clears an arbitrary threshold (0.05 or less is considered “statistically significant” in many fields), researchers tend to fish around in their data and keep trying different analyses until they find something with the right p-value, as you can see for yourself in a p-hacking tool we built last year.

Indeed, many of the ASA committee’s members argue in their commentaries that the problem isn’t p-values, just the way they’re used — “failing to adjust them for cherry picking, multiple testing, post-data subgroups and other biasing selection effects,” as Deborah Mayo, a philosopher of statistics at Virginia Tech, puts it. When p-values are treated as a way to sort results into bins labeled significant or not significant, the vast efforts to collect and analyze data are degraded into mere labels, said Kenneth Rothman, an epidemiologist at Boston University.

The 20 commentaries published with the ASA statement present a range of ideas about where to go from here. Some committee members argued that there should be a move to rely more on other measures, such as confidence intervals or Bayesian analyses. Others felt that switching to something else would only shift the problem around. “The solution is not to reform p-values or to replace them with some other statistical summary or threshold,” wrote Columbia University statistician Andrew Gelman, “but rather to move toward a greater acceptance of uncertainty and embracing of variation.”

If there’s one takeaway from the ASA statement, it’s that p-values are not badges of truth and p < 0.05 is not a line that separates real results from false ones. They’re simply one piece of a puzzle that should be considered in the context of other evidence.

This story began with a haiku from one of the p-value document’s companion responses; let’s end it with a limerick by University of Michigan biostatistician Roderick Little.

In statistics, one rule did we cherish:

P point oh five we publish, else perish!

Said Val Johnson, “that’s out of date, Our studies don’t replicate

P point oh oh five, then null is rubbish!”

CORRECTION (March 7, 11:05 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated the university where Deborah Mayo is a professor. She teaches at Virginia Tech, not the University of Pennsylvania.

Footnotes

Even the Supreme Court has weighed in, unanimously ruling in 2011 that statistical significance does not automatically equate to scientific or policy importance. ^

Christie Aschwanden is FiveThirtyEight’s lead writer for science.

O painel do clima quer falar com você (Observatório do Clima)

16/02/2016Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, IPCC, Mudanças climáticasrenzotaddei

15/02/2016

O australiano John Cook, editor do site Skeptical Science, fala durante encontro do IPCC em Oslo. Foto: Claudio Angelo/OC

O australiano John Cook, editor do site Skeptical Science, fala durante encontro do IPCC em Oslo. Foto: Claudio Angelo/OC

IPCC faz sua primeira reunião sobre comunicação disposto a mudar a cultura do segredo e a linguagem arcana de seus relatórios – mas esbarra numa estrutura de governança conservadora.

Por Claudio Angelo, do OC, em Oslo –

Luís Bernardo Valença, protagonista do romance Equador, do português Miguel de Souza Tavares, recebe do rei de Portugal uma missão virtualmente impossível: assumir o governo de São Tomé e Príncipe para convencer os compradores ingleses de cacau de que não existe trabalho escravo nas ilhas – e, ao mesmo tempo, garantir que o sistema de trabalho escravo não mude, de forma a não prejudicar a economia local.

A história guarda uma analogia com o momento pelo qual passa o IPCC, o painel do clima da ONU, que na semana passada realizou em Oslo, na Noruega, a primeira reunião de sua história dedicada à comunicação. O comitê internacional de cientistas, agraciado com o Prêmio Nobel da Paz em 2007, reconhece que a forma como se comunica com seus diversos públicos precisa mudar: os sumários de seus relatórios de avaliação são indecifráveis para leigos e para os próprios formuladores de políticas públicas a quem supostamente se dedicam; as decisões são tomadas em reuniões fechadas, o que alimenta rumores de que o painel é ora uma conspiração de ambientalistas para distorcer a ciência, ora uma vítima de ações de governos para aguar conclusões impactantes sobre a gravidade das mudanças do clima; a maneira como a incerteza e o risco são expressos pelo painel é bizantina.

A vontade de abrir-se mais ao público, porém, esbarra no conservadorismo do próprio painel, que preserva um modo de operação da década de 1990, quando lançou seu primeiro relatório de avaliação). Os métodos, as regras e os rituais do IPCC precisam permanecer os mesmos – e seus líderes parecem não querer abrir mão disso. Ao mesmo tempo, eles mesmos pedem mais transparência e mais acessibilidade. Qual é a chance de isso dar certo?

O próprio encontro de Oslo pode ser um termômetro. Foram convidados a participar cerca de 50 especialistas em comunicação do mundo inteiro e mais duas dezenas de autoridades do próprio painel. A reunião foi a primeira em toda a história do IPCC a ser transmitida ao vivo pela internet. Mas isso que só aconteceu depois da cobrança de algumas personalidades da área, como o jornalista americano Andrew Revkin. Ela foi aberta também pela internet pelo presidente do painel, o sul-coreano Hoesung Hwang. Os co-presidentes dos três grupos de trabalho que cuidam de avaliar os três grandes aspectos da mudança do clima (a base física, impactos e vulnerabilidades e mitigação) estiveram presentes o tempo todo, assim como dois dos três vice-presidentes, a americana Ko Barrett e o malês Youba Sokona. Cientistas que coordenaram a produção do AR5, o quinto relatório do IPCC, também estiveram nos dois dias de encontro.

Um consenso importante formado em Oslo foi que a comunicação precisa integrar o processo de produção dos relatórios desde o início. O modelo atual seguido pelo IPCC consiste em preparar primeiro os relatórios e então divulgá-los aos diversos públicos – tomadores de decisão, imprensa e o público geral. É o que Paul Lussier, especialista em mídia da Universidade Yale, chamou de “passar batom num porco” durante sua apresentação.

Enfeitar o suíno, até aqui, tem sido a receita para o fiasco de comunicação do painel. Isso foi mais ou menos matematicamente demonstrado pelo cientista ambiental português Suraje Dessai, professor da Universidade de Leeds, no Reino Unido, e coautor do AR5 (Quinto Relatório de Avaliação do IPCC, publicado entre 2013 e 2014). Uma análise dos sumários do IPCC conduzida por Dessai e colegas com a ajuda de softwares que olham simplicidade e legibilidade foi publicada no ano passado no periódico Nature Climate Change. O trabalho mostrou que não apenas o IPCC é menos legível do que outras publicações científicas, como também o grau de compreensibilidade dos sumários despencou de 1990 para cá.

Uma das recomendações feitas ao final do encontro, e que serão encaminhadas à plenária do IPCC em abril, é para que se incorporem comunicadores profissionais, jornalistas de ciência, psicólogos e antropólogos desde a chamada fase de “definição do escopo” dos relatórios. Isso começaria no AR6, o Sexto Relatório de Avaliação do IPCC, que deverá ser publicado em algum momento entre 2020 e 2022. Essa própria definição, que hoje é feita pelas autoridades do painel e pelos governos, poderá vir a ser realizada numa espécie de consulta pública – na qual diferentes atores, desde a sociedade civil até empresários e mesmo crianças, digam o que querem que o painel avalie sobre a mudança climática. Tamanha abertura seria uma revolução no IPCC, rompendo a lógica professoral que impera hoje na definição das perguntas às quais os relatórios tentam responder.

Outra sugestão, apresentada por um grupo que discutiu as relações entre o IPCC e os meios de comunicação, foi para que os rascunhos dos sumários executivos sejam abertos para o público antes da aprovação final pelos governos. Cada sumário passa por uma série de rascunhos até chegar ao formato final de revisão, que é enviado aos governos para comentários. Os sumários são aprovados por governos e cientistas na plenária do IPCC, onde recebem alterações finais. A regra é que os governos modifiquem muito o texto, mas – e este é um “mas” importante, porque é o que define a credibilidade do IPCC – a palavra final é sempre dos cientistas.

Os rascunhos hoje não são públicos, mas qualquer pessoa pode solicitar ao IPCC fazer parte do comitê de revisores – e ganham, assim, acesso aos documentos. Em 2013, um negacionista do clima vazou em seu blog uma versão do AR5, alegando que o painel estava escondendo evidências de que o aquecimento global se devia a raios cósmicos (não estava). A proposta apresentada em Oslo foi para que os rascunhos de revisão fossem tornados públicos, de forma a minimizar o impacto de vazamentos e a conter desinformação na imprensa.

Outras recomendações feitas em Oslo vão de dar ao site do IPCC uma nova interface pública até produzir infográficos animados da ciência avaliada pelos relatórios.

Na prática, porém, a teoria é outra: um dos dogmas do IPCC é que ele não pode produzir prescrições políticas, ou seja, precisa se limitar a dizer aos países o que acontece com o mundo em cada cenário de emissões e o que é preciso fazer para atingir níveis de emissão x, y ou z no futuro. A rigor, o painel do clima não pode incitar as pessoas a combater a mudança climática – isso seria uma posição de militância. Pior, entre os mais de 150 governos que integram o IPCC e de fato mandam nele (daí a sigla significar Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudanças Climáticas) há os que não querem resolver o problema, porque vivem da sua causa – os combustíveis fósseis. Essas são amarras importantes à comunicação.

Outro problema é que o IPCC ainda vive no século XX, num sentido bem real. Enquanto a comunicação hoje é digital, o painel do clima decidiu, por consenso, que seus relatórios são aprovados linha por linha pelos governos – e isso significa caneta e papel. Não há nem sequer método para submeter um infográfico animado à plenária, caso alguém ache que é o caso usar esse tipo de recurso no AR6. Sugestões de ter uma equipe de vídeo acompanhando o “making of” dos relatórios foram rejeitadas no passado, porque algumas pessoas no painel não queriam que ninguém ficasse “espionando” seu trabalho. E por aí vai.

O IPCC foi criado em 1988, mas só ganhou uma estratégia de comunicação em 2012. Tem um longo aprendizado pela frente e precisa começar de algum lugar. Pessoas com quem conversei em Oslo disseram duvidar que a maior parte das recomendações seja acatada. Mas é auspicioso, num momento em que o mundo se prepara para implementar o Acordo de Paris, que o templo do conhecimento climático esteja disposto a embarcar na tarefa da comunicação. Ela é mais necessária do que nunca agora. (Observatório do Clima/ #Envolverde)

* O jornalista viajou a convite do IPCC.

** Publicado originalmente no site Observatório do Clima.

Uma década de avanços em biotecnologia (Folha de S.Paulo)

12/02/2016UncategorizedAnimais de laboratório, ciência, Direitos animais, Interação humanos-animais, Manipulação da incerteza, Organismos geneticamente manipulados, Riscorenzotaddei

11 de fevereiro de 2016

Lei de Biossegurança completa 10 anos dialogando com as mais recentes descobertas da ciência

Walter Colli – Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo

Ao longo de 2015, uma silenciosa revolução biotecnológica aconteceu no Brasil. Neste ano a Comissão Técnica Nacional de Biossegurança (CTNBio) analisou e aprovou um número recorde de tecnologias aplicáveis à agricultura, medicina e produção de energia. O trabalho criterioso dos membros da CTNBio avaliou como seguros para a saúde humana e animal e para o ambiente 19 novos transgênicos, dentre os quais 13 plantas, três vacinas e três microrganismos ou derivados.

A CTNBio, priorizando o rigor nas análises de biossegurança e atenta às necessidades de produzir alimentos de maneira mais sustentável aprovou, no ano passado, variedades de soja, milho e algodão tolerantes a herbicidas com diferentes métodos de ação. Isso permitirá que as sementes desenvolvam todo seu potencial e que os produtores brasileiros tenham mais uma opção para a rotação de tecnologias no manejo de plantas daninhas. Sem essa ferramenta tecnológica, os agricultores ficariam reféns das limitações impostas pelas plantas invasoras. As tecnologias de resistência a insetos proporcionam benefícios semelhantes.

Na área da saúde, a revolução diz respeito aos métodos de combate a doenças que são endêmicas das regiões tropicais. Mais uma vez, mostrando-se parceira da sociedade, a CTNBio avaliou a biossegurança de duas vacinas recombinantes contra a Dengue em regime de urgência e deu parecer favorável a elas. Soma-se a estes esforços a aprovação do Aedes aegypti transgênico. O mosquito geneticamente modificado aprovado em 2014 tem se mostrado um aliado no combate ao inseto que, além de ser vetor da dengue, também está associado a casos de transmissão dos vírus Zika, Chikungunya e da febre amarela.

Nos últimos 10 anos, até o momento, o advento da nova CTNBio pela Lei 11.105 de 2005 – a Lei de Biossegurança – proporcionou a aprovação comercial de 82 Organismos Geneticamente Modificados (OGM): 52 eventos em plantas; 20 vacinas veterinárias; 7 microrganismos; 1 mosquito Aedes aegypti; e 2 vacinas para uso humano contra a Dengue. Essas liberações comerciais são a maior prova de que o Brasil lança mão da inovação para encontrar soluções para os desafios da contemporaneidade.

Entretanto, é necessário enfatizar que assuntos não relacionados com Ciência também se colocaram, como em anos anteriores, no caminho do desenvolvimento da biotecnologia em 2015. Manifestantes anti-ciência invadiram laboratórios e destruíram sete anos de pesquisas com plantas transgênicas de eucalipto e grupos anti-OGM chegaram a interromper reuniões da CTNBio, pondo abaixo portas com ações truculentas. Diversas inverdades foram publicadas na tentativa de colocar em dúvida a segurança e as contribuições que a transgenia vem dando para a sociedade. A ação desses grupos preocupa, pois, se sua ideologia for vitoriosa, tanto o progresso científico quanto o PIB brasileiros ficarão irreversivelmente prejudicados.

Hoje, a nossa Lei de Biossegurança é tida internacionalmente como um modelo de equilíbrio entre o rigor nas análises técnicas e a previsibilidade institucional necessária para haver o investimento. O reconhecimento global, o diálogo com a sociedade e a legitimidade dos critérios técnicos mostram que esses 10 anos são apenas o início de uma longa história de desenvolvimento e inovação no Brasil.

Is human behavior controlled by our genes? Richard Levins reviews ‘The Social Conquest of Earth’ (Climate & Capitalism)

23/01/2016Uncategorizedciência, Evolucionismo, Marxismo, Modelagem, Reducionismo, Sociobiologia, Teoria socialrenzotaddei

“Failing to take class division into account is not simply a political bias. It also distorts how we look at human evolution as intrinsically bio-social and human biology as socialized biology.”

August 1, 2012

Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. Liverwright Publishing, New York, 2012

reviewed by Richard Levins

In the 1970s, Edward O. Wilson, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and I were colleagues in Harvard’s new department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In spite of our later divergences, I retain grateful memories of working in the field with Ed, turning over rocks, sharing beer, breaking open twigs, putting out bait (canned tuna fish) to attract the ants we were studying..

We were part of a group that hoped to jointly write and publish articles offering a common view of evolutionary science, but that collaboration was brief, largely because Lewontin and I strongly disagreed with Wilson’s Sociobiology.

Reductionism and Sociobiology

Although Wilson fought hard against the reduction of biology to the study of molecules, his holism stopped there. He came to promote the reduction of social and behavioral science to biology. In his view:

“Our lives are restrained by two laws of biology: all of life’s entities and processes are obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry; and all of life’s entities and processes have arisen through evolution and natural selection.” [Social Conquest, p. 287]

This is true as far as it goes but fails in two important ways.

First, it ignores the reciprocal feedback between levels. The biological creates the ensemble of molecules in the cell; the social alters the spectrum of molecules in the biosphere; biological activity creates the biosphere itself and the conditions for the maintenance of life.

Second, it doesn’t consider how the social level alters the biological: our biology is a socialized biology.

Higher (more inclusive) levels are indeed constrained by the laws at lower levels of organization, but they also have their own laws that emerge from the lower level yet are distinct and that also determine which chemical and physical entities are present in the organisms. In new contexts they operate differently.

Thus for example we, like a few other animals including bears, are omnivores. For some purposes such as comparing digestive systems that’s an adequate label. But we are omnivores of a special kind: we not only acquire food by predation, but we also producefood, turning the inedible into edible, the transitory into stored food. This has had such a profound effect on our lives that it is also legitimate to refer to us as something new, productivores.

The productivore mode of sustenance opens a whole new domain: the mode of production. Human societies have experienced different modes of production and ways to organize reproduction, each with its own dynamics, relations with the rest of nature, division into classes, and processes which restore or change it when it is disturbed.

The division of society into classes changes how natural selection works, who is exposed to what diseases, who eats and who doesn’t eat, who does the dishes, who must do physical work, how long we can expect to live. It is no longer possible to prescribe the direction of natural selection for the whole species.

So failing to take class division into account is not simply a political bias. It also distorts how we look at human evolution as intrinsically bio-social and human biology as socialized biology.

The opposite of the genetic determinism of sociobiology is not “the blank slate” view that claims that our biological natures were irrelevant to behavior and society. The question is, what about our animal heritage was relevant?

We all agree that we are animals; that as animals we need food; that we are terrestrial rather than aquatic animals; that we are mammals and therefore need a lot of food to support our high metabolic rates that maintain body temperature; that for part of our history we lived in trees and acquired characteristics adapted to that habitat, but came down from the trees with a dependence on vision, hands with padded fingers, and so on. We have big brains, with regions that have different major functions such as emotions, color vision, and language.

But beyond these general capacities, there is widespread disagreement about which behaviors or attitudes are expressions of brain structure. The amygdala is a locus of emotion, but does it tell us what to be angry or rejoice about? It is an ancient part of our brains, but has it not evolved in response to what the rest of the brain is doing? There is higher intellectual function in the cortex, but does it tell us what to think about?

Every part of an organism is the environment for the rest of the organism, setting the context for natural selection. In contrast to this fluid viewpoint, phrases such as “hard-wired” have become part of the pop vocabulary, applied promiscuously to all sorts of behaviors.

In a deeper sense, asking if something is heritable is a nonsense question. Heritability is always a comparison: how much of the difference between humans and chimps is heritable? What about the differences between ourselves and Neanderthals? Between nomads and farmers?

Social Conquest of Earth

The Social Conquest of Earth, Ed Wilson’s latest book, continues his interest in the “eusocial” animals – ants, bees and others that live in groups with overlapping generations and a division of labor that includes altruistic behavior. As the title shows. he also continues to use the terminology of conquest and domination, so that social animals “conquer” the earth, their abundance makes them “dominate.”

The problem that Wilson poses in this book is first, why did eusociality arise at all, and second, why is it so rare?

Wilson is at his best when discussing the more remote past, the origins of social behavior 220 million years ago for termites, 150 million years for ants, 70-80 million years for humble bees and honey bees.

But as he gets closer to humanity the reductionist biases that informed Sociobiology reassert themselves. Once again Wilson argues that brain architecture determines what people do socially – that war, aggression, morality, honor and hierarchy are part of “human nature.”

Rejecting kin selection

A major change, and one of the most satisfying parts of the book, is his rejection of kin selection as a motive force of social evolution, a theory he once defended strongly.

Kin selection assumed that natural selection acts on genes. A gene will be favored if it results in enhancing its own survival and reproduction, but it is not enough to look at the survival of the individual. If my brother and I each have 2 offspring, a shared gene would be doubled in the next generation. But if my brother sacrifices himself so that I might leave 5 offspring while he leaves none, our shared gene will increase 250%.

Therefore, argued the promoters of this theory, the fitness that natural selection increases has to be calculated over a whole set of kin, weighted by the closeness of their relationship. Mathematical formulations were developed to support this theory. Wilson found it attractive because it appeared to support sociobiology.

However, plausible inference is not enough to prove a theory. Empirical studies comparing different species or traits did not confirm the kin selection hypothesis, and a reexamination of its mathematical structure (such as the fuzziness of defining relatedness) showed that it could not account for the observed natural world. Wilson devotes a lot of space to refuting kin selection because of his previous support of it: it is a great example of scientific self-correction.

Does group selection explain social behaviour?

Wilson has now adopted another model in which the evolution of sociality is the result of opposing processes of ordinary individual selection acting within populations, and group selection acting between populations. He invokes this model account to for religion, morality, honor and other human behaviors.

He argues that individual selection promotes “selfishness” (that is, behavior that enhances individual survival) while group selection favors cooperative and “altruistic” behavior. The two forms of selection oppose each other, and that results in our mixed behaviors.

“We are an evolutionary chimera living on intelligence steered by the demands of animal instinct. This is the reason we are mindlessly dismantling the biosphere and with it, our own prospects for permanent existence.” [p.13]

But this simplistic reduction of environmental destruction to biology will not stand. Contrary to Wilson, the destruction of the biosphere is not “mindless.” It is the outcome of interactions in the noxious triad of greed, poverty, and ignorance, all produced by a socio-economic system that must expand to survive.

For Wilson, as for many environmentalists, the driver of ecological destruction is some generic “we,” who are all in the same boat. But since the emergence of classes after the adoption of agriculture some 8-10,000 years ago it is no longer appropriate to talk of a collective “we.”

The owners of the economy are willing to use up resources, pollute the environment, debase the quality of products, and undermine the health of the producers out of a kind of perverse economic rationality. They support their policies with theories such as climate change denial or doubting the toxicity of pesticides, and buttress it with legislation and court decisions.

Evolution and religion

The beginning and end of the book, a spirited critique of religion as possibly explaining human nature, is more straightforwardly materialist than the view supported by Stephen J. Gould, who argued that religion and science are separate magisteria that play equal roles in human wellbeing.

But Wilson’s use of evidence is selective.

For example, he argues that religion demands absolute belief from its followers – but this is true only of Christianity and Islam. Judaism lets you think what you want as long as you practice the prescribed rituals, Buddhism doesn’t care about deities or the afterlife.

Similarly he argues that creation myths are a product of evolution:

“Since paleolithic times … each tribe invented its own creation myths… No tribe could long survive without a creation myth… The creation myth is a Darwinian device for survival.” [p. 8]

But the ancient Israelites did not have an origin myth when they emerged as a people in the hills of Judea around 1250 B.C.E. Although it appears at the beginning of the Bible, the Israelites did not adapt the Book of Genesis from Babylonian mythology until four centuries after Deuteronomy was written, after they had survived 200 years as a tribal confederation, two kingdoms and the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests— by then the writing of scripture was a political act, not a “Darwinian device for survival.”

Biologizing war

In support of his biologizing of “traits,” Wilson reviews recent research that appears to a show a biological basis for the way people see and interpret color, for the incest taboo, and for the startle response – and then asserts that inherited traits include war, hierarchy, honor and such. Ignoring the role of social class, he views these as universal traits of human nature.

Consider war. Wilson claims that war reflects genes for group selection. “A soldier going into battle will benefit his country but he runs a higher risk of death than one who does not.” [p. 165]

But soldiers don’t initiate conflict. We know in our own times that those who decide to make war are not those who fight the wars – but, perhaps unfortunately, sterilizing the general staff of the Pentagon and of the CIA would not produce a more peaceful America.

The evidence against war as a biological imperative is strong. Willingness to fight is situational.

Group selection can’t explain why soldiers have to be coerced into fighting, why desertion is a major problem for generals and is severely punished, or why resistance to recruitment is a major problem of armies. In the present militarist USA, soldiers are driven to join up through unemployment and the promises of benefits such as learning skills and getting an education and self-improvement. No recruitment posters offer the opportunity to kill people as an inducement for signing up.

The high rates of surrender and desertion of Italian soldiers in World War II did not reflect any innate cowardice among Italians but a lack of fascist conviction. The very rarity of surrender by Japanese soldiers in the same war was not a testimony to greater bravery on the part of the Japanese but of the inculcated combination of nationalism and religion.

As the American people turned against the Vietnam war, increased desertions and the killing of officers by the soldiers reflected their rejection of the war.

The terrifying assaults of the Vikings during the middle ages bear no resemblance to the mellow Scandinavian culture of today, too short a time for natural selection to transform national character.

The attempt to make war an inherited trait favored by natural selection reflects the sexism that has been endemic in sociobiology. It assumes that local groups differed in their propensity for aggression and prowess in war. The victorious men carry off the women of the conquered settlements and incorporate them into their own communities. Therefore the new generation has been selected for greater military success among the men. But the women, coming from a defeated, weaker group, would bring with them their genes for lack of prowess, a selection for military weakness! Such a selection process would be self-negating.

Ethnocentrism

Wilson also considers ethnocentrism to be an inherited trait: group selection leads people to favor members of their own group and reject outsiders.

The problem is that the lines between groups vary under different circumstances. For example, in Spanish America, laws governing marriage included a large number of graded racial categories, while in North America there were usually just two. What’s more, the category definitions are far from permanent: at one time, the Irish were regarded as Black, and the whiteness of Jews was questioned.

Adoption, immigration, mergers of clans also confound any possible genetic basis for exclusion.

Hierarchy

Wilson draws on the work of Herbert Simon to argue that hierarchy is a result of human nature: there will always be rulers and ruled. His argument fails to distinguish between hierarchy and leadership.

There are other forms of organization possible besides hierarchy and chaos, including democratic control by the workers who elect the operational leadership. In some labor unions, leaders’ salaries are pegged to the median wage of the members. In University departments the chairmanship is often a rotating task that nobody really wants. When Argentine factory owners closed their plants during the recession, workers in fact seized control and ran them profitably despite police sieges.

Darwinian behavior?

Wilson argues that “social traits” evolved through Darwinian natural selection. Genes that promoted behaviors that helped the individual or group to survive were passed on; genes that weakened the individual or group were not. The tension between individual and group selection decided which traits would be part of our human nature.

But a plausible claim that a trait might be good for people is not enough to explain its origin and survival. A gene may become fixed in a population even if it is harmful, just by the random genetic changes that we know occur. Or a gene may be harmful but be dragged along by an advantageous gene close to it on the same chromosome.

Selection may act in different directions in different subpopulations, or in different habitats, or in differing environmental. Or the adaptive value of a gene may change with its prevalence or the distribution of ages in the population, itself a consequence of the environment and population heterogeneity.

For instance, Afro-Americans have a higher death rate from cancer than Euro-Americans. In part this reflects the carcinogenic environments they have been subjected to, but there is also a genetic factor. It is the combination of living conditions and genetics that causes higher mortality rates.

* * *

Obviously I am not arguing that evolution doesn’t happen. The point is that we need a much better argument than just a claim that some genotype might be beneficial. And we need a much more rigorous understanding of the differences and linkages between the biological and social components of humanity’s nature. Just calling some social behavior a “trait” does not make it heritable.

In a book that attempts such a wide-ranging panorama of human evolution, there are bound to be errors. But the errors in The Social Conquest of Earth form a pattern: they reduce social issues to biology, and they insist on our evolutionary continuity with other animals while ignoring the radical discontinuity that made us productivores and divided us into classes.

First worldwide survey of religion and science: No, not all scientists are atheists (Science Daily)

10/12/2015Uncategorizedciência, Religiãorenzotaddei

Date: December 3, 2015

Source: Rice University

Summary: Are all scientists atheists? Do they believe religion and science can co-exist? These questions and others were addressed in the first worldwide survey of how scientists view religion.

A new survey challenges longstanding assumptions about the science-faith interface. While it is commonly assumed that most scientists are atheists, the global perspective resulting from the study shows that this is simply not the case. Credit: © BillionPhotos.com / Fotolia

Are all scientists atheists? Do they believe religion and science can co-exist? These questions and others were addressed in the first worldwide survey of how scientists view religion, released today by researchers at Rice University.

“No one today can deny that there is a popular ‘warfare’ framing between science and religion,” said the study’s principal investigator, Elaine Howard Ecklund, founding director of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program and the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences. “This is a war of words fueled by scientists, religious people and those in between.”

The study’s results challenge longstanding assumptions about the science-faith interface. While it is commonly assumed that most scientists are atheists, the global perspective resulting from the study shows that this is simply not the case.

“More than half of scientists in India, Italy, Taiwan and Turkey self-identify as religious,” Ecklund said. “And it’s striking that approximately twice as many ‘convinced atheists’ exist in the general population of Hong Kong, for example, (55 percent) compared with the scientific community in this region (26 percent).”

The researchers did find that scientists are generally less religious than a given general population. However, there were exceptions to this: 39 percent of scientists in Hong Kong identify as religious compared with 20 percent of the general population of Hong Kong, and 54 percent of scientists in Taiwan identify as religious compared with 44 percent of the general population of Taiwan. Ecklund noted that such patterns challenge longstanding assumptions about the irreligious character of scientists around the world.

When asked about terms of conflict between religion and science, Ecklund noted that only a minority of scientists in each regional context believe that science and religion are in conflict. In the U.K. — one of the most secular countries studied — only 32 percent of scientists characterized the science-faith interface as one of conflict. In the U.S., this number was only 29 percent. And 25 percent of Hong Kong scientists, 27 percent of Indian scientists and 23 percent of Taiwanese scientists believed science and religion can coexist and be used to help each other.

In addition to the survey’s quantitative findings, the researchers found nuanced views in scientists’ responses during interviews. For example, numerous scientists expressed how religion can provide a “check” in ethically gray areas.

“(Religion provides a) check on those occasions where you might be tempted to shortcut because you want to get something published and you think, ‘Oh, that experiment wasn’t really good enough, but if I portray it in this way, that will do,'” said a biology professor from the U.K.

Another scientist said that there are “multiple atheisms,” some of which include religious traditions. “I have no problem going to church services because quite often, again that’s a cultural thing,” said a physics reader in the U.K. who said he sometimes attended services because his daughter sang in the church choir. “It’s like looking at another part of your culture, but I have no faith religiously. It doesn’t worry me that religion is still out there.”

Finally, many scientists mentioned ways that they would accommodate the religious views or practices of the public, whether those of students or colleagues.

“Religious issues (are) quite common here because everyone talks about which temple they go to, which church they go to. So it’s not really an issue we hide; we just talk about it. Because, in Taiwan, we have people [of] different religions,” said a Taiwanese professor of biology.

Ecklund and fellow Rice researchers Kirstin Matthews and Steven Lewis collected information from 9,422 respondents in eight regions around the world: France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S. They also traveled to these regions to conduct in-depth interviews with 609 scientists, the largest worldwide survey and interview study ever conducted of the intersection between faith and science.

By surveying and interviewing scientists at various career stages, in elite and nonelite institutions and in biology and physics, the researchers hoped to gain a representative look at scientists’ views on religion, ethics and how both intersect with their scientific work.

Ecklund said that the study has many important implications that can be applied to university hiring processes, how classrooms and labs are structured and general public policy.

“Science is a global endeavor,” Ecklund said. “And as long as science is global, then we need to recognize that the borders between science and religion are more permeable than most people think.”

The Templeton World Charity Foundation funded the study. The study also received support from Rice University and the Faraday Institute, housed at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

Climate policy: Democracy is not an inconvenience (Nature)

26/11/2015Uncategorizedciência, Democracia, Física, Mudanças climáticas, Nature, participatividade, Políticarenzotaddei

NATURE | COMMENT

Nico Stehr

22 September 2015

Climate scientists are tiring of governance that does not lead to action. But democracy must not be weakened in the fight against global warming, warns Nico Stehr.

Illustration by David Parkins

There are many threats to democracy in the modern era. Not least is the risk posed by the widespread public feeling that politicians are not listening. Such discontent can be seen in the political far right: the Tea Party movement in the United States, the UK Independence Party, the Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) demonstrators in Germany, and the National Front in France.

More surprisingly, a similar impatience with the political elite is now also present in the scientific community. Researchers are increasingly concerned that no one is listening to their diagnosis of the dangers of human-induced climate change and its long-lasting consequences, despite the robust scientific consensus. As governments continue to fail to take appropriate political action, democracy begins to look to some like an inconvenient form of governance. There is a tendency to want to take decisions out of the hands of politicians and the public, and, given the ‘exceptional circumstances’, put the decisions into the hands of scientists themselves.

This scientific disenchantment with democracy has slipped under the radar of many social scientists and commentators. Attention is urgently needed: the solution to the intractable ‘wicked problem’ of global warming is to enhance democracy, not jettison it.

Voices of discontent

Democratic nations seem to have failed us in the climate arena so far. The past decade’s climate summits in Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban and Warsaw were political washouts. Expectations for the next meeting in Paris this December are low.

Academics increasingly point to democracy as a reason for failure. NASA climate researcher James Hansen was quoted in 2009 in The Guardian as saying: “the democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working”¹. In a special issue of the journal Environmental Politics in 2010, political scientist Mark Beeson argued² that forms of ‘good’ authoritarianism “may become not only justifiable, but essential for the survival of humanity in anything approaching a civilised form”. The title of an opinion piece published earlier this year in The Conversation, an online magazine funded by universities, sums up the issue: ‘Hidden crisis of liberal democracy creates climate change paralysis’ (see go.nature.com/pqgysr).

The depiction of contemporary democracies as ill-equipped to deal with climate change comes from a range of considerations. These include a deep-seated pessimism about the psychological make-up of humans; the disinclination of people to mobilize on issues that seem far removed; and the presumed lack of intellectual competence of people to grasp complex issues. On top of these there is the presumed scientific illiteracy of most politicians and the electorate; the inability of governments locked into short-term voting cycles to address long-term problems; the influence of vested interests on political agendas; the addiction to fossil fuels; and the feeling among the climate-science community that its message falls on the deaf ears of politicians.

“It is dangerous to blindly believe that science and scientists alone can tell us what to do.”

Such views can be heard from the highest ranks of climate science. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change, said of the inaction in a 2011 interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel: “comfort and ignorance are the biggest flaws of human character. This is a potentially deadly mix”.

What, then, is the alternative? The solution hinted at by many people leans towards a technocracy, in which decisions are made by those with technical knowledge. This can be seen in a shift in the statements of some co-authors of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, who are moving away from a purely advisory role towards policy prescription (see, for example, ref. 3).

We must be careful what we wish for. Nations that have followed the path of ‘authoritarian modernization’, such as China and Russia, cannot claim to have a record of environmental accomplishments. In the past two or three years, China’s system has made it a global leader in renewables (it accounts for more than one-quarter of the planet’s investment in such energies⁴). Despite this, it is struggling to meet ambitious environmental targets and will continue to lead the world for some time in greenhouse-gas emissions. As Chinese citizens become wealthier and more educated, they will surely push for more democratic inclusion in environmental policymaking.

Broad-based support for environmental concerns and subsequent regulations came about in open democratic argument on the value of nature for humanity. Democracies learn from mistakes; autocracies lack flexibility and adaptability⁵. Democratic nations have forged the most effective international agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol against ozone-depleting substances.

Global stage

Impatient scientists often privilege hegemonic players such as world powers, states, transnational organizations, and multinational corporations. They tend to prefer sweeping policies of global mitigation over messier approaches of local adaptation; for them, global knowledge triumphs over local know-how. But societal trends are going in the opposite direction. The ability of large institutions to impose their will on citizens is declining. People are mobilizing around local concerns and efforts⁶.

The pessimistic assessment of the ability of democratic governance to cope with and control exceptional circumstances is linked to an optimistic assessment of the potential of large-scale social and economic planning. The uncertainties of social, political and economic events are treated as minor obstacles that can be overcome easily by implementing policies that experts prescribe. But humanity’s capacity to plan ahead effectively is limited. The centralized social and economic planning concept, widely discussed decades ago, has rightly fallen into disrepute⁷.

The argument for an authoritarian political approach concentrates on a single effect that governance ought to achieve: a reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions. By focusing on that goal, rather than on the economic and social conditions that go hand-in-hand with it, climate policies are reduced to scientific or technical issues. But these are not the sole considerations. Environmental concerns are tightly entangled with other political, economic and cultural issues that both broaden the questions at hand and open up different ways of approaching it. Scientific knowledge is neither immediately performative nor persuasive.

Enhance engagement

There is but one political system that is able to rationally and legitimately cope with the divergent political interests affected by climate change and that is democracy. Only a democratic system can sensitively attend to the conflicts within and among nations and communities, decide between different policies, and generally advance the aspirations of different segments of the population. The ultimate and urgent challenge is that of enhancing democracy, for example by reducing social inequality⁸.

If not, the threat to civilization will be much more than just changes to our physical environment. The erosion of democracy is an unnecessary suppression of social complexity and rights.

The philosopher Friedrich Hayek, who led the debate against social and economic planning in the mid-twentieth century⁹, noted a paradox that applies today. As science advances, it tends to strengthen the idea that we should “aim at more deliberate and comprehensive control of all human activities”. Hayek pessimistically added: “It is for this reason that those intoxicated by the advance of knowledge so often become the enemies of freedom”¹⁰. We should heed his warning. It is dangerous to blindly believe that science and scientists alone can tell us what to do.

Nature 525, 449–450 (24 September 2015) dos:10.1038/525449a

References

Adam, D. ‘Leading climate scientist: “democratic process isn’t working”’ The Guardian (18 March 2009).
Beeson, M. Environ. Politics 19, 276–294 (2010).
Hansen, J. et al. PLoS ONE http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 (2013).
REN21. Renewables 2015 Global Status Report (REN21, 2015).
Runciman, D. The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present (Princeton Univ. Press, 2013).
Stehr, N. Information, Power and Democracy, Liberty is a Daughter of Knowledge (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015).
Pierre, J. Debating Governance: Authority, Steering, and Democracy (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000).
Rosanvallon, P. The Society of Equals (Harvard Univ. Press, 2013).
Hayek, F. A. Nature 148, 580–584 (1941).
Hayek, F. A. The Constitution of Liberty (Routledge, 1960).

Nico Steer is a sociologist and founding director of the European Center for Sustainability Research at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

* * *

Response:

Subverting democracy? (and Then There’s Physics Blog)

Posted on September 24, 2015 by …and Then There’s Physics

I thought I would briefly discuss this Nature comment called Climate policy: Democracy is not an inconvenience. I initially read it and tweeted it, thinking “yes, democracy is important and not an inconvenience”. I then read it again and thought, “hold on, is this a massive strawman?”

The main premise seems to be based on:

Researchers are increasingly concerned that no one is listening to their diagnosis of the dangers of human-induced climate change and its long-lasting consequences, despite the robust scientific consensus. As governments continue to fail to take appropriate political action, democracy begins to look to some like an inconvenient form of governance. There is a tendency to want to take decisions out of the hands of politicians and the public, and, given the ‘exceptional circumstances’, put the decisions into the hands of scientists themselves.

Really? I realise that there are extreme elements everywhere, but I don’t think I’ve seen any scientists actually argue that we should subvert democracy. I’ve certainly seen people suggest that our democracies are not suited to solving this type of global problem, but this – as far as I can tell – is typically said in the context of democracy being the worst form of government, apart from all others. Also, it is often in reference to the influence of the media, vested interests, and short-term political thinking, rather than an argument against democracy itself.

In fact, what I think most scientists are frustrated with (me, certainly) is a sense that we have all this evidence, it is very strong, and yet it appears to be largely being ignored or dismissed. I think most scientists recognise that the evidence alone doesn’t tell us what should be done, and that there are other important factors that will – and should – influence decision making. The argument is more to do with robust, evidence-based policy-making, not an implicit suggestion that we should undermine democracy and put the decisions into the hands of scientists themselves. Not only would putting decision making into the hands of scientists be an exceptionally poor idea (I should know, I am one and work with many others), but I’d also like to see an example of someone making this argument, because I really can’t think of one.

Maybe the most ironic thing about this article is that it almost seems to be doing what it is criticising others for apparently doing. It is essentially trying to delegitimise some by suggesting that their concerns are an attempt to subvert democracy. Well, as far as I’m concerned, free speech and the right to criticise policy makers is a fundamental part of our modern democracies. Suggesting that something that is fundamentally democratic is an attempt to undermine democracy, seems rather confused; maybe intentionally. Of course, we live in democracies where such arguments are allowed, even if they don’t make much sense.

ON reúne placas fotográficas que contribuíram para comprovar Teoria da Relatividade (MCTI)

23/11/2015Uncategorizedciência, Einstein, Física, Relatividade, Sobralrenzotaddei

JC, 5305, 18 de novembro de 2015

Equipe selecionou 61 placas do Observatório Nacional que documentam eclipse de 1919. Observação em Sobral (CE) ajudou a demonstrar conclusões de Albert Einstein

Uma equipe do Observatório Nacional (ON/MCTI) fez um levantamento das placas fotográficas que fazem parte do resultado da expedição que observou o eclipse total do Sol na cidade de Sobral (CE) em 1919 e contribuiu para a comprovação da Teoria da Relatividade Geral, de Albert Einstein.

Composto pelo astrônomo Carlos H. Veiga, pelas bibliotecárias Katia T. dos Santos e M. Luiza Dias e pelo analista Renaldo N. da S. Junior, o grupo avaliou 900 placas fotográficas do acervo da biblioteca do Observatório. Pela importância científica, foram selecionadas as 61 placas das observações do famoso eclipse, que ainda guardam fielmente a imagem da lua nova encobrindo perfeitamente a imagem do Sol, registradas num dia muito especial para a ciência.

A partir da segunda metade do século XIX, as imagens fotográficas eram registradas em placas de vidro. Esse dispositivo, coberto por uma emulsão contendo sais de prata sensíveis à luz, era usado não só para registrar o cotidiano, mas também pela comunidade astronômica, até a última década do século passado, para observação de corpos celestes. Por ter um baixo coeficiente de dilatação térmica, as placas de vidro garantiam, ao longo do tempo, a precisão e confiabilidade das medidas astronômicas.

A fotografia permitiu um grande avanço para a astronomia e para o desenvolvimento da astrofísica, passando a ter um papel de detector, comparando os dados observacionais com o distanciamento temporal de grandes estruturas, como as galáxias. Em 1873 foi iniciado um programa sistemático de observação da atividade das manchas solares e eclipses e da coroa solar.

Uma manhã que mudou a ciência

Na manhã de 29 de maio de 1919, um fenômeno celeste trocaria, por alguns minutos, o dia pela noite numa pacata cidade do Nordeste brasileiro. Os minutos de duração do fenômeno deveriam ser aproveitados ao máximo. Era a oportunidade para comprovar experimentalmente uma nova afirmação científica prevista por uma teoria idealizada por Einstein (1879-1955), físico de origem alemã: a relatividade geral, que pode ser entendida como uma teoria que explica os fenômenos gravitacionais.

Sobral, a cidade cearense, seria o palco que ajudaria a confirmar um efeito previsto pela relatividade geral: a deflexão da luz, na qual um feixe de luz (neste caso, vindo de uma estrela) deveria ter sua trajetória encurvada (ou desviada) ao passar nas proximidades de um forte campo gravitacional (no caso, gerado pelo Sol).

Esse desvio da luz faz com que a estrela observada seja vista em uma posição aparentemente diferente de sua posição real. O objetivo dos astrônomos era medir um pequeno ângulo formado por essas duas posições.

Naquele dia, aconteceria um eclipse solar total. Os cálculos previam que deveria haver, pelo menos, uma estrela localizada no fundo de céu cuja luz passasse próxima ao bordo solar. Com essa configuração e boas condições meteorológicas, haveria grande chance de comprovar a nova teoria.

Leia mais e veja outras imagens do evento histórico, além de indicações bibliográficas.

(MCTI)

Excitement grows as NASA carbon sleuth begins Year Two (Science Daily)

30/10/2015UncategorizedCarbono, ciência, Mudanças climáticas, NASArenzotaddei

Date:: October 29, 2015
Source:: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Summary:: Scientists busy poring over more than a year of data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission are seeing patterns emerge as they seek answers to the science questions that drive the mission.

Global average carbon dioxide concentrations as seen by NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission, June 1-15, 2015. OCO-2 measures carbon dioxide from the top of Earth’s atmosphere to its surface. Higher carbon dioxide concentrations are in red, with lower concentrations in yellows and greens. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Scientists busy poring over more than a year of data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission are seeing patterns emerge as they seek answers to the science questions that drive the mission.

Launched in July 2014, OCO-2, an experimental carbon-dioxide measurement mission, is designed to give the international science community a new view of the global carbon cycle in unprecedented detail. During its two-year primary mission, the satellite observatory is tracking the large-scale movement of carbon between Earth’s atmosphere, its plants and soil, and the ocean, from season to season and from year to year. OCO-2 began routine science operations in September 2014.

“We can already clearly see patterns of seasonal change and variations in carbon dioxide around the globe,” said Annmarie Eldering, OCO-2 deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Far more subtle features are expected to emerge over time.”

A new animation depicting the first full year of OCO-2 science operations is available at:

Armed with a full annual cycle of data, OCO-2 scientists are now beginning to study the net sources of carbon dioxide as well as their “sinks” — places in the Earth system that store carbon, such as the ocean and plants on land. This information will help scientists better understand the natural processes currently absorbing more than half the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human activities. This is a key to understanding how Earth’s climate may change in the future as greenhouse gas concentrations increase.

The first year of data from the mission reveals a portrait of a dynamic, living planet. Between mid-May and mid-July 2015, OCO-2 saw a dramatic reduction in the abundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide across the northern hemisphere, as plants on land sprang to life and began rapidly absorbing carbon dioxide from the air to form new leaves, stems and roots. During this intense, two-month period, known as the “spring drawdown,” OCO-2 measurements show the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide over much of the northern hemisphere decreased by two to three percent. That’s 8 to 12 parts per million out of the global average background concentration of 400 parts per million.

“That’s a big but expected change,” said Eldering. “This is the first time we’ve ever had the opportunity to observe the spring drawdown across the entire northern hemisphere with this kind of spatial resolution, seeing changes from week to week.”

Also as expected, OCO-2 data show increased concentrations of carbon dioxide associated with human activities. Higher carbon dioxide levels of several parts per million are seen in regions where fossil fuels are being consumed by large power plants or megacities. Enhanced levels are also seen in the Amazon, Central Africa and Indonesia, where forests are being cleared and burned to create fields for agricultural use.

Researchers Abhishek Chatterjee of the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; and Michelle Gierach and Dave Schimel of JPL are investigating a strong correlation observed between atmospheric carbon dioxide over the Pacific Ocean and the current El Nino. Fluctuations in carbon dioxide appear to be strongly linked with warmer sea surface temperatures. OCO-2’s unprecedented density of measurements is giving researchers a unique data set to understand and separate the roles that sea surface temperatures, winds, regional emissions and other variables may be playing in the carbon dioxide concentrations.

“We believe 2016 will see breakthrough OCO-2 research results, as scientists work to unravel the mysteries of finding carbon dioxide sources and natural sinks,” said Eldering.

Through most of OCO-2’s first year in space, the mission team was busy calibrating its science instrument, learning how to process its massive amount of data, and delivering data products to NASA’s Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES-DISC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, for distribution to the world’s science community.

Scientists are comparing OCO-2 data to ground-based measurements to validate the satellite data and tie it to internationally accepted standards for accuracy and precision.

Routine delivery of OCO-2 data — calibrated spectra of reflected sunlight that reveal the fingerprints of carbon dioxide — began in late 2014, while estimates of carbon dioxide derived from cloud-free OCO-2 observations have been delivered since March 2015. Recently, the OCO-2 team reprocessed the OCO-2 data set to incorporate improvements in instrument calibration and correct other known issues with the original data release.

Every day, OCO-2 orbits Earth 14.5 times and collects and returns about a million measurements. After eliminating data contaminated by clouds, aerosols and steep terrain, between 10 to 13 percent of the measurements are of sufficient quality to derive accurate estimates of the average carbon dioxide concentration between Earth’s surface and space. That’s at least 100 times more carbon dioxide measurements than from all other sources of precise carbon dioxide data combined.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For more information on OCO-2, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/oco-2

For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earth

Humanities research is groundbreaking, life-changing… and ignored (The Guardian)

21/10/2015Uncategorizedciência, Ciências sociais, Educação, Humanidadesrenzotaddei

Humanities scholars are making strides in sectors from sustainability to robotics – why are so few people aware of their work?

Philosopher Don Howard worked with computer scientists on the ethics of ‘human-robot interaction’. Photograph: Alamy

Gretchen Busl, Assistant professor of English at Texas Woman’s University

Monday 19 October 2015 07.00 BSTLast modified on Monday 19 October 2015 21.23 BST

Deep in the corridors of Stanford University’s English department, graduate student Jodie Archer developed a computer model that can predict New York Times bestsellers. Her soon-to-be published research landed her a top job with Apple iBooks and may revolutionise the publishing industry. At the University of Notre Dame, philosopher Don Howard worked with a computer scientist to develop a code of ethics for “human-robot interaction” that could change the way Silicon Valley designs robots.

Both scholars share an academic background in humanities. And they join countless others working in fields such as technology, environmental sustainability and even infectious disease control.

But humanities is experiencing a crisis. Public support has dwindled. Enrolment in humanities majors is down and courses are disappearing from university curricula. A tightening job market means more humanities PhDs than ever are looking for – and not finding – jobs outside of academia.

In theory, our society cherishes the humanities – the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is even being celebrated with a ceremony at the White House. In its years, the NEH has awarded more than $5bn (£3.2m) in grants to promote innovative research and cultural projects, such as the development of a database to track the transatlantic slave trade and the preservation and publication of the Dead Sea scrolls.

Even so, congressional support for the humanities has plummeted along with federal, state and private funding. Adjusted for inflation, the current $146m budget for the NEH represents just half of its expenditure in 1980.

Part of the issue is an image problem around the impact of humanities research on the wider world. The public should know about Priscilla Wald, an English professor at Duke University, whose explanation of the “outbreak narrative” of contagion is changing the way scientists think about the spread of infectious diseases. They should know about environmental humanities professor Joni Adamson, who is applying the study of indigenous cultures to make desert cities into more sustainable ecosystems.

Most arguments for “saving” the humanities focus on the fact that employers prize the critical thinking and communication skills that undergraduate students develop. Although that may be true, such arguments highlight the value of classroom study, not the value of research.

But humanities research teaches us about the world beyond the classroom, and beyond a job. Humanities scholars explore ethical issues, and discover how the past informs the present and the future. Researchers delve into the discourses that construct gender, race, and class. We learn to decode the images that surround us; to understand and use the language necessary to navigate a complex and rapidly shifting world.

The academy itself is partly to blame for this image problem. The inward-focused nature of scholarship has left the public with no choice but to respond to our work with indifference and even disdain, because we have made little effort to demonstrate what purpose our work may have beyond the lecture hall or academic journal.

The traditional academic model does not reward public humanities scholarship. Rather, humanities scholars are saddled with the expectation of producing peer-reviewed articles and monographs published by university presses for tenure and promotion. This antiquated system encourages scholars to write and speak only for an audience of peers, keeping graduate students from branching away from the proto-book dissertation model and faculty from exploring popular venues for their work.

The potential applications of this type of research are endless – the examples above are the just the tip of the iceberg. And more employers need to see that such research has wide application outside of the academy. The American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellows programme is helping to facilitate this process by placing humanities PhDs in high-profile positions in government and non-profit organisations such as the US department of state, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Campaign.

Humanities scholars need to take what feels – right now – like a risk, and engage in more public scholarship. After all, we are the best qualified to talk about our own work. And we need our chairs, our deans and our provosts to afford us the support and incentives to do so.

The payoff will not only be in increased visibility and perceived value for humanities research, but the opportunity to make an impact that is much greater than that offered by the solitary scholar model.

Com ajuda da ciência (Revista Fapesp)

19/10/2015Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, Políticarenzotaddei

Experiências internacionais inspiram governo de São Paulo a criar cargo de cientista-chefe em secretarias estaduais

BRUNO DE PIERRO | ED. 236 | OUTUBRO 2015

Uma medida inédita no país anunciada pelo governo do estado de São Paulo pretende aproximar ciência e gestão pública. Até o início de 2016, cada secretaria estadual deverá contar com um cientista-chefe, cuja função principal será apontar as melhores soluções baseadas no conhecimento científico para enfrentar desafios da respectiva pasta. O anúncio foi feito por Márcio França, vice-governador e secretário estadual de Desenvolvimento Econômico, Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, na abertura do Fórum Nacional das Fundações Estaduais de Amparo à Pesquisa (Confap), realizado em 27 e 28 de agosto, na capital paulista. A iniciativa é inspirada no modelo de aconselhamento científico praticado em diferentes níveis de governo em países como Estados Unidos, Reino Unido e Israel.

A iniciativa começou a amadurecer em uma reunião do Conselho Superior da FAPESP, no dia 18 de março, da qual o vice-governador participou como convidado. Na ocasião, França mencionou a dificuldade de identificar pesquisadores com ideias para auxiliar a gestão pública. A sugestão de criar a função de cientista-chefe partiu de Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, diretor científico da Fundação. “O professor Brito citou a experiência de países europeus, entre eles o Reino Unido, que criaram o cargo de cientista-chefe em suas estruturas de governo para auxiliar ministros, primeiros-ministros ou presidentes a tomar decisões”, relata Fernando Costa, professor da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) e membro do Conselho Superior da FAPESP, um dos presentes à reunião.

No encontro, Brito Cruz explicou ao vice-governador que cerca de 55% dos recursos da FAPESP são investidos em pesquisas voltadas para aplicações, e Eduardo Moacyr Krieger, vice-presidente da instituição, acrescentou que quase 30% dos investimentos da Fundação são direcionados para a área da saúde e podem beneficiar diretamente ações da Secretaria da Saúde. “Outros campos, como agricultura, educação e segurança pública, também deveriam aproveitar mais a contribuição de pesquisadores”, afirma Krieger. Márcio França gostou da sugestão. “Pensei: por que não aprimorar o diálogo com a comunidade científica por meio de uma fundação como a FAPESP?”, recorda-se o vice-governador, que levou a ideia ao governador Geraldo Alckmin e recebeu sinal verde para implementá-la.

Robin Grimes, do governo britânico, em visita ao campus da Universidade de Nottingham na Malásia, em 2013 (acima, de gravata);

Robin Grimes, do governo britânico, em visita ao campus da Universidade de Nottingham na Malásia, em 2013 (acima, de gravata)

“Essa medida não significa que o governo de São Paulo não vem ouvindo a comunidade científica”, observa Marilza Vieira Cunha Rudge, vice-reitora da Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), também membro do Conselho Superior da FAPESP. Segundo ela, o objetivo é fazer com que os conhecimentos gerados em universidades e instituições de pesquisa do estado sejam absorvidos rapidamente pela administração pública. Uma minuta do decreto está sendo redigida com assessoria da Fundação. Um dos objetivos é que os cientistas-chefes ampliem a aplicação de resultados de pesquisas, entre as quais as apoiadas pela FAPESP, sugerindo articulações com projetos em andamento e propondo novos projetos.

O governo analisa agora os detalhes da iniciativa. O primeiro passo será selecionar os cientistas-chefes que atuarão nas secretarias. Segundo França, o mais provável é que se convidem professores vinculados às três universidades estaduais paulistas – a de São Paulo (USP), a Unicamp e a Unesp – que poderiam ou não se licenciar. Também se discute qual seria o prazo mais adequado para o seu mandato. Para França, uma coisa é certa: os cientistas-chefes terão muito trabalho. “Os problemas e os desafios surgem aos montes na administração pública. Todos os dias e nas mais diversas áreas”, observa o vice-governador.

A bússola que orienta os caminhos futuros é a dos exemplos internacionais. Em setembro de 2014, o presidente dos Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, ofereceu um prêmio de US$ 20 milhões para o grupo de pesquisa que conseguir desenvolver o melhor teste de diagnóstico capaz de reconhecer rapidamente infecções causadas por bactérias resistentes a antibióticos. Segundo informações do Centro para Controle e Prevenção de Doenças (CDC), essas infecções são responsáveis pela morte anual de 23 mil norte-americanos. A ação foi motivada por uma avaliação encomendada pela Casa Branca ao Conselho de Ciência e Tecnologia (PCAST), formado por cerca de 20 especialistas, entre ganhadores de Prêmio Nobel e representantes do setor industrial. O grupo é comandado por John Holdren, professor da Universidade Harvard e conselheiro científico de Obama.

John Holdren, cientista-chefe dos Estados Unidos, que aconselha o presidente Obama (abaixo)

Os Estados Unidos têm tradição em aconselhamento científico. Em 1933, o presidente Franklin Roosevelt criou um comitê consultivo formado por cientistas, engenheiros e profissionais da saúde para assessorá-lo. Em 1957, o país foi o primeiro a nomear um cientista-chefe para trabalhar na Casa Branca. Logo departamentos e autarquias passaram a contar com a consultoria de especialistas. Em 1998, a então secretária de Estado, Madeleine Albright, encomendou um relatório para as Academias Nacionais de Ciências dos Estados Unidos sobre o suporte que a ciência poderia dar em assuntos relativos à política externa. A recomendação foi que ela escolhesse um assessor científico. “Minha tarefa é ajudar o governo a aproveitar os recursos da ciência e da tecnologia para embasar a política externa”, disse à Pesquisa FAPESP Vaughan Turekian, assessor científico de John Kerry, o atual secretário de Estado. Ex-diretor internacional da Associação Americana para o Avanço da Ciência (AAAS), Turekian conta que foi submetido a um rigoroso processo de análise de suas credenciais científicas. “O assessor é nomeado por um período determinado. Isso é intencional. Convém lembrar que o cargo não é uma indicação política”, esclarece.

Outra referência é o Reino Unido, que criou o cargo em 1964. A função de cientista-chefe é desempenhada hoje pelo imunologista Mark Walport, ex-diretor do Wellcome Trust, fundação que financia pesquisa biomédica. Desde 2013, Walport assessora o premiê David Cameron. Um dos primeiros temas tratados por Walport no governo foi o da experimentação animal. Em 2014, após estatísticas mostrarem que o número de animais utilizados em testes pré-clínicos aumentou nos últimos anos no Reino Unido, o governo anunciou medidas para reduzir ou substituir seu uso. Walport atuou como ponte entre o governo e a comunidade científica. Reconheceu a necessidade de mudanças, mas salientou que a abolição de animais em estudos científicos ainda é inviável.

Walport também preside o Conselho de Ciência e Tecnologia (CST), ligado ao Departamento de Negócios, Inovação e Capacitação do Reino Unido. O órgão dispõe de uma divisão de especialistas que forma o Grupo de Aconselhamento Científico para Emergências (Sage). A equipe foi acionada em 2010, quando cinzas de um vulcão na Islândia afetaram o espaço aéreo do Reino Unido, e em 2011, após o incidente nuclear de Fukushima, no Japão.

Mark Walport, cientista-chefe do Reino Unido, em visita a centro de pesquisa no Quênia, em julho (primeiro à esquerda na foto ao lado)

O Reino Unido conta com cientistas-chefes em departamentos e ministérios. “Há uma rede de conselheiros científicos dentro do governo. Isso aproximou ainda mais os diferentes ministérios. O professor Walport organiza uma reunião semanal com os conselheiros, que discutem juntos as prioridades de cada área”, disse à Pesquisa FAPESP Robin Grimes, conselheiro-chefe para assuntos científicos do Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Reino Unido. “Acredito que São Paulo conseguirá se articular melhor com a ciência ao adotar essa medida, além de obter acesso a conceituadas redes de pesquisadores no Brasil e no mundo”, afirmou Grimes.

Para James Wilsdon, especialista em política científica da Universidade de Sussex, Inglaterra, esses exemplos ajudaram outros países a criar modelos de aconselhamento científico adaptados a suas realidades. “Há uma grande variedade de temas que demandam o olhar da ciência, como mudanças climáticas, pandemias, segurança alimentar e pobreza”, explica Wilsdon em um relatório apresentado na conferência da Rede Internacional para Aconselhamento Científico a Governos (INGSA), realizada em agosto de 2014 em Auckland, na Nova Zelândia. A entidade reúne tomadores de decisão e pesquisadores com o objetivo de compartilhar experiências e discutir a utilização de informações científicas em governos. O documento apresenta uma avaliação dos modelos de aconselhamento adotados em 20 países. Além dos exemplos clássicos, são apresentados casos de países que criaram recentemente o cargo, como a Nova Zelândia, cujo primeiro cientista-chefe, Peter Gluckman, foi nomeado em 2009.

O estudo mostra que alguns países optaram por formas de aconselhamento não atreladas à figura de um cientista-chefe. No Japão, o Conselho de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (CSTI) é um dos quatro conselhos que auxiliam o gabinete do primeiro-ministro. Ele é formado pelo primeiro-ministro, seis ministros de Estado e representantes da comunidade científica e do setor industrial. Já países como China, Alemanha, Holanda e África do Sul aproveitam a expertise das entidades representativas da comunidade científica. A Sociedade Alemã de Pesquisas Científicas (DFG), agência não governamental de apoio à pesquisa, é consultada pelo governo e ajuda a elaborar políticas públicas. “Fazemos declarações em comissões do
Senado e temos interação direta com o governo”, diz Dietrich Halm, diretor-presidente da DFG para a América-Latina. Segundo Wilsdon, uma das vantagens desse modelo é que os pesquisadores gozam de independência em relação ao governo.

Peter Gluckman, cientista-chefe do primeiro-ministro da Nova Zelândia

Na região da América-Latina e Caribe, o relatório do fórum de aconselhamento científico cita os exemplos de Cuba e El Salvador. No modelo cubano, há um escritório de aconselhamento científico vinculado ao conselho de Estado, formado por 31 membros. Embora o Brasil nunca tenha contado com a figura do cientista-chefe, a administração pública no país criou mecanismos de articulação com pesquisadores. “Informalmente, o governo federal é aconselhado pela comunidade científica em vários temas”, disse Aldo Rebelo, então ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (MCTI). “No meu caso, mantive contato com a Academia Brasileira de Ciências (ABC), com a Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência (SBPC) e com sociedades científicas.” Segundo o vice-presidente da FAPESP, Eduardo Moacyr Krieger, que também foi presidente da ABC, a atuação do cientista-chefe deve complementar o trabalho que as academias de ciências desenvolvem. “As recomendações dadas pelas academias aos governos estão no plano macro. Já o cientista-chefe está no plano da implementação e do detalhamento do que deve ser feito no cotidiano da administração pública”, diz ele.

No estado de São Paulo a assessoria científica ao governo já era praticada em situações específicas, mesmo sem a presença de cientistas-chefes. É o caso da interlocução entre especialistas ligados ao Programa Biota-FAPESP e a Secretaria Estadual do Meio Ambiente. Desde o lançamento do programa em 1999, 23 resoluções e decretos estaduais mencionam resultados do Biota como referência para a tomada de decisões. Há um canal de diálogo com gestores das unidades de conservação onde são desenvolvidos projetos. “Os pesquisadores costumam ser membros de conselhos consultivos de parques estaduais e outras áreas protegidas”, observa Carlos Joly, professor da Unicamp e coordenador do programa. Os especialistas vinculados ao Biota também trabalham em parceria com instituições ligadas à secretaria, como o Instituto de Botânica, o Instituto Florestal e a Fundação Florestal. E o próprio gabinete da secretária do Meio Ambiente, Patricia Faga Iglecias Lemos, acompanha a produção científica do programa.

Outra experiência é a do Conselho Estadual de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em Saúde, criado em 2014 para assessorar a Secretaria da Saúde na formulação e condução de políticas. O órgão é composto por representantes de universidades públicas instaladas em São Paulo, institutos, centros de pesquisa, hospitais e entidades ligadas ao setor industrial. “Atualmente, o conselho discute a proposta de criação de uma política estadual de ciência, tecnologia e inovação em saúde”, explica Sergio Swain Muller, presidente do conselho. “Já realizamos oficinas, ouvimos a contribuição das universidades e estamos preparando um documento com diagnósticos e ações para a consolidação desse plano.” Cabe também ao conselho auxiliar na definição de prioridades para o próximo edital do Programa de Pesquisa para o Sistema Único de Saúde (PPSUS), conduzido pela FAPESP em parceria com a Secretaria da Saúde, o Ministério da Saúde e o CNPq. “Uma das prioridades é apoiar pesquisas sobre novos mecanismos de gestão pública da saúde”, diz Muller. Já no âmbito da Secretaria Estadual de Agricultura e Abastecimento foi criada em 2002 a Agência Paulista de Tecnologia dos Agronegócios (Apta), que atua na coordenação de pesquisas de interesse da pasta. Sua estrutura compreende os institutos Agronômico (IAC), Biológico, de Economia Agrícola, de Pesca, de Tecnologia de Alimentos e o de Zootecnia, além de 15 polos regionais de pesquisa.

e Vaughan Turekian, assessor direto de John Kerry, secretário de Estado norte-americano

“Prospectamos estudos capazes de resolver problemas enfrentados por agricultores e os encaminhamos para a secretaria”, diz Orlando Melo de Castro, coordenador da Apta. Um dos desafios da secretaria cuja solução vem sendo debatida entre os institutos abrigados pela agência é tornar a cana-de-açúcar mais resistente à seca. “O IAC foi procurado, porque já trabalha nesse assunto, inclusive em parceria com usinas localizadas em Goiás, onde há um período de seca prolongado. A ideia é aproveitar essas pesquisas em programas da secretaria”, explica Castro.

Para o sociólogo Simon Schwartzman, estudioso da comunidade científica brasileira e pesquisador do Instituto de Estudos do Trabalho e Sociedade, o país não tem tradição no uso da ciência por gestores públicos. “Claro, há exceções”, pondera. “O Ministério da Saúde conta com um centro de pesquisas próprio, o Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, assim como acontece com o Ministério da Agricultura, que tem a ajuda da Embrapa.” Carlos Joly recorda-se que a comunidade científica costumava impor barreiras na hora de se sentar à mesa com políticos. “Colaborei como assessor de meio ambiente na elaboração da Constituição Federal de 1988. Na época, fui criticado por colegas, que pensavam que cientista não deveria se envolver com assuntos da política”, conta. Em 1995, Joly foi convidado pelo então secretário de Meio Ambiente do estado de São Paulo, Fábio Feldmann, a trabalhar como seu assessor. “Naquele momento isso já não foi visto como algo incomum. Aos poucos os pesquisadores se deram conta da importância de trabalhar em colaboração com gestores públicos”, afirma Joly.

O climatologista Carlos Nobre, presidente da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), guarda na memória histórias da relação tensa entre políticos e cientistas. Em 1998, Nobre e sua equipe do Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos (CPTEC) encaminharam ao governo federal e ao Congresso um parecer prevendo uma seca de grande intensidade no Nordeste nos meses seguintes, em decorrência do El Niño. “Ninguém nos ouviu”, lembra Nobre. “Acho que não acreditavam, na época, que fosse possível fazer previsão de secas de qualidade com base em modelos matemáticos.”

O vice-governador Márcio França reconhece que há pontos de tensão quando políticos e cientistas se encontram. “A questão é que nem sempre o consenso científico é financeira e politicamente viável naquele momento”, diz ele. Para Carlos Nobre, que já ocupou cargos de gestão de política científica no MCTI e integra o corpo de especialistas do fórum global de aconselhamento científico, ainda assim a situação é melhor hoje. “Ambos os lados perceberam que a solução de problemas como secas e desastres naturais dependem de ações conjuntas”, afirma.

Autora do livro The fifth branch: science advisers as policymakers e de artigos que abordam a relação entre ciência, democracia e política, a norte-americana Sheila Jasanoff, da Universidade Harvard, adverte que o aconselhamento científico a governos exige muitos julgamentos. “Requer a tomada de decisões sobre, por exemplo, se é melhor correr um risco ou se precaver. É preciso saber como pesar as diversas evidências”, explica. Segundo ela, o aconselhamento pode de fato auxiliar os gestores. “Mas os órgãos científicos consultivos precisam operar de forma aberta e transparente. Isso é exigido por lei nos Estados Unidos”, explica. Em 2010, o governo britânico divulgou um documento no qual recomenda que os níveis de incerteza presentes em torno de questões científicas sejam explicitamente identificados nos pareceres enviados a gestores públicos, comunicados em linguagem simples e direta.

What if Dean Radin is right? (The Sceptic’s Dictionary)

18/10/2015UncategorizedCeticismo, ciência, Consciência, Física, Mediunidade, Parapsicologia, Religiãorenzotaddei

by Robert Todd Carroll

Dean Radin, author of The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (HarperSanFrancisco 1997), says that “psi researchers have resolved a century of skeptical doubts through thousands of replicated laboratory studies” (289) regarding the reality of psychic phenomena such as ESP(extrasensory perception) and PK (psychokinesis). Of course, Radin also considers meta-analysis as the most widely accepted method of measuring replication in science (51). Few scientists would agree with either of these claims. In any case, most American adults—about 75%, according to a 2005 Gallup poll—believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon. Forty-one percent believe in ESP. Fifty-five percent believe in the power of the mind to heal the body. One doesn’t need to be psychic to know that the majority of believers in psi have come to their beliefs through experience or anecdotes, rather than through studying the scientific evidence Radin puts forth in his book.

Radin doesn’t claim that the scientific evidence is going to make more believers. He realizes that the kind of evidence psi researchers have put forth hasn’t persuaded most scientists that there is anything of value in parapsychology. He thinks there is “a general uneasiness about parapsychology” and that because of the “insular nature of scientific disciplines, the vast majority of psi experiments are unknown to most scientists.” He also dismisses critics as skeptics who’ve conducted “superficial reviews.” Anyone familiar with the entire body of research, he says, would recognize he is correct and would see that there are “fantastic theoretical implications” (129) to psi research. Nevertheless, in 2005 the Nobel Committee once again passed over the psi scientists when handing out awards to those who have made significant contributions to our scientific knowledge.

The evidence Radin presents, however, is little more than a hodgepodge of occult statistics. Unable to find a single person who can correctly guess a three-letter word or move a pencil an inch without trickery, the psi researchers have resorted to doing complex statistical analyses of data. In well-designed studies they assume that whenever they have data that, by some statistical formula, is not likely due to chance, they attribute the outcome to psi. A well-designed study is one that carefully controls for such things as cheating, sensory leakage (unintentional transfer of information by non-psychic means), inadequate randomization, and other factors that might lead to an artifact (something that looks like it’s due to psi when it’s actually due to something else).

The result of this enormous data that Radin cites is that there is statistical evidence (for what it’s worth) that indicates (however tentatively) that some very weak psi effects are present (so weak that not a single individual who participates in a successful study has any inkling of possessing psychic power). Nevertheless, Radin thinks it is appropriate to speculate about the enormous implications of psi for biology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, religion, medicine, technology, warfare, police work, business, and politics. Never mind that nobody has any idea as to how psi might work. That is a minor detail to someone who can write with a straight face (apparently) that:

lots of independent, simple glimpses of the future may one day innocently crash the future. It’s not clear what it means to “crash the future,” but it doesn’t sound good. (297)

No, it certainly doesn’t sound good. But, as somebody once said, “the future will be better tomorrow.”

According to Radin, we may look forward to a future with “psychic garage-door openers” and the ability to “push atoms around” with our minds (292). Radin is not the least bit put off by the criticism that all the other sciences have led us away from superstition andmagical thinking, while parapsychology tries to lead us into those pre-scientific modes. Radin notes that “the concept that mind is primary over matter is deeply rooted in Eastern philosophy and ancient beliefs about magic.” However, instead of saying that it is now time to move forward, he rebuffs “Western science” for rejecting such beliefs as “mere superstition.” Magical thinking, he says, “lies close beneath the veneer of the sophisticated modern mind” (293). He even claims that “the fundamental issues [of consciousness] remain as mysterious today as they did five thousand years ago.” We may not have arrived at a final theory of the mind, but a lot of the mystery has evaporated with the progress made in the neurosciences over the past century. None of our advancing knowledge of the mind, however, has been due to contributions from parapsychologists. (Cf. Blackmore 2001).

Radin doesn’t grasp the fact that the concept of mind can be an illusion without being a “meaningless illusion” (294). He seems to have read David Chalmers, but I suggest he and his followers read Daniel Dennett. I’d begin with Sweet Dreams (2005). Consciousness is not “a complete mystery,” as Radin claims (294). The best that Radin can come up with as evidence that psi research has something to offer consciousness studies is the claim that “information can be obtained in ways that bypass the ordinary sensory system altogether” (295). Let’s ignore the fact that this claim begs the question. What neuroscience has uncovered is just how interesting and complex this “ordinary sensory system” turns out to be.

Radin would have us believe that magical thinking is essential to our psychological well being (293). If he’s right, we’ll one day be able to solve all social problems by “mass-mind healings.” And religious claims will get new meaning as people come to understand the psychic forces behind miracles and talking to the dead. According to Radin, when a medium today talks to a spirit “perhaps he is in contact with someone who is alive in the past.From the ‘departed’ person’s perspective, she may find herself communicating with someone from the future, although it is not clear that she would know that” (295). Yes, I don’t think that would be clear, either.

In medicine, Radin expects distant mental healing (which he argues has been scientifically established) to expand to something that “might be called techno-shamanism” (296). He describes this new development as “an exotic, yet rigorously schooled combination of ancient magical principles and future technologies” (296). He expects psi to join magnetic resonance imaging and blood tests as common stock in the world of medicine. “This would translate into huge savings and improved quality of life for millions of people” (192) as “untold billions of dollars in medical costs could be saved” (193).

Then, of course, there will be the very useful developments that include the ability to telepathically “call a friend in a distant spacecraft, or someone in a deeply submerged submarine” (296). On the other hand, the use of psychic power by the military and by police investigators will depend, Radin says, on “the mood of the times.” If what is popular on television is an indicator of the mood of the times, I predict that there will be full employment for psychic detectives and remote viewers in the future.

Radin looks forward to the day when psi technology “might allow thought control of prosthetics for paraplegics” and “mind-melding techniques to provide people with vast, computer-enhanced memories, lightning-fast mathematical capabilities, and supersensitive perceptions” (197). He even suggests we employ remote viewer Joe McMoneagle to reveal future technological devices he “has sensed in his remote-viewing sessions” (100).

Radin considers a few other benefits that will come from our increased ability to use psi powers: “to guide archeological digs and treasure-hunting expeditions, enhance gambling profits, and provide insight into historical events” (202). However, he does not consider some of the obvious problems and benefits that would occur should psychic ability become common. Imagine the difficulties for the junior high teacher in a room full of adolescents trained in PK. Teachers and parents would be spending most of their psychic energy controlling the hormones of their charges. The female garment and beauty industries would be destroyed as many attractive females would be driven to try to make themselves look ugly to avoid having their clothes being constantly removed by psychic perverts and pranksters.

Ben Radford has noted the potential for “gross and unethical violations of privacy,” as people would be peeping into each other’s minds. On the other hand, infidelity and all forms of deception might die out, since nobody could deceive anyone about anything if we were all psychic. Magic would become pointless and “professions that involve deception would be worthless” (Radford 2000). There wouldn’t be any need for undercover work or spies. Every child molester would be identified immediately. No double agent could ever get away with it. There wouldn’t be any more lotteries, since everybody could predict the winning numbers. We wouldn’t need trials of accused persons and the polygraph would be a thing of the past.

Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and other signs of intelligent design will become things of the past as billions of humans unite to focus their thoughts on predicting and controlling the forces of nature. We won’t need to build elaborate systems to turn away errant asteroids or comets heading for our planet: billons of us will unite to will the objects on their merry way toward some other oblivion. It is unlikely that human nature will change as we become more psychically able, so warfare will continue but will be significantly changed. Weapons won’t be needed because we’ll be able to rearrange our enemies’ atoms and turn them into mush from the comfort of our living rooms. (Who knows? It might only take a few folks with super psi powers to find Osama bin Laden and turn him into a puddle of irradiated meat.) Disease and old age will become things of the past as we learn to use our thoughts to kill cancer cells and control our DNA.

Space travel will become trivial and heavy lifting will be eliminated as we will be able to teleport anything to anywhere at anytime through global consciousness. We’ll be able to transport all the benefits of earthly consciousness to every planet in the universe. There are many other likely effects of global psychic ability that Radin has overlooked but this is understandable given his heavy workload as Senior Scientist at IONS (The Institute of Noetic Sciences) and as a blogger.

Radin notes only one problem should psi ability become common: we’ll all be dipping into the future and we might “crash the future,” whatever that means. The bright side of crashing the future will be the realization of “true freedom” as we will no longer be doomed to our predestined fate. We will all have the power “to create the future as we wish, rather than blindly follow a predetermined course through our ignorance” (297). That should make even the most cynical Islamic fundamentalist or doomsday Christian take heed. This psi stuff could be dangerous to one’s delusions even as it tickles one’s funny bone and stimulates one’s imagination to aspire to the power of gods and demons.

****** ****** ******

update: Radin has a follow-up book out called Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality. Like The Conscious Universe, this one lays out the scientific evidence for psi as seen from the eyes of a true believer. As noted above, in The Conscious Universe, Radin uses statistics and meta-analysisto prove that psychic phenomena really do exist even if those who have the experiences in the labs are unaware of them. Statistical data show that the world has gone psychic, according to the latest generation of parapsychologists. You may be unconscious of it, but your mind is affecting random number generators all over the world as you read this. The old psychic stuff—thinking about aunt Hildie moments before she calls to tell you to bugger off—is now demonstrated to be true by statistical methods that were validated in 1937 by Burton Camp and meta-validated by Radin 60 years later when he asserted that meta-analysis was the replication parapsychologists had been looking for. The only difference is that now when you think of aunt Hildie it might be moments before she calls her car mechanic and that, too, may be linked to activity in your mind that you are unaware of.

Radin’s second book sees entanglement as a key to understanding extrasensory phenomena. Entanglement is a concept from quantum physics that refers to connections between subatomic particles that persist regardless of being separated by various distances. He notes that some physicists have speculated that the entire universe might be entangled and that the Eastern mystics of old might have been on to something cosmic. His speculations are rather wild but his assertions are rather modest. For example: “I believe that entanglement suggests a scenario that may ultimately lead to a vastly improved understanding of psi” (p. 14) and “I propose that the fabric of reality is comprised [sic] of ‘entangled threads’ that are consistent with the core of psi experience” (p. 19). Skeptics might suggest that studying self-deception and wishful thinking would lead to a vastly improved understanding of psi research and that being consistent with a model is a minimal, necessary condition for taking any model seriously, but hardly sufficient to warrant much faith.

Readers of The Conscious Universe will be pleased to know that Radin has outdone himself on the meta-analysis front. In his second book, he provides a meta-meta-analysis of over 1,000 studies on dream psi, ganzfeld psi, staring, distant intention, dice PK, and RNG PK. He concludes that the odds against chance of getting these results are 10¹⁰⁴ against 1 (p. 276). As Radin says, “there can be little doubt that something interesting is going on” (p. 275). Yes, but I’m afraid it may be going on only in some entangled minds.

On the bright side, Radin continues to ignore Gary Schwartz and self-proclaimed psychics like Jon Edward, Sylvia Browne, Uri Geller, and Ted Owens. He still has a fondness for remote viewers like Joe McMoneagle, however, who seems impressive if you don’t understand subjective validation, are willing to ignore the vast majority of his visions, and aren’t bothered by vagueness in the criteria as to what counts as a “hit” in remote viewing. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Radin predicts that some day “psi research will be taught in universities with the same aplomb as today’s elementary economics and biology” (p. 295). Perhaps psi research will be taught in the same classroom as intelligent design, though this seems unlikely as parapsychology attempts to reduce all supernatural and paranormal phenomena to physics. Maybe they could both be taught in the same curriculum: things that explain everything but illuminate nothing.

note: If the reader wants to see a more complete review of Radin’s work, please read my reviews of his books. Links are given below.

further reading

book reviews by Robert T. Carroll

The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena
by Dean Radin (HarperOne 1997)

Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality
by Dean Radin (Paraview Pocket Books 2006)

The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together by Charles T. Tart, Ph.D. (New Harbinger 2009)

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
by Mary Roach (W. W. Norton 2005).

The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death
by Gary Schwartz (Atria 2003)

Ghost Hunters – William James and the Hunt for Scientific Proof of Life After Death
by Deborah Blum (Penguin Press 2006).

books and articles

Blackmore, Susan. (2001) “What Can the Paranormal Teach Us About Consciousness?” Skeptical Inquirer, March/April.

Blackmore, Susan (2003). Consciousness: An Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Good, I. J. (1997). Review of The Conscious Universe, NatureOctober 23, with links to responses by Radin, Brian Josephson, and Nick Herbert.

Larsen, Claus. (2002). An evening with Dean Radin.

Pedersen, Morten Monrad. (2003). Book Review of Dean Radin’s The Conscious Universe

Radin, Dean. (1997). The Conscious Universe – The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. HarperCollins.

Radin, Dean. (2006). Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality. Paraview Pocket Books.

Radford, Benjamin. (2000). “Worlds in Collision – Applying Reality to the Paranormal,” Skeptical Inquirer, November/December.

Last updated 01-Aug-2015

Exxon’s climate lie: ‘No corporation has ever done anything this big or bad’ (The Guardian)

18/10/2015Uncategorizedciência, Desastre, Escândalo, Exxon, Mudanças climáticas, Negacionismorenzotaddei

Bill McKibben

The truth of Exxon’s complicity in global warming must to be told – how they knew about climate change decades ago but chose to help kill our planet

Exxon refinery in Texas

By 1978 Exxon’s senior scientists were telling top management that climate change was real, caused by man, and would raise global temperatures by 2-3C. Photograph: Pat Sullivan/AP

Wednesday 14 October 2015 12.23 BSTLast modified on Thursday 15 October 2015 11.32 BST

I’m well aware that with Paris looming it’s time to be hopeful, and I’m willing to try. Even amid the record heat and flooding of the present, there are good signs for the future in the rising climate movement and the falling cost of solar.

But before we get to past and present there’s some past to be reckoned with, and before we get to hope there’s some deep, blood-red anger.

In the last three weeks, two separate teams of journalists — the Pulitzer-prize winning reporters at the website Inside Climate News and another crew composed of Los Angeles Times veterans and up-and-comers at the Columbia Journalism School — have begun publishing the results of a pair of independent investigations into ExxonMobil.

Though they draw on completely different archives, leaked documents, and interviews with ex-employees, they reach the same damning conclusion: Exxon knew all that there was to know about climate change decades ago, and instead of alerting the rest of us denied the science and obstructed the politics of global warming.

To be specific:

By 1978 Exxon’s senior scientists were telling top management that climate change was real, caused by man, and would raise global temperatures by 2-3C this century, which was pretty much spot-on.

By the early 1980s they’d validated these findings with shipborne measurements of CO2 (they outfitted a giant tanker with carbon sensors for a research voyage) and with computer models that showed precisely what was coming. As the head of one key lab at Exxon Research wrote to his superiors, there was “unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere”.

And by the early 1990s their researchers studying the possibility for new exploration in the Arctic were well aware that human-induced climate change was melting the poles. Indeed, they used that knowledge to plan their strategy, reporting that soon the Beaufort Sea would be ice-free as much as five months a year instead of the historic two. Greenhouse gases are rising “due to the burning of fossil fuels,” a key Exxon researcher told an audience of engineers at a conference in 1991. “Nobody disputes this fact.”

But of course Exxon did dispute that fact. Not inside the company, where they used their knowledge to buy oil leases in the areas they knew would melt, but outside, where they used their political and financial might to make sure no one took climate change seriously.

They helped organise campaigns designed to instil doubt, borrowing tactics and personnel from the tobacco industry’s similar fight. They funded “institutes” devoted to outright climate denial. And at the highest levels they did all they could to spread their lies.

To understand the treachery – the sheer, profound, and I think unparalleled evil – of Exxon, one must remember the timing. Global warming became a public topic in 1988, thanks to Nasa scientist James Hansen – it’s taken a quarter-century and counting for the world to take effective action. If at any point in that journey Exxon – largest oil company on Earth, most profitable enterprise in human history – had said: “Our own research shows that these scientists are right and that we are in a dangerous place,” the faux debate would effectively have ended. That’s all it would have taken; stripped of the cover provided by doubt, humanity would have gotten to work.

Instead, knowingly, they helped organise the most consequential lie in human history, and kept that lie going past the point where we can protect the poles, prevent the acidification of the oceans, or slow sea level rise enough to save the most vulnerable regions and cultures. Businesses misbehave all the time, but VW is the flea to Exxon’s elephant. No corporation has ever done anything this big and this bad.

I’m aware that anger at this point does little good. I’m aware that all clever people will say “of course they did” or “we all use fossil fuels”, as if either claim is meaningful. I’m aware that nothing much will happen to Exxon – I doubt they’ll be tried in court, or their executives sent to jail.

But nonetheless it seems crucial simply to say, for the record, the truth: this company had the singular capacity to change the course of world history for the better and instead it changed that course for the infinitely worse. In its greed Exxon helped — more than any other institution — to kill our planet.

Justiça pré-científica (Folha de S.Paulo)

18/10/2015UncategorizedAnimais de laboratório, Ética, Câncer, ciência, fosfoetanolamina, Justiça, Saúderenzotaddei

Editorial

18/10/2015 02h00

A situação é surreal. Decisões judiciais têm obrigado a USP a produzir e fornecer a pessoas com câncer uma substância cujos efeitos não são conhecidos, que não teve sua eficácia comprovada e, pior, jamais foi submetida a testes de segurança em seres humanos.

As liminares concedidas não só ignoram princípios básicos da pesquisa científica como também colocam em risco a vida dos mais de mil pacientes autorizados a receber um composto a respeito do qual praticamente nada se sabe.

Estudada por um professor do Instituto de Química da USP de São Carlos, a fosfoetanolamina só passou por experimentos em células e animais, nos quais mostrou algum potencial contra certos cânceres.

Noticia-se que o docente, seguro das possibilidades terapêuticas da substância –que não pode ser considerada um remédio–, a distribuía por conta própria. Em 2014, uma portaria da universidade interrompeu o fornecimento.

Iniciou-se, então, uma disputa judicial. Centenas de liminares determinando que a USP providenciasse a droga foram concedidas na primeira instância, mas, em setembro, terminaram suspensas pelo Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo.

No começo de outubro, o ministro Luiz Edson Fachin, do Supremo Tribunal Federal, ordenou que um paciente recebesse cápsulas de fosfoetanolamina. Ato contínuo, o presidente do TJ-SP, José Renato Nalini, reconsiderou a suspensão de entrega da substância.

A argumentação dos magistrados denuncia profundo desconhecimento dos protocolos universalmente adotados para o desenvolvimento de fármacos.

Fachin, por exemplo, parece considerar o registro na Anvisa (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária) um detalhe desimportante. Não é. Trata-se de garantia de que a droga passou por todos os testes devidos –razão pela qual nem sequer há pedido de registro da fosfoetanolamina na agência.

Nalini, por sua vez, afirma que “não se podem ignorar os relatos de pacientes que apontam melhora no quadro clínico”. Ocorre que a ausência de testes controlados torna impossível saber se os alegados progressos decorreram de propriedades do composto.

Mais: sem as pesquisas apropriadas, não se podem descartar efeitos colaterais e graves problemas gerados pela interação com substâncias presentes em medicamentos.

Compreende-se que a luta contra o câncer leve pacientes a buscar todo tipo de tratamento –mas essa é uma questão individual. O Poder Judiciário, entretanto, ao decidir casos dessa natureza, não pode atropelar as normas de validação científica.

‘Não podemos brincar de Deus com as alterações no genoma humano’, alerta ONU (ONU)

08/10/2015UncategorizedÉtica, Biotecnologias, ciência, Engenharia genética, Genética, Incerteza, Riscorenzotaddei

Publicado em 07/10/2015. Atualizado em 07/10/2015

A modificação do código genético permite tratar doenças como o câncer, mas pode gerar mudanças hereditárias. UNESCO pede uma regulamentação clara sobre os procedimentos científicos e informação à população.

“Terapia genética poderia ser o divisor de águas na história da medicina e a alteração no genoma é sem dúvida um dos maiores empreendimentos da ciência em nome da humanidade”, afirmou a Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (UNESCO) sobre um relatório publicado pelo Comitê Internacional de Bioética (IBC) nesta segunda-feira (5).

O IBC acrescentou, no entanto, que intervenções no genoma humano deveriam ser autorizadas somente em casos preventivos, diagnósticos ou terapêuticos que não gerem alterações para os descendentes. O relatório destaca também a importância da regulamentação e informação clara aos consumidores.

O documento ressaltou os avanços na possibilidade de testes genéticos em casos de doenças hereditárias, por meio da terapia genética, o uso de células tronco embrionárias na pesquisa médica e uso de clones e alterações genéticas para fins medicinais. São citadas também novas técnicas que podem inserir, tirar e corrigir o DNA, podendo tratar ou curar o câncer e outras doenças. Porém, estas mesmas técnicas também possibilitam mudanças no DNA, como determinar a cor dos olhos de um bebê, por exemplo.

“O grande medo é que podemos estar tentando “brincar de Deus” com consequências imprevisíveis” e no final precipitando a nossa própria destruição”, alertou o antigo secretário-geral da ONU, Kofi Annan em 2004, quando perguntado qual seria a linha ética que determinaria o limite das alterações no genoma humano. Para responder a essa questão, os Estados-membros da UNESCO adotaram em 2005 a Declaração Universal sobre Bioética e Direitos Humanos que lida com os dilemas éticos levantados pelas rápidas mudanças na medicina, na ciência e tecnologia.

Pesquisa sobre portuários é questionada pela Câmara de Santos (Diário do Litoral)

23/09/2015Uncategorizedciência, Conservadorismo, Drogas, Porto, Saúde, Santos, Trabalhadores, UNIFESPrenzotaddei

Levantamento aponta uso de drogas pela categoria. Intenção dos vereadores era redigir uma moção de apoio aos trabalhadores

Da Reportagem

Atualizado em 22 de setembro de 2015 às 11h45

Dois presidentes de sindicatos ligados ao Porto de Santos protestaram, na sessão de ontem da Câmara, contra a divulgação de uma pesquisa feita pela Universidade Federal Paulista (Unifesp) apontando o consumo de entorpecentes e ingestão de álcool entre os trabalhadores avulsos do cais.

As críticas partiram do presidente do Sindicato dos Operários Portuários (Sintraport), Claudiomiro Machado, o Miro, e do presidente do Sindicato dos Estivadores, Rodnei Oliveira, o Nei da Estiva. Eles afirmaram que o levantamento feito pela universidade feriu a honra da “família portuária”.

Quase todos os vereadores apoiaram a fala dos sindicalistas e questionaram o método de como a pesquisa foi feita. A pesquisa apontaria que 25% dos trabalhadores avulsos usam crack ou cocaína e 80% fazem ingestão de bebida alcoólica.

Miro questionou, por exemplo, o local onde o levantamento foi feito. “Dentro do Porto o acesso é liberado apenas ao trabalhador. Não foram lá entrevistar trabalhador portuário”.

O presidente do Sintraport relatou o drama vivido por um associado, cujo filho foi questionado na escola sobre a profissão do pai. “Falaram para o garoto: teu pai é portuário? Então ele usa cocaína, usa crack”.

Já Nei da Estiva se mostrou indignado pelo fato de nenhum sindicato ter sido procurado para comentar os dados da pesquisa.

Intenção dos vereadores era redigir uma moção de apoio aos trabalhadores ( Foto: Matheus Tagé/DL)

O vereador Antônio Carlos Banha Joaquim (PMDB) lembrou que a Unifesp já foi alvo de uma investigação de uma Comissão de Inquérito aberta na casa, que apurou contratos da universidade com a Prefeitura. “Um trabalho científico tem de ser feito com metodologia”, comentou.

Banha também se disse atingido com o resultado da pesquisa. “Meu avô era trabalhador portuário. Ele deve estar rolando no caixão”, comentou, antes de sugerir que a Unifesp seja questionada judicialmente sobre o levantamento.

Para o vereador Benedito Furtado (PSB), o resultado da pesquisa “dá a entender que 80% dos portuários são alcoólatras”. Ele também atacou ferozmente a universidade. “Essa tal de Unifesp não cumpre lei municipal”.

Ressaltando ser filho de estivador, Geonísio Pereira de Aguiar, o Boquinha (PSDB), além de questionar a seriedade da pesquisa, disse que quase todos os alunos da instituição não são de Santos e, por isso, devem conhecer pouco o cais.

Igor Martins de Melo, o Professor Igor (PSB), foi outro a lembrar que os pesquisadores precisam ter autorização para entrar na área portuária. “Quer dizer, então, que o maior porto da América Latina é tocado por um bando de irresponsáveis? O que é isso?”

Vereador e professor de Matemática, José Lascane (PSDB) disse que é preciso tomar extremo cuidado ao se fazer um levantamento feito pela Unifesp. “A amostra precisa ser bem avaliada, bem como a formulação da pergunta, que precisa ser bem clara”.

Cobrou posição

Marcelo Del Bosco (PPS) deu uma sugestão ao líder do Governo na Câmara, Sadao Nakai (PSDB): o secretário municipal de Assuntos Portuários e Marítimos, José Eduardo Lopes, deve se manifestar sobre o levantamento.

Roberto Oliveira Teixeira, o Pastor Roberto (PMDB), disse que as esposas dos trabalhadores portuários “se sentiram humilhadas com o resultado dessa pesquisa”.

Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago (Inside Climate News)

16/09/2015UncategorizedCapitalismo, ciência, Estados Unidos, Exxon, Mercado, Mudanças climáticas, Negacionismo, Petróleorenzotaddei

Top executives were warned of possible catastrophe from greenhouse effect, then led efforts to block solutions.

By Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer

Sep 16, 2015

Exxon Experiment

Exxon’s Richard Werthamer (right) and Edward Garvey (left) are aboard the company’s Esso Atlantic tanker working on a project to measure the carbon dioxide levels in the ocean and atmosphere. The project ran from 1979 to 1982. (Credit: Richard Werthamer)

“In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels,” Black told Exxon’s Management Committee, according to a written version he recorded later.

It was July 1977 when Exxon’s leaders received this blunt assessment, well before most of the world had heard of the looming climate crisis.

A year later, Black, a top technical expert in Exxon’s Research & Engineering division, took an updated version of his presentation to a broader audience. He warned Exxon scientists and managers that independent researchers estimated a doubling of the carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit), and as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) at the poles. Rainfall might get heavier in some regions, and other places might turn to desert.

“Some countries would benefit but others would have their agricultural output reduced or destroyed,” Black said, in the written summary of his 1978 talk.

His presentations reflected uncertainty running through scientific circles about the details of climate change, such as the role the oceans played in absorbing emissions. Still, Black estimated quick action was needed. “Present thinking,” he wrote in the 1978 summary, “holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”

Exxon responded swiftly. Within months the company launched its own extraordinary research into carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and its impact on the earth. Exxon’s ambitious program included both empirical CO₂ sampling and rigorous climate modeling. It assembled a brain trust that would spend more than a decade deepening the company’s understanding of an environmental problem that posed an existential threat to the oil business.

Then, toward the end of the 1980s, Exxon curtailed its carbon dioxide research. In the decades that followed, Exxon worked instead at the forefront of climate denial. It put its muscle behind efforts to manufacture doubt about the reality of global warming its own scientists had once confirmed. It lobbied to block federal and international action to control greenhouse gas emissions. It helped to erect a vast edifice of misinformation that stands to this day.

This untold chapter in Exxon’s history, when one of the world’s largest energy companies worked to understand the damage caused by fossil fuels, stems from an eight-month investigation by InsideClimate News. ICN’s reporters interviewed former Exxon employees, scientists, and federal officials, and consulted hundreds of pages of internal Exxon documents, many of them written between 1977 and 1986, during the heyday of Exxon’s innovative climate research program. ICN combed through thousands of documents from archives including those held at the University of Texas-Austin, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The documents record budget requests, research priorities, and debates over findings, and reveal the arc of Exxon’s internal attitudes and work on climate and how much attention the results received.

Of particular significance was a project launched in August 1979, when the company outfitted a supertanker with custom-made instruments. The project’s mission was to sample carbon dioxide in the air and ocean along a route from the Gulf of Mexico to the Persian Gulf.

In 1980, Exxon assembled a team of climate modelers who investigated fundamental questions about the climate’s sensitivity to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the air. Working with university scientists and the U.S. Department of Energy, Exxon strove to be on the cutting edge of inquiry into what was then called the greenhouse effect.

Exxon’s early determination to understand rising carbon dioxide levels grew out of a corporate culture of farsightedness, former employees said. They described a company that continuously examined risks to its bottom line, including environmental factors. In the 1970s, Exxon modeled its research division after Bell Labs, staffing it with highly accomplished scientists and engineers.

In written responses to questions about the history of its research, ExxonMobil spokesman Richard D. Keil said that “from the time that climate change first emerged as a topic for scientific study and analysis in the late 1970s, ExxonMobil has committed itself to scientific, fact-based analysis of this important issue.”

“At all times,” he said, “the opinions and conclusions of our scientists and researchers on this topic have been solidly within the mainstream of the consensus scientific opinion of the day and our work has been guided by an overarching principle to follow where the science leads. The risk of climate change is real and warrants action.”

At the outset of its climate investigations almost four decades ago, many Exxon executives, middle managers and scientists armed themselves with a sense of urgency and mission.

One manager at Exxon Research, Harold N. Weinberg, shared his “grandiose thoughts” about Exxon’s potential role in climate research in a March 1978 internal company memorandum that read: “This may be the kind of opportunity that we are looking for to have Exxon technology, management and leadership resources put into the context of a project aimed at benefitting mankind.”

His sentiment was echoed by Henry Shaw, the scientist leading the company’s nascent carbon dioxide research effort.

“Exxon must develop a credible scientific team that can critically evaluate the information generated on the subject and be able to carry bad news, if any, to the corporation,” Shaw wrote to his boss Edward E. David, the executive director of Exxon Research and Engineering in 1978. “This team must be recognized for its excellence in the scientific community, the government, and internally by Exxon management.”

Irreversible and Catastrophic

Exxon budgeted more than $1 million over three years for the tanker project to measure how quickly the oceans were taking in CO₂. It was a small fraction of Exxon Research’s annual $300 million budget, but the question the scientists tackled was one of the biggest uncertainties in climate science: how quickly could the deep oceans absorb atmospheric CO₂? If Exxon could pinpoint the answer, it would know how long it had before CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere could force a transition away from fossil fuels.

Exxon also hired scientists and mathematicians to develop better climate models and publish research results in peer-reviewed journals. By 1982, the company’s own scientists, collaborating with outside researchers, created rigorous climate models – computer programs that simulate the workings of the climate to assess the impact of emissions on global temperatures. They confirmed an emerging scientific consensus that warming could be even worse than Black had warned five years earlier.

Esso Atlantic

Between 1979 and 1982, Exxon researchers sampled carbon dioxide levels aboard the company’s Esso Atlantic tanker (shown here).

Exxon’s research laid the groundwork for a 1982 corporate primer on carbon dioxide and climate change prepared by its environmental affairs office. Marked “not to be distributed externally,” it contained information that “has been given wide circulation to Exxon management.” In it, the company recognized, despite the many lingering unknowns, that heading off global warming “would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion.”

Unless that happened, “there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered,” the primer said, citing independent experts. “Once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible.”

The Certainty of Uncertainty

Like others in the scientific community, Exxon researchers acknowledged the uncertainties surrounding many aspects of climate science, especially in the area of forecasting models. But they saw those uncertainties as questions they wanted to address, not an excuse to dismiss what was increasingly understood.

“Models are controversial,” Roger Cohen, head of theoretical sciences at Exxon Corporate Research Laboratories, and his colleague, Richard Werthamer, senior technology advisor at Exxon Corporation, wrote in a May 1980 status report on Exxon’s climate modeling program. “Therefore, there are research opportunities for us.”

When Exxon’s researchers confirmed information the company might find troubling, they did not sweep it under the rug.

“Over the past several years a clear scientific consensus has emerged,” Cohen wrote in September 1982, reporting on Exxon’s own analysis of climate models. It was that a doubling of the carbon dioxide blanket in the atmosphere would produce average global warming of 3 degrees Celsius, plus or minus 1.5 degrees C (equal to 5 degrees Fahrenheit plus or minus 1.7 degrees F).

“There is unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate,” he wrote, “including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere.”

He warned that publication of the company’s conclusions might attract media attention because of the “connection between Exxon’s major business and the role of fossil fuel combustion in contributing to the increase of atmospheric CO₂.”

Nevertheless, he recommended publication.

Our “ethical responsibility is to permit the publication of our research in the scientific literature,” Cohen wrote. “Indeed, to do otherwise would be a breach of Exxon’s public position and ethical credo on honesty and integrity.”

Exxon followed his advice. Between 1983 and 1984, its researchers published their results in at least three peer-reviewed papers in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences and an American Geophysical Union monograph.

David, the head of Exxon Research, told a global warming conference financed by Exxon in October 1982 that “few people doubt that the world has entered an energy transition away from dependence upon fossil fuels and toward some mix of renewable resources that will not pose problems of CO₂accumulation.” The only question, he said, was how fast this would happen.

But the challenge did not daunt him. “I’m generally upbeat about the chances of coming through this most adventurous of all human experiments with the ecosystem,” David said.

Exxon considered itself unique among corporations for its carbon dioxide and climate research. The company boasted in a January 1981 report, “Scoping Study on CO₂,” that no other company appeared to be conducting similar in-house research into carbon dioxide, and it swiftly gained a reputation among outsiders for genuine expertise.

“We are very pleased with Exxon’s research intentions related to the CO₂ question. This represents very responsible action, which we hope will serve as a model for research contributions from the corporate sector,” said David Slade, manager of the federal government’s carbon dioxide research program at the Energy Department, in a May 1979 letter to Shaw. “This is truly a national and international service.”

Business Imperatives

In the early 1980s Exxon researchers often repeated that unbiased science would give it legitimacy in helping shape climate-related laws that would affect its profitability.

Still, corporate executives remained cautious about what they told Exxon’s shareholders about global warming and the role petroleum played in causing it, a review of federal filings shows. The company did not elaborate on the carbon problem in annual reports filed with securities regulators during the height of its CO₂ research.

Nor did it mention in those filings that concern over CO₂ was beginning to influence business decisions it was facing.

Throughout the 1980s, the company was worried about developing an enormous gas field off the coast of Indonesia because of the vast amount of CO₂ the unusual reservoir would release.

Exxon was also concerned about reports that synthetic oil made from coal, tar sands and oil shales could significantly boost CO₂ emissions. The company was banking on synfuels to meet growing demand for energy in the future, in a world it believed was running out of conventional oil.

In the mid-1980s, after an unexpected oil glut caused prices to collapse, Exxon cut its staff deeply to save money, including many working on climate. But the climate change problem remained, and it was becoming a more prominent part of the political landscape.

“Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate,” declared the headline of a June 1988 New York Times article describing the Congressional testimony of NASA’s James Hansen, a leading climate expert. Hansen’s statements compelled Sen. Tim Wirth (D-Colo.) to declare during the hearing that “Congress must begin to consider how we are going to slow or halt that warming trend.”

With alarm bells suddenly ringing, Exxon started financing efforts to amplify doubt about the state of climate science.

Exxon helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition, an alliance of some of the world’s largest companies seeking to halt government efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions. Exxon used the American Petroleum Institute, right-wing think tanks, campaign contributions and its own lobbying to push a narrative that climate science was too uncertain to necessitate cuts in fossil fuel emissions.

As the international community moved in 1997 to take a first step in curbing emissions with the Kyoto Protocol, Exxon’s chairman and CEO Lee Raymond argued to stop it.

“Let’s agree there’s a lot we really don’t know about how climate will change in the 21st century and beyond,” Raymond said in his speech before the World Petroleum Congress in Beijing in October 1997.

“We need to understand the issue better, and fortunately, we have time,” he said. “It is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now.”

Over the years, several Exxon scientists who had confirmed the climate consensus during its early research, including Cohen and David, took Raymond’s side, publishing views that ran contrary to the scientific mainstream.

Paying the Price

Exxon’s about-face on climate change earned the scorn of the scientific establishment it had once courted.

In 2006, the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s science academy, sent a harsh letter to Exxon accusing it of being “inaccurate and misleading” on the question of climate uncertainty. Bob Ward, the Academy’s senior manager for policy communication, demanded that Exxon stop giving money to dozens of organizations he said were actively distorting the science.

In 2008, under mounting pressure from activist shareholders, the company announced it would end support for some prominent groups such as those Ward had identified.

Still, the millions of dollars Exxon had spent since the 1990s on climate change deniers had long surpassed what it had once invested in its path-breaking climate science aboard the Esso Atlantic.

“They spent so much money and they were the only company that did this kind of research as far as I know,” Edward Garvey, who was a key researcher on Exxon’s oil tanker project, said in a recent interview with InsideClimate News and Frontline. “That was an opportunity not just to get a place at the table, but to lead, in many respects, some of the discussion. And the fact that they chose not to do that into the future is a sad point.”

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, who has been a frequent target of climate deniers, said that inaction, just like actions, have consequences. When he recently spoke to InsideClimate News, he was unaware of this chapter in Exxon’s history.

“All it would’ve taken is for one prominent fossil fuel CEO to know this was about more than just shareholder profits, and a question about our legacy,” he said. “But now because of the cost of inaction—what I call the ‘procrastination penalty’—we face a far more uphill battle.”

Part II, coming on September 17, will further examine Exxon’s early climate research.

ICN staff members Zahra Hirji, Paul Horn, Naveena Sadasivam, Sabrina Shankman and Alexander Wood also contributed to this report.

The Widening World of Hand-Picked Truths (New York Times)

02/09/2015UncategorizedAntropologia, ciência, Colonialismo, Religiãorenzotaddei

AUG. 24, 2015

Credit: Ellen Weinstein

George Johnson

Nearly half a century ago, in what passed as outrage in pre-Internet times, people across the country became incensed by the latest edition of Time magazine. In place of the familiar portrait of a world leader — Indira Gandhi, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ho Chi Minh — the cover of the April 8, 1966, issue was emblazoned with three red words against a stark black background: “Is God Dead?”

Thousands of people sent letters of protest to Time and to their local newspapers. Ministers denounced the magazine in their sermons.

The subject of the fury — a sprawling, 6,000-word essay of the kind Time was known for — was not, as many assumed, a denunciation of religion. Drawing on a panoply of philosophers and theologians, Time’s religion editor calmly considered how society was adapting to the diminishing role of religion in an age of secularization, urbanism and, especially, stunning advances in science.

With astronauts walking in space, and polio and other infectious diseasesseemingly on the way to oblivion, it was natural to assume that people would increasingly stop believing things just because they had always believed them. Faith would steadily give way to the scientific method as humanity converged on an ever better understanding of what was real.

Almost 50 years later, that dream seems to be coming apart. Some of the opposition is on familiar grounds: The creationist battle against evolution remains fierce, and more sophisticated than ever. But it’s not just organized religions that are insisting on their own alternate truths. On one front after another, the hard-won consensus of science is also expected to accommodate personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, about the safety of vaccines, G.M.O. crops, fluoridation or cellphone radio waves, along with the validity of global climate change.

Like creationists with their “intelligent design,” the followers of these causes come armed with their own personal science, assembled through Internet searches that inevitably turn up the contortions of special interest groups. In an attempt to dilute the wisdom of the crowd, Google recently tweaked its algorithm so that searching for “vaccination” or “fluoridation,” for example, brings vetted medical information to the top of the results.

But presenting people with the best available science doesn’t seem to change many minds. In a kind of psychological immune response, they reject ideas they consider harmful. A study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that it is more effective to appeal to anti-vaxxers through their emotions, with stories and pictures of children sick with measles, the mumps or rubella — a reminder that subjective feelings are still trusted over scientific expertise.

On a deeper level, characteristics that once seemed biologically determined are increasingly challenged as malleable social constructs. As she resigned from her post this summer, an N.A.A.C.P. local leader continued to insistshe was black although she was born white. Facebook now offers users a list of 56 genders to choose from. Transgender sits on the list, along with its opposite, cisgender — meaning that, like most people, you identify yourself as male or female according to the way the cells of your embryo unfolded in the womb.

Even conditions once certified as pathologies are redefined. While some parents cling to discredited research blaming vaccines for giving children autism, others embrace the condition as one more way of being and speak of a new civil rights movement promoting “neurodiversity,” the subject of a book by Steve Silberman, published this month.

While this has been a welcome and humane development for those diagnosed as “higher functioning” on the autism scale, parents of severely impaired children have expressed dismay.

Viewed from afar, the world seems almost on the brink of conceding that there are no truths, only competing ideologies — narratives fighting narratives. In this epistemological warfare, those with the most power are accused of imposing their version of reality — the “dominant paradigm” — on the rest, leaving the weaker to fight back with formulations of their own. Everything becomes a version.

Ideas like these have been playing out in the background as native Hawaiian protesters continue to delay the construction of a new telescope on Mauna Kea that they say would desecrate a mountaintop where the Sky Father and Earth Mother gave birth to humankind. Last month, they staged a demonstration at the annual meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Honolulu.

There are already 13 telescopes on the mountain, all part of the Mauna Kea Science Reserve, which was established by the state in 1968 on what is widely considered the premier astronomical vantage point in the Northern Hemisphere. After I wrote about the controversy last fall, I heard from young anthropologists, speaking the language of postmodernism, who consider science to be just another tool with which Western colonialism further extends its “cultural hegemony” by marginalizing the dispossessed and privileging its own worldview.

Science, through this lens, doesn’t discover knowledge, it “manufactures” it, along with other marketable goods.

Altruism and compassion toward the feelings of others represent the best of human impulses. And it is good to continually challenge rigid categories and entrenched beliefs. But that comes at a sacrifice when the subjective is elevated over the assumption that lurking out there is some kind of real world.

The widening gyre of beliefs is accelerated by the otherwise liberating Internet. At the same time it expands the reach of every mind, it channels debate into clashing memes, often no longer than 140 characters, that force people to extremes and trap them in self-reinforcing bubbles of thought.

In the end, you’re left to wonder whether you are trapped in a bubble, too, a pawn and a promoter of a “hegemonic paradigm” called science, seduced by your own delusions.

How climate change deniers got it right — but very wrong (MSNBC)

22/06/2015Uncategorizedciência, Consenso, Conservadorismo, Mudanças climáticas, Negacionismo, Políticarenzotaddei

VIDEO: GREENHOUSE, 1/22/15, 3:34 PM ET

06/16/15 08:30 PM

By Tony Dokoupil

It turns out the climate change deniers were right: There isn’t 97% agreement among climate scientists. The real figure? It’s not lower, but actually higher.

The scientific “consensus” on climate change has gotten stronger, surging past the famous — and controversial — figure of 97% to more than 99.9%, according to a new study reviewed by msnbc.

James L. Powell, director of the National Physical Sciences Consortium, reviewed more than 24,000 peer-reviewed papers on global warming published in 2013 and 2014. Only five reject the reality of rising temperatures or the fact that human emissions are the cause, he found.

“It’s now a ruling paradigm, as much an accepted fact in climate science as plate tectonics is in geology and evolution is in biology,” he told msnbc. “It’s 99.9% plus.”

Powell, a member of the National Science Board under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, decided to share an exclusive draft of his research on Tuesday — just days before Pope Francis is set to deliver a major address on climate change — because he doesn’t want his holiness to reference outdated numbers.

“I don’t want the Pope to say 97%,” Powell said by phone, arguing that accuracy now is more important than ever. “It’s wrong, and it’s not trivial.”

VIDEO: THE ED SHOW, 6/8/15, 5:53 PM ET – Santorum lectures Pope on climate change

Pope Francis is preparing to charge into the political debate over climate change, citing “a very consistent scientific consensus” and the risk of “unprecedented destruction,” according to a leaked draft of Thursday’s papal encyclical.

The notion of 97% agreement among climate scientists started with studies in 2009 and 2010. It wasn’t until a 2013 study, however, that the figure went viral. President Barack Obama tweeted it. The comedian John Oliver set up a slapstick debate between a climate change denier and 97 of his peers.

But Powell argues that acceptance of man-made global warming has grown. The author of a new Columbia University Press book on scientific revolutions used an online database to compile a mountain of global warming papers published in the last two years.

He also tried a different approach than the earlier studies. Rather than search for explicit acceptance of anthropomorphic global warming, Powell searched for explicit rejection. All the papers in the middle, he figured, weren’t neutral on the subject — they were settled on it.

The results include work from nearly the entire population of working climate scientists — close to 70,000 scientists, often sharing their byline with three or four other authors. They also include a dwindling opposition: Powell could find only four solitary authors who challenged the evidence for human-caused global warming.

That’s a rate of one dissenting voice for every 17,000 agreeing scientists, and it’s not a strong voice. Powell called the four dissents “known deniers and crackpots,” and noted that their work had been cited only once by the wider academic community.

“I don’t want the Pope to say 97%. It’s wrong, and it’s not trivial.”

Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard, hasn’t read the Powell paper but she doesn’t doubt the general direction of the findings.Back in 2004, she became the first researcher to claim a “consensus” on climate change, finding a roughly 75% agreement within the literature.

“Scientists have done so much more work since then,” she said. For me, as a historian of science, it really feels like overkill. One starts to think, how many more times do we need to say this before we really get it and start to act on it?”

One reason for inaction of course is politics. Many of the world’s leaders still doubt the science of climate change, assuming incorrectly that it’s unsettled or exploratory. The view is especially prevalent among the current crop of Republican presidential candidates.

Earlier this month, for example, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told Fox News that the pope would be “better off leaving science to the scientists.” Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, meanwhile, claim that the science remains vague or is made up entirely.

That raises a second reason for inaction, according to Oreskes: intentional deception. Oreskes is the co-author of the “Merchants of Doubt,” a book that demonstrated how interest groups had undermined the science on tobacco, ozone depletion, acid rain and now climate change.

Many self-proclaimed “climate skeptics” no longer deny that the globe is warming, and some even acknowledge a human role in the new heat wave. Instead, they now say, warming is real — it just isn’t dangerous. They also attack the idea of a consensus, whatever the percentage.

“Nothing has really changed there,” said Oreskes. “The details shift but the overall picture remains the same. It’s a bit like Monet’s water lilies; it can look different at different at different times of day but it’s the same picture.”

Powell, however, hopes his work can finally close the debate, end the notion of doubt, move the frame ahead.

“There isn’t any evidence against global warming and there isn’t any alternative theory,” he said. “We’ve been looking for negative feedbacks and we’ve never found one that amounts to anything. It’s not impossible that we will, but I wouldn’t bet my grandchildren’s future on it.”

Entertaining Science: A report from a colloquy at the intersection of science and entertainment (CASTAC)

16/06/2015Uncategorizedciência, Entretenimento, Mudanças climáticas, STS, TVrenzotaddei

June 9th, 2015, by Todd Hanson

As you read this post, members of a community of like-minded scholars are unwinding after a weekend symposium at the UK’s University of Manchester. The symposium Stories About Science—Exploring Science Communication and Entertainment Media explored the intersections of science with entertainment from various disciplinary perspectives and as experienced by a diverse range of publics. Organized through the University of Manchester’s Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM), the SAS symposium was the brainchild of the Playing God Project of CHSTM ‘s Science and Entertainment Laboratory research group.

So what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with CASTAC? Well, as an anthropologist invested in exploring ethnographically the cultural qualities of humanity’s intersections with science, I was interested in efforts by the symposium’s presenters, not unlike CASTAC’s own, to understand significant cultural aspects of science in contemporary society. Perhaps more intriguingly, I saw it as a potential opportunity to further our goal of fostering discussions between anthropologists and other STS scholars. To that end, I contacted several SAS symposiasts to get a sense of what they presented at SAS. Colloquy topics ran from explorations of gender for fictional television scientists to the ways legitimate scientists are presented in the media to the power of comics in science communication.

The Presentations

Among the research presented was a paper by Rashel Li of the Australian National University, who reported on her focus group studies of the ways in which gender balance (or imbalance) has been portrayed in science-themed film and television. Viewing representations of gender through the lens of the American sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, Li’s work focuses on that show’s discipline-based gender distribution of men in physics and women in biology and its attempts to portray the characters as equally capable in their respective science fields. Li looks specifically at the ways female scientists are portrayed in the show by collecting feedback on the show’s representations of gender from adult focus groups. The principal responses of these focus groups ranged from being annoyed by how The Big Bang Theory followed gender-based stereotypes of men in physics and women in biology, to being unaware of the imbalanced gender distribution, to thinking that the show reflected reality and helped humanize science. Perhaps not surprisingly, none of the focus group participants endorsed an imbalanced characterization of scientific capability.

Christopher Herzog (University of Salzburg, Austria) explored in his paper the phenomenon of contemporary neuroscience plays, which highlight the theatre’s unique potential of renegotiating the mind-body problem by having to represent the mental phenomenologically via bodies on stage. Often combined with neuroscientific visualizations of the brain via screen projections, these are theatrical performances in which “deviant minds,” brain pathologies (e.g., anterograde amnesia), and mental illness (e.g., depression) are presented to the public. Arguing against presumed educational or informative functions of science plays and for an epistemically more nuanced understanding of the genre, Herzog contends the plays do not impart scientific ‘facts.’ Ultimately, according to Herzog, “Neuroscience plays are a form of meta-visualization, illustrating how theatre can critically alert us to tendencies in our contemporary culture, and specifically how the forms of presentation (e.g., the dissemination of brain images in mass media) and received-neuroscientific-facts often result in anthropological and social categories of normalcy through recourse to the authority of science.”

Declan Fahy (American University) presented the argument that astrophysicist and public figure Neil deGrasse Tyson illuminates and embodies the enhanced power of scientific celebrity. Using a cultural-historical analysis of Tyson’s decades-long public career to demonstrate how he became a scientific star, Fahy argued that Tyson’s fame rests on how he came to symbolize three wider historical movements in post-1960s U.S culture: the rise of the African-American public intellectual, the endeavors to enhance scientific literacy, and the drive to reignite space exploration. Fahy described how Tyson’s star status has earned him social power to spread scientific ideas through wider culture, granted him influence over science policy, the US space program, and astronomical research, and created, as a consequence of his celebrity, a potent form of scientific authority in popular culture. The argument is one Fahy examines in depth in his book, The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and Into the Limelight (2015).

In a similar vein, Benjamin Gross, of the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) in Philadelphia, used Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey as a starting point for his presentation on how a group of scholars and communications personnel at the CHF successfully organized #CosmosChat, a weekly Twitter conversation in 2014 examining Cosmos’s presentation of science and history. Mobilizing CHF’s library and artifact collections, as well as the expertise of in-house research fellows, the tweets critiqued Cosmos and supplemented each episode’s weekly content. Gross discussed the substantive themes that emerged during the course of these critiques and evaluated the potential applicability of the #CosmosChat model to other communication opportunities that lie at the intersection of science and entertainment.

Drawing on two projects aimed at communicating science to young people, Science Comics and Cosmic Comics, Emma Weitkamp of the University of West England presented a paper on comics as science communication. Traditionally seen as purely entertainment media, comics have more recently been employed in science communication. Exploring comics as methods for situating science within our day-to-day activities, Weitkamp poses the question: Can a combination of science, humor, and narrative help to show how science is part of our everyday lives? Weitkamp posits that comic media have strong potential, both as learning aids and as creative ways to place science within society, as their fictional nature allows greater juxtaposition of the real and the imaginary, allowing authors, for example, to pose ‘what if’ questions to their readers, such as what if the world didn’t physically work the way it does?

The success of SAS was another success for STS. As David Kirby, the principal investigator in CHSTM ‘s Playing God Project, notes “science and entertainment represent two of the most powerful cultural institutions that humans have developed to understand and explain their world.” If this is true, the scholars aligned with SAS seem poised to offer some intriguing and potentially synergistic research that could align well with the work of CASTAC scholars.

Science Under Siege (CBC)

16/06/2015Uncategorizedciência, Conservadorismo, Mudanças climáticas, Negacionismo, Políticarenzotaddei

Paul Kennedy

Wednesday June 03, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/science-under-siege-part-1-1.3091552

Are we living through an Anti-Scientific Revolution? Scientists around the world are increasingly restricted in what they can research, publish and say — constrained by belief and ideology from all sides. Historically, science has always had a thorny relationship with institutions of power. But what happens to societies which turn their backs on curiosity-driven research? And how can science lift the siege? CBC Radio producer Mary Lynk looks for some answers in this three-part series.

Science Under Siege, Part 1: Dangers of Ignorance – airs Wednesday, June 3
Explores the historical tension between science and political power and the sometimes fraught relationship between the two over the centuries. But what happens when science gets sidelined? What happens to societies which turn their backs on curiosity-driven research?

Science Under Siege, Part 2: The Great Divide – airs Thursday, June 4
Explores the state of science in the modern world, and the expanding — and dangerous — gulf between scientists and the rest of society. Many policy makers, politicians and members of the public are giving belief and ideology the same standing as scientific evidence. Are we now seeing an Anti-Scientific revolution? A look at how evidence-based decision making has been sidelined.

Science Under Siege, Part 3: Fighting Back – airs Friday, June 5
Focuses on the culture war being waged on science, and possible solutions for reintegrating science and society. The attack on science is coming from all sides, both the left and right of the political spectrum. How can the principle of direct observation of the world, free of any influence from corporate or any other influence, reassert itself? The final episode of this series looks at how science can withstand the attack against it and overcome ideology and belief.

The Ant, the Shaman and the Scientist: Shamanic lore spurs scientific discovery in the Amazon (Notes from the Ethnoground)

08/06/2015UncategorizedAnimais, Ayahuasca, Índios, ciência, Conhecimentos tradicionais, Formigas, Interação humanos-animais, Xamanismorenzotaddei

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

When he pointed to the tree trunk and said the scars were from fires set by invisible forest spirits, I had no idea this supernatural observation would lead to a new discovery for natural science. Mariano, the eldest shaman of the Matsigenka village of Yomybato in Manu National Park, Peru, had first showed me the curious clearings in the forest that form around clumps of Cordia nodosa, a bristly tropical shrub related to borage (Borago officinalis). Both the Matsigenka people and tropical ecologists recognize the special relationship that exists between Cordia and ants of the genus Myrmelachista: the Matsigenka word for the plant is matiagiroki, which means “ant shrub.”

Maximo Vicente, Mariano’s grandson, standing by a
swollen, scarred trunk near a Cordia patch.

For scientists, the clearings in the forest understory around patches of Cordia are caused by a mutualistic relationship with the ants. Cordia plants provide the ant colony with hollow branch nodes for nesting and bristly corridors along twigs and leaves for protection, while the ants use their strong mandibles and acidic secretions to clear away competing vegetation. Local Quechua-speaking colonists refer to the clearings as “Devil’s gardens” (supay chacra). For the Matsigenka, these clearings are the work of spirits known as Sangariite, which means ‘Pure’ or ‘Invisible Ones’. Matsigenka shamans like Mariano come to these spirit clearings and consume powerful narcotics and hallucinogens such as tobacco paste, ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis), or the Datura-like toé (Brugmansia).[1]

A “Sangariite village clearing” (igarapagite sangatsiri)
in the upland forests of Manu Park.

With the aid of visionary plants, the shaman perceives the true nature of these mundane forest clearings: they are the villages of Sangariite spirits, unimaginably distant and inaccessible under ordinary states of consciousness. While in trance, the shaman enters the village and develops an ongoing relationship with a spirit twin or ally among the Sangariite, who can provide him or her with esoteric knowledge, news from distant places, healing power, artistic inspiration, auspicious hunting and even novel varieties of food crops or medicinal plants.[2] As proof of the existence of these invisible villages, Mariano pointed out to me the scars on adjacent tree trunks all around large, dense Cordia patches: “The scars are caused by fires the Sangariite set to clear their gardens every summer,” he explained.

Mariano wearing a cotton tunic with designs taught him by the
Sangariite spirits during an ayahuasca trance.

Douglas Yu, an expert on ant-plant interactions, was researching Cordia populations in the forests around Yomybato.[3] I told him of Mariano’s observations about the Sangariite villages, and pointed out the distinctive marks on adjacent trees. In his years of research, Yu had never noticed the trunk scars. Intrigued, he cut into the scars and found nests teeming with Myrmelachista ants that appeared to be galling the trunks to create additional housing. As detailed in a 2009 publication in American Naturalist[4], this case is the first recorded example of ants galling plants, reopening a century-old debate in tropical ecology begun by legendary scientists Richard Spruce and Alfred Wallace. The discovery of Myrmelachista‘s galling capability also helped Yu understand how this ant species persists in the face of competition by two more aggressive ant types, Azteca and Allomerus, that can also inhabit Cordia depending on ecological conditions.

Douglas Yu carries out research on ant-plant
interactions in the Peruvian Amazon.

My ongoing collaborations with Yu and other tropical biologists in indigenous communities have highlighted how important it is to pay attention to local people’s rich and often underappreciated knowledge about forest ecosystems: sometimes even those elements of folklore that appear quaint or “unscientific” contain astute insights about natural processes.

Cross section of a tree trunk galled by Myrmelachista ants
(photo: Megan Frederickson).

— This article was first published online on Nov. 7, 2011 with Spanish and Portuguese translations by O Eco Amazônia.

References:

[1] G.H. Shepard Jr. (1998) Psychoactive plants and ethnopsychiatric medicines of the Matsigenka. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30 (4):321-332; G.H. Shepard Jr. (2005) Psychoactive botanicals in ritual, religion and shamanism. Chapter 18 in: E. Elisabetsky & N. Etkin (Eds.), Ethnopharmacology. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Theme 6.79. Oxford, UK: UNESCO/Eolss Publishers [http://www.eolss.net].

[2] G.H. Shepard Jr. (1999) Shamanism and diversity: A Matsigenka perspective. In Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity, edited by D. A. Posey. London: United Nations Environmental Programme and Intermediate Technology Publications.

[3] D.W. Yu, H. B. Wilson and N. E. Pierce (2001) An empirical model of species coexistence in a spatially structured environment. Ecology 82 (6):1761-1771.
[4] D.P. Edwards, M.E. Frederickson, G.H. Shepard Jr. and D.W. Yu (2009) ‘A plant needs its ants like a dog needs its fleas’: Myrmelachista schumanni ants gall many tree species to create housing. The American Naturalist 174 (5):734-740. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19799500]

Posted by Glenn H. Shepard at 10:11 AM

There never was a global warming ‘pause,’ NOAA study concludes (Environment & Energy Publishing)

06/06/2015Uncategorizedciência, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Negacionismo, Previsãorenzotaddei

Gayathri Vaidyanathan, E&E reporter

Published: Friday, June 5, 2015

The global warming “pause” does not exist, according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Their finding refutes a theory that has dominated climate science in recent years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 found that global temperatures in recent years have not risen as quickly as they did in the 20th century. That launched an academic hunt for the missing heat in the oceans, volcanoes and solar rays. Meanwhile, climate deniers triumphantly crowed that global warming has paused or gone on a “hiatus.”

But it now appears that the pause never was. NOAA scientists have fixed some small errors in global temperature data and found that temperatures over the past 15 years have been rising at a rate comparable to warming over the 20th century. The study was published yesterday inScience.

That a minor change to the analysis can switch the outcome from a hiatus to increased warming shows “how fragile a concept it [the hiatus] was in the first place,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who was unaffiliated with the study.

According to the NOAA study, the world has warmed since 1998 by 0.11 degree Celsius per decade. Scientists had previously calculated that the trend was about half that.

The new rate is equal to the rate of warming seen between 1951 and 1999.

There has been no slowdown in the rate of global warming, said Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and lead author of the study.

“Global warming is firmly entrenched on our planet, and it continues to progress and is likely to continue to do so in the future unless emissions of greenhouse gases are substantially altered,” he said.

Errors from weather stations, buoys and buckets

That NOAA has to adjust temperature readings is not unusual. Many factors can affect raw temperature measurements, according to a study by Karl in 1988.

For instance, a weather station may be situated beneath a tree, which would bias temperatures low. Measurements made near a parking lot would read warm due to the waves of heat emanating from asphalt surfaces. NOAA and other agencies adjust the raw temperature data to remove such biases.

It has become clear in recent years that some biases still persist in the data, particularly of ocean temperatures. The culprit: buckets.

Ships traverse the world, and, occasionally, workers onboard dip a bucket over the hull and bring up water that they measure using a thermometer. The method is old school and error prone — water in a bucket is usually cooler than the ocean.

For a long time, scientists had assumed that most ships no longer use buckets and instead measure water siphoned from the ocean to cool ship engines. The latter method is more robust. But data released last year showed otherwise and compelled NOAA to correct for this bias.

A second correction involved sensor-laden buoys interspersed across the oceans whose temperature readings are biased low. Karl and his colleagues corrected for this issue, as well.

The corrections “made a significant impact,” Karl said. “They added about 0.06 degrees C per decade additional warming since 2000.”

The ‘slowdown hasn’t gone away’

What that means for the global warming hiatus depends on whom you ask. The warming trend over the past 15 years is comparable to the trend between 1950 and 1998 (a 48-year stretch), which led Karl to say that global warming never slowed.

Other scientists were not fully convinced. For a truly apples-to-apples comparison, the past 15 years should be compared with other 15-year stretches, said Peter Stott, head of the climate monitoring and attribution team at the U.K. Met Office.

For instance, the globe warmed more slowly in the past 15 years than between 1983 and 1998 (the previous 15-year stretch), even with NOAA’s new data corrections, Stott said.

“The slowdown hasn’t gone away,” he said in an email. “While the Earth continues to accumulate energy as a result of increasing man-made greenhouse gas emissions … global temperatures have not increased smoothly.”

The disagreements arise because assigning trends — including the trend of a “hiatus” — to global warming depends on the time frame of reference.

“Trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends,” the IPCC stated in 2013, even as it discussed the pause.

Robert Kaufmann, an environment professor at Boston University who was unaffiliated with the study, called trends a “red herring.”

A trend implies that the planet will warm, decade after decade, at a steady clip. There is no reason why that should be the case, Kaufmann said. Many factors — human emissions of warming and cooling gases, natural variability, and external factors such as the sun — feed into Earth’s climate. The relative contributions of each factor can vary by year, decade, century or on even larger time scales.

“There is no scientific basis to assume that the climate is going to warm at the same rate year after year, decade after decade,” he said.

Copying the language of skeptics

Trends are a powerful weapon in the hands of climate deniers. As early as 2006, deniers used the slowdown of warming from 1998 onward to say that global warming had stopped or paused.

The idea of a “pause” seeped into academia, launching dozens of studies into what might have caused it. But there was a subtle difference between scientists’ understanding of the pause and that of the skeptics; scientists never believed that warming had stopped, only that it had slowed compared with the rapidly warming ’90s. They wanted to know why.

Over the years, scientists have unraveled the contributions of volcanoes to global cooling, the increased uptake of heat by the Pacific Ocean, the cooling role of La Niñas and other drivers of natural variability. Their understanding of our planet’s climate evolved rapidly.

As scientists wrote up their findings, they unwittingly adopted the skeptics’ language of the “pause,” said Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist at the University of Bristol who was unaffiliated with the NOAA study. That was problematic.

“That’s sort of a subtle semantic thing, but it is really important because it suggests that these [scientists] bought into the existence of the hiatus,” he said.

Then, in 2013, the IPCC wrote about the pause. The German government complained that the term implies that warming had stopped, which is inaccurate. The objection was ignored.

NOAA’s strong refutation of the hiatus is particularly weighty because it comes from a government lab, and the work was headed by Karl, a pioneer of temperature reanalysis studies.

NOAA will be using the data corrections to assess global temperatures from July onward, Karl said. NASA is discussing internally whether to apply the fixes suggested in the study, according to Schmidt of NASA.

The study was greeted by Democrats in Congress as proof that climate change is real. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, used it as an opportunity to chide her opponents.

“Climate change deniers in Congress need to stop ignoring the fact that the planet may be warming at an even faster rate than previously observed, and we must take action now to reduce dangerous carbon pollution,” she said in a statement.

Experiment Provides Further Evidence That Reality Doesn’t Exist Until We Measure It (IFLScience)

03/06/2015Uncategorizedciência, Física, Mecânica quânticarenzotaddei

June 2, 2015 | by Stephen Luntz

photo credit: Pieter Kuiper via Wikimedia Commons. A comparison of double slit interference patterns with different widths. Similar patterns produced by atoms have confirmed the dominant model of quantum mechanics

Physicists have succeeded in confirming one of the theoretical aspects of quantum physics: Subatomic objects switch between particle and wave states when observed, while remaining in a dual state beforehand.

In the macroscopic world, we are used to waves being waves and solid objects being particle-like. However, quantum theory holds that for the very small this distinction breaks down. Light can behave either as a wave, or as a particle. The same goes for objects with mass like electrons.

This raises the question of what determines when a photon or electron will behave like a wave or a particle. How, anthropomorphizing madly, do these things “decide” which they will be at a particular time?

The dominant model of quantum mechanics holds that it is when a measurement is taken that the “decision” takes place. Erwin Schrodinger came up with his famous thought experiment using a cat to ridicule this idea. Physicists think that quantum behavior breaks down on a large scale, so Schrödinger’s cat would not really be both alive and dead—however, in the world of the very small, strange theories like this seem to be the only way to explain what we we see.

In 1978, John Wheeler proposed a series of thought experiments to make sense of what happens when a photon has to either behave in a wave-like or particle-like manner. At the time, it was considered doubtful that these could ever be implemented in practice, but in 2007 such an experiment was achieved.

Now, Dr. Andrew Truscott of the Australian National University has reported the same thing in Nature Physics, but this time using a helium atom, rather than a photon.

“A photon is in a sense quite simple,” Truscott told IFLScience. “An atom has significant mass and couples to magnetic and electric fields, so it is much more in tune with its environment. It is more of a classical particle in a sense, so this was a test of whether a more classical particle would behave in the same way.”

Trustcott’s experiment involved creating a Bose-Einstein Condensate of around a hundred helium atoms. He conducted the experiment first with this condensate, but says the possibility that atoms were influencing each other made it important to repeat after ejecting all but one. The atom was passed through a “grate” made by two laser beams that can scatter an atom in a similar manner to a solid grating that can scatter light. These have been shown to cause atoms to either pass through one arm, like a particle, or both, like a wave.

A random number generator was then used to determine whether a second grating would appear further along the atom’s path. Crucially, the number was only generated after the atom had passed the first grate.

The second grating, when applied, caused an interference pattern in the measurement of the atom further along the path. Without the second grating, the atom had no such pattern.

An optical version of Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment (left) and an atomic version as used by Truscott (right). Credit: Manning et al.

Truscott says that there are two possible explanations for the behavior observed. Either, as most physicists think, the atom decided whether it was a wave or a particle when measured, or “a future event (the method of detection) causes the photon to decide its past.”

In the bizarre world of quantum mechanics, events rippling back in time may not seem that much stranger than things like “spooky action at a distance” or even something being a wave and a particle at the same time. However, Truscott said, “this experiment can’t prove that that is the wrong interpretation, but it seems wrong, and given what we know from elsewhere, it is much more likely that only when we measure the atoms do their observable properties come into reality.”

Uma (in)certa antropologia

An (un)certain anthropology