Science – Page 115 – a sibilant intake of breath

Perspective

The following is simply plagiarized, from Carl Sagan, but it is nonetheless quite important. Back in my insomniac elementary school days (as opposed to my insomniac graduate school days), I remember reading quite a number of his books. The non-fiction ones tended to be particularly interesting and well illustrated. These specific observations of his have always struck me as especially poignant:

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

This is an expression that I expect would be inspiring, humbling, and amazing for any human being.

Bedside thesis reading pile now 100% taller

At Tristan’s urging, I have added a thick collection of philosophy of science books to my thesis reading stack. At 212 pages, Thomas Kuhn‘s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions looks fairly reasonable. Rather more daunting are the two square books by Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations at 580 pages, and The Logic of Scientific Discovery at 513. Popper and Kuhn are the two names that have come up again and again when I discuss this project with people and, judging by the blurbs on the back and a scan of the introductions, these are the three more relevant books by them in the vast shelves of the Norrington Room at Blackwell’s.

Collectively, they are about ten times longer than my thesis will be. My hopes, in reading them, are to avoid embarrassing myself with ignorance of the philosophy of science, at a minimum, and to generate some interesting ideas, from a more optimistic perspective. Notes on all three will appear on the wiki, as I progress through them. I will begin with the Kuhn, once I have dealt with this week’s reading for tomorrow’s seminar, and the preparation of something to say about the thesis project with Dr. Hurrell on Friday.

Super geeky comic for all to enjoy

Kate, Mark, and other cool geeky people concur that xkcd is worth a look.

A compatible woman can be hard to find

Tolkien fans will recall that the Ents (a mythical species of animated trees) consist entirely of males, with the females having been lost at some forgotten point in the distant past. It seems that there is an actual tree species (Encephalartos woodii) in a similar predicament. Only four stems were ever found in the wild, in 1895, and the last of those died in 1964. All surviving examples are clones of that last plant, and no females are known to exist anywhere in the world. Both the clones and their seeds are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

People in the vicinity of London can see one of the clones at the Kew Botanical Gardens.

Thesis flowchart: data to action

One thing the thesis should definitely include is flowcharts. They make it easier to disentangle what is going on in complex relationships, both by clearly showing what phenomena are connected, and by suggesting the direction(s) in which causality runs. Here is one that I came up with, regarding the relationship between personal consensus (the position a person reaches after having thought a question through and reached an answer that satisfies them internally) and group consensus:

Data to action flowchart

The starting point is the data presented to the individual. This consists both of empirically observed phenomena and of representations of truth made by others. There is an internal dynamic here. For instance, a person who has been reading a lot about global warming might be prejudiced towards interpreting an unusually hot summer in their part of the world as evidence for that trend. This is partly captured in the two-way arrow with group consensus, but it is also a matter of internal cognition.

Both empirical data and arguments (both logical and those based on other kinds of rationality) are transformed into personal opinions through the applications of heuristics. Examples of heuristic reasoning devices include:

Conceptions about which individuals and groups provide trustworthy information
Conceptions about what kind of evidence is strong or weak (for instance, opinions on the use of statistics or anecdotes)
Particular facts that are so thoroughly believed that they become a touchstone against which other possibilities are rejected

This is not a comprehensive listing, but it gives an idea of the kind of mechanisms within a single person that are at work when forming opinions.

The link from personal opinions to personal choices is not a simple linear one. A second category of heuristics exist that do not determine what is considered true. Instead, they determine which opinions are important; specifically, they determine which opinions are important enough to deserve action.

Two major types of personal choices are represented in this model. Those in the box ‘personal choices’ could be called direct actions. This would include something like buying a hybrid car or boycotting a company. Within the arrow between personal opinions and group consensus lies the other kind of action: namely advocacy actions, in which an individual tries to convince other individuals or groups to adopt the same position the original individual has already reached. That feeds into the “information and arguments” boxes for other people, as well as contributing to the group phenomenon of consensus.

Group action is thus both the sum of personal choices, and the product of public deliberation leading to institutional or societal choices. Here again, a process of prioritization takes place.

An adapted version of this diagram could be constructed for scientists and for non-scientists. The biggest difference would be that scientists can engage in a broader project of empirical examination, thus contributing in a different way to the information and arguments being presented to others. They may well also employ different kinds of heuristics, when forming personal choices.

Thesis case studies, justification for

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Kyoto Protocol are both attempts at a multilateral solution to a previously unknown transboundary environmental problem. The reasons for which these case studies are useful for accessing fundamental questions about the science-policy relationship are several:

Each agreement addresses an environmental problem that only recently became known.
Each deals with a problem that is essentially transboundary, and requires concerted effort to resolve.
Each involves scientific uncertainty, both about the material effects of the problem in the world and about the different characteristics of possible approaches for dealing with it.
Each involves normative and distributional issues, with regards to groups that benefit or are harmed by the application of the agreement.

As such, each represents the outcome of a dialogue between stakeholders and experts. The former group is concerned with securing their interests, or those of their principles, such as they are understood at the time of interaction. The basis upon which this group operates is that of legitimacy: either implicitly held among those representing themselves, or transferred through a process, agreement, or institution to a representative whose legitimacy is premised upon advocacy.

The latter group is concerned with the generation and evaluation of data. Understood broadly here, ‘data’ are claims about the ontological nature of the world. This includes claims that are rigorously verifiable (such as those about the medical effects of certain pollutants) as well as those involving considerable interpretation (such as the meaning of international law).

The groups are not mutually exclusive, and many individuals and organizations played an overlapping role in the development of the agreements. Through the examination of these two case studies, as well as related matters, this thesis will engage with the interconnections between expertise and legitimacy in global environmental policy making, with a focus on agreements in areas with extensive normative ramifications.

Thesis presentation upcoming

This coming Wednesday, I am to present my thesis plan to a dozen of my classmates and two professors. The need to do so is forcing further thinking upon exactly what questions I want to ask, and how to approach them. The officially submitted title for the work is: Expertise and Legitimacy: the Role of Science in Global Environmental Policy-Making. The following questions come immediately to mind:

What do the differences between the Stockholm Convention on POPs and the Kyoto Protocol tell us about the relationship between science and environmental policy?
What issues of political legitimacy are raised when an increasing number of policy decisions are being made either by scientists themselves, or on the basis of scientific conclusions?
How do scientists and politicians each reach conclusions about the nature of the world, and what sort of action should be taken in it. How do those differences in approach manifest themselves in policy?

The easiest part of the project will be writing up the general characteristics of both Stockholm and Kyoto. Indeed, I keep telling myself that I will write at least the beginning of that chapter any time now. The rest of the thesis will depend much more on examination of the many secondary literatures that exist.

The answers that will be developed are going to be primarily analytic, rather than empirical. The basis for their affirmation or refutation will be logic, and the extent to which the viewpoints presented are useful for better understanding the world.

Points that seem likely to be key are the stressing of the normative issues that are entangled in technical decision making. Also likely to be highlighted is the importance of process: it is not just the outcome that is important, when we are talking about environmental policy, but the means by which the outcome was reached. Two dimensions of the question that I mean to highlight are normative concerns relating to the North/South divide and issues in international law. The latter is both a potential mechanism for the development and enforcement of international environmental regimes and a source of thought about issues of distribution, justice, and responsibility that pertains to these questions.

I realize that this is going to need to become a whole lot more concrete and specific by 2:30pm on Wednesday. A re-think of my thesis outline is probably also in order. I should also arrange to speak with Dr. Hurrell about it soon; having not seen him since the beginning of term, there is a certain danger of the thesis project drifting more than it ought to. Whatever thesis presentation I ultimately come up with will be posted on the wiki, just as all of my notes from this term have been, excepting those where people presenting have requested otherwise.

Hubble’s new lease on life

Good news for anyone interested in the nature and content of our universe: NASA has reversed course and decided to repair the Hubble Space telescope. For many with an interest in astronomy, the idea that this fine instrument would be allowed to fall out of orbit seemed quite mad.

The refit, which should take place in 2008, should extend the life of the telescope until at least 2013. The primary objective will be to replace failing batteries and gyroscopes, though new instruments will also be installed.

The Hubble instrument has already generated some of the most important data in the history of astronomy and cosmology, including totally new information on very distant objects generated through the use of gravitational lenses: where the light-bending properties of galaxies are used on a massive scale to resolve extremely distant objects. Since the light being observed has been traveling for so long, such views are also a glimpse into a much earlier time in the development of the universe.

In contrast to manned space flight – which is inspirational but not always very scientifically useful – it is this kind of experimentation that we should be focusing our research dollars and efforts upon.

Experts: scientists and economists

Here’s a little bit of irony:

According to BBC business correspondent Hugh Pym, the report will carry weight because Sir Nicholas, a former World Bank economist, is seen as a neutral figure.

Unlike earlier reports, his conclusions are likely to be seen as objective and based on cold, hard economic fact, our correspondent said.

The idea that economists are more objective than scientists is a very difficult one for me to swallow. While scientific theories are pretty much all testable on the basis of observations, economic theories are much more abstract. Indeed, when people have actually gone and empirically examined economic theories, they have often been found to be lacking.

Part of the problem may be the insistence of media sources in finding the 0.5% of scientists who hold the opposite view from the other 99.5%. While balance is certainly important in reporting, ignoring relative weights of opinion is misleading. In a study published in Science, Naomi Oreskes from the University of California, San Diego examined 10% of all peer-reviewed scientific articles on climate change from the previous ten years (n=928).¹ In that set, three quarters discussed the causes of climate change. Among those, all of them agreed that human-induced CO2 emissions are the prime culprit. 53% of 636 articles in the mainstream press, from the same period, expressed doubts about the antropogenic nature of climate change.

I suppose this says something about the relative levels of trust assigned to different expert groups. Economists study money, so they naturally must know what they are talking about.

[Update: 25 February 2007] I recently saw Nicholas Stern speak about his report. My entry about it contains a link to detailed notes on the wiki.

[1] Oreskes, Naomi. “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” Science 3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1686. (Oxford full text / Google Scholar)

Lithium-ion battery preservation

After seeing that the capacity of my iBook battery has fallen by 10% over the course of four complete cycles of discharging and charging, I went and read up on lithium-ion batteries. My previous conceptions about them turn out to be almost entirely wrong. Since almost all cellular phones, laptops, and music players with rechargeable batteries run on this sort, it is worth knowing how to keep them going for as long as possible.

1. Discharging completely, then charging completely, is not the ideal approach

Unlike other kinds of batteries, there is no ‘memory effect’ with Li-ion systems. Batteries that suffer from memory effects ‘forget’ how much charge they can hold if they are not completely drained and then completely recharged. As such, the strategy to keep them alive for the longest time is to always follow that pattern.

With Lithium-Ion batteries, full discharging is not only non-ideal, it is actually harmful. This is because it strains the weakest cell. Since a battery is composed of several cells, the failure of any one will mean the failure of the whole system. All lithium-ion rechargeable batteries have systems to prevent cell voltage from dropping too low (a microcontroller cuts it off before it reaches that point), but draining them to the point of cutoff is still harmful.

2. Temperature matters most

The biggest factor in battery life, especially for laptops, is the temperature at which the battery is kept. Judging by the figures from iStat Pro, mine is consistently at more than 40°C when the computer is running. Between reading, writing, listening to music, and just hanging around on Skype, that is probably more than twelve hours a day.

Just keeping the battery at 40°C will result in capacity loss of more than 15% over the course of one year, compared with a 2% temperature based loss if the battery is kept at 0°C and a 4% loss if it is kept at room temperature (about 25°C).

The most practical upshot of this is that it is intelligent to keep your battery outside of your computer when you are using it plugged into the wall. The most important reason for this is that it will thus be living at a much lower temperature, and thus for much longer. Since a laptop with no battery will shutdown instantly (and incorrectly) with any interruption in the external power supply, the best bet is probably to use a battery on its last legs (but still good enough for a few minutes) when plugged in, and a better one when working off battery power.

3. Storage or using at 100% charge is harmful

For reasons too complex for me to understand, a charge of about 40% is best for the long-term storage of Li-ion batteries. A Li-ion battery kept at 100% charge and 40°C will lose about 35% of its capacity in a year.

4. Li-ion batteries fail over time, regardless of anything else

According to Wikipedia: “At a 100% charge level, a typical Li-ion laptop battery that is full most of the time at 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit, will irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year.” This loss is because of oxidation (over and above heat damage, as I understand it), which causes cell resistance to rise to the point where – despite holding a charge – the battery cannot provide power to an external circuit.

For more information see Wikipedia and this page. The especially bold can learn how to rebuild depleted Li-ion batteries. Anyone with background in electrochemistry is strongly encouraged to comment on the accuracy of the above information.

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