Trust the Science: An Atom of Insight About What "Trusting Science" Means

 

The first thing to say about my lovely graphic is that John Dalton 

proposed his theory of atomism in 1803, not 1903.  

The rest of the dates are good. 

I trust science. But when I say that, I know I will be misunderstood by almost everyone. Science is an open, shared enterprise which is the best current understanding of the world around us shared by those trained in the field.

Which means the best science at any time and place could and has been wrong or incomplete and can be changed, refined and improved by the latest research.  But science, unlike religion and other beliefs, is self correcting.  When a scientific theory is wrong, subsequent discoveries will change it or make it obsolete.  Since the corrections are in the hands of people not deities, the discoveries happen slowly or rapidly. But when the change happens, the previous understanding is discarded.

The story of the discovery that atoms are the basic unit of matter shows how convoluted the path to knowledge can be.  

Atoms were first proposed as the fundamental unit of matter in Ancient Greece by Democritus and others.  But Aristotle did not believe in atoms, so reverence for Aristotle held kept alchemy in place as the central understanding of what is now chemistry for two millennia.

Then in 1803 after meticulous experiments John Dalton proposed that each chemical element was a unique particle, an atom. Molecules were compounds of different atoms in fixed ratios.  This understanding was refined and expanded for a century until science could begin to "see" inside atoms.  

When scientists began to see inside atoms, when it became clear that atoms were composed of different particles with different charges, the picture of the inside of the atom evolved rapidly.  A century after Dalton, J.J. Thompson believed the atom had negative particles, electrons, embedded in a positively charged sphere.  

Seven years later Ernst Rutherford created the model of an atom with a positively charged nucleus and electrons orbiting: a tiny solar system.  Neils Bohr refined the model to fix levels or orbitals for the electrons circling the atom.  

In 1926 Erwin Schroedinger applied the new discoveries of quantum mechanics to the atom model which is now seen as a positive nucleus that usually includes neutral particles surrounded by a cloud of electrons. And with many small refinements, that is the current atomic model. 

For those who see science as fixed, this timeline shows that in the past three centuries atoms:

Did not exist (until 1803)

Were indivisible spheres (until 1904)

Were positively charged spheres with electrons inside (until 1911)

Were little solar systems held together by electrical forces (until 1926)

Are a nucleus of many types of particles surrounded by a cloud of electrons (1926 and following)

The leading edge of understanding in any field can always change. If something radical changes in the current understanding of atoms and molecules it will be particle physicists and theoretical chemists who find the new wrinkle in the fabric of the universe. And their colleagues around the world will challenge their insights.

The alternative is the chaos of people sharing ignorance on the internet and turning our understanding of the world into an opinion poll. Or worse, shutting down research by experts. 

The best book I have read on this consensus of science is The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch. I'm sure I will re-read it soon as we descend further into ignorance and chaos.

Visiting BioMuseo in Panama

Last weekend, I finally visited the Bimuseo on the Amador Causeway in Panama City.  It presents the amazing biodiversity of the newest part of North America. What is now Panama was a gap between the American continents then plate tectonics and volcanos made a narrow east-west bridge between what is now Columbia and Central America.  

Biodiversity followed the formation of the new land as animals and plants great and small made their way to and through the strip land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  At the narrowest point in the middle of Panama (No surprise, the location of  the Panama Canal.) the country is less than 50 miles wide, spreading to more than 100 miles wide east and west of the canal.  

When a population is separated and isolated from each other and has different sources of food, new species can form.  In Panama this process formed, for example, two hundred species of bats within the borders of a country just four hundred miles long. Plants, insects, reptiles, birds and other creatures all evolved into new species inside the little country that connects the great continents.

On either side of Panama to the north and south marine species that once swam between the two oceans were separated and formed their own ecosystems in the oceans.  In this sense, the Panama Canal doesn't connect the two oceans. The canal rises from each ocean to Gatun Lake in the middle of the country 26 meters above sea level.  The lake is fed by the Chagres River which empties into the Atlantic Ocean on the north side of the canal.  

The water that fills the locks and floats the ships across the country flows down from Lake Gatun into the locks and out to sea. If the canal had been built at sea level through Nicaragua (one of the plans in the late 1800s) it might have been a path between the seas for marine creatures. But in Panama, the canal is a fresh-water path flowing out to the seas from the lake in the middle.

The biodiversity the Biomuseo presents is evident around me every day I live in this lush country. Animals, birds and plants unique to Panama are visible everywhere and, of course, many more are invisible.  

 

Advocating for Ukraine: Telling Our Representatives That Ukraine is the Front Line of Freedom and Democracy

The Pennsylvania Delegation of the Ukraine Action Summit

At the beginning of April, I flew back to America to be part of the Ukraine Action Summit. The song that turned into an earworm was Hail Night of the Woeful Countenance from the musical Man of La Mancha.  In a Republican-controlled Congress, both the House and the Senate, and with a Putin-loving President, I felt I was tilting at windmills.  

I am an American and can tell my elected representatives how I feel about Ukraine. Which I did.  And have been doing since this terrible war started.  

By the way, in case someone reading this hear Kremlin talking points from Tucker Carlson or Putin-loving minions: 

Russia invaded Ukraine.

Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children.

Russia targets homes and schools and civilians.

Russia betrays every agreement it makes.

Russia does not want peace and American negotiators are idiots.

 
I will keep advocating for Ukraine for as long as Ukraine keeps fighting back against the vile invaders of their land.  

As a veteran who enlisted during four different wars between 1972 and 2016,  the Cold War was the only win America had.  And the Trump Republicans have trampled on that victory and taken Putin's side in this fight.  

Nearly 200 years ago in his book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville said the leading struggle in the 20th Century would be between Russia and America. He was right, as he was right about so much about America. And yet, that brilliant French writer would never have predicted that an American President would have the spine of a jellyfish and become the willing slave of the Russian President.  But here we are.     

Has the Invasion Begun? No Ships at the South End of the Panama Canal

The view from the Amador Causeway. 

No ships at the south end of the Panama Canal.

Just after midnight today I returned to Panama after two weeks in the US, preceded by two weeks in Chile.  I rode to the Amador Causeway which is parallel to the south end of the Panama Canal.  

There were no ships going into or  coming out of the canal.

None.

I rode to the end of the Causeway, turned around and saw one completely empty container ship headed out into the Pacific Ocean.  

Then I went to a coffee shop across from the rail yards at the Balboa container port.  Some days I watch huge forklifts zooming along the tracks putting 40-foot containers on rail cars in one smooth move, or unloading a train from the Colon port.  

Today, the train sat unattended. Behind the rail yard I saw the huge container cranes of the port. In almost an hour I saw none of the move.   

After a month away, I wondered what I would see as I rode along the port.  

I saw the effects of the uncertainty of  tariffs.  Nothing moving. 

Is this the master plan for the Canal takeover?  Impose tariffs wildly, stop shipping and bankrupt the canal company? 

Not likely.  

It will be fun to watch how the tariffs affect global shipping, since I have a front-row seat.

 

"You Can Tell Who Boozes by the Company He Chooses" Another of my Dad's Axioms

 

Lt.George Gussman in 1943

One of my Dad's favorite axioms for life is the phrase "You Can Tell Who Boozes by the Company He Chooses." He never used it specifically about someone who was drinking too much, at least in my hearing. He first used it to tell me he did not think my friends were good kids when I was in middle school. He was right. I would never have admitted it at the time.

Once we were standing on the loading dock at the warehouse where he worked full time and I worked summers and Saturdays. One of the truck drivers was talking to a guy who drove up in a gold Lincoln Continental with suicide doors.  

Dad said, "You can tell who boozes by the company he chooses." Then he turned and walked back into the warehouse saying nothing else. He liked Tony, the driver who was talking to the bookie, but Tony had a gambling problem.  Anyone who walked out to the Lincoln was headed for some sort of trouble.

I thought of Dad's phrase when Trump took office the first time.  A translation of the phrase is a person's character is evident in the people who are their closest friends and associates.  But the new administration is nothing but broken men and women whose only requirement for office is loyalty to Trump and the willingness to say the 2020 election was stolen. 

Trump's first nominee was Matt Gaetz, who bragged about having sex with underage girls. He was too toxic even for Trump worshippers.  But public drunk Pete Hegseth is Secretary of Defense. RFK Jr. is in charge of our nation's health. Putin lover and friend of the Syrian dictator Assad Tulsi Gabbard is in charge of intelligence.  Wrestling exec Linda McMahon is in charge of dismantling the Education Department.

These losers and many others show Trump's character. "You Can Tell Who Boozes by the Company He Chooses" should be on the wall in every Trump cabinet meeting.   

Living at the Beach in Vina del Mar, Chile

For two weeks I lived across the road from the beach at Vina del Mar, Chile. The weather was lovely--high 60s (20C) during the day and low 50s (12C) at night. The sound of the surf all day and night.  

If I get a chance to return to Chile I would like to spend time at Vina del Mar, but definitely want to go south.  I want to explore Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.  I want to ride up to the ski resorts in the Andes. What a beautiful country.  

And the sunsets.......

George Washington to Donald Trump--Falling into a National Abyss

 

George Washington was a brave and passionate young man who by will and desire controlled his internal fires. He made himself the stern man who could lead a new nation during and after the Revolution that brought the nation into being.  I am reading a Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography of George Washington by Ron Chernow.  The more I read, the more I admire the man who was the symbol of America before there was a capital, a flag or a national government.  

And with each page, the contrast between the man who brought America into being and the dissolute dumpy draft dodger in the White House is more vivid. Washington was a colonel in the Virginia militia during his early twenties. He was celebrated for heroism in England and the colonies for his bravery during the Seven Year’s War: at the same age our current President had draft deferments for invisible bone spurs.  

When Washington first took command of the continental army in Cambridge, there was an outbreak of smallpox in Boston where the British held the city.  The British using 18th Century biological warfare, sent boatloads of infected Boston residents across the Charles River to Cambridge to spread the disease.  Washington, who had taken the crude vaccine himself, ordered his soldiers to be vaccinated.  He carefully quarantined the infected Bostonians sent across the Charles River.  

Today, the anti-vaxxer in chief appointed a lying vaccine skeptic to be the head of Health and Human Services.  In a less-known act, Trump re-instated soldiers who refused the Covid vaccine while on duty. Returning to the ranks soldiers who refused orders will make the US military exactly the kind of “losers” he said happened under the previous President.  Washington knew discipline (obeying orders) made the army effective. Whining idiots who refuse a vaccine could refuse to fight. How much worse is combat than a Covid shot?  

Martha Washington traveled from Virginia to wherever her husband was during terrible winters such as the one in 1976-77 to be with her husband. Martha was terrified of the vaccine which nearly claimed the life of her son, but George insisted she be vaccinated to be with the army.  She took the vaccine, was ill for a month and recovered.  I think soldiers should be at least as brave as George Washington’s wife. 

Washington had an eye for good leaders. The best men in his army rose rapidly through the ranks. Generals Green and Knox notably rose rapidly to important commands as did young officers who caught Washington’s attention.  As against the British army with its deep class distinctions, Washington’s army was a meritocracy, bringing the best to the top.  Trump has appointed a Star Wars bar scene of misfits to corrupt and destroy the government.  Notable in the inventory of idiots is talk-show-host Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense.  Will this moron even be sober if Russia attacks Europe? 

Can America survive this onslaught of mediocrity?  I don’t know. When we survived the Civil War, Americans still admired courage and thought the President should be a leader of great character.  Last year America no longer cared about character.  A mean mediocrity was their pick to make America great again.  Not even 100 days into utopia, the economy is tanking because the 20th century man in the White House is re-instating the tariff wars of the 1920s. How did that turn out?  

Stupid is not only infinite, but bipartisan. Even as I despair of the descent from the dignity of Washington to immoral mutant Trump, I know that people who agree with me about Trump will howl about Washington, Jefferson and other of the founders of America who owned slaves.  Whatever their flaws, the nation they founded eventually fought its bloodiest war to end slavery.   

The critics of Washington and America right now are protesting in favor of Jihad on and around college campuses and major cities.  The most pathetic of them are Gays for Gaza.  Only Israel in the entire Middle East would allow gay people to live in safety, to live at all.  In Gaza or any Jihad land, gay people, whatever their pronouns, would be stoned by a gleeful, hateful mob doing the will of their hateful god.  Pro-Hamas is not less vile than Pro-Trump.  And both are willing to sacrifice their followers without a second thought.   

Washington led by stern example in the face of enemy fire, then retired to Mount Vernon when he could have been a king.  From the dignity of Washington we have descended to the lying delusions of Trump. And worse than that, a majority of America vote for him. 

This pathetic fool will be President for the 250th anniversary of the USA.