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Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. It’s a day to celebrate, to mark the birth of a great scientist who was the first to observe, prove and document evolution – a process that has resulted in a world of such magnificent variety. In doing so he allowed us to throw off the peculiar view that somehow we humans were ’special’, giving us a complete and elegant explanation for the life that surrounds us.

It’s a day to celebrate rationality. Look at how far the scientific method he utilised has taken us and improved our quality of life and understanding of the world and universe about us.

There is, to me, far more awe and wonder in rational explanations and approaches than any alternative world view I’ve ever encountered. The process of discovery is remarkably rewarding too. Go on. Give it a try, pick up a book on science and evolution and find out for yourself.

I settled down to watch Richard Dawkins’ new series “The Genius of Charles Darwin” last night with high hopes. Unfortunately, it fell somewhat short of my expectations.

The subject matter certainly demands coverage in this, the 150th anniversary of the publication of his ground breaking work ‘The Origin of Species’. What it didn’t need, in my view, was to be turned into another atheist argument. Channel 4 has done an admirable job over the last few years of representing various world views, it’s the only channel to devote any serious time to the specific subject of atheism. I’m also quite curious about the series “make me a Christian” which starts this Sunday, but – I should add – more for the comedic value I see in the prospect. That said, I fear I’ll get wound up by it in no time.

In my view, the subject of evolution by natural selection could have been dealt with – and been the better for it – if the subject of religion had been left on the side lines. Leave it as an exercise for the viewer to draw what (to me) are solid conclusions. But accept that there are many biologists and geologists who do find a way to allow evolution to sit side by side with their beliefs (Don’t expect me to explain the mental gymnastics that requires). I simply take Occam’s razor – the simplest explanation is most likely true – quite seriously, and evolution to me does a more than adequate job at explaining our place in the world. Gods only complicate it further, and actual demand far more difficult explanations.

Dawkins’ medium is definitely not television. His written works are elegantly written, and in them he deserves his position at Oxford as the Charles Simonyi chair for the public understanding of Science. But in television I feel he comes across as slightly arrogant, smug, distant and, I’m afraid, somewhat grating over the course of an hour. I’m a big fan, so goodness knows how anybody who wasn’t would feel after settling down for an hour of documentary.

Compare this to National treasure, David Attenborough. Attenborough has found a way of reaching out and pulling his audience in to the savanna and rain forest with him, so we all manage to enjoy the splendour and variety of the life about us with him. It’s clearly a tall order to expect Dawkins to become a similar treasure overnight(!), but if he could take on some of the approaches, and manage to find a way to better engage with the audience, it’d make for far more compelling, informative and educational television, especially when dealing with scientific subjects rather than his atheism.

In the core message of the programme it did better, when he wasn’t bringing religion in to it. Evolution is not a complex concept – indeed it’s rather obvious when you look at the selective breeding process we apply to our favourite animals – but it really seemed a bit more mixed up in the life of Darwin than would have been ideal. The budget may have been at play here: The choice of what seemed like aging natural world footage of animals fighting, eating, copulating and fleeing, and the strange metaphore of a piano to explain the relative duration monkeys (and humans) have existed to the entire span of life on earth. Some on-screen graphics really would have been better, and more emphasis on the simply vast stretches of time involved. Geology plays a key part in demonstrating evolution, but it didn’t seem to be applied or explained very effectively. Similarly it was very fleeting (but when it was mentioned, did so very effectively) how horrifically cruel yet wonderful the natural world is. Parasites, eat or be eaten, how the eye has independently evolved multiple times, and how there are some bizarre relics of evolution within our own body.

All said, I’d give the programme 6/10 – Could do (much) better. It fell short of really engaging effectively with a fascinating subject, and Dawkins made atheism a far more a central part of the programme than was necessary. Dawkins perhaps needs to realise that if he had been less up-front about atheism, and focusing on the core concepts he was supposed to be putting across, it might actually have convinced more people to what seems to now be Dawkins’ main role as lead atheist. As it was, a programme that should have been about a stunning piece of science, it became more of a programme about atheism, and as such was much the poorer for it. And I say this as both a Dawkins fan, and an atheist myself.

I love random links that catch you by surprise, or have some interesting geeky feature or service. This website, then, is wonderfully random, in a quite literal sense, and really quite useful if ever you find yourself needing genuinely random data. Which is a bit more often than you might think in my line of work.

It’s a great ‘feel-good’ story, and a picture is worth a thousand words. Whilst almost every news programme has covered Stephen Hawking’s weightless flight, this picture from the Washington Post (via boingboing) captures it best for me, with the floating apple a tribute to Isaac Newton.

Wonderfully inspiring stuff. Interesting Dali artwork comparison mentioned at boingboing too!

Roger Darlington was very gracious in awarding me a ‘Thinking Bloggers’ award and passing on the meme. Because I like shiny things, I also get to put up the little icon. My site, my rules

Anyway, I’ve not been tagged with a meme before, so figure it’s only fair to actually pass it on as the idea requires, so my list of five blogs that make me think are:

So, those are my five ‘Thinking blogger’ nomination/awards/memes. Hope there’s something of interest there for readers.

This appeals to the geek in me (memories of GCSE Computer Studies, and my special IT stencil), the science geek in me, and the atheist. It succinctly captures both the scientific method, and the fundamentals of religion in one easy picture:

Science vs Faith – the flowchart

Enjoy. Found via boingboing.

Rod Liddle’s programme “The trouble with atheism” (my preview here) was a rather disappointing ramble that didn’t impress me particularly. But then I didn’t expect to be impressed in the first place, so no harm done, eh? But it did highlight some of the unnecessary and sometimes unpleasant smugness associated with some public atheists (but scientists, as they often are, don’t strike me as media-savvy or ’slick’ presenters), but it was through the filter of somebody seeking to present a case, and a bit of selective editing can do wonders.

I was reminded a little of some attempts, whilst at University, to complete computing assignments. Faced with several at the same time, I was unable to put all the up-front work in to some of the assignments I required. So I’d turn it about face, and program the solution, then retro-fit the design around it. That was a little how I felt with Liddles’ programme: He had a conclusion he wanted to make: “What’s wrong with sitting on the fence?”, and decided that atheists are in the ascendence (at least as far as the media is concerned), and so were in need of a bit of a ribbing.

In a word, it was facile and poorly considered polemic that was disappointing more for it’s deliberate ignorance of key points, and over-blowing the cult of personality and minor characters to draw out dubious conjectures.

So what follows is my response to the key points. There’s certainly nothing new in what I say, but anybody who professed to think it was balanced might find something here to interest them. I’ve had some marvellous and interesting comments on my original post, and hope that there’s something here of interest.

Read the rest of this entry »

Probably one of the best astronomical pictures I’ve seen. Take a look, note the small, pale, blue dot to the left of the rings.

There are a number of other pictures, including the famous ‘Earth Rise’ (which my parents have always had a print of in their hallway), that do a wonderful job of inverting our sense of importance. But this picture of Saturn has a particular splendour that sets it apart.

So, that’s Earth. A pale blue dot. It’s home. And it’s all we’ve got. But isn’t it remarkable too that science has given us the ability to not only get pictures such as this, but understand how the solar system formed.

Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot says it far better than I ever could:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, 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 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 this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, 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. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. 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 with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

A touch melancholy for a Friday? Maybe to some. But personally, I take enormous inspiration from the story behind pictures like this, and it leaves me wanting to find out, and understand, more.

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Bristol, close to where I grew up, is home to one of his finest constructions, the Clifton suspension bridge, and they are marking the anniversary with various events.

Radio 4 are also in on the act, with Britain’s modern Brunels where Sue Nelson meets people who are pushing today’s engineering boundaries. I found out about it from Sue herself, when she got in touch with me regarding my grandfather’s involvement with Black Knight, for a future project she is researching.

I’m very much looking forward to listening to this series over the next few weeks, and all the other Brunel related events that are happening. Rarely do engineers feature so prominently as Brunel in both our national heritage and daily lives.

I was delighted to receive an e-mail from John Forbat that he would soon be publishing a book titled The Secret World of Vickers Guided Weapons.

I’ve been in touch with John for a couple of years after he discovered my website article about my grandfather, Paul Leyton (You can read his posting in the comments). I understand from John – who worked with my grandfather at Vickers – that not only does Paul feature in his book a couple of times, but there is also a picture of him out at Woomera, where Black Knight was tested.

Weapons technology is a fascinating subject, and I’m looking very much forward to reading the book on its publication, not only because of the family connection, but also to better understand the world my grandfather inhabited, and some of the characters he worked with, and spoke about when I was younger.