Non-Overlapping Visions

In my wandering about the web the other day, I came across the term "non-overlapping magisteria," which I had not read before. Yes, I don't get out often enough. A quick highlight and right-click of the term took me to the Google, where definitions abound.

According to Wikipedia, non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA, for short) is a term espoused by Stephen Jay Gould:

The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).

I've offered Gould's direct interpretation here -- the actual Wikipedia definition is a bit abstruse to me.

More succinctly, science and religion occupy two irreconcilable realms of human experience.

Now, back to Google. Just a line or two down from the Wikipedia entry is a Conservapedia entry. Conservapedia, if you don't know, "is a clean and concise resource for those seeking the truth. We do not allow liberal bias to deceive and distort here."

So, to avoid deception and distortion, Conservapedia has this to say about NOMA:

The idea of Non-overlapping Magisteria proposes to separate science from religion, with each to govern independently in their respective domains. Science gets the what and why, while religion gets meaning and value. (See also fact-value distinction.) The idea is opposed by those who see God as the Author of science (see Creationism).

It is an apologetic put forward by liberal evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould. [1] Gould described NOMA as "a blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to ... the supposed conflict between science and religion."

Magisterium is defined as "a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution" and the NOMA principle is "the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."

This theory is demonstrably faulty because it is obvious that the intelligent design of the universe would leave behind perceptible evidence allowing the existence of God to be inferred without reference to faith. (My emphasis) Furthermore the NOMA principle would directly contradict Biblical evidence of miracles which if observable by scientists would be demonstrably true.

To embrace NOMA would be to consign the entirety of scripture to metaphor and storytelling (me again: and your point is?).

Now here I was thinking that Wikipedia was being abstruse. I'm trying to parse the fourth paragraph: This theory is demonstrably faulty. I.e., this theory is wrong; here's why... "because it is obvious." Question: What's obvious? Answer: That God has left behind perceptible evidence of his/her existence. This evidence is apparently so obvious that we are not going to explain what that is. Ah, but wait: this evidence -- if observable by scientists -- makes it demonstrably true. So we only need to transport a scientist to biblical times. If we could, ipso facto, this would be observable. Air-tight logic.

And you laugh at me for believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster! (alternately)

A Bug in Heaven

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake - Augeries of Innocence

After seeing someone else's macro picture of a Lilly of the Valley flower stalk, I was inspired to duplicate the feat. I have an increased admiration for the photographer now, because I've learned how hard it is to find just the right stalk and just the right angle.

The difficulty, you see, is in being able to get a whole row of those little white blooms to stay within focus -- difficult to do when the row is low to the ground and in an arc.

To make the following shot, I turned the center rod of my tripod mount around upside-down and suspended the camera low to the ground. It was breezy and it was still difficult to focus because the camera was so low to the ground.

What's interesting in this picture, however, is if you zoom in on the top-right flower you can see an insect inside. I'm not sure this time if it's an ant like the one on the Periwinkle. It looks smaller, and the sharpness is just not good enough.

It's an amazing world out there, right under our noses.

Natural adaptation?

Yesterday evening, I was trying to get a decent macro photograph of one of the lovely blue periwinkle flowers by the side of my house. I was dissatisfied with the results, however. The ground level and angle was difficult for my tripod, so I tried hand-holding the camera.

Although none of the periwinkle pictures were noteworthy, I discovered an interesting thing on the computer screen that I had completely missed at the time of shooting. In the center of the periwinkle bloom was a little red ant.

What's interesting is that if you look closely, you'll see that the ant is facing away from the camera (shy thing). However, there are what look to be two dark eye spots on the abdomen.

I cannot help but wonder whether this might be a natural adaptation to fool a potential predator into thinking that the foraging ant is facing towards it, rather than blithely away.

Wild wild life

Want to save your endangered wildlife? Here's the cause for you: endangered species condoms.

Through a network of more than 5,000 volunteers, the Center for Biological Diversity is distributing 350,000 free Endangered Species Condoms in all 50 states to highlight how unsustainable human population growth is driving species extinct at a cataclysmic rate.

Be sure to check out "The Condom Packages" on this link. There are sample packages with various mottos:

• Polar Bear: Wrap with Care... Save the polar bear


• Snail Darter: Hump smarter... Save the snail darter


• Spotted Owl: Wear a condom now... save the spotted owl


• American Burying Beetle (for that special someone): Cover your tweedle... save the burying beetle

Not to be outdone, here are my suggested entries:

There is a niche to be filled here. The web page also has a U.S. map link, where you can click to see the location of volunteer distributors. West Virginia has only 1 to 10. Apparently a good man is hard to find.... or is that vice versa?

New hominin

Today's scientific buzz is about the discovery in Siberia of a finger bone found in a cave. Based upon DNA analysis, scientists have determined that the human-like creature, living between 30,000 and 48,000 years ago, was distinct from both Neanderthals and modern humans.

From the finger, scientists were able to reconstruct the appearance of this human-like creature:

Putting a byte back into hard drives

A good article in Ars Technica: Why new hard disks might not be much fun for XP users explains a lot about the technology behind hard drives and how that is changing. It also includes a second partition devoted to explaining how manufacturers are trying to overcome the current 2TB partition limit.

I never really considered that digital data is actually encoded as an analog signal. Magnetic data on a hard drive is supposed to be 1s and 0s, but magnetism can be unreliable at the microscopic level of a hard drive platter. Those 1s and 0s have to be stored in larger groups, so that if a few individual bits flip, the end result will still be mostly 1s or mostly 0s. Error checking is introduced into each section of data, and that overhead means that only about 81% of a disk can consist of your data -- the rest is error checking. New drive technology is striving for 4% overhead, so that you'll get to use 96% of the disk drive.

And Windows XP won't support the new drive format.

The carpenter is a tool

So, I got a decent tripod and a nice set of Cokin filters for my digital SLR. Now all I have to do is to figure out how to take decent pictures.

Last Friday, I shot this panorama from the building where I work.

Raw, f/5.6, ISO 400, using a polarizer and a graduated filter. Compared to my earlier panorama attempts -- hand-held camera and no filters -- this picture sucks. The sky is noticeably grainy at 100% resolution, and you can see obvious vertical bands where the photos were stitched to create the panorama.

What caused these problems? I'm inclined to think it's the filters, because they're the major difference from previous attempts. As a matter of fact, I quickly discovered that the filters were wreaking havoc with my camera's autofocus -- unlike all previous attempts, I had to disable autofocus and shoot this with manual focus.

This is a classic example of how better equipment does not assure better photographs. :-(