They Failed To Dazzle Us With Science

The NY Times science people irk me with this Q&A:

Q. I’ve heard that if a penny is dropped from the Empire State Building it could kill someone. But what about hail? It’s often much larger and falls from much higher, so why do I never hear about any deaths caused by it?

A. Hail can cause human fatalities, but does not usually do so, according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

And they go on, leaving me at the starting gate - can a sky-high penny really kill someone like that?  I doubt it.  As does ABC News, which commissioned some zany scientist to catch pennies dropped from a weather balloon (Galileo would have approved).

For more, the Straight Dope does the (simplified) math and comes away a skeptic.  (We all remember 32 feet per second squared from high school, yes?  Or for the youngsters, 9.8 meters per second squared.)

Why is the NY Times Science Section promoting a climate of fear and alarming us with improbable scenarios of domestic terror?  Beats me.

GOING TO THE DOGS:  It is unrelated and I am not sure how I got to it, but this post on the evolution of dogs is fascinating.  And folks who make it to the comments will read about some improbable terrier/Great Dane action.

Comments

[Jack is Back!]

Another urban myth started by the owner of the Empire State building back in the 30's because kids were dropping pennies and they (the owners) were spending all their time trying to explain there was no such thing as"Pennies from Heaven"

[Cecil Turner]

Yeah, and if they'd bothered to watch Mythbusters, they'd have known their assumption was wrong:

Firing a penny at terminal velocity (65 miles per hour (105 km/h)) into concrete and asphalt disks and a ballistics gel head with a human skull failed to result in any penetrations, likely because the speed is too low and a penny's mass too small. Even when fired from a rifle, the penny was unable to penetrate concrete or a ballistic gel dummy's skull.

(Hey, of course I watch it . . . I have kids.)

[I R A Darth Aggie]

Hmmm...what's the terminal velocity of a penny? and what is the mass of a penny? Huh:

Indian Head pennies dated 1864 to 1909 weigh 3.11 grams.

The Lincoln, Wheat Ears Reverse penny weighs 3.11 grams except for steel cents made only in 1943 that weigh 2.67 grams.

The Lincoln, Memorial Reverse penny (1959 to mid 1982) weighs 3.11 grams.

The Lincoln, Memorial Reverse penny (mid 1982 to present) weighs 2.5 grams.

answers.com

So, for the equations of interest:

F=.5*m*V^2 (Force)
P=m*V (Momentum)

With this amount of mass (m, not very much) and velocity (V, not particularly high), I agree with StraightDope: no. Now, if you can get V to approach the speed of light, you've got something.

[Rob Crawford]

Yeah, Mythbusters took this one on in their first season. Would have taken the NYT's guy a minute of research to find.

Too much like work, I guess.

[peter]

I used to work on the 40th floor of 30 Rock many years ago. We would launch paper airplanes, since unlike modern skyscrapers, the windows were easily openable double-hungs. Inevitably, the paper airplanes would travel rapidly upwards due to very strong updrafts.

[Captain Hate]

He had to "explain" it in terms Pinch could understand so he could use it in pillowtalk with Caroline "You know" Kennedy Schloshedberger

[Captain Hate]

dammit

[Thomas Collins]

Re TM's evolution link: Let me get this straight. Humans, for their own purposes, breed dogs, and gene frequencies change over time in various categories of dogs. But this is impossible, isn't it? Don't I keep hearing from the natural selectionites that a higher creative power is not involved in evolution? Am I now being told that, when it comes to humans causing gene frequency changes in animals, the higher power theory works, but that anyone who dares think that the universe and all that is in it and all the processes in it that we grapple to understand, such as evolution, come from a higher power, is a yahoo?

[Porchlight]

off?

[Mark Folkestad]

Hehehe. Captain, how did you do that? Don't go giving the trolls any ideas.

[Thomas Collins]

Captain Hate, would you mind doing the same thing to the final version of the ObamaCare legislation? And while you are at it, take a shot at applying your skills to Title 26 of the US Code (known more commonly as the Internal Revenue Code).

[Rob Crawford]

Humans, for their own purposes, breed dogs, and gene frequencies change over time in various categories of dogs. But this is impossible, isn't it?

No, it's not. Why would you even think that it is?

Don't I keep hearing from the natural selectionites that a higher creative power is not involved in evolution?

No, you don't.

[Threadkiller]

CH, how did you know I was going to discuss "natural born" on this link.

[Thomas Collins]

Yes, I do, Rob Crawford. I often check out science blogs, and folks who should know better, when discussing evolution, all too frequently add the tag line that evolution is not the product of a higher creative power, when anyone with a basic knowledge of the scientific method should recognize that the most that can be said is that the question is not resolvable by a controlled experiment.

[Threadkiller]

Oh, That is better! :-) Must have been the trigger!

[hit and run]

Maybe we should go all the way and bold and italicize the thread too?

[squaredance]

Let me point out that "selecting" for a new dog breed is not "evolving" dogs. genotype is not the same as phenotype.

Not that I have anything against evolution--it is just that the whole issue of dogs and evolution brings a lot of pseudo-science and sloppy science out of the woodwork.

These notion of the wolf to dog evolution through garbage dump forage are highly speculative (and a tad imaginative). Also, it is most probable that the dog, in both some intermediary form and in its modern form, bred back and forth into wolf lines over the millennial. Account for this makes some of the current notions split dating rather dubious.

Of late, there have been a good number of modern dog genotypes fully sequenced (approx. 300+). What needs to be sequenced in depth are the other taxons in the genus, most particularity the modern wolves. (Many more dogs should be sequenced too.) Perhaps then we can some somehow piece together what actually did happen, at least genetically (some folks are working on this).

Outside of broad outlines, it is difficult today to definitely state the evolutionary history of dogs. A great deal of meaningful work, however, is being undertaken these days.

Still, the field is full of a a lot of speculation and assumptions, and some attempt to present these as facts.

[Threadkiller]

My understanding of the final episode for Mythbusters:
They kiss each other.

Myth Confirmed.

ps. The strikeout is gone in IE.

[Extraneus]

So if you bold or italicize the thread, the posts themselves get bolded or italicized. Yet if you strikethrough the thread, only the posts themselves aren't struck through.

Very interestink.

[Extraneus]

Either way, the posts still stay in the preview window.

(Yeah, TK, Firefox doesn't know how to handle a closed tag in a subsequent post.)

[Rob Crawford]

You're missing something, TC, particularly in the case of dogs:

The development of all domestic animals is a process of artificial selection. There is a "higher creative power" involved in these processes -- the needs and desires of humanity. Dogs, cats, cattle, corn, wheat, even some yeasts have had centuries or thousands, or (for dogs) tens of thousands of years of humanity picking the ones we like best.

Anyone who tells you otherwise in the context of domesticated animals is an ignoramus.

[Threadkiller]

(Yeah, TK, Firefox doesn't know how to handle a closed tag in a subsequent post.)

I found an article that discussed this a while ago. The belief was if you close all open windows and clear you history, this problem goes away in Firefox. I don’t use Firefox so I can’t check.

Anyone want to try and report back?

If not, I could attempt an andruil length filibuster to get to the next page.

[Thomas Collins]

Not necessarily, Rob Crawford. Look at it from the point of view of scale. From the point of view of a creator at a higher level of organization than humans, what we think of as natural selection may be artificial selection. I'm not questioning the integrity of how evolutionary biologists approach the question at our level. I am merely asserting that folks who should know better make unsupported claims on the Creator/non-Creator issue on the basis of evolutionary biology.

[Thomas Collins]

Squaredance, I think you're making the same point as Rob Crawford when you say that selecting for a new dog breed is not evolving dogs. And, at our level, I would agree with you, just as I would agree with Rob Crawford, if we were speaking about the human level, concerning artificial selection.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for a link to a book that provides an excellent example of the use of evolutionary theory to make grandiose claims (in this case, about humans' understanding of God). I found this book, Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, fascinating as an example of the secularist striving for meaning while eschewing revelation. I must add, however, that I have the highest respect for Wright because, throughout the book, he documents views different from his (which indicates a level of integrity I don't often find in secularists' use of evolutionary theory).

[cathyf]

I used to work on the 40th floor of 30 Rock many years ago. We would launch paper airplanes, since unlike modern skyscrapers, the windows were easily openable double-hungs. Inevitably, the paper airplanes would travel rapidly upwards due to very strong updrafts.

Sorta like this?

Two men are sitting drinking at a bar at the top of the Empire State Building, when the first man turns to the other and says "You know, last week I discovered that if you jump from the top of this building, the winds around the building are so intense that by the time you fall to the 10th floor, they carry you around the building and back into a window". The bartender just shakes his head in disapproval while wiping the bar.

The second guy says, "What, are you nuts? There's no way that could happen. "No, its true," the first man says. "Let me prove it to you." He gets up from the bar, jumps over the balcony, and plummets toward the street below. As he nears the 10th floor, the high winds whip him around the building and back into the 10th floor window and he takes the elevator back up to the bar.

He meets the second man, who looks quite astonished. "You know, I saw that with my own eyes, but that must have been a one time fluke." "No, I'll prove it again," says the first man as he jumps again. Just as he is hurtling toward the street, the 10th floor wind gently carries him around the building and into the window. Once upstairs he urges his fellow drinker to try it.

"Well, why not." the second guy says, "It works. I'll try it." He jumps over the balcony, plunges downward passes the 11th, 10th 9th, 8th, floors. . . . . and hits the sidewalk with a SPLAT.

Back upstairs the bartender turns to the other drinker and says, "You know Superman, you're a real jerk when you're drunk".

[Charlie Martin]

I am merely asserting that folks who should know better make unsupported claims on the Creator/non-Creator issue on the basis of evolutionary biology.

Yeah. Bad science and bad theology, on both sides.

[Charlie Martin]

Strike! Strike!

[Clarice]

evil cathy.

[squaredance]

Crawford: That selection is occurring inside a species. There is little evidence to support that mankind has actually "selected" to the point of creating a new genus or even species.

The dog is by far the oldest domesticated animal: a conservative estimate these days would seem to be 27,000 years, but it could be much older than that. Contrast this with the horse which was domesticated around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, a blink of the eye so far as evolution goes.

This is why the dog is of such interest to evolutionary biologists. There are two aspects to this: 1) If it is true that the dog branched of only 27k years, ago, a incredibly tiny about in term of evolutionary time lines, then evolution it a rather more flexible, sudden and sporadic matter than heretofore conceived, and 2) It would be the first (and probably only) examples of humans selecting for a new species. Certainly, the other domestic animals are not species created by men; They are species domesticated by men. There is literally not been enough time.
As species, these animals are genetically the same as they were thousands of years ago, no matter how changed their phenotype.

As to the religious meaning of it it all, well, notice in all of this I avoid theological arguments. Certainly, as the Catholic Church itself has said, evolution is compatible with Theism and Christianity. God may use this method to achieve his ends (an no, this is not "scientific" intelligent design I am proposing, just self-evident theology).

More to the point, as the current Pope as said:

The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of "God." The first Thou that – however stammeringly – was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. For it is not the use of weapons or fire, not new methods of cruelty or of useful activity, that constitute man, but rather his ability to be immediately in relation to God. This holds fast to the doctrine of the special creation of man . . . herein . . . lies the reason why the moment of anthropogenesis cannot possibly be determined by paleontology: anthropogenesis is the rise of the spirit, which cannot be excavated with a shovel. The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.

The "evangelical atheists" wholly misunderstand the positions, and even the language, of the theologian and the devout, and have preposterously cartoonist notions of religion, of man and of God. They also do not seem to have yet risen yet to the human level to understand just what problems and phenomena(and noumena too) faith, theology and religion address.

On the other hand, there are a great many religious people how are deeply confused about what science is, how it works and the meaning of scientific truths. (and though it is also true that a lot of scientist have confusions about these matters, their confusions are of a different nature). They too misuse and abuse science much as some scientist misuse and abuse metaphysics, philosophy in general, theology and religious belief and practice.

The real truth is that the left as latched on to the whole thing in order to peddle their own wares, and to identify and silence opposition.

It would behoove the honest atheist, scientist and religious to all admit this and exclude these intrusions from the discussion.

[squaredance]

It COULD be the first (and probably only) examples of humans selecting for a new species.

sorry

[squaredance]

As for the penny issue...this is a trick question, right? As any New Yorker knows, some Democrat would grab it before it hit the ground, and nothing on this earth can get through their palms or their think heads.

[Melinda Romanoff]

SquareD-

That's a good 'n.

[matt]

you could put an eye out, is all I'm sayin...

[sammy small]

Threadkiller,
No joy on clearing the strikeouts. Its even present in the "Post a Comment" section.

[squaredance]

think=thick (obviously)