The Truth About Truth
12 August 2008
The truth is not out there, after all - even in science. A gathering of European scientists, philosophers, historians and theologians this weekend unanimously concluded that there is no reason for science to claim a monopoly on the truth about how the world works. In a democratic society, the observations of science must not be given a privileged status in debates on issues such as embryonic stem cell research. Instead, scientific consensus must be laid out for members of that society to use as they see fit.
The meeting, held in Lugano, Switzerland, discussed the notion of “truth”. Science is not a source of indisputable truth, but best seen as “organised skepticism” with a diversity of opinion on any subject at any one time, Oxford University biologist and former UK chief scientist Robert May told the assembly. Though science creates opportunities to improve life for all, we should continue to think carefully about which of these opportunities we want to take. Just because it has made some things possible, that does not give scientists the right to choose whether they should be followed through. “Science has no special voice,” May said. “The job of science is to frame the debate clearly, making plain the possible benefits and costs – and the uncertainties.”….
Welcome to year zero
09 February 2008
As
you may have heard, this will be the year. The Large Hadron Collider
the most powerful atom-smasher ever built – will be switched on, and
particle physics will hit pay-dirt. Yet if a pair of Russian
mathematicians
are right, any advances in this area could be overshadowed by a truly
extraordinary event. According to Irina Aref’eva and Igor Volovich, the
LHC might just turn out to be the world’s first time machine.
It is a highly speculative claim, that’s for sure. But if Aref’eva
and Volovich are correct, the LHC’s debut at CERN, the European
particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, could provide a
landmark in history. That’s because travelling into the past is only
possible – if it is possible at all – as far back as the creation of
the first time machine, and that means 2008 could become Year Zero: a
must-see for the discerning time traveller.
Aref’eva and Volovich are sensible and well-respected
mathematicians, based at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow,
so they are not actually suggesting that visitors from the future are
imminent. What they are saying is that since causality – the idea that
effect must follow cause – is one of the most fundamental principles of
physics, the notion that it might be tested at the LHC is worth pushing
as far as possible. Their work has yet to be recognised by a
peer-reviewed journal, but that hasn’t stopped some other physicists
from taking a keen interest.
Less is more
02 February 2008
Is it the end of the road for the gas guzzler? Michael Brooks reports on the battle to clean up the highway
Walk into a car showroom tomorrow and you could buy a vehicle that parks itself, or one that warns you if you’re about to crash. You could find one with a display that shows you the road ahead despite the thickest fog. Next year there could even be a car you can drive into the sea and race through the waves like a speedboat. So why can’t you buy a car that can go 100 miles on a gallon of fuel?
There is certainly no shortage of people who would jump at the chance to own one: according to a recent poll, almost two-thirds of Americans would love a car with this kind of thriftiness. Doubling a car’s fuel efficiency doesn’t just save you money at a time of soaring oil prices, it also halves the vehicle’s planetwarming
CO2 emissions. Yet in the US – the world’s largest market for cars – there has been little improvement in fuel efficiency for decades.
So there was good news in December 2007, when President George W. Bush signed a new US energy bill into law. The new act demanded an increase in the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by 40 per cent, to an average of 35 miles per US gallon – the first increase since 1975. Though it doesn’t come into force until 2020, it was hailed by many in Congress as a historic development. Even environmental groups gave the news a cautious welcome.
At the same time the US car industry is under pressure from 17 states that would like to impose their own strict emissions limits on all new vehicles – the same tough “clean car” standards that were mooted by California back in 2004. Although the federal Environmental Protection Agency insists that no state is allowed to set stricter standards of its own, that ruling is now being challenged in the courts.
Gas Attack
20 October 2007
Are
attempts to develop a non-lethal knock-out gas undermining the treaties
that ban chemical weapons? Michael Brooks investigates
Among the medical profession, anaesthetists have something of a
reputation for being boring. While surgeons do the heroics, it’s
anaesthetists who put you to sleep, keep you ticking over and then wake
you up again when the drama is over.
It seems hard to believe then that a group of them stand accused of
derailing a 79-year-old global arms control treaty. The chemical
weapons convention is under threat from attempts to turn anaesthetic
agents into “non-lethal” chemical weapons, says the treaty watchdog,
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Drugs such as these, designed to knock people out quickly and
without doing lasting harm, are touted by some as a humane way of
dealing with terrorists or hostage-takers, for example. Opponents say
they are inherently dangerous, however – a view that seems to be
supported by their track record.
Whether the current research into such agents breaches the
convention seems to fall into a legal grey area. But allowing it to
continue unchecked would be a slippery slope to the treaty’s downfall,
the OPCW says in a soon to be published internal report seen by New
Scientist. “One of the great achievements in arms control is the
banning of poisons and germs,” says Mark Wheelis of the Federation of
American Scientists (FAS) working group on the control of chemical and
biological weapons. “I would hate to see those gains reversed, but
that’s what the push is right now.”
It was the horrific poison gas attacks of the first world war that
led to the 1925 Geneva protocol banning the use of chemical weapons. In
1997 this was augmented by the chemical weapons convention, which
widened the ban to the development, production and possession of such
agents. There are now 182 countries signed up, with the OPCW in charge
of policing the convention and destroying any weapons.