Please direct your browser to the new website of the Pennsylvania Triangle, at http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~triangle/
Friday, May 06, 2005
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Letter From The Editor: Welcome to the Triangle Online!
By Sujit S. Datta, Triangle online eMag Editor-in-Chief
To find out more about the Triangle, the people who work at the Triangle, and how to join, click here!
So what do we have for you in this issue?
Regulars:
Apex
Leo Chang, the Triangle's Editor-in-Chief, unveils the new and improved Penn Triangle.
TechFlash
Steven Hershman and Sujit S. Datta tells us how to get to Mars and back in 90 days, in a spaceship flown by rat brains - that, and more.
Penn by the Numbers
Neeti Bagadiya and Salima Kassam make sense of it all.
Engineered News
Taking a satirical look at Skirkanich Hall, and sci/tech life at Penn - we present to you engineered news: as authentic as food trucks, courtesy of John Singer's biting wit.
Book Review
Ever wonder what it feels like to be a dead person? Debbie Chadi thinks you should read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
Voices from the Podium
Dr. Noam Lior explains why water is more important than we may think.
Tangents
Debbie Chadi, the Triangle's Executive Editor, looks back on 3 years at Penn, and continues to maintain that SEAS is so much better than Wharton (Ed - we agree.)
Features:
Material Goods
Shawn Dimantha profiles Penn's very own MIT Tech Review Top 100 Young Innovator, Materials Science and Engineering professor Shu Yang.
Breaking Out
Sujit Datta takes a look at what we're doing wrong when it comes to science education and talks to Chemistry professor Dr. Ponzy Lu about it.
More Than Just Muscle
Chintan Desai finds out what makes Philadephia's sports stadiums tick.
High-Tech Archaeology
An engineer takes a visit to the Penn Museum of Archaeology, and likes what he sees. Said engineer goes by the name of David Mu.
Browser Wars
Hunter Schloss uncovers why you should stop using IE. Right. Now.
God the Engineer?
Bonnie Waring takes a look at the hype surrounding the theory of Intelligent Design.
Science versus Religion
Sujit Datta expounds on the so-called unbridgeable divide between science and religion, and questions their roles in todays' world.
Can Scientists Do Science?
Tushar Khanna takes a fascinating look at the stem cell debate.
Welcome to the new Penn Triangle online. (Bet you didn't see that one coming). I'll keep this short, I promise. In a nutshell, the Triangle Online is the new online eMag for the Pennsylvania Triangle, the science and technology publication of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania. 
To find out more about the Triangle, the people who work at the Triangle, and how to join, click here!
So what do we have for you in this issue?
Regulars:
Apex
Leo Chang, the Triangle's Editor-in-Chief, unveils the new and improved Penn Triangle.
TechFlash
Steven Hershman and Sujit S. Datta tells us how to get to Mars and back in 90 days, in a spaceship flown by rat brains - that, and more.
Penn by the Numbers
Neeti Bagadiya and Salima Kassam make sense of it all.
Engineered News
Taking a satirical look at Skirkanich Hall, and sci/tech life at Penn - we present to you engineered news: as authentic as food trucks, courtesy of John Singer's biting wit.
Book Review
Ever wonder what it feels like to be a dead person? Debbie Chadi thinks you should read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
Voices from the Podium
Dr. Noam Lior explains why water is more important than we may think.
Tangents
Debbie Chadi, the Triangle's Executive Editor, looks back on 3 years at Penn, and continues to maintain that SEAS is so much better than Wharton (Ed - we agree.)
Features:
Material Goods
Shawn Dimantha profiles Penn's very own MIT Tech Review Top 100 Young Innovator, Materials Science and Engineering professor Shu Yang.
Breaking Out
Sujit Datta takes a look at what we're doing wrong when it comes to science education and talks to Chemistry professor Dr. Ponzy Lu about it.
More Than Just Muscle
Chintan Desai finds out what makes Philadephia's sports stadiums tick.
High-Tech Archaeology
An engineer takes a visit to the Penn Museum of Archaeology, and likes what he sees. Said engineer goes by the name of David Mu.
Browser Wars
Hunter Schloss uncovers why you should stop using IE. Right. Now.
God the Engineer?
Bonnie Waring takes a look at the hype surrounding the theory of Intelligent Design.
Science versus Religion
Sujit Datta expounds on the so-called unbridgeable divide between science and religion, and questions their roles in todays' world.
Can Scientists Do Science?
Tushar Khanna takes a fascinating look at the stem cell debate.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Apex: It's a small world, after all
By Leo Chang, Triangle Editor-in-Chief
Penn is a special place, a place where complete strangers coming from opposite ends of the world can end up living next door to each other, practicing presentations with each other, and fighting one another in the long lines stretching from the food trucks on Spruce on a weekday afternoon. Any randomly-plucked group of people off Locust Walk will probably represent different parts of the country and the world, different skin colors, and different interests. But in the end we all get crammed into this coupl’a blocks in West Philly and call it home. All you have to do to have a good time here is to jump in with both feet and get wet!
Take the Penn Triangle staff for example; this year’s issue was created by an entirely new staff that began this daunting project without much experience but still had a lot of enthusiasm and a belief that we’ll put Triangle back on the map. After all, the magazine you’re holding right now is one of the oldest publications on campus, tracing its origins to 1899. Where were you in 1899? I’m very proud of the staff for putting all the hours and blood and sweat into the production of this magazine. We come from different states, different countries, and study different things. Yet we all threw whatever reservations we had about taking on the project and jumped into the pool without knowing how deep it went In the end, I’d say we survived. Of course, how well we score in terms of substance and aesthetics is up to you, the reader, and I’d love to hear from you about anything you have to say about the magazine.
“The Triangle” originally stood for science, engineering, and architecture – the three main arms of the engineering school in the early 1900s. Since today’s science and engineering departments offer many more options to students, I pondered the idea of changing the title and logo of the magazine to keep it up to date with the times. I ultimately decided against it because I didn’t have the heart to erase this fixture at such a tradition-bound campus. The decision was solidified when I spoke with some alumni, who fondly recalled their college days and remembered Triangle as a piece of cherished college memories. Instead of changing the name, I’d like to redefine the Triangle as sets of threes that will guide future development of the magazine. Please allow me to explain.
In the past, the Triangle has somewhat limited both its staff and audience to SEAS students. Beginning with this issue, future Triangle magazines will be written by students from three main groups including engineers, scientists, and anyone else interested in science and technology. We’d love to have you join us even if you’re not in SEAS.
We’re also expanding our intended audience from just engineering students to three main groups: students, faculty, and the outside community (alumni, visitors, prospective students, etc.). The issues we address will not be limited to SEAS or even Penn topics but also interesting events and news that happen outside our campus. You’ll find this broader view in Steve Hershman’s report on science news from around the world, Chintan Desai’s review of Philly stadiums, Sujit Datta’s piece on science vs. religion, and Tushar Khanna’s column on stem cell research. We’re also starting a “Voices from the Podium” feature with every issue in which a faculty member is invited to write about a topic of his or her choice. Of course, we’ll still stay close to Penn, as David Mu writes about the sciences behind Penn’s Archaeology Museum and Sujit Datta muses on the quality of science education at Penn.
Finally, the Triangle has always done a good job of informing and educating its readers, but from now on we’d like to add a third corner to the triangle and also have some fun. To this end you’ll find Jon Singer’s “Engineered News” on the grandeur of Skirkanich Hall as well as a trivia contest that could win you $25 at the bookstore.
Whether you’re a professor reading this magazine while proctoring a final, a student skimming through before (ok fine, during) lecture, or a prospective student trying to get a taste of Penn, welcome to the new Pennsylvania Triangle. Don’t forget to let us know how we’re doing. If you’d like to join the staff, keep your eyes peeled for flyers come Spring. And since this is a small world anyway, you can’t escape from meeting a Triangle staffer sooner or later. Don’t hesitate to ask us any questions you have. For now, we hope you enjoy the magazine.
Come on in, the water’s fine!
Penn is a special place, a place where complete strangers coming from opposite ends of the world can end up living next door to each other, practicing presentations with each other, and fighting one another in the long lines stretching from the food trucks on Spruce on a weekday afternoon. Any randomly-plucked group of people off Locust Walk will probably represent different parts of the country and the world, different skin colors, and different interests. But in the end we all get crammed into this coupl’a blocks in West Philly and call it home. All you have to do to have a good time here is to jump in with both feet and get wet!
Take the Penn Triangle staff for example; this year’s issue was created by an entirely new staff that began this daunting project without much experience but still had a lot of enthusiasm and a belief that we’ll put Triangle back on the map. After all, the magazine you’re holding right now is one of the oldest publications on campus, tracing its origins to 1899. Where were you in 1899? I’m very proud of the staff for putting all the hours and blood and sweat into the production of this magazine. We come from different states, different countries, and study different things. Yet we all threw whatever reservations we had about taking on the project and jumped into the pool without knowing how deep it went In the end, I’d say we survived. Of course, how well we score in terms of substance and aesthetics is up to you, the reader, and I’d love to hear from you about anything you have to say about the magazine.
“The Triangle” originally stood for science, engineering, and architecture – the three main arms of the engineering school in the early 1900s. Since today’s science and engineering departments offer many more options to students, I pondered the idea of changing the title and logo of the magazine to keep it up to date with the times. I ultimately decided against it because I didn’t have the heart to erase this fixture at such a tradition-bound campus. The decision was solidified when I spoke with some alumni, who fondly recalled their college days and remembered Triangle as a piece of cherished college memories. Instead of changing the name, I’d like to redefine the Triangle as sets of threes that will guide future development of the magazine. Please allow me to explain.
In the past, the Triangle has somewhat limited both its staff and audience to SEAS students. Beginning with this issue, future Triangle magazines will be written by students from three main groups including engineers, scientists, and anyone else interested in science and technology. We’d love to have you join us even if you’re not in SEAS.
We’re also expanding our intended audience from just engineering students to three main groups: students, faculty, and the outside community (alumni, visitors, prospective students, etc.). The issues we address will not be limited to SEAS or even Penn topics but also interesting events and news that happen outside our campus. You’ll find this broader view in Steve Hershman’s report on science news from around the world, Chintan Desai’s review of Philly stadiums, Sujit Datta’s piece on science vs. religion, and Tushar Khanna’s column on stem cell research. We’re also starting a “Voices from the Podium” feature with every issue in which a faculty member is invited to write about a topic of his or her choice. Of course, we’ll still stay close to Penn, as David Mu writes about the sciences behind Penn’s Archaeology Museum and Sujit Datta muses on the quality of science education at Penn.
Finally, the Triangle has always done a good job of informing and educating its readers, but from now on we’d like to add a third corner to the triangle and also have some fun. To this end you’ll find Jon Singer’s “Engineered News” on the grandeur of Skirkanich Hall as well as a trivia contest that could win you $25 at the bookstore.
Whether you’re a professor reading this magazine while proctoring a final, a student skimming through before (ok fine, during) lecture, or a prospective student trying to get a taste of Penn, welcome to the new Pennsylvania Triangle. Don’t forget to let us know how we’re doing. If you’d like to join the staff, keep your eyes peeled for flyers come Spring. And since this is a small world anyway, you can’t escape from meeting a Triangle staffer sooner or later. Don’t hesitate to ask us any questions you have. For now, we hope you enjoy the magazine.
Come on in, the water’s fine!
Material Goods: Penn's MSE Professor named Top Young Innovator
By Shawn Dimantha, Triangle Marketing Editor
A short elevator ride up to the 2nd floor of the LRSM (Laboratory for Research Into the Structure of Matter) building transports you to a different realm: material science and engineering Professor Shu Yang’s realm. Her office is just around the corner, a typical academic setting to the untrained eye. However, to anyone who comes to discover the treasure troves of information Yang has to offer, this office is a gateway to the future.
Talk of tunable liquid microlenses, block copolymers, and controlled wetting permeate the environment. This is the place where the new technologies of the world are being developed. Internet faster than the imagination can conceive. Cell phone cameras more sophisticated than the highest end SLR digital camera on the market. Nanoscale machines capable of reproducing biological processes.
Recently honored as a MIT Tech Review (TR) Top 100 Young Innovator, Yang is riding a fine time towards the top. This is the fourth year the award is being bestowed upon the nation’s young technological elite. Despite the honor she is not completely satisfied.
“I know the first one was in 1999 when I first graduated,” Yang said. “I had gone to Bell Labs, and now it has been going on for four years, so it is very prestigious, and winning it this fourth time was just electric. However, it really tells you need to do better to keep on track and be more innovative and also generate more new results.”
Dr. Yang’s main areas of research (top, left to right): 3D Photonic Crystals, Biomemetic Microlens Arrays, Self-Assembled Nanostructured, and Turnable Microfluid.
Yang has had a long and rarely traveled path to Penn. She began her academic career in Fudan University of Shanghai, China. There, she was first introduced to the field of Materials Science. Yang did not take a typical route to academic engineering. Nor was she a typical engineer. Outside of the academic world, Professor Yang notes a keen interest in sports. She was a sprint runner in high school, having held the record for her school. As she went through her academic and corporate career her physical involvement has diminished, but she still notes a key interest as a spectator.
After her time in Shanghai, she went on to earn her Masters and then PhD at Cornell University. However, she took a break from the academic forum by joining Bell Laboratories in 1999, right after receiving her PhD.
“If I [had gone] directly from Cornell to academics, my life would have been very different. Bell Labs is a very unique place. [It is] a very good place for a young scientist, because once you go through Bell Labs you have the fundamental research environment just like a university.”
These four years of corporate research have given her a multifaceted outlook on research on the whole, and her unique vision is burgeoning at Penn.
“The research is driven by application, driven by technology, it is not work in the backroom, you have to justify why [the project] is interesting, why you want to work on this, why you are putting in your time, basically 12-14 hours a day.”
Professor Yang has taken many of these skills and implemented them in the classroom and in her research. The Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department has had a difficult time attracting students over he past few years, but recently has been enjoying some renewed interest. Many students are discouraged by the lack of current practical application for some of the topics discussed in material science engineering. Yang is looking to turn this around, and is bringing results and partnerships between many schools to the forefront of the MSE Department’s agenda.
Some of her work has to do with the ever increasing speed of the internet. Currently there is a physical limit to internet speed, as existing technology can only push the barrier so far. Telecommunications has largely advanced because of fiber optics, but this relatively new development has also hindered greater efficiency. Yang’s particular interest is in that of the light-induced reactions through polymer surfaces of a photonic crystal.
With the explosion of the Internet, new approaches for the manipulation of photons need to be developed to realize more advanced optical network systems. In a 3D photonic crystal with stacks of alternating high- and low- dielectric-constant materials, light will be reflected and refracted from all directions. Thus, the 3D photonic crystal acts as an optical insulator. It will guide light through engineered defects more efficiently than current fiber optical system. Yang’s lab searches new fabrication methods, such as multibeam interference lithography, to create 3D photonic crystals rapidly and efficiently.
“It’s like an optical trap, which you can introduce defects to guide light. The question is how you realize those three-dimensional structures. That is our interest. That is why we are using this laser technique to pattern various 3D structures. We hope to mass produce them in a large area defect-free and incorporate them into a wealth of devices.”
For many years, technology has improved our lives, but there have been limits that have always accompanied new technologies. Computer processor speeds have generally obeyed Moore’s Law (data density and processor speed double every 18 months), but there is a foreseeable limit to the amount of practical speed a microprocessor can handle. Efforts to commercialize lightning-fast quantum computers have been made, but these attempts are still grounded in the R&D phase. Internet speed has always been relevant to the general consumer, and now broadband seems light years faster than 56 K modems, but what Yang hopes to instill in the telecommunications industry is an environment where no limits really exist.
“That’s the beauty of it, whenever you find a limit, the researcher’s always come up with a new concept, try to pass the limit, to go beyond it.”
She hopes to incorporate some of her other technologies into common use. Some of her most rigorous work has gone into the tunable liquid microlens. The tunable microlens can be a very small inexpensive package that can dynamically tune an incoming light source to different positions, as well as to magnify it. In existing technologies, assemblies of laser chips and light-manipulating components require use of an expensive micromanipulator to make time-consuming alignments of tiny, hard lenses. The tunable microlens may offer an easy-to-tweak alternative, which is low cost and requires little power. Many commercial companies are pursuing this technology
“Cell phone companies are rigorously pursuing this technology for the wireless companies because if you want to transmit information via camera phone, you would want for example an autofocus feature. And right now cell phones can take pictures but not very far or very close up because it is out of focus, limited range of focal distance.”
Since the microlens is voltage driven, the focus can be digitally transmitted, and the range of focus is very wide. Even 3D images can be taken with high resolution at close proximity.
The application of the device is also pertinent to non-commerical uses. Recently, collaboration with Professor Haim Bau at Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department has been launched to to construct new, adaptive, micro-scale optical devices. The goal is to provide a wider range tunability of lens optical properties, including varied transmission, numerical aperture and wavelength selectivity, by coupling lenses with microfludics to mimic biological lens arrays discovered in light sensitive brittlestars.
“If they understand the dynamics of a single molecule it really helps in how they treat diseases. I think it is very helpful to both sides; it definitely has a major impact in biology. This is happening right now.
“We learned from biology coupled with nanotechnology to make our studies much more multifunctional. They can understand the biology better, and at the same time biology can help us develop better materials.”
This mutual relationship between departments has helped foster a greater scientific community among the schools at Penn. Yang noted that the walls are “continuing to diminish” between departments and that “the interaction makes research much easier.”
Yang’s lab is spearheading a project dealing with nanopatterning and surface functionalization, in particular, a smart surface that can dynamically tune its wettability from superhydrophobic (extremely averse to water) to superhydrophilic (extremely attracted to water). Currently her group is developing responsive polymers that can be coated on a nanopatterned substrate to induce such an effect. Such surfaces may find applications in bioengineering since biomolecules are extremely sensitive to surface characteristics. Working closely with Professors Berry Cooperman (Chemistry Department), Yale Goldman and Henry Shuman (both in Muscle Institute), Yang believes she could find a new way to help biochemists and biophysicists better understand living organisms.
Ethics always enters a discussion of scientific breakthraough. Yang sees the forward movement not so much as a moral breach on the scientific decorum, but as a way to understand processes much better.
“During a faculty meeting, Dean Glandt was saying how the engineer is driven by the application, without engineers nothing is in practice. I know many people in biology are studying the mechanisms, but how do understand very small molecules? It is by using bettertools that we can help them understand better.”
However, Dr. Yang cannot emphasize enough the importance she sees in the training of young engineers in the fields of chemistry and physics. That is something she tries to push forward in the classes she teaches at Penn (MSE 430 in the Spring 05 semester, for those interested).
While she would not change the course of her career that has brought her to this point, she offered a few pointers to those students looking to get into the field, both from a corporate and an academic side.
“Bell Labs is a very unique place, not many places give you this many choices, freedom in many other things. Most of the industry is very specific, you try to compete. You think of what type of project you want to generate. It is very similar to academics. How do you make something different and make an impact. The difference is [in corporate research] you get exposure to all other fields. [In] academics you have to be more focused, [Bell Labs] give you the opportunity to try different kinds of things.”
It seems as if another Yang will carry the torch of engineering innovation for the next generation. Dr. Yang has a 21 month old daughter who is already showing signs of a budding engineer.
“I found she has lots of very interesting engineering characteristics. She likes to break apart and assemble different things. She is very good at this.”
However, some of Yang’s deepest lessons were learned from her daughter, lessons she applies to the classroom environment every day.
“I spend a lot of time with my daughter, because she is very small, it really helps me to build up my patience, and also how to explain things to young kids. I think it is very helpful to be a professor [when trying to] make her understand things, it takes a lot of energy.”
While Yang has just recently been introduced to the new locale of Philadelphia, she notes that she is not overwhelmed by the atmosphere, as she had been living in Shanghai during her undergraduate years.
“I have not had much time to explore much of the city, but the campus is very nice. I really like to talk with students; that is one of the best parts for me.”
You can count on many innovations springing from the office of Dr. Yang in the next few years. Every time you take a high resolution picture with your cell phone camera, download information instantaneously off the internet, or simply look at the latest mechanisms of biological molecules, keep Professor Yang in mind.
A short elevator ride up to the 2nd floor of the LRSM (Laboratory for Research Into the Structure of Matter) building transports you to a different realm: material science and engineering Professor Shu Yang’s realm. Her office is just around the corner, a typical academic setting to the untrained eye. However, to anyone who comes to discover the treasure troves of information Yang has to offer, this office is a gateway to the future.
Talk of tunable liquid microlenses, block copolymers, and controlled wetting permeate the environment. This is the place where the new technologies of the world are being developed. Internet faster than the imagination can conceive. Cell phone cameras more sophisticated than the highest end SLR digital camera on the market. Nanoscale machines capable of reproducing biological processes.
Recently honored as a MIT Tech Review (TR) Top 100 Young Innovator, Yang is riding a fine time towards the top. This is the fourth year the award is being bestowed upon the nation’s young technological elite. Despite the honor she is not completely satisfied.
“I know the first one was in 1999 when I first graduated,” Yang said. “I had gone to Bell Labs, and now it has been going on for four years, so it is very prestigious, and winning it this fourth time was just electric. However, it really tells you need to do better to keep on track and be more innovative and also generate more new results.”
Dr. Yang’s main areas of research (top, left to right): 3D Photonic Crystals, Biomemetic Microlens Arrays, Self-Assembled Nanostructured, and Turnable Microfluid.
Yang has had a long and rarely traveled path to Penn. She began her academic career in Fudan University of Shanghai, China. There, she was first introduced to the field of Materials Science. Yang did not take a typical route to academic engineering. Nor was she a typical engineer. Outside of the academic world, Professor Yang notes a keen interest in sports. She was a sprint runner in high school, having held the record for her school. As she went through her academic and corporate career her physical involvement has diminished, but she still notes a key interest as a spectator.
After her time in Shanghai, she went on to earn her Masters and then PhD at Cornell University. However, she took a break from the academic forum by joining Bell Laboratories in 1999, right after receiving her PhD.
“If I [had gone] directly from Cornell to academics, my life would have been very different. Bell Labs is a very unique place. [It is] a very good place for a young scientist, because once you go through Bell Labs you have the fundamental research environment just like a university.”
These four years of corporate research have given her a multifaceted outlook on research on the whole, and her unique vision is burgeoning at Penn.
“The research is driven by application, driven by technology, it is not work in the backroom, you have to justify why [the project] is interesting, why you want to work on this, why you are putting in your time, basically 12-14 hours a day.”
Professor Yang has taken many of these skills and implemented them in the classroom and in her research. The Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department has had a difficult time attracting students over he past few years, but recently has been enjoying some renewed interest. Many students are discouraged by the lack of current practical application for some of the topics discussed in material science engineering. Yang is looking to turn this around, and is bringing results and partnerships between many schools to the forefront of the MSE Department’s agenda.
Some of her work has to do with the ever increasing speed of the internet. Currently there is a physical limit to internet speed, as existing technology can only push the barrier so far. Telecommunications has largely advanced because of fiber optics, but this relatively new development has also hindered greater efficiency. Yang’s particular interest is in that of the light-induced reactions through polymer surfaces of a photonic crystal.
With the explosion of the Internet, new approaches for the manipulation of photons need to be developed to realize more advanced optical network systems. In a 3D photonic crystal with stacks of alternating high- and low- dielectric-constant materials, light will be reflected and refracted from all directions. Thus, the 3D photonic crystal acts as an optical insulator. It will guide light through engineered defects more efficiently than current fiber optical system. Yang’s lab searches new fabrication methods, such as multibeam interference lithography, to create 3D photonic crystals rapidly and efficiently.
“It’s like an optical trap, which you can introduce defects to guide light. The question is how you realize those three-dimensional structures. That is our interest. That is why we are using this laser technique to pattern various 3D structures. We hope to mass produce them in a large area defect-free and incorporate them into a wealth of devices.”
For many years, technology has improved our lives, but there have been limits that have always accompanied new technologies. Computer processor speeds have generally obeyed Moore’s Law (data density and processor speed double every 18 months), but there is a foreseeable limit to the amount of practical speed a microprocessor can handle. Efforts to commercialize lightning-fast quantum computers have been made, but these attempts are still grounded in the R&D phase. Internet speed has always been relevant to the general consumer, and now broadband seems light years faster than 56 K modems, but what Yang hopes to instill in the telecommunications industry is an environment where no limits really exist.
“That’s the beauty of it, whenever you find a limit, the researcher’s always come up with a new concept, try to pass the limit, to go beyond it.”
She hopes to incorporate some of her other technologies into common use. Some of her most rigorous work has gone into the tunable liquid microlens. The tunable microlens can be a very small inexpensive package that can dynamically tune an incoming light source to different positions, as well as to magnify it. In existing technologies, assemblies of laser chips and light-manipulating components require use of an expensive micromanipulator to make time-consuming alignments of tiny, hard lenses. The tunable microlens may offer an easy-to-tweak alternative, which is low cost and requires little power. Many commercial companies are pursuing this technology
“Cell phone companies are rigorously pursuing this technology for the wireless companies because if you want to transmit information via camera phone, you would want for example an autofocus feature. And right now cell phones can take pictures but not very far or very close up because it is out of focus, limited range of focal distance.”
Since the microlens is voltage driven, the focus can be digitally transmitted, and the range of focus is very wide. Even 3D images can be taken with high resolution at close proximity.
The application of the device is also pertinent to non-commerical uses. Recently, collaboration with Professor Haim Bau at Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department has been launched to to construct new, adaptive, micro-scale optical devices. The goal is to provide a wider range tunability of lens optical properties, including varied transmission, numerical aperture and wavelength selectivity, by coupling lenses with microfludics to mimic biological lens arrays discovered in light sensitive brittlestars.
“If they understand the dynamics of a single molecule it really helps in how they treat diseases. I think it is very helpful to both sides; it definitely has a major impact in biology. This is happening right now.
“We learned from biology coupled with nanotechnology to make our studies much more multifunctional. They can understand the biology better, and at the same time biology can help us develop better materials.”
This mutual relationship between departments has helped foster a greater scientific community among the schools at Penn. Yang noted that the walls are “continuing to diminish” between departments and that “the interaction makes research much easier.”
Yang’s lab is spearheading a project dealing with nanopatterning and surface functionalization, in particular, a smart surface that can dynamically tune its wettability from superhydrophobic (extremely averse to water) to superhydrophilic (extremely attracted to water). Currently her group is developing responsive polymers that can be coated on a nanopatterned substrate to induce such an effect. Such surfaces may find applications in bioengineering since biomolecules are extremely sensitive to surface characteristics. Working closely with Professors Berry Cooperman (Chemistry Department), Yale Goldman and Henry Shuman (both in Muscle Institute), Yang believes she could find a new way to help biochemists and biophysicists better understand living organisms.
Ethics always enters a discussion of scientific breakthraough. Yang sees the forward movement not so much as a moral breach on the scientific decorum, but as a way to understand processes much better.
“During a faculty meeting, Dean Glandt was saying how the engineer is driven by the application, without engineers nothing is in practice. I know many people in biology are studying the mechanisms, but how do understand very small molecules? It is by using bettertools that we can help them understand better.”
However, Dr. Yang cannot emphasize enough the importance she sees in the training of young engineers in the fields of chemistry and physics. That is something she tries to push forward in the classes she teaches at Penn (MSE 430 in the Spring 05 semester, for those interested).
While she would not change the course of her career that has brought her to this point, she offered a few pointers to those students looking to get into the field, both from a corporate and an academic side.
“Bell Labs is a very unique place, not many places give you this many choices, freedom in many other things. Most of the industry is very specific, you try to compete. You think of what type of project you want to generate. It is very similar to academics. How do you make something different and make an impact. The difference is [in corporate research] you get exposure to all other fields. [In] academics you have to be more focused, [Bell Labs] give you the opportunity to try different kinds of things.”
It seems as if another Yang will carry the torch of engineering innovation for the next generation. Dr. Yang has a 21 month old daughter who is already showing signs of a budding engineer.
“I found she has lots of very interesting engineering characteristics. She likes to break apart and assemble different things. She is very good at this.”
However, some of Yang’s deepest lessons were learned from her daughter, lessons she applies to the classroom environment every day.
“I spend a lot of time with my daughter, because she is very small, it really helps me to build up my patience, and also how to explain things to young kids. I think it is very helpful to be a professor [when trying to] make her understand things, it takes a lot of energy.”
While Yang has just recently been introduced to the new locale of Philadelphia, she notes that she is not overwhelmed by the atmosphere, as she had been living in Shanghai during her undergraduate years.
“I have not had much time to explore much of the city, but the campus is very nice. I really like to talk with students; that is one of the best parts for me.”
You can count on many innovations springing from the office of Dr. Yang in the next few years. Every time you take a high resolution picture with your cell phone camera, download information instantaneously off the internet, or simply look at the latest mechanisms of biological molecules, keep Professor Yang in mind.
Breaking Out: Talking to Dr. Ponzy Lu about what's wrong with science education today
By Sujit S. Datta, Triangle online eMag Editor-in-Chief
Science is not sexy. At least, not according to the thousands of middle school, high school, and college students who have given up on it. To them, science is not cool. Science doesn’t keep them on the edge of their seats, like a heated class debate. It doesn’t really make them feel tingles running up and down their spine, as perhaps a good Shakespeare play would. And the word ‘science’ rarely has connotations of wealth, prestige, power, or excitement. Try asking a jaded high school student whether a particular equation is ‘beautiful’, or ‘elegant’ – words frequently used by scientists – and chances are that he or she will stare at you blankly. Let’s face it – science and engineering in today’s system of education are totally and utterly boring.
Does science have to be this way? Not in the least. So what are we doing wrong? Why do we find it so impossible to convey to students the incredible thrill and exhilaration of scientific inquiry? Much of the problem lies in the way science is taught. Science is typically perceived of as being something that must be memorized, rather than understood – you have this, you do this, you do that, you get the answer. Repeat.
As Dr. Ponzy Lu, Professor of Chemistry, Chair of the College Biochemistry Program and Director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program for the Molecular Life Sciences points out: “[Science education] is very boring. It is done very badly. Much of the way chemistry is taught, say freshman chemistry, isn’t all that different from filling out income tax forms. The problem sets are simply numbers that you plug in the blanks, and the connections between the blanks aren’t that obvious. So I certainly think that science is taught in a boring way. What makes science interesting is that it allows you to be curious, and you can do things with it that finds out new stuff, and that’s the exciting stuff.”
So what do we do to change this? The answer isn’t all that simple – one cannot just flick on a switch and make everyone love science. Not all the problems with our current system have yet been identified.
What does seem clear is that science is increasingly being presented to students in a far too modular and heterogeneous form. A good example of this is the way science is taught at Penn, with different courses taken at different times, to fulfill different requirements. I can take a physics class on Newtonian mechanics, a chemistry class on the forces that hold organic molecules together, and a biology class on the biological relevance of organic polymers – all at the same time - and fail to see any connection between them. Science is not presented as one unified way of seeing and understanding the world.
Instead, as Dr. Lu points out, “It is very difficult to make a new science program from scratch. For the Vagelos program, for example, we took ‘off the shelf’ courses the way you build a bicycle with only top of the line components from different manufacturers… I think the biggest problem with science teaching at the American university - it’s even worse elsewhere - is that we don’t teach chemistry, physics, biology from one sort of foundation. Each of those departments teaches it their own way. And I think that science is not compartmental.”
So why is our current system like this, and how do we change? Dr. Lu notes that “I don’t propose teaching [science] interdisciplinary, but teaching it from first principles. I hate this word ‘interdisciplinary’ – disciplines were invented in the old days, because we were too stupid to realize that biology, chemistry, geology were all aspects of the same thing. If I were able to redo how we teach science… I would make sure that physics and mathematics get taught first without anyone learning any Biology or Chemistry. And the reason we don’t do that is left over from the 18th century, when Biology was easier, because all you had to do was observe what you saw. But Biology isn’t like that anymore, it’s about molecules and you have to know some Chemistry, and the kind of Biology by describing what you saw is not terribly useful in a variety of ways, except possibly for planting a garden or creating your own zoo. So, physics first, then mathematics – well, you can’t do physics without mathematics – and then you can learn some of those other things. That’s what I would certainly do.”
This idea has a lot going for it. The fundamentals of modern science are mathematics and physics. If students are given strong foundations in these subjects, then perhaps the scientific method and way of thinking will become clearer to them – less of a repetitive task, and with more of an emphasis on the connections and patterns between different disciplines. We must teach students how to think scientifically before we actually teach them science.
This all makes sense for students who wish to pursue science in the future, and have a natural talent for the abstractions that make up its foundations – but what about the other students, the ones to whom mathematics and physics are mere gibberish? Surely these students must have some grounding in the world of science, simply because every successful lawyer, businessman and citizen needs to know something about science (to go by the title of an existing Penn Molecular Biology course).
According to Dr. Lu, “I would teach science to a non-science student by just having them read the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times. Much of business – and one could argue all of business – these days is driven by marketing technology of some sort. If it is not marketing technology, then it is the delivery of the product that is through technology. And ask questions. We have a lot of stuff in the newspapers about biological terrorism, a lot of stuff in the newspapers about the environment, and why certain stocks go up and down. All those things have multiple layers of science and technology behind them. And basically discussing them as a case study, the way you teach medical students medicine by taking one patient at a time – you take the history, go through some tests, discuss the results of the tests and so forth. They don’t learn everything about all the sciences, but if you do that then for a year or so – say five or six stories that year – then I think you would get a lot more across to students than the way we do it. I think to a non-scientist the way to do that is to look at current events, follow them, and discuss them in detail, and bring in as much science as we need to explain the phenomena. You can certainly explain first and second derivatives using the stock market.”
Dr Lu also places enormous emphasis on educating students about their bodies and physiology: “I think what we need to be teaching students is how to use their bodies, how their bodies work, things like nutrition and diet. If that’s taught first and practiced first, then people will be aware of what’s good for them… and how this science is important to their society”. What we need to do, it seems, is to show students how relevant and influential science is to their lives.
So will any of these changes actually happen? “The current system has a lot of built-in pressures not to change,” says Dr. Lu. Perhaps we can overcome them. What is certain, however, is that the current system of science education needs reforming – and perhaps some of Dr. Lu’s suggestions are exactly what we need. We need increased discourse on this subject, increased study and an increased willingness to change. Until then, our system of science education will have to plod along the same uninspiring track it has been treading for so long.
Science is not sexy. At least, not according to the thousands of middle school, high school, and college students who have given up on it. To them, science is not cool. Science doesn’t keep them on the edge of their seats, like a heated class debate. It doesn’t really make them feel tingles running up and down their spine, as perhaps a good Shakespeare play would. And the word ‘science’ rarely has connotations of wealth, prestige, power, or excitement. Try asking a jaded high school student whether a particular equation is ‘beautiful’, or ‘elegant’ – words frequently used by scientists – and chances are that he or she will stare at you blankly. Let’s face it – science and engineering in today’s system of education are totally and utterly boring.
Does science have to be this way? Not in the least. So what are we doing wrong? Why do we find it so impossible to convey to students the incredible thrill and exhilaration of scientific inquiry? Much of the problem lies in the way science is taught. Science is typically perceived of as being something that must be memorized, rather than understood – you have this, you do this, you do that, you get the answer. Repeat.
As Dr. Ponzy Lu, Professor of Chemistry, Chair of the College Biochemistry Program and Director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program for the Molecular Life Sciences points out: “[Science education] is very boring. It is done very badly. Much of the way chemistry is taught, say freshman chemistry, isn’t all that different from filling out income tax forms. The problem sets are simply numbers that you plug in the blanks, and the connections between the blanks aren’t that obvious. So I certainly think that science is taught in a boring way. What makes science interesting is that it allows you to be curious, and you can do things with it that finds out new stuff, and that’s the exciting stuff.”
So what do we do to change this? The answer isn’t all that simple – one cannot just flick on a switch and make everyone love science. Not all the problems with our current system have yet been identified.
What does seem clear is that science is increasingly being presented to students in a far too modular and heterogeneous form. A good example of this is the way science is taught at Penn, with different courses taken at different times, to fulfill different requirements. I can take a physics class on Newtonian mechanics, a chemistry class on the forces that hold organic molecules together, and a biology class on the biological relevance of organic polymers – all at the same time - and fail to see any connection between them. Science is not presented as one unified way of seeing and understanding the world.
Instead, as Dr. Lu points out, “It is very difficult to make a new science program from scratch. For the Vagelos program, for example, we took ‘off the shelf’ courses the way you build a bicycle with only top of the line components from different manufacturers… I think the biggest problem with science teaching at the American university - it’s even worse elsewhere - is that we don’t teach chemistry, physics, biology from one sort of foundation. Each of those departments teaches it their own way. And I think that science is not compartmental.”
So why is our current system like this, and how do we change? Dr. Lu notes that “I don’t propose teaching [science] interdisciplinary, but teaching it from first principles. I hate this word ‘interdisciplinary’ – disciplines were invented in the old days, because we were too stupid to realize that biology, chemistry, geology were all aspects of the same thing. If I were able to redo how we teach science… I would make sure that physics and mathematics get taught first without anyone learning any Biology or Chemistry. And the reason we don’t do that is left over from the 18th century, when Biology was easier, because all you had to do was observe what you saw. But Biology isn’t like that anymore, it’s about molecules and you have to know some Chemistry, and the kind of Biology by describing what you saw is not terribly useful in a variety of ways, except possibly for planting a garden or creating your own zoo. So, physics first, then mathematics – well, you can’t do physics without mathematics – and then you can learn some of those other things. That’s what I would certainly do.”
This idea has a lot going for it. The fundamentals of modern science are mathematics and physics. If students are given strong foundations in these subjects, then perhaps the scientific method and way of thinking will become clearer to them – less of a repetitive task, and with more of an emphasis on the connections and patterns between different disciplines. We must teach students how to think scientifically before we actually teach them science.
This all makes sense for students who wish to pursue science in the future, and have a natural talent for the abstractions that make up its foundations – but what about the other students, the ones to whom mathematics and physics are mere gibberish? Surely these students must have some grounding in the world of science, simply because every successful lawyer, businessman and citizen needs to know something about science (to go by the title of an existing Penn Molecular Biology course).
According to Dr. Lu, “I would teach science to a non-science student by just having them read the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times. Much of business – and one could argue all of business – these days is driven by marketing technology of some sort. If it is not marketing technology, then it is the delivery of the product that is through technology. And ask questions. We have a lot of stuff in the newspapers about biological terrorism, a lot of stuff in the newspapers about the environment, and why certain stocks go up and down. All those things have multiple layers of science and technology behind them. And basically discussing them as a case study, the way you teach medical students medicine by taking one patient at a time – you take the history, go through some tests, discuss the results of the tests and so forth. They don’t learn everything about all the sciences, but if you do that then for a year or so – say five or six stories that year – then I think you would get a lot more across to students than the way we do it. I think to a non-scientist the way to do that is to look at current events, follow them, and discuss them in detail, and bring in as much science as we need to explain the phenomena. You can certainly explain first and second derivatives using the stock market.”
Dr Lu also places enormous emphasis on educating students about their bodies and physiology: “I think what we need to be teaching students is how to use their bodies, how their bodies work, things like nutrition and diet. If that’s taught first and practiced first, then people will be aware of what’s good for them… and how this science is important to their society”. What we need to do, it seems, is to show students how relevant and influential science is to their lives.
So will any of these changes actually happen? “The current system has a lot of built-in pressures not to change,” says Dr. Lu. Perhaps we can overcome them. What is certain, however, is that the current system of science education needs reforming – and perhaps some of Dr. Lu’s suggestions are exactly what we need. We need increased discourse on this subject, increased study and an increased willingness to change. Until then, our system of science education will have to plod along the same uninspiring track it has been treading for so long.
More Than Just Muscle: The technology behind Philadelphia's Sports Stations
By Chintan Desai, Triangle Writer
In two of the most popular sports in America, football and baseball, the turnover rate for stadiums for professional teams has risen incredibly. With the building of new stadiums and reliance upon stadiums as an economic growth mechanism for cities, much technology and engineering is required to create these technological wonders that were once just built for the sole purpose of playing the game. New stadiums bring new innovations to the field and to the fans. Two of the professional teams in Philadelphia have built two brand-new stadiums in the past 5 two years, the Eagles in Lincoln Financial Field and the Phillies in Citizens Bank Park. These stadiums are a significant upgrade from the notorious Veterans Stadium that housed both the Phillies and the Eagles.
Lincoln Financial Field
The total cost of Lincoln Financial Field came out to nearly $512 million dollars with the Philadelphia Eagles footing 64% of that bill and the rest by the public. The new stadium seats 68,532 people. Some of the marvels at “the Linc”, as it is referred to, are the two gigantic 27 ft x 96 ft HDTV, flat screen technology boards situated at each end zone of the field. The boards are used to display scores, replays, and other announcements to the fans. They came at a cost of more than $8 million dollars. The two largest video screens of any NFL stadium in the country, each screen multiplies the size of their predecessor “Phanavision Screens” that were used at their former residence, Veterans Stadium. Also, there are flat screen boards that go around the width of the field between the upper and lower seating areas, each capable of displaying 68 billion shades of color.
The sound system consists of hundreds of speakers placed at specific locations throughout the stadium to create a surround-sound effect for every seat in the stadium. The sound system also allows specific sections to be messaged during games and in case of an emergency. There are 20 foot steel “talons” located at the top of the stadium to serve an aesthetical purpose for the talons of an eagle and have speakers attached them to provide sound to the end-zone seats. The sound system and roof were designed to send the noise back into the stadium in order to provide a louder experience for the fans and opposing teams that visit the “Linc”.
Even the playing surface is not an ordinary sod grass field. It’s a combination of natural grass and synthetic fibers. The top layer consists of Kentucky bluegrass grown at a turf farm New Jersey. However, artificial fibers were also sewn into the grass to make it stronger and more durable. Nearly 20 million synthetic fibers were injected into the turf 8 inches deep to prolong the life of the grass on the field and help anchor the roots of the grass by being attached to the artificial fibers in a process known as the DD Grassmaster system. Below the grass/fiber combination, there is a drainage and irrigation pipe system which keeps the field dry. In order to preserve the grass during cold weather, there is a heating system below the field that consists of 28 miles of plastic piping. An antifreeze mixture consisting of water and glycol is pumped through the pipes via computer to keep the grass at a temperature of about 60 degrees in the winter. In addition to all these layers, the Eagles also had a SubAir airflow system installed to aerate the grass and soil, leading to denser and healthier grass. All of these improvements kept in mind that the Veterans Stadium’s Astroturf surface was dubiously known as one of the worst fields in the league. The complex technology and engineering used for the new stadium is a significant improvement over the old turf, which was often referred to as the “hard-as-concrete” artificial turf.
In addition to all the amenities and technology used to improve the stadium, concessions and sales are made more convenient and quicker for the fans through the PowerPay system. Essentially, the PowerPay system is similar to the EZ-Pass system used for tolls and the Mobile Speedpass system. PowerPay is a plastic tag that has a tiny antenna and a radio-frequency ID chip embedded inside. When the key is swiped in front of a special reader at the concession stands, it matches the tag number with a consumer’s credit card number on file. The wireless payment system allows fans to spend less time waiting in line for concessions and more time watching the game.
In order to manage this entire network of marketing concessions, stadium maintenance, and information communication, the Eagles hired Harbor Technologies to design and help manage a state-of-the-art computer and communications network for Lincoln Financial Field. The network connects more than 1000 devices such as turnstiles, food service, and ticketing booths. The network can handle 345 million packets per second and provides two gigabits of bandwidth across a fiber optic network. Different departments of the stadium are split up into different virtual networks that allows for all the networks to be managed by one system but secure enough so that individual departments only have access to their respective divisions. Harbor Technologies is also building a wireless network that will connect the Linc with the Eagles practice facility, the NovaCare Complex, located about 400 yards away. This wireless network has a speed of nearly 430-megabits per second.
Citizens Bank Park
The total cost of Citizens Bank Park came out to nearly $458 million dollars with the Philadelphia Phillies footing $172 million dollars of the bill and the rest by the public. The seating capacity of the stadium is 43,500 people. Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball, said “This is Philadelphia, and it has everything that a ballpark ought to have here. It’s unique. It has a style of its own. It’s spectacular.”
The scoreboard is the largest display in the National League at approximately 35 x 71 ft. It uses full-color LED technology and is accompanied by smaller LED screens distributed around the park that informs the fans of pitch speed and type and displays advertising messages, graphics and animation. At any given time, fans can check on statistics from other games concurrently going such as scores, current pitchers, outs, and the number of runners in scoring positions.
In addition to the scoreboards and video screens, the Phillies installed nearly 700 TV’s within the stadium to allow those fans that are not in visible distance of the scoreboard to see the highlights of the game. 20” tube TV’s were installed in the concession areas and outside seating , 42” HD plasma displays were installed in the premium seating areas such as the club restaurants, and the club suites were outfitted with 15” LCD screens and plasma TV’s for private viewing of highlights. All of these components lead to a fan-friendly stadium where the fans don’t miss a single play of the game even when they are in line for concessions or finding their seat inside the park. Similar to the Linc, the field is a significant improvement over the Astroturf used at Veterans Stadium. The field is made up of 100% Kentucky bluegrass grown in New Jersey.
In order to manage a telecommunications system in the park, all 1000 concessions vendors and team front offices are connected in a single telephone system. Also, a separate network provides high-speed internet access to several locations in the park such as the press boxes for the media and the luxury box suites. Comcast also installed a 6000 feet fiber optic cable connected to Citizens Bank Park to help it broadcast in 5.1 surround sound mixes of the major sports events at nearby sports complexes
Franklin Field
Penn’s own Franklin Field, where the Eagles once played and the permanent home of the Quakers, underwent an overhaul of its playing surface this past summer of July 2004. AstroTurf had been the primary playing surface of the Quakers since 1970. The old and worn down AstroTurf was replaced by Sprinturf. Sprinturf is an all rubber infill system that feels like natural grass but is much softer and safer than Astroturf. The new surface has more give slack and thus is softer and safer for athletes and has a good drainage system below the field and around the perimeter of the field. The new field is a significant improvement over the old AstroTurf system that was also phased out from the Eagles, Phillies.
Technology
Jeffrey Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, said “Lincoln Financial Field will bring fans so much closer to the action as well as provide them with dramatically improved sight lines and the most state-of-the-art amenities and services. In terms of technological enhancements, the stadium represents a world of difference from what fans have experienced at Veterans Stadium and even from what is available in some of the newest facilities around the country.” The stadiums of yesterday, such as Veterans Stadium, are replaced by the newer age of stadiums where technology, engineering, and science are harnessed to create an entertainment center that is fan friendly and safer for players.
In two of the most popular sports in America, football and baseball, the turnover rate for stadiums for professional teams has risen incredibly. With the building of new stadiums and reliance upon stadiums as an economic growth mechanism for cities, much technology and engineering is required to create these technological wonders that were once just built for the sole purpose of playing the game. New stadiums bring new innovations to the field and to the fans. Two of the professional teams in Philadelphia have built two brand-new stadiums in the past 5 two years, the Eagles in Lincoln Financial Field and the Phillies in Citizens Bank Park. These stadiums are a significant upgrade from the notorious Veterans Stadium that housed both the Phillies and the Eagles.
Lincoln Financial Field
The total cost of Lincoln Financial Field came out to nearly $512 million dollars with the Philadelphia Eagles footing 64% of that bill and the rest by the public. The new stadium seats 68,532 people. Some of the marvels at “the Linc”, as it is referred to, are the two gigantic 27 ft x 96 ft HDTV, flat screen technology boards situated at each end zone of the field. The boards are used to display scores, replays, and other announcements to the fans. They came at a cost of more than $8 million dollars. The two largest video screens of any NFL stadium in the country, each screen multiplies the size of their predecessor “Phanavision Screens” that were used at their former residence, Veterans Stadium. Also, there are flat screen boards that go around the width of the field between the upper and lower seating areas, each capable of displaying 68 billion shades of color.
The sound system consists of hundreds of speakers placed at specific locations throughout the stadium to create a surround-sound effect for every seat in the stadium. The sound system also allows specific sections to be messaged during games and in case of an emergency. There are 20 foot steel “talons” located at the top of the stadium to serve an aesthetical purpose for the talons of an eagle and have speakers attached them to provide sound to the end-zone seats. The sound system and roof were designed to send the noise back into the stadium in order to provide a louder experience for the fans and opposing teams that visit the “Linc”.
Even the playing surface is not an ordinary sod grass field. It’s a combination of natural grass and synthetic fibers. The top layer consists of Kentucky bluegrass grown at a turf farm New Jersey. However, artificial fibers were also sewn into the grass to make it stronger and more durable. Nearly 20 million synthetic fibers were injected into the turf 8 inches deep to prolong the life of the grass on the field and help anchor the roots of the grass by being attached to the artificial fibers in a process known as the DD Grassmaster system. Below the grass/fiber combination, there is a drainage and irrigation pipe system which keeps the field dry. In order to preserve the grass during cold weather, there is a heating system below the field that consists of 28 miles of plastic piping. An antifreeze mixture consisting of water and glycol is pumped through the pipes via computer to keep the grass at a temperature of about 60 degrees in the winter. In addition to all these layers, the Eagles also had a SubAir airflow system installed to aerate the grass and soil, leading to denser and healthier grass. All of these improvements kept in mind that the Veterans Stadium’s Astroturf surface was dubiously known as one of the worst fields in the league. The complex technology and engineering used for the new stadium is a significant improvement over the old turf, which was often referred to as the “hard-as-concrete” artificial turf.
In addition to all the amenities and technology used to improve the stadium, concessions and sales are made more convenient and quicker for the fans through the PowerPay system. Essentially, the PowerPay system is similar to the EZ-Pass system used for tolls and the Mobile Speedpass system. PowerPay is a plastic tag that has a tiny antenna and a radio-frequency ID chip embedded inside. When the key is swiped in front of a special reader at the concession stands, it matches the tag number with a consumer’s credit card number on file. The wireless payment system allows fans to spend less time waiting in line for concessions and more time watching the game.
In order to manage this entire network of marketing concessions, stadium maintenance, and information communication, the Eagles hired Harbor Technologies to design and help manage a state-of-the-art computer and communications network for Lincoln Financial Field. The network connects more than 1000 devices such as turnstiles, food service, and ticketing booths. The network can handle 345 million packets per second and provides two gigabits of bandwidth across a fiber optic network. Different departments of the stadium are split up into different virtual networks that allows for all the networks to be managed by one system but secure enough so that individual departments only have access to their respective divisions. Harbor Technologies is also building a wireless network that will connect the Linc with the Eagles practice facility, the NovaCare Complex, located about 400 yards away. This wireless network has a speed of nearly 430-megabits per second.
Citizens Bank Park
The total cost of Citizens Bank Park came out to nearly $458 million dollars with the Philadelphia Phillies footing $172 million dollars of the bill and the rest by the public. The seating capacity of the stadium is 43,500 people. Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball, said “This is Philadelphia, and it has everything that a ballpark ought to have here. It’s unique. It has a style of its own. It’s spectacular.”
The scoreboard is the largest display in the National League at approximately 35 x 71 ft. It uses full-color LED technology and is accompanied by smaller LED screens distributed around the park that informs the fans of pitch speed and type and displays advertising messages, graphics and animation. At any given time, fans can check on statistics from other games concurrently going such as scores, current pitchers, outs, and the number of runners in scoring positions.
In addition to the scoreboards and video screens, the Phillies installed nearly 700 TV’s within the stadium to allow those fans that are not in visible distance of the scoreboard to see the highlights of the game. 20” tube TV’s were installed in the concession areas and outside seating , 42” HD plasma displays were installed in the premium seating areas such as the club restaurants, and the club suites were outfitted with 15” LCD screens and plasma TV’s for private viewing of highlights. All of these components lead to a fan-friendly stadium where the fans don’t miss a single play of the game even when they are in line for concessions or finding their seat inside the park. Similar to the Linc, the field is a significant improvement over the Astroturf used at Veterans Stadium. The field is made up of 100% Kentucky bluegrass grown in New Jersey.
In order to manage a telecommunications system in the park, all 1000 concessions vendors and team front offices are connected in a single telephone system. Also, a separate network provides high-speed internet access to several locations in the park such as the press boxes for the media and the luxury box suites. Comcast also installed a 6000 feet fiber optic cable connected to Citizens Bank Park to help it broadcast in 5.1 surround sound mixes of the major sports events at nearby sports complexes
Franklin Field
Penn’s own Franklin Field, where the Eagles once played and the permanent home of the Quakers, underwent an overhaul of its playing surface this past summer of July 2004. AstroTurf had been the primary playing surface of the Quakers since 1970. The old and worn down AstroTurf was replaced by Sprinturf. Sprinturf is an all rubber infill system that feels like natural grass but is much softer and safer than Astroturf. The new surface has more give slack and thus is softer and safer for athletes and has a good drainage system below the field and around the perimeter of the field. The new field is a significant improvement over the old AstroTurf system that was also phased out from the Eagles, Phillies.
Technology
Jeffrey Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, said “Lincoln Financial Field will bring fans so much closer to the action as well as provide them with dramatically improved sight lines and the most state-of-the-art amenities and services. In terms of technological enhancements, the stadium represents a world of difference from what fans have experienced at Veterans Stadium and even from what is available in some of the newest facilities around the country.” The stadiums of yesterday, such as Veterans Stadium, are replaced by the newer age of stadiums where technology, engineering, and science are harnessed to create an entertainment center that is fan friendly and safer for players.
High-tech Archaeology
By Daiwei Mu, Triangle Writer
I recently sat down with Dr. Ann Blair Brownlee, senior research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to learn about the technology involved in the study of ancient ceramics. Dr. Brownlee specializes in ceramics of the Mediterranean region – the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan cultures – from the second millennium B.C.E. to the 3rd century C.E. “There are two main issues for archaeological museums,” she says, “research and display.” The research aspect uses present knowledge and techniques to learn more about an archaeological object. The display side deals with restoring a piece to a museum presentation level without altering its ancient condition.
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology focuses on the display and exhibition side in its display rooms (free to Penn students), but Dr. Brownlee touched briefly on a research technique, thermoluminescent dating. Thermoluminescent dating, or TL dating, is a technique for determining the authenticity and approximate age of ceramic artifacts based on the principle of thermoluminescence. All buried objects are exposed to radiation from the environment, which causes a shift in electrical charge. While the charge shift is mostly temporary, the radiation can sometimes be stored for long periods of time. When the object of interest is heated, this stored energy is released. This is known as thermoluminescence.
When an object is kiln-fired, the radiation stored since the “creation” of its components is released. If the object were to be heated again, the energy released would be associated with the radiation accumulated since it was kiln-fired. By measuring the amount of TL intensity through a range of temperatures and by measuring the ambient radiation of the environment where the object was found, one can then approximate the age of the artifact being studied. .
Dr. Brownlee then took me to see some of the artifacts she studies. Two doors and several locks later, we came to a stash of ancient pottery. An incomplete Athenian vase depicts Heracles carrying a boar perched menacingly over King Eurytheus, who had sent him to kill the boar. I wasn’t able to make out much from the figures due to a missing piece of the pot, but Dr. Brownlee pointed the famous hero out to me easily.
Many ceramic artifacts are recovered from underground chambers and tombs. If a chamber collapsed, then the pottery inside would probably break. If a chamber stays intact, chances are the pottery will as well. By virtue of their size, smaller objects tend to survive fully-intact more than larger objects. The Athenian piece is fairly large, so it is not particularly surprising that many pieces are missing.
Ceramics also vary by texture and color, both of which are related to the clays used and the temperature at which they were fired. The Athenian piece is bright – almost orange – and extremely hard. The color indicates that the jug was fired at a high temperature, which brought out the bright color of the iron. Some of the darker pieces are softer and more brittle, almost crumbly.
She went on to tell me about the glue used to hold the pieces together. It used to be that a crude, standard glue was used for every kind of ceramic. Nowadays, there are many different grades of glue strength. “You don’t want the glue to be stronger than the fabric,” intoned Dr. Brownlee. If the glue were weaker than the fabric, then stress on the object would only break along where the object is glued. As any mechanical engineer reading this would know, if the glue were stronger than the ceramic itself, any stress on the object could cause a new crack. This would alter the original condition of the artifact, which is to be avoided at all costs.
Modern ceramic glues are also soluble in water. One need only to place an object in water and watch, over the course of a week or so, as the glue dissolved. Of course, this process requires careful supervision and the occasional change of water. Older glues have to be dissolved using special solvents. This also requires that the solvents be applied directly into the cracks – a much longer and more painstaking process to preserve the artifact.
But what happens if there are pieces missing? All the glue in the world won’t hold two pieces of pottery together if there’s nothing connecting them. If a piece is incomplete, plaster is usually used to fill in the blanks. A broken artifact is usually assembled from the bottom up in a box of sand like a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces are inserted and glued together; if a gap is completely surrounded by existing pieces, then a piece of plaster is inserted into the hole. If a large gap exists such that the object cannot support its own weight, then plaster must be molded into the gap as the object is rebuilt. Of course, ordinary plaster of Paris does not keep its shape. The plaster actually used has the consistency of putty, so it can be molded into whatever shape is necessary. It then sets into that shape permanently.
After the pottery has been set and restored, it is time to put it on display. Dr. Brownlee led me through another door and out into a current exhibit. An exhibit is a carefully coordinated effort between the exhibition curator and the project team, which includes the person creating the mounts for the items on display. The artifacts must be mounted such that they tell the story the exhibit director wants, and the story told must also weave into the stories told by the other exhibits in the museum.
There are both aesthetic and practical concerns to address in mounting artifacts. On the aesthetic side, the mount must be visually pleasing, or at least discreet. If significant pieces of the object are missing, the mount should give an idea of what the artifact originally looked like.
A display of bronze fragments along with a plastic mount outline an Etruscan footstool is a good example of display techniques. The fragments are from the bits and cheek pieces of the bridles of a pair of horses; some of the horses’ teeth are also preserved. Then there are practical considerations. A mount must, at the minimum, offer support. The less conspicuous, though, the better.
All in all, I had a great day with Dr. Brownlee at the Museum. Despite the ongoing renovations in front of the museum, Penn students should really take advantage of this world-class museum right on our campus. So the next time you’re spending a weekend afternoon with nothing to do, grab some friends to head on over to the museum!
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free to all PennCard holders.
I recently sat down with Dr. Ann Blair Brownlee, senior research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to learn about the technology involved in the study of ancient ceramics. Dr. Brownlee specializes in ceramics of the Mediterranean region – the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan cultures – from the second millennium B.C.E. to the 3rd century C.E. “There are two main issues for archaeological museums,” she says, “research and display.” The research aspect uses present knowledge and techniques to learn more about an archaeological object. The display side deals with restoring a piece to a museum presentation level without altering its ancient condition.
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology focuses on the display and exhibition side in its display rooms (free to Penn students), but Dr. Brownlee touched briefly on a research technique, thermoluminescent dating. Thermoluminescent dating, or TL dating, is a technique for determining the authenticity and approximate age of ceramic artifacts based on the principle of thermoluminescence. All buried objects are exposed to radiation from the environment, which causes a shift in electrical charge. While the charge shift is mostly temporary, the radiation can sometimes be stored for long periods of time. When the object of interest is heated, this stored energy is released. This is known as thermoluminescence.
When an object is kiln-fired, the radiation stored since the “creation” of its components is released. If the object were to be heated again, the energy released would be associated with the radiation accumulated since it was kiln-fired. By measuring the amount of TL intensity through a range of temperatures and by measuring the ambient radiation of the environment where the object was found, one can then approximate the age of the artifact being studied. .
Dr. Brownlee then took me to see some of the artifacts she studies. Two doors and several locks later, we came to a stash of ancient pottery. An incomplete Athenian vase depicts Heracles carrying a boar perched menacingly over King Eurytheus, who had sent him to kill the boar. I wasn’t able to make out much from the figures due to a missing piece of the pot, but Dr. Brownlee pointed the famous hero out to me easily.
Many ceramic artifacts are recovered from underground chambers and tombs. If a chamber collapsed, then the pottery inside would probably break. If a chamber stays intact, chances are the pottery will as well. By virtue of their size, smaller objects tend to survive fully-intact more than larger objects. The Athenian piece is fairly large, so it is not particularly surprising that many pieces are missing.
Ceramics also vary by texture and color, both of which are related to the clays used and the temperature at which they were fired. The Athenian piece is bright – almost orange – and extremely hard. The color indicates that the jug was fired at a high temperature, which brought out the bright color of the iron. Some of the darker pieces are softer and more brittle, almost crumbly.
She went on to tell me about the glue used to hold the pieces together. It used to be that a crude, standard glue was used for every kind of ceramic. Nowadays, there are many different grades of glue strength. “You don’t want the glue to be stronger than the fabric,” intoned Dr. Brownlee. If the glue were weaker than the fabric, then stress on the object would only break along where the object is glued. As any mechanical engineer reading this would know, if the glue were stronger than the ceramic itself, any stress on the object could cause a new crack. This would alter the original condition of the artifact, which is to be avoided at all costs.
Modern ceramic glues are also soluble in water. One need only to place an object in water and watch, over the course of a week or so, as the glue dissolved. Of course, this process requires careful supervision and the occasional change of water. Older glues have to be dissolved using special solvents. This also requires that the solvents be applied directly into the cracks – a much longer and more painstaking process to preserve the artifact.
But what happens if there are pieces missing? All the glue in the world won’t hold two pieces of pottery together if there’s nothing connecting them. If a piece is incomplete, plaster is usually used to fill in the blanks. A broken artifact is usually assembled from the bottom up in a box of sand like a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces are inserted and glued together; if a gap is completely surrounded by existing pieces, then a piece of plaster is inserted into the hole. If a large gap exists such that the object cannot support its own weight, then plaster must be molded into the gap as the object is rebuilt. Of course, ordinary plaster of Paris does not keep its shape. The plaster actually used has the consistency of putty, so it can be molded into whatever shape is necessary. It then sets into that shape permanently.
After the pottery has been set and restored, it is time to put it on display. Dr. Brownlee led me through another door and out into a current exhibit. An exhibit is a carefully coordinated effort between the exhibition curator and the project team, which includes the person creating the mounts for the items on display. The artifacts must be mounted such that they tell the story the exhibit director wants, and the story told must also weave into the stories told by the other exhibits in the museum.
There are both aesthetic and practical concerns to address in mounting artifacts. On the aesthetic side, the mount must be visually pleasing, or at least discreet. If significant pieces of the object are missing, the mount should give an idea of what the artifact originally looked like.
A display of bronze fragments along with a plastic mount outline an Etruscan footstool is a good example of display techniques. The fragments are from the bits and cheek pieces of the bridles of a pair of horses; some of the horses’ teeth are also preserved. Then there are practical considerations. A mount must, at the minimum, offer support. The less conspicuous, though, the better.
All in all, I had a great day with Dr. Brownlee at the Museum. Despite the ongoing renovations in front of the museum, Penn students should really take advantage of this world-class museum right on our campus. So the next time you’re spending a weekend afternoon with nothing to do, grab some friends to head on over to the museum!
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free to all PennCard holders.
Browser Wars: Old favorites and new challengers
By Hunter Schloss, Triangle Copy Editor
See that blue “e” on your computer’s desktop? Of course you do. You probably click it several times each day. What you might not realize, however, is that there are other browsers out there that do a better job than Internet Explorer (IE) when it comes to surfing the web.
You’re not alone if you thought Internet Explorer was the only browser out there – around 95% of all web sites are viewed with the popular Microsoft program. This is due to the fact that virtually all computers come pre-installed with Windows on them, and therefore IE as well. What’s more, IE “just works” for most people.
So why should I switch?
The first reason that comes to mind is IE’s horrible track record when it comes to security. The latest version, IE 6, has been out for more than three years and has yet to undergo a serious and much-needed makeover. Consequently, hackers, criminals, and general bad-doers have had three years to hone their skill at infecting users’ computers with all sorts of spyware and viruses. One such security hole is actually marketed as a feature of IE – a tool called ActiveX. Originally designed to add a heightened level of interactivity and multimedia to the web, this “feature” has become the main vehicle by which spyware and other malicious programs install themselves on computers without the user’s notice or consent. The most famous example is one that happened earlier this year. A virus now being called “download.ject” installed itself on every computer using IE, which had the potential to steal confidential passwords to unauthorized third parties via the use of a program called a keystroke logger. How did this program install itself undetected, you may ask? That’s right – ActiveX. Sure, Microsoft issued a patch for the virus, but at that point it was too little, too late.
Another incentive to change browsers is IE’s lack of support for certain standards on the web. The most notable of these standards is a language much like HTML called CSS (short for “cascading style sheets”). CSS aids HTML by defining how a website is supposed to look – everything from font colors to layouts. This poses a catch-22 for web developers: code the way one “should” do it and risk faulty web pages for 95% of the population or code in a fashion that looks best in IE and throw all proper standards and procedures out the window? The end result is an internet riddled with inconsistencies which can stifle any proposed improvements to the way websites are developed.
Finally, most IE users just don’t realize what they’re missing with such an old browser. The most notable feature that jumps out when using an alternative browser is the use of tabbed browsing. Tabs allow you to easily switch between multiple web pages within the same window instead of cluttering up your taskbar with multiple windows. The whole concept sounds simplistic, but both the better interface of tabs and the small speed increase your computer experiences from not having to handle multiple windows at a time expedite your web surfing experience. Another characteristic these other browsers have is an integrated popup blocker. IE users have to go through the trouble of downloading third party software like the Google toolbar for this feature.
What else is out there? And which one is right for me?
Other popular browsers for Windows include Mozilla/Firefox (www.mozilla.org), Opera (www.opera.com), and Maxthon (www.maxthon.com – formerly called MyIE2). All of these browsers have a few things in common, the most important of which is that they’re all free (although with Opera you’ll have to pay to get rid of the advertisements at the top). None of them even bother with ActiveX, making them much more secure than IE. They also all employ tabbed browsing, proof that it is simply a more efficient web experience.
Mozilla/Firefox
First, of all, Mozilla/Firefox are really two different browsers made by the same company. If you really need everything but the kitchen sink in your browser, download Mozilla – it not only has a browser but a chat, email, and html client included. For the small and speedy stripped down version, download Firefox.
Mozilla/Firefox is currently the most popular alternative browsers out there, with around 4% market share. The first thing you notice about it is that it’s small – only a 4.5MB download, which greatly helps its speed. Mozilla/Firefox’s philosophy seems to be to just give you what you need, and let you install anything else. With that said, Mozilla/Firefox is not a browser short on features. Highlights include greater control over javascript on web pages (another security concern), an integrated pop-up blocker, and resizing images so they fit in the browser window. Some web pages, however, don’t display correctly, but these are definitely in the vast minority.
Of course, this “only what you need” attitude means you’ll have to install whatever customized plug-ins you may need, such as Flash, Shockwave, and Quicktime. For any other features you may have grown accustomed to, there are multiple extensions that you can download, ranging from enabling mouse gestures to notifying you when your gmail account has a new message. There are also multiple themes to change the look of the entire browser, from modern to kid-themed
It is ironic that both Mozilla and Firefox are making headway in the browser market against IE, since they are both based on Netscape code, the same browser that Microsoft tried desperately (and successfully) to kill. In fact, Mozilla/Firefox was actually spun off as a separate project from Netscape in the company’s last few days.
Opera
The most striking thing about Opera is the ads at the very top of the window. They’re not too distracting, and you can get rid of them by paying $39 (but who really wants to do that?). Opera has most of the features other browsers have, but it really shines in its ease of use when searching. It features a very handy pull-down menu next to the address bar that includes options for searching Google, Amazon.com, Ebay, Download.com, and more. Other commercial sites are included automatically in the bookmarks, although some people may see that as more of an annoyance than a service. If your favorite site isn’t on the list, you can always add it.
This user interface can seem a little intimidating at first, if only because there are too many options cluttering the screen. There are two toolbars at the top right below the ads and another toolbar on the left side. Thankfully, you can customize Opera to suit your preferences.
Maxthon
If you happen to enjoy the look and feel of IE and yet still want to switch, Maxthon is for you. All of its controls look very similar to their Microsoft counterparts, which leads to a more intuitive feel than the other two browsers. Like Opera, however, Maxthon is full of different options and settings, so getting this browser to work just how you want it to may take awhile. The method of displaying all these options is instinctive, with each setting belonging to a specific subgroup. This applies especially to the bookmark system, where it is very easy to separate your favorite web sites into groups for easier referencing.
The biggest downside to Maxthon, though, is its stability. A few times when I was opening large files or when I tried to switch between tabs too fast the program would lock up. While this is aggravating, Maxthon has the ability to open the last webpage you visited at startup, which minimizes the pain of frequent lock ups.
The browsers reviewed here are by no means the only ones; they are only the most popular. There is one that fits whatever experience you want to get out of the Internet. Each browser has its advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to go beyond even this simple review and find out for yourself which browser is right for you.
See that blue “e” on your computer’s desktop? Of course you do. You probably click it several times each day. What you might not realize, however, is that there are other browsers out there that do a better job than Internet Explorer (IE) when it comes to surfing the web.
You’re not alone if you thought Internet Explorer was the only browser out there – around 95% of all web sites are viewed with the popular Microsoft program. This is due to the fact that virtually all computers come pre-installed with Windows on them, and therefore IE as well. What’s more, IE “just works” for most people.
So why should I switch?
The first reason that comes to mind is IE’s horrible track record when it comes to security. The latest version, IE 6, has been out for more than three years and has yet to undergo a serious and much-needed makeover. Consequently, hackers, criminals, and general bad-doers have had three years to hone their skill at infecting users’ computers with all sorts of spyware and viruses. One such security hole is actually marketed as a feature of IE – a tool called ActiveX. Originally designed to add a heightened level of interactivity and multimedia to the web, this “feature” has become the main vehicle by which spyware and other malicious programs install themselves on computers without the user’s notice or consent. The most famous example is one that happened earlier this year. A virus now being called “download.ject” installed itself on every computer using IE, which had the potential to steal confidential passwords to unauthorized third parties via the use of a program called a keystroke logger. How did this program install itself undetected, you may ask? That’s right – ActiveX. Sure, Microsoft issued a patch for the virus, but at that point it was too little, too late.
Another incentive to change browsers is IE’s lack of support for certain standards on the web. The most notable of these standards is a language much like HTML called CSS (short for “cascading style sheets”). CSS aids HTML by defining how a website is supposed to look – everything from font colors to layouts. This poses a catch-22 for web developers: code the way one “should” do it and risk faulty web pages for 95% of the population or code in a fashion that looks best in IE and throw all proper standards and procedures out the window? The end result is an internet riddled with inconsistencies which can stifle any proposed improvements to the way websites are developed.
Finally, most IE users just don’t realize what they’re missing with such an old browser. The most notable feature that jumps out when using an alternative browser is the use of tabbed browsing. Tabs allow you to easily switch between multiple web pages within the same window instead of cluttering up your taskbar with multiple windows. The whole concept sounds simplistic, but both the better interface of tabs and the small speed increase your computer experiences from not having to handle multiple windows at a time expedite your web surfing experience. Another characteristic these other browsers have is an integrated popup blocker. IE users have to go through the trouble of downloading third party software like the Google toolbar for this feature.
What else is out there? And which one is right for me?
Other popular browsers for Windows include Mozilla/Firefox (www.mozilla.org), Opera (www.opera.com), and Maxthon (www.maxthon.com – formerly called MyIE2). All of these browsers have a few things in common, the most important of which is that they’re all free (although with Opera you’ll have to pay to get rid of the advertisements at the top). None of them even bother with ActiveX, making them much more secure than IE. They also all employ tabbed browsing, proof that it is simply a more efficient web experience.
Mozilla/Firefox
First, of all, Mozilla/Firefox are really two different browsers made by the same company. If you really need everything but the kitchen sink in your browser, download Mozilla – it not only has a browser but a chat, email, and html client included. For the small and speedy stripped down version, download Firefox.
Mozilla/Firefox is currently the most popular alternative browsers out there, with around 4% market share. The first thing you notice about it is that it’s small – only a 4.5MB download, which greatly helps its speed. Mozilla/Firefox’s philosophy seems to be to just give you what you need, and let you install anything else. With that said, Mozilla/Firefox is not a browser short on features. Highlights include greater control over javascript on web pages (another security concern), an integrated pop-up blocker, and resizing images so they fit in the browser window. Some web pages, however, don’t display correctly, but these are definitely in the vast minority.
Of course, this “only what you need” attitude means you’ll have to install whatever customized plug-ins you may need, such as Flash, Shockwave, and Quicktime. For any other features you may have grown accustomed to, there are multiple extensions that you can download, ranging from enabling mouse gestures to notifying you when your gmail account has a new message. There are also multiple themes to change the look of the entire browser, from modern to kid-themed
It is ironic that both Mozilla and Firefox are making headway in the browser market against IE, since they are both based on Netscape code, the same browser that Microsoft tried desperately (and successfully) to kill. In fact, Mozilla/Firefox was actually spun off as a separate project from Netscape in the company’s last few days.
Opera
The most striking thing about Opera is the ads at the very top of the window. They’re not too distracting, and you can get rid of them by paying $39 (but who really wants to do that?). Opera has most of the features other browsers have, but it really shines in its ease of use when searching. It features a very handy pull-down menu next to the address bar that includes options for searching Google, Amazon.com, Ebay, Download.com, and more. Other commercial sites are included automatically in the bookmarks, although some people may see that as more of an annoyance than a service. If your favorite site isn’t on the list, you can always add it.
This user interface can seem a little intimidating at first, if only because there are too many options cluttering the screen. There are two toolbars at the top right below the ads and another toolbar on the left side. Thankfully, you can customize Opera to suit your preferences.
Maxthon
If you happen to enjoy the look and feel of IE and yet still want to switch, Maxthon is for you. All of its controls look very similar to their Microsoft counterparts, which leads to a more intuitive feel than the other two browsers. Like Opera, however, Maxthon is full of different options and settings, so getting this browser to work just how you want it to may take awhile. The method of displaying all these options is instinctive, with each setting belonging to a specific subgroup. This applies especially to the bookmark system, where it is very easy to separate your favorite web sites into groups for easier referencing.
The biggest downside to Maxthon, though, is its stability. A few times when I was opening large files or when I tried to switch between tabs too fast the program would lock up. While this is aggravating, Maxthon has the ability to open the last webpage you visited at startup, which minimizes the pain of frequent lock ups.
The browsers reviewed here are by no means the only ones; they are only the most popular. There is one that fits whatever experience you want to get out of the Internet. Each browser has its advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to go beyond even this simple review and find out for yourself which browser is right for you.
God The Engineer? Taking a look at the theory of Intelligent Design
By Bonnie Waring, Triangle Writer
The debate over the existence of naturalistic macroevolution has always been a polarizing one, pitting churches against schools, parents against teachers, and students against each other. Most of the scientific community strongly support the idea of natural selection as the driving force behind evolutionary adaptation, while creationists argue equally fervently that today’s living animals were created by a Supreme Being only thousands of years ago. In the midst of this heated debate, it’s easy for everyone, even “informed” college students, to forget other alternative platforms. What if God was the ultimate engineer? The notion of Intelligent Design, which takes a “middle of the road” approach, is one such theory that attempts to provide a scientific justification for the rejection of the theory of macroevolution. However, they do accept the idea that species have undergone slight morphological and genetic changes over time and agree that the earth is billions of years old.
The theory of Intelligent Design centers around the idea of “irreducible complexity.” According to Dr. Michael J. Behe (who received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Penn in 1978), an irreducibly complex system is one which cannot operate without all of its components in place; furthermore, those components have no function on their own. For example, a mousetrap (a favorite of the stereotypical engineer who wants to make everything better) is built from a wooden platform, a hammer, a spring to operate the hammer, and a catch and bar to hold the spring back. Without any one of these objects, the mousetrap would not work. Nor do the platform, hammer, spring, or catch serve any purpose by themselves. Similarly, it would be impossible for biological structures as basic as cellular organelles or proteins to assemble from constituent parts which cannot exist in isolation.
Although proponents of Intelligent Design concede that populations of existent, complex organisms may undergo subtle changes as they adapt to their environments, they assert that the basic morphological and biochemical patterns of those organisms were created by some sort of intelligent being. To quote cell biologist Dr. Jonathan Wells, what evolutionary biologists call natural selection is simply the “[oscillation] around a mean” of a given trait. For instance, he points to a study of the changing beak size of a population of Galápagos finches in the presence of decreased food supply to prove that such variation is not a response to environmental stress. Evolutionists observed that a drought had eliminated all but the hardiest seeds, so it made sense that the surviving finches had larger, more powerful beaks. But Wells maintains that the apparent trend in beak size was simply a random coincidence, for after a period of time, average beak size returned to normal. In his opinion, no new species have emerged due to selective pressures.
If the theory of irreducible complexity is accepted, then it appears implausible that life on this planet arose spontaneously. John Reidaar-Olson and Robert Sauer of MIT performed an experiment in which they determined the likelihood of the “random assembly” of the » repressor protein in Escherichia coli bacteria, which functions to give the cell immunity from bacteriophages. According to their calculations, the probability of this event is one chance in 1063. Since “a sum total of fewer than 1050 organisms from all species have existed on Earth” throughout history, it seems nearly impossible that the » repressor was not intelligently designed.
However, there is a fatal flaw in the irreducible complexity theory and hence, the Reidaar-Olson-Sauer experiment. Kenneth Miller, a biology professor at Brown University, agrees that the individual components of an irreducibly complex system may not have any discrete functions which apply to the system as a whole. However, he argues that the subunits themselves may have separate applications which necessitate their presence in a cell or organ system. Over time, with the application of selective pressures, the components assemble themselves into a superstructure with emergent properties – in other words, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. As an example, Miller cites a complex of proteins found in bacterial flagella which works in isolation to help inject poison into competing cells. A bacterium does not need a flagellum to make use of one of the flagellum’s components. Similarly, the likelihood of the random assembly of the » repressor from individual amino acids may be miniscule. But the probability increases if it is assumed that the protein arose from the conjunction of only a few smaller amino acid sequences.
It is clear that the scientific basis for Intelligent Design is unsound. Why, then, does it continue to be debated? Perhaps supporters of the theory cling to their scant proof in order to justify the existence of a higher power. Denying that a Supreme Being could set in motion a process as elegant as evolution seems an affront to the idea of God. Evolution does not necessitate the existence of a Creator, but it does not reject the notion either. Proponents of Intelligent Design cannot be condemned for attempting to make room for God in their scientific theories. Yet the presentation of flawed experimental and theoretical evidence cannot be condoned.
Further discussion of Intelligent Design can be found at:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
The debate over the existence of naturalistic macroevolution has always been a polarizing one, pitting churches against schools, parents against teachers, and students against each other. Most of the scientific community strongly support the idea of natural selection as the driving force behind evolutionary adaptation, while creationists argue equally fervently that today’s living animals were created by a Supreme Being only thousands of years ago. In the midst of this heated debate, it’s easy for everyone, even “informed” college students, to forget other alternative platforms. What if God was the ultimate engineer? The notion of Intelligent Design, which takes a “middle of the road” approach, is one such theory that attempts to provide a scientific justification for the rejection of the theory of macroevolution. However, they do accept the idea that species have undergone slight morphological and genetic changes over time and agree that the earth is billions of years old.
The theory of Intelligent Design centers around the idea of “irreducible complexity.” According to Dr. Michael J. Behe (who received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Penn in 1978), an irreducibly complex system is one which cannot operate without all of its components in place; furthermore, those components have no function on their own. For example, a mousetrap (a favorite of the stereotypical engineer who wants to make everything better) is built from a wooden platform, a hammer, a spring to operate the hammer, and a catch and bar to hold the spring back. Without any one of these objects, the mousetrap would not work. Nor do the platform, hammer, spring, or catch serve any purpose by themselves. Similarly, it would be impossible for biological structures as basic as cellular organelles or proteins to assemble from constituent parts which cannot exist in isolation.
Although proponents of Intelligent Design concede that populations of existent, complex organisms may undergo subtle changes as they adapt to their environments, they assert that the basic morphological and biochemical patterns of those organisms were created by some sort of intelligent being. To quote cell biologist Dr. Jonathan Wells, what evolutionary biologists call natural selection is simply the “[oscillation] around a mean” of a given trait. For instance, he points to a study of the changing beak size of a population of Galápagos finches in the presence of decreased food supply to prove that such variation is not a response to environmental stress. Evolutionists observed that a drought had eliminated all but the hardiest seeds, so it made sense that the surviving finches had larger, more powerful beaks. But Wells maintains that the apparent trend in beak size was simply a random coincidence, for after a period of time, average beak size returned to normal. In his opinion, no new species have emerged due to selective pressures.
If the theory of irreducible complexity is accepted, then it appears implausible that life on this planet arose spontaneously. John Reidaar-Olson and Robert Sauer of MIT performed an experiment in which they determined the likelihood of the “random assembly” of the » repressor protein in Escherichia coli bacteria, which functions to give the cell immunity from bacteriophages. According to their calculations, the probability of this event is one chance in 1063. Since “a sum total of fewer than 1050 organisms from all species have existed on Earth” throughout history, it seems nearly impossible that the » repressor was not intelligently designed.
However, there is a fatal flaw in the irreducible complexity theory and hence, the Reidaar-Olson-Sauer experiment. Kenneth Miller, a biology professor at Brown University, agrees that the individual components of an irreducibly complex system may not have any discrete functions which apply to the system as a whole. However, he argues that the subunits themselves may have separate applications which necessitate their presence in a cell or organ system. Over time, with the application of selective pressures, the components assemble themselves into a superstructure with emergent properties – in other words, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. As an example, Miller cites a complex of proteins found in bacterial flagella which works in isolation to help inject poison into competing cells. A bacterium does not need a flagellum to make use of one of the flagellum’s components. Similarly, the likelihood of the random assembly of the » repressor from individual amino acids may be miniscule. But the probability increases if it is assumed that the protein arose from the conjunction of only a few smaller amino acid sequences.
It is clear that the scientific basis for Intelligent Design is unsound. Why, then, does it continue to be debated? Perhaps supporters of the theory cling to their scant proof in order to justify the existence of a higher power. Denying that a Supreme Being could set in motion a process as elegant as evolution seems an affront to the idea of God. Evolution does not necessitate the existence of a Creator, but it does not reject the notion either. Proponents of Intelligent Design cannot be condemned for attempting to make room for God in their scientific theories. Yet the presentation of flawed experimental and theoretical evidence cannot be condoned.
Further discussion of Intelligent Design can be found at:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
Science and Religion: An Unbridgeable Divide?
By Sujit S. Datta, Triangle online eMag Editor-in-Chief
There is a lot of talk nowadays about the ‘dialogue’ between science and theology. There are innumerable foundations and centers out there promoting such seemingly idealistic intentions as the “creative mutual interaction between contemporary theology and the natural sciences”, working for a “dynamic and positive relationship between religion and science”, or other such objectives. Do these people actually believe that constructive dialogue between science and religion is possible, or is this simply a case of idealism taken too far?
The presupposition that science and religion can be reconciled is not uncommon, and has actually become taken for granted by many schools of thought. People have learned to live with science and religion, either by dismissing away the apparent contradictions between the two by treating them as ‘non-overlapping magisteria’, or more frequently, by not concerning themselves with this issue at all. However, at the risk of stirring up an age-old debate, I feel we must pose the question – are science and religion really as compatible as many take them to be; and if not, does their division pose a problem that can be bridged? To quote Albert Einstein, does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science?
Aristotle tells us that “all human beings, by nature, desire to know”. But what is knowledge? What is truth? How do we arrive at truth? Questions like these have troubled and motivated scientists, philosophers, and theologians throughout history. There is no doubt that science and religion are both motivated by the same desire to understand the true nature of things. The conflict between science and religion, if there is one, is not between their goals, but rather between the ways they set about fulfilling them.
There appear to be four sides in this debate – those who view science as being the only way to reach truth and religion being nothing but unfounded and blind faith; those who side by the integrity of religion; those who believe that science and religion can somehow be reconciled; and those who are just plain confused. To reach anywhere in this debate, we will first have to see how each side presents itself.
Science – too restricted?
There is too much pseudoscience floating out there. Quite commonly, one finds books written about spiritual themes that purport to be ‘scientific’, but in all actuality simply use scientific terminology to appear more authentic. It is not easy to present the criticisms of science put forward by the religion camp, largely because these tend to be couched in flowery, prosaic language, and often don’t make much sense. That the advocates of religion over science cannot sufficiently expound on the points they wish to attack does not mean to say that science does not have its failings – far from it.
It seems to me that the main criticisms of science as a means of seeking the truth can be divided into the following: the reductionist criticism, the problem of science as a social construct, and the criticism of absolute, objective truth.
The word ‘reductionist’ is constantly being thrown out by the critics of science as one of its failings. But what exactly is scientific reductionism? There are different forms of reductionism inherent in scientific methodology. The fundamental belief in an ordered world was essential to the rise of modern science. If our ancestors had thrown up their hands in surrender when faced with a seemingly inexplicable world, resorting instead to explaining away their ignorance by constructing a totally random (and hence incomprehensible) world controlled by the whims and desires of gods and divine beings, then we would be nowhere as near advanced in our understanding of the world as we are today. The presupposition that the world can be understood - when taken in this respect - is undoubtedly a good thing.
However, this assumption has its limits, and we should be wary of explaining away too much with too little – ‘greedy reductionism’, as termed by the Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett. This happens, for example, when we attempt to explain the workings of a system simply by explaining the sum of its components alone, and ignore any phenomena that may emerge from the workings of the system. It is very easy to understand a system by deconstructing it into its parts, understanding how they in turn work, and then simply equating the two together. For example, if I throw a ball to someone else in a baseball game, our actions can be described in terms of human physiology, and on a more microscopic level, by the principles of physics and biochemistry. It can be said that the baseball game is nothing more than the interplay of several organic molecules, atoms and electrons, and whatnot. This statement is quite right, on a very simplistic level. But does it really increase our understanding of the baseball game? And in addition, if by similar means other processes could be explained in terms of the same physical and biological laws, could we not equate the World Series and the Tour de France? It is very easy to confuse a phenomenon and an explanation. The purpose of science is to best explain the physical world, but this form of ‘greedy reductionism’ – the ease of confusing an explanation with true reality - is indeed a valid criticism of science. We are forced to give up science as being a way of reaching truth, and instead have to accept it as being a means of explaining the way true reality works.
Another form of this reductionism is suggested in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from his Republic. The thought-experiment posed is basically this: suppose you are a chained prisoner in a dark cave, with other prisoners who you cannot see. You cannot even see yourself. Behind you is a lit fire, which casts your shadows on the wall facing you. For you, all of reality would be the cave, the sounds you and the other prisoners utter, and the shadows cast on the wall of the cave – for you would perceive yourself and the others as mere shadows and sounds, nothing more. Your reality would follow different laws. Now suppose you are a bacterium in a Petri dish, placed in a dark closet. To you, all of reality is your Petri dish. To you, reality works in different ways yet again.
Quite simply, what Plato is questioning in this parable is the nature of reality. Imagine that humans somehow discover a ‘Theory of Everything’ – a set of laws that somehow explains our physical world to more than enough degrees of precision. Quite understandably, we would assume that we had explained all of reality and truth. But what if we as a society are but a small colony of bacteria in a Petri dish, or a chained prisoner in a cave? What if there is another grander reality out there that we have virtually no way of understanding or even conceiving of, of which we are simply a tiny part? Would our so-called ‘Theory of Everything’ be able to explain even a tiny percentage of the true nature of things? I think not. It is this form of reductionism - the desire to reduce all of reality to elegant ‘fundamental laws’ that are omnipotent and all-encompassing - that convinces scientific fundamentalists that theirs is the only truth.
Foucault and Nietzsche, Marx and Mannheim, while espousing different theories of the exact causes of belief, all agreed on an explanation of the general framework of scientific belief as a social construct. What they suggested was the now widely-held notion that science and the direction of scientific research are heavily subject to socioeconomic forces – similar to other ideologies, as religious and political leanings, or what Marx referred to as ‘forms of consciousness’ (simply put, anything that has to do with ideas).
Throughout history, scientific research has always been subject to economic and political forces. As a result, there has always been a deep-seated division between theory and practicality in the sciences. This arises from the fact that scientific research costs money, the majority of which comes from funding by corporations or organizations with vested interests in the research being performed. The only research that corporations would actually find interesting – and hence, want to fund – is research of a more practical nature; and only research that ties in with the socioeconomic and political interests of the time, at that. Thus, it can easily be seen why this framework has led to a rift between the theoretical sciences and the practical sciences, with the theoretical sciences being heavily under funded – a shame, considering the new and groundbreaking insights that have been a result of them, which have subsequently been applied by practical science into things that are useful - or more often, things that are pretty and appealing to the masses. We like seeing magnificent shows with plenty of light and action, not a scientist scribbling away in his notebook. In this ‘modern’ society of ours, science has been reduced to nothing more than a performing monkey.
And now we come to the argument against absolute, objective truth. As I mentioned before, science and the scientific method is based on the notion that this world of ours is a structured and ordered, inherently knowable world – and in addition, that the same universal laws govern everything. This idea has been around since the time of Newton and his Principia, in which he presented his universal law of gravitation – ‘universal’ meaning that the same laws of gravitation governed the largest heavenly bodies as they did the smallest particles. Ever since then, the notion of a universal ‘theory of everything’ has more or less become ingrained in our collective scientific consciousness. When discussing reductionism in science, I suggested that perhaps a ‘theory of everything’ would possibly not truly explain everything, but simply everything that we know of. Let us go back one more step – maybe there isn’t even a ‘theory of everything’ for our present reality. What if the reality we know of cannot be explained by universal laws? What if our most fundamental assumption, that the world is knowable, is really just a lie? What if, spurred on by our successes at explaining so much of the world that we know, we have become too headstrong and prematurely jumped to the conclusion that it is possible to understand everything?
These questions deal with the ‘absolute truth’ assumption of science. But what about the assumption that scientific truths must be objective? A fundamental assumption of the scientific method is that for us to reach truth, we must be purely objective. This idea does indeed make a lot of sense. However, it also discounts the notion of there being a subjective truth What if truth is not the same for everyone – that perhaps a law may be true for you, and the world that you perceive, but is false for me, and my own little world? Yes, abiding by objectivity allows us to come up with reproducible results. But taken too far, objectivity also discounts the possibility of truth being an individual thing, for it is easy for us to become headstrong and arrogant by our successes through the scientific method and take it to be the one sole way of understanding the world. In fact, science by its nature must be subjective, for it is performed by scientists – humans – not disinterested automata. So why do we still try to put up this show of science being purely objective; and perhaps more importantly, why must we have a purely objective science?
Religion under fire
It is not hard to understand the rationalistic position on religion. One of the first accepted descriptions of scientific reasoning and logic was given by Aristotle in his Organon, and since then, we have come to accept the general description of science as being the use of structured principles of logic, methodology and rationality to understand the true nature of things – the ‘scientific method’, as it is known. The scientific method has undergone extensive modification, scrutiny, and ultimately, acceptation, and it is virtually unknown to hear of someone question its veracity in these times. No one doubts the results of science, mainly because science produces reproducible and verifiable results.
It is not enough in science to accept the word of someone else; all scientific theories are peer-reviewed, and can be tested over and over again to one’s heart’s content – the results will always be the same. The underlying assumption is that, if someone performs an experiment halfway around the world from me, then given the same experimental conditions, I should be able to replicate their results. We see the results of this all around us – the planes we use to fly across the world in a mere day, the computers whose indescribable power we readily have at our fingertips, even the lights we unthinkingly switch on at the beginning of every new day – these are all the products of scientific principles. The acceptability of science stems largely in part from its practicality and usefulness.
Does religion have a similar practicality, or structural framework of methodological skepticism? No. The critics of religion do have a point when they portray religion as being based on blind faith, anecdotal evidence, and unquestioning trust in authority. When presented in this way, it is not hard to see how strong science stands and how shaky the foundations of religion are.
Ancient peoples believed in different gods and goddesses, different structures of the universe, and different laws that governed the world (or perhaps believed in the non-existence of laws in a purely chaotic world). They prayed to Zeus or Ra, Thor or Quetzalcoatl, or perhaps, to an “Earth Mother”. As far as they were concerned, these gods controlled all of creation, and could be pleased or displeased. If the gods could be pleased by performing certain rituals, or by simply following certain rules of ethics and morality, then things would go well. If the gods were displeased, then life would be very harsh, and humans would have to make up for their failings. These rituals and codes of ethics were often intertwined, and developed through the generations into formalized religions, whose authorities could not be doubted in the least. They passed down stories of the gods and goddesses, and of great people who achieved divine status because of their actions. In these so-called modern times, we study these rituals, ceremonies and beliefs, read about these gods and goddesses, and often find them and their exploits laughable and amusing. It is not uncommon to ridicule ancient peoples and their beliefs – beliefs that we now know to be wrong, through none other than science. But why do we not go that extra step and ridicule the processes that gave rise to these beliefs? After all, if the beliefs that ancient peoples held about life, the universe, and everything else were wrong, then surely the methodology (or lack of it) that produced such beliefs is somehow flawed as well?
Scientific research in fields such as paranormal psychology is increasingly debunking religious myths and questioning the ‘divine’ nature of many religious experiences. Cognitive research in the neural basis of religious expression has turned up many interesting findings, such as the effects of the brain’s temporal lobe – quickly dubbed the ‘god module’ – which, upon excitation in certain patients, results in the subject responding more intensely to religious beliefs or having frequent ‘mystical’ experiences, similar to those of innumerable ‘holy’ men. Spiritual fervor is increasingly becoming nothing more than a model for psychiatric delusion. This begs the question, where does psychosis end and religious belief begin?
It seems to me that it is too convenient to explain things away by resorting to a god (or gods), or divine being of some sort. As the famous science fiction writer Robert Heinlein puts it, religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. True, there are a lot of questions that are not answered by science, questions that cannot be answered by the scientific method. Not all things can be quantified, and not all relationships can be empirically established. There is a whole realm of existence and experience that science simply does not treat. I must also admit that there are many questions out there that science has not yet answered, simply because scientists have not arrived at an answer. We don’t understand everything out there. This is not a failing of science. It is unfortunate, then, that there are far too many people out there who see this as a valid criticism of science – who look to unexplained phenomena as proof that ‘something else’ exists out there that somehow defies scientific understanding.
The common misconception is that since the spiritual or supernatural realm is the only sphere of thought that purports to answer these questions, it must be correct. People turn to theology or the supernatural for answers to the questions that science cannot, or has not, answered. Religion exists in modern society to make up for science’s failings, not to dedicate itself to the search for truth, and the problem with this tendency to look for answers in the supernatural or spiritual realm is that they are so easy to find – just not the right ones. To quote Heinlein once again, the nice thing about citing god as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.
Life, the Universe, and Everything…
It is clear that there are flaws in our current system of thought. Science and religion both purport to be means of gaining insights into the true nature of reality and the physical world, or at least understanding how true reality works.
Science has generated breathtaking results and insights, but is still built on assumptions that may not always be applicable in understanding the true nature of things. The problem with science is that it has become too confident of its success – perhaps rightfully so – and must reassess the assumptions and premises it is based on. Science is a spiritual quest – scientists do what they do because they are fascinated by the world around them. Why do we restrict ourselves? Perhaps we should come up with a new methodology and framework to treat the realms of the world that we have previously ignored. We must be open-minded enough to pursue this undertaking wherever it may lead us; we must be bold enough to attempt to apply what the structured methodology of the scientific method has taught us to more uncommon modes of thought.
Spirituality, in sharp contrast, has not gotten us anywhere. It is still based on shaky foundations of blind faith, and unquestioning belief in authority. Religion does include a more subjective aspect that teaches us how to live our lives and how to interpret the world around us. But without a willingness to accept rationality and build a sound methodology, religion will continue to be nothing more than something that exists to make us feel good about ourselves, the ‘crutch’ that we turn to when all else fails. Either religion can continue providing the emotional support that it does to innumerable followers and stop pretending that it answers any questions that deal with the true nature of reality; or, religion must be willing to adopt a more structured, coherent and logical worldview and work hand in hand with science to explore the realms of the unknown.
We live in interesting times. Science and religion both play enormous roles in our lives; and yet, we are largely uninterested by them and what they stand for. The successes of science have made us more complacent about it, and reluctant to expand its boundaries any further; while on the other hand, religion has still clung on to archaic beliefs in authority and has largely shunned rationality and methodology. We have largely ceased to concern ourselves with the relationship between the two and have instead chosen to relegate them to different areas of life. This must change. We should be more open to having discourse between the two, for there is no doubt that both science and religion can learn much from each other. We must do this now, to prevent both spheres of thought from becoming stagnant and set in their ways. Is this too much to ask – ‘unfounded idealism’, as I termed it at the beginning of this article? I hope not, for the sake of both science and religion.
There is a lot of talk nowadays about the ‘dialogue’ between science and theology. There are innumerable foundations and centers out there promoting such seemingly idealistic intentions as the “creative mutual interaction between contemporary theology and the natural sciences”, working for a “dynamic and positive relationship between religion and science”, or other such objectives. Do these people actually believe that constructive dialogue between science and religion is possible, or is this simply a case of idealism taken too far?
The presupposition that science and religion can be reconciled is not uncommon, and has actually become taken for granted by many schools of thought. People have learned to live with science and religion, either by dismissing away the apparent contradictions between the two by treating them as ‘non-overlapping magisteria’, or more frequently, by not concerning themselves with this issue at all. However, at the risk of stirring up an age-old debate, I feel we must pose the question – are science and religion really as compatible as many take them to be; and if not, does their division pose a problem that can be bridged? To quote Albert Einstein, does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science?
Aristotle tells us that “all human beings, by nature, desire to know”. But what is knowledge? What is truth? How do we arrive at truth? Questions like these have troubled and motivated scientists, philosophers, and theologians throughout history. There is no doubt that science and religion are both motivated by the same desire to understand the true nature of things. The conflict between science and religion, if there is one, is not between their goals, but rather between the ways they set about fulfilling them.
There appear to be four sides in this debate – those who view science as being the only way to reach truth and religion being nothing but unfounded and blind faith; those who side by the integrity of religion; those who believe that science and religion can somehow be reconciled; and those who are just plain confused. To reach anywhere in this debate, we will first have to see how each side presents itself.
Science – too restricted?
There is too much pseudoscience floating out there. Quite commonly, one finds books written about spiritual themes that purport to be ‘scientific’, but in all actuality simply use scientific terminology to appear more authentic. It is not easy to present the criticisms of science put forward by the religion camp, largely because these tend to be couched in flowery, prosaic language, and often don’t make much sense. That the advocates of religion over science cannot sufficiently expound on the points they wish to attack does not mean to say that science does not have its failings – far from it.
It seems to me that the main criticisms of science as a means of seeking the truth can be divided into the following: the reductionist criticism, the problem of science as a social construct, and the criticism of absolute, objective truth.
The word ‘reductionist’ is constantly being thrown out by the critics of science as one of its failings. But what exactly is scientific reductionism? There are different forms of reductionism inherent in scientific methodology. The fundamental belief in an ordered world was essential to the rise of modern science. If our ancestors had thrown up their hands in surrender when faced with a seemingly inexplicable world, resorting instead to explaining away their ignorance by constructing a totally random (and hence incomprehensible) world controlled by the whims and desires of gods and divine beings, then we would be nowhere as near advanced in our understanding of the world as we are today. The presupposition that the world can be understood - when taken in this respect - is undoubtedly a good thing.
However, this assumption has its limits, and we should be wary of explaining away too much with too little – ‘greedy reductionism’, as termed by the Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett. This happens, for example, when we attempt to explain the workings of a system simply by explaining the sum of its components alone, and ignore any phenomena that may emerge from the workings of the system. It is very easy to understand a system by deconstructing it into its parts, understanding how they in turn work, and then simply equating the two together. For example, if I throw a ball to someone else in a baseball game, our actions can be described in terms of human physiology, and on a more microscopic level, by the principles of physics and biochemistry. It can be said that the baseball game is nothing more than the interplay of several organic molecules, atoms and electrons, and whatnot. This statement is quite right, on a very simplistic level. But does it really increase our understanding of the baseball game? And in addition, if by similar means other processes could be explained in terms of the same physical and biological laws, could we not equate the World Series and the Tour de France? It is very easy to confuse a phenomenon and an explanation. The purpose of science is to best explain the physical world, but this form of ‘greedy reductionism’ – the ease of confusing an explanation with true reality - is indeed a valid criticism of science. We are forced to give up science as being a way of reaching truth, and instead have to accept it as being a means of explaining the way true reality works.
Another form of this reductionism is suggested in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from his Republic. The thought-experiment posed is basically this: suppose you are a chained prisoner in a dark cave, with other prisoners who you cannot see. You cannot even see yourself. Behind you is a lit fire, which casts your shadows on the wall facing you. For you, all of reality would be the cave, the sounds you and the other prisoners utter, and the shadows cast on the wall of the cave – for you would perceive yourself and the others as mere shadows and sounds, nothing more. Your reality would follow different laws. Now suppose you are a bacterium in a Petri dish, placed in a dark closet. To you, all of reality is your Petri dish. To you, reality works in different ways yet again.
Quite simply, what Plato is questioning in this parable is the nature of reality. Imagine that humans somehow discover a ‘Theory of Everything’ – a set of laws that somehow explains our physical world to more than enough degrees of precision. Quite understandably, we would assume that we had explained all of reality and truth. But what if we as a society are but a small colony of bacteria in a Petri dish, or a chained prisoner in a cave? What if there is another grander reality out there that we have virtually no way of understanding or even conceiving of, of which we are simply a tiny part? Would our so-called ‘Theory of Everything’ be able to explain even a tiny percentage of the true nature of things? I think not. It is this form of reductionism - the desire to reduce all of reality to elegant ‘fundamental laws’ that are omnipotent and all-encompassing - that convinces scientific fundamentalists that theirs is the only truth.
Foucault and Nietzsche, Marx and Mannheim, while espousing different theories of the exact causes of belief, all agreed on an explanation of the general framework of scientific belief as a social construct. What they suggested was the now widely-held notion that science and the direction of scientific research are heavily subject to socioeconomic forces – similar to other ideologies, as religious and political leanings, or what Marx referred to as ‘forms of consciousness’ (simply put, anything that has to do with ideas).
Throughout history, scientific research has always been subject to economic and political forces. As a result, there has always been a deep-seated division between theory and practicality in the sciences. This arises from the fact that scientific research costs money, the majority of which comes from funding by corporations or organizations with vested interests in the research being performed. The only research that corporations would actually find interesting – and hence, want to fund – is research of a more practical nature; and only research that ties in with the socioeconomic and political interests of the time, at that. Thus, it can easily be seen why this framework has led to a rift between the theoretical sciences and the practical sciences, with the theoretical sciences being heavily under funded – a shame, considering the new and groundbreaking insights that have been a result of them, which have subsequently been applied by practical science into things that are useful - or more often, things that are pretty and appealing to the masses. We like seeing magnificent shows with plenty of light and action, not a scientist scribbling away in his notebook. In this ‘modern’ society of ours, science has been reduced to nothing more than a performing monkey.
And now we come to the argument against absolute, objective truth. As I mentioned before, science and the scientific method is based on the notion that this world of ours is a structured and ordered, inherently knowable world – and in addition, that the same universal laws govern everything. This idea has been around since the time of Newton and his Principia, in which he presented his universal law of gravitation – ‘universal’ meaning that the same laws of gravitation governed the largest heavenly bodies as they did the smallest particles. Ever since then, the notion of a universal ‘theory of everything’ has more or less become ingrained in our collective scientific consciousness. When discussing reductionism in science, I suggested that perhaps a ‘theory of everything’ would possibly not truly explain everything, but simply everything that we know of. Let us go back one more step – maybe there isn’t even a ‘theory of everything’ for our present reality. What if the reality we know of cannot be explained by universal laws? What if our most fundamental assumption, that the world is knowable, is really just a lie? What if, spurred on by our successes at explaining so much of the world that we know, we have become too headstrong and prematurely jumped to the conclusion that it is possible to understand everything?
These questions deal with the ‘absolute truth’ assumption of science. But what about the assumption that scientific truths must be objective? A fundamental assumption of the scientific method is that for us to reach truth, we must be purely objective. This idea does indeed make a lot of sense. However, it also discounts the notion of there being a subjective truth What if truth is not the same for everyone – that perhaps a law may be true for you, and the world that you perceive, but is false for me, and my own little world? Yes, abiding by objectivity allows us to come up with reproducible results. But taken too far, objectivity also discounts the possibility of truth being an individual thing, for it is easy for us to become headstrong and arrogant by our successes through the scientific method and take it to be the one sole way of understanding the world. In fact, science by its nature must be subjective, for it is performed by scientists – humans – not disinterested automata. So why do we still try to put up this show of science being purely objective; and perhaps more importantly, why must we have a purely objective science?
Religion under fire
It is not hard to understand the rationalistic position on religion. One of the first accepted descriptions of scientific reasoning and logic was given by Aristotle in his Organon, and since then, we have come to accept the general description of science as being the use of structured principles of logic, methodology and rationality to understand the true nature of things – the ‘scientific method’, as it is known. The scientific method has undergone extensive modification, scrutiny, and ultimately, acceptation, and it is virtually unknown to hear of someone question its veracity in these times. No one doubts the results of science, mainly because science produces reproducible and verifiable results.
It is not enough in science to accept the word of someone else; all scientific theories are peer-reviewed, and can be tested over and over again to one’s heart’s content – the results will always be the same. The underlying assumption is that, if someone performs an experiment halfway around the world from me, then given the same experimental conditions, I should be able to replicate their results. We see the results of this all around us – the planes we use to fly across the world in a mere day, the computers whose indescribable power we readily have at our fingertips, even the lights we unthinkingly switch on at the beginning of every new day – these are all the products of scientific principles. The acceptability of science stems largely in part from its practicality and usefulness.
Does religion have a similar practicality, or structural framework of methodological skepticism? No. The critics of religion do have a point when they portray religion as being based on blind faith, anecdotal evidence, and unquestioning trust in authority. When presented in this way, it is not hard to see how strong science stands and how shaky the foundations of religion are.
Ancient peoples believed in different gods and goddesses, different structures of the universe, and different laws that governed the world (or perhaps believed in the non-existence of laws in a purely chaotic world). They prayed to Zeus or Ra, Thor or Quetzalcoatl, or perhaps, to an “Earth Mother”. As far as they were concerned, these gods controlled all of creation, and could be pleased or displeased. If the gods could be pleased by performing certain rituals, or by simply following certain rules of ethics and morality, then things would go well. If the gods were displeased, then life would be very harsh, and humans would have to make up for their failings. These rituals and codes of ethics were often intertwined, and developed through the generations into formalized religions, whose authorities could not be doubted in the least. They passed down stories of the gods and goddesses, and of great people who achieved divine status because of their actions. In these so-called modern times, we study these rituals, ceremonies and beliefs, read about these gods and goddesses, and often find them and their exploits laughable and amusing. It is not uncommon to ridicule ancient peoples and their beliefs – beliefs that we now know to be wrong, through none other than science. But why do we not go that extra step and ridicule the processes that gave rise to these beliefs? After all, if the beliefs that ancient peoples held about life, the universe, and everything else were wrong, then surely the methodology (or lack of it) that produced such beliefs is somehow flawed as well?
Scientific research in fields such as paranormal psychology is increasingly debunking religious myths and questioning the ‘divine’ nature of many religious experiences. Cognitive research in the neural basis of religious expression has turned up many interesting findings, such as the effects of the brain’s temporal lobe – quickly dubbed the ‘god module’ – which, upon excitation in certain patients, results in the subject responding more intensely to religious beliefs or having frequent ‘mystical’ experiences, similar to those of innumerable ‘holy’ men. Spiritual fervor is increasingly becoming nothing more than a model for psychiatric delusion. This begs the question, where does psychosis end and religious belief begin?
It seems to me that it is too convenient to explain things away by resorting to a god (or gods), or divine being of some sort. As the famous science fiction writer Robert Heinlein puts it, religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. True, there are a lot of questions that are not answered by science, questions that cannot be answered by the scientific method. Not all things can be quantified, and not all relationships can be empirically established. There is a whole realm of existence and experience that science simply does not treat. I must also admit that there are many questions out there that science has not yet answered, simply because scientists have not arrived at an answer. We don’t understand everything out there. This is not a failing of science. It is unfortunate, then, that there are far too many people out there who see this as a valid criticism of science – who look to unexplained phenomena as proof that ‘something else’ exists out there that somehow defies scientific understanding.
The common misconception is that since the spiritual or supernatural realm is the only sphere of thought that purports to answer these questions, it must be correct. People turn to theology or the supernatural for answers to the questions that science cannot, or has not, answered. Religion exists in modern society to make up for science’s failings, not to dedicate itself to the search for truth, and the problem with this tendency to look for answers in the supernatural or spiritual realm is that they are so easy to find – just not the right ones. To quote Heinlein once again, the nice thing about citing god as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.
Life, the Universe, and Everything…
It is clear that there are flaws in our current system of thought. Science and religion both purport to be means of gaining insights into the true nature of reality and the physical world, or at least understanding how true reality works.
Science has generated breathtaking results and insights, but is still built on assumptions that may not always be applicable in understanding the true nature of things. The problem with science is that it has become too confident of its success – perhaps rightfully so – and must reassess the assumptions and premises it is based on. Science is a spiritual quest – scientists do what they do because they are fascinated by the world around them. Why do we restrict ourselves? Perhaps we should come up with a new methodology and framework to treat the realms of the world that we have previously ignored. We must be open-minded enough to pursue this undertaking wherever it may lead us; we must be bold enough to attempt to apply what the structured methodology of the scientific method has taught us to more uncommon modes of thought.
Spirituality, in sharp contrast, has not gotten us anywhere. It is still based on shaky foundations of blind faith, and unquestioning belief in authority. Religion does include a more subjective aspect that teaches us how to live our lives and how to interpret the world around us. But without a willingness to accept rationality and build a sound methodology, religion will continue to be nothing more than something that exists to make us feel good about ourselves, the ‘crutch’ that we turn to when all else fails. Either religion can continue providing the emotional support that it does to innumerable followers and stop pretending that it answers any questions that deal with the true nature of reality; or, religion must be willing to adopt a more structured, coherent and logical worldview and work hand in hand with science to explore the realms of the unknown.
We live in interesting times. Science and religion both play enormous roles in our lives; and yet, we are largely uninterested by them and what they stand for. The successes of science have made us more complacent about it, and reluctant to expand its boundaries any further; while on the other hand, religion has still clung on to archaic beliefs in authority and has largely shunned rationality and methodology. We have largely ceased to concern ourselves with the relationship between the two and have instead chosen to relegate them to different areas of life. This must change. We should be more open to having discourse between the two, for there is no doubt that both science and religion can learn much from each other. We must do this now, to prevent both spheres of thought from becoming stagnant and set in their ways. Is this too much to ask – ‘unfounded idealism’, as I termed it at the beginning of this article? I hope not, for the sake of both science and religion.
Can Scientists Do Science? The Debate on Stem Cell Research
By Tushar Khanna, Triangle Production/Graphics Editor
We are treading in treacherous moral waters.
That is a phrase chanted by opponents of stem cell research, one with which I strongly disagree. Embryonic stem cells are unspecialized somatic cells that are pluripotent, meaning theoretically capable of differentiating into cells of any of the body’s tissues. If the techniques and knowledge on how to artificially generate liver, kidney, and brain cells through harnessing the pluripotence of stem cells becomes known, diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, brain diseases, heart disease, and even cancer may one day be cured.
An area of current debate is whether the focus of stem cell research should be on adult or embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are generally limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin. However, embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Large quantities of embryonic stem cells can be easily grown in culture, while the methods to replicate adult stem cells in cell culture are not yet known. Lastly, adult stem cells are quite rare in mature tissues. The only scientific advantage to using adult stem cells is that a patient’s own cells could be extracted, replicated in culture, and reintroduced into the patient’s body, thereby avoiding immunal rejection.
Although it has not been conclusively shown whether specialized cells generated from a foreign source of embryonic stem cells will result in immunal rejection in a patient, it is a possibility. This is why it is so crucial that a large and genetically diverse source of embryonic stem cells be available for researchers to produce safe and effective treatments. Currently, the most viable source of stem cells ideal for research definitely comes from embryos, specifically the inner cell mass of a four-day-old blastocyst, the term for a fertilized egg four days after conception. So far, human embryonic stem cells have been differentiated in vitro into cells of the brain, heart, blood vessels, liver, and placenta. The debate arises because the extraction process of these embryonic stem cells for research involves the destruction of the embryo.
For pro-life advocates, the moral cost of performing such research outweighs any potential benefits. Scientists, however, are able to see the grander picture and the awe-inspiring, life saving possibilities of stem cell research. There is so much potential in such research, and as proof of it, embryonic stem cells from mice have been studied for over 20 years with awesome results. Mouse ESCs have been transplanted into animals to alleviate symptoms of Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, and spinal cord injuries. The implications for human treatment are astounding, and this is why it has almost blanket support from scientists, including over 100 Nobel laureates.
Interestingly enough, this is not a debate between science and religion, since there are religious arguments for it and secular arguments against it. According to leading religious scholars, Buddhism fully supports stem cell research, claiming it is part of the reincarnation of life. Furthermore, religious beliefs often change due to the discoveries of science. The Catholic Church once agreed with Jewish and Islamic faiths, that human life did not begin at the moment of conception but about 40 days after pregnancy was established, but suddenly changed Vatican doctrine after the microscopic visualization of fertilization became available in the mid 1800s. Holy texts are often misunderstood, as can be learned from Pope John Paul II’s acceptance and pardoning of Galileo. Religious (mis)interpretation sometimes impedes scientific progress which later comes to be accepted by the religious community.
Similarly, the recent politicization of this debate has further hindered advancements, but this is not a political debate. Most Democrats and Republicans alike support embryonic stem cell research, from liberal Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy to Pennsylvania’s very own conservative (and re-elected) senator Arlen Specter, who is still against abortion. Furthermore, right before Ronald Reagan’s death from Alzheimer’s, 58 senators signed a petition pleading with President Bush to ease the restrictions on stem cell research. This group of senators included liberal Democrats, one independent, and many conservatives who opposed abortion. It is thereby wholly apparent that is a bipartisan issue. But then on what grounds does the government have a right to legislate a specific flavor of morality? Is it really appropriate for the government, instead of scientists themselves, to decide what kinds of research are done?
The debate ensues because a certain faction of America’s population believes destroying an embryo is akin to murder, since they purport to hold life sacred at all stages. This group believes embryonic stem cell research is akin to Nazi experimentation on Jews during World War II. I believe this segment of pro-lifers is tragically misguided for two reasons. The first is that birth does not actually begin at conception. In the body, human eggs are fertilized but often fail naturally to implant in the uterus. Without the right environment of a womb, a fertilized egg can never become a human. Therefore, even though a fertilized egg has potential, human life can not begin until the mass of cells known as an embryo attaches to the internal surface of the uterus. Removing the embryo before this stage does not end life because it never began.
My second reason for disagreement is that using donated or discarded embryos for a humanitarian cause is clearly a less egregious action than letting them be destroyed without serving any purpose. In vitro fertilization clinics routinely create more human embryos than are needed over the course of a fertility treatment, and are therefore left with excess embryos which are simply discarded immediately or stored in a freezer for a vast amount of time and later discarded. Currently more than 400,000 embryos remain frozen. Realistically, a large portion of these embryos can be either destroyed without any potential benefits gotten from them, or used for life-saving research – it’s that simple. I am not advocating vast fetus killing factories or a world in which artificial organs are being sold wholesale and unmonitored on city streets through the black market. I simply hope wisdom, foresight, and humanitarian principles are followed now to save lives and create a better world for the sick and wounded in the future.
Unfortunately, George W. Bush has hindered stem cell research. During his first term, Bush has drastically limited federal funding of stem cell research to cell lines created by August 9th, 2001. First, these cell lines are few in number, many contaminated, most found in other countries, and many having patents owned by private companies. This has effectively reduced research opportunities to the handful of private labs wealthy enough to decline federal funding. However, these private labs are subject to minimal oversight, and their research is often not reviewed by as many peers in the scientific community, and remains under a shroud of secrecy. Private labs in top universities are using private funds and doing what they can, but it is not enough. Overall, this “ban” results in duplication of research due to the lack of communication between public and private researchers. Bush’s funding restrictions has led top scientists in the public sector to remain on the sidelines, as well as discouraged new scientists in public universities and government laboratories from delving into stem cell research at all. Furthermore, Bush’s policies have forced most of the cutting edge research to be performed in foreign countries, leaving America behind.
It is a well known fact that the first scientist to discover the technique to isolate human embryonic stem cells was Dr. James Thomson from a public American university, the University of Wisconsin. In an effort to grind a political axe and increase profits of corporations who hold the patents to approved cell lines, Bush has forced the privatization of stem cell research. Only about 21 of the initial 78 stem cell lines are available to researchers, while over 100 new lines far better suited for research have been developed since Bush’s cutoff date. The main point is that scientists need access to a large range of diverse embryonic stem cell lines to develop treatments that are good genetic matches for patients of different races, ethnic backgrounds, and overall varying genomic composition. The failure to properly allot government funding for stem cell research has resulted in the alienation of scientists in the public sector and drastically halted the scope and speed of research.
These are turbulent times we are living in. But embroiled in the mix of resounding fears of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and war is an ethical quandary that just does not belong. Embryonic stem cell research allows us to embark on one of the most promising biomedical advancements in human history. Although scientific methods and knowledge has been abused in the past, morality has as well. But the human mind is capable of such great and beautiful creations, and it is on this which we must have faith. Furthermore, we must pay careful attention to prominent spokesmen who are trying to make us realize the path we should be traveling. For instance, the man who discovered the very structure of DNA, Dr. James Watson, has recently come out with a passionate defense of stem cell research.
After this entire discussion, I have one final point for dogmatic opponents of stem cell research. Instead of allowing pessimism and fear to prevail, and forecasting stem cell research creating a world with faults similar to that of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, imagine the following: if your priest contracts Alzheimer’s disease years down the road, and is lying gravely ill on his deathbed, won’t you feel the least bit guilty that you couldn’t sacrifice a microscopic ball of cells now to aid in research that could in the future have saved the holy priest’s life?
We are treading in treacherous moral waters.
That is a phrase chanted by opponents of stem cell research, one with which I strongly disagree. Embryonic stem cells are unspecialized somatic cells that are pluripotent, meaning theoretically capable of differentiating into cells of any of the body’s tissues. If the techniques and knowledge on how to artificially generate liver, kidney, and brain cells through harnessing the pluripotence of stem cells becomes known, diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, brain diseases, heart disease, and even cancer may one day be cured.
An area of current debate is whether the focus of stem cell research should be on adult or embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are generally limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin. However, embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Large quantities of embryonic stem cells can be easily grown in culture, while the methods to replicate adult stem cells in cell culture are not yet known. Lastly, adult stem cells are quite rare in mature tissues. The only scientific advantage to using adult stem cells is that a patient’s own cells could be extracted, replicated in culture, and reintroduced into the patient’s body, thereby avoiding immunal rejection.
Although it has not been conclusively shown whether specialized cells generated from a foreign source of embryonic stem cells will result in immunal rejection in a patient, it is a possibility. This is why it is so crucial that a large and genetically diverse source of embryonic stem cells be available for researchers to produce safe and effective treatments. Currently, the most viable source of stem cells ideal for research definitely comes from embryos, specifically the inner cell mass of a four-day-old blastocyst, the term for a fertilized egg four days after conception. So far, human embryonic stem cells have been differentiated in vitro into cells of the brain, heart, blood vessels, liver, and placenta. The debate arises because the extraction process of these embryonic stem cells for research involves the destruction of the embryo.
For pro-life advocates, the moral cost of performing such research outweighs any potential benefits. Scientists, however, are able to see the grander picture and the awe-inspiring, life saving possibilities of stem cell research. There is so much potential in such research, and as proof of it, embryonic stem cells from mice have been studied for over 20 years with awesome results. Mouse ESCs have been transplanted into animals to alleviate symptoms of Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, and spinal cord injuries. The implications for human treatment are astounding, and this is why it has almost blanket support from scientists, including over 100 Nobel laureates.
Interestingly enough, this is not a debate between science and religion, since there are religious arguments for it and secular arguments against it. According to leading religious scholars, Buddhism fully supports stem cell research, claiming it is part of the reincarnation of life. Furthermore, religious beliefs often change due to the discoveries of science. The Catholic Church once agreed with Jewish and Islamic faiths, that human life did not begin at the moment of conception but about 40 days after pregnancy was established, but suddenly changed Vatican doctrine after the microscopic visualization of fertilization became available in the mid 1800s. Holy texts are often misunderstood, as can be learned from Pope John Paul II’s acceptance and pardoning of Galileo. Religious (mis)interpretation sometimes impedes scientific progress which later comes to be accepted by the religious community.
Similarly, the recent politicization of this debate has further hindered advancements, but this is not a political debate. Most Democrats and Republicans alike support embryonic stem cell research, from liberal Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy to Pennsylvania’s very own conservative (and re-elected) senator Arlen Specter, who is still against abortion. Furthermore, right before Ronald Reagan’s death from Alzheimer’s, 58 senators signed a petition pleading with President Bush to ease the restrictions on stem cell research. This group of senators included liberal Democrats, one independent, and many conservatives who opposed abortion. It is thereby wholly apparent that is a bipartisan issue. But then on what grounds does the government have a right to legislate a specific flavor of morality? Is it really appropriate for the government, instead of scientists themselves, to decide what kinds of research are done?
The debate ensues because a certain faction of America’s population believes destroying an embryo is akin to murder, since they purport to hold life sacred at all stages. This group believes embryonic stem cell research is akin to Nazi experimentation on Jews during World War II. I believe this segment of pro-lifers is tragically misguided for two reasons. The first is that birth does not actually begin at conception. In the body, human eggs are fertilized but often fail naturally to implant in the uterus. Without the right environment of a womb, a fertilized egg can never become a human. Therefore, even though a fertilized egg has potential, human life can not begin until the mass of cells known as an embryo attaches to the internal surface of the uterus. Removing the embryo before this stage does not end life because it never began.
My second reason for disagreement is that using donated or discarded embryos for a humanitarian cause is clearly a less egregious action than letting them be destroyed without serving any purpose. In vitro fertilization clinics routinely create more human embryos than are needed over the course of a fertility treatment, and are therefore left with excess embryos which are simply discarded immediately or stored in a freezer for a vast amount of time and later discarded. Currently more than 400,000 embryos remain frozen. Realistically, a large portion of these embryos can be either destroyed without any potential benefits gotten from them, or used for life-saving research – it’s that simple. I am not advocating vast fetus killing factories or a world in which artificial organs are being sold wholesale and unmonitored on city streets through the black market. I simply hope wisdom, foresight, and humanitarian principles are followed now to save lives and create a better world for the sick and wounded in the future.
Unfortunately, George W. Bush has hindered stem cell research. During his first term, Bush has drastically limited federal funding of stem cell research to cell lines created by August 9th, 2001. First, these cell lines are few in number, many contaminated, most found in other countries, and many having patents owned by private companies. This has effectively reduced research opportunities to the handful of private labs wealthy enough to decline federal funding. However, these private labs are subject to minimal oversight, and their research is often not reviewed by as many peers in the scientific community, and remains under a shroud of secrecy. Private labs in top universities are using private funds and doing what they can, but it is not enough. Overall, this “ban” results in duplication of research due to the lack of communication between public and private researchers. Bush’s funding restrictions has led top scientists in the public sector to remain on the sidelines, as well as discouraged new scientists in public universities and government laboratories from delving into stem cell research at all. Furthermore, Bush’s policies have forced most of the cutting edge research to be performed in foreign countries, leaving America behind.
It is a well known fact that the first scientist to discover the technique to isolate human embryonic stem cells was Dr. James Thomson from a public American university, the University of Wisconsin. In an effort to grind a political axe and increase profits of corporations who hold the patents to approved cell lines, Bush has forced the privatization of stem cell research. Only about 21 of the initial 78 stem cell lines are available to researchers, while over 100 new lines far better suited for research have been developed since Bush’s cutoff date. The main point is that scientists need access to a large range of diverse embryonic stem cell lines to develop treatments that are good genetic matches for patients of different races, ethnic backgrounds, and overall varying genomic composition. The failure to properly allot government funding for stem cell research has resulted in the alienation of scientists in the public sector and drastically halted the scope and speed of research.
These are turbulent times we are living in. But embroiled in the mix of resounding fears of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and war is an ethical quandary that just does not belong. Embryonic stem cell research allows us to embark on one of the most promising biomedical advancements in human history. Although scientific methods and knowledge has been abused in the past, morality has as well. But the human mind is capable of such great and beautiful creations, and it is on this which we must have faith. Furthermore, we must pay careful attention to prominent spokesmen who are trying to make us realize the path we should be traveling. For instance, the man who discovered the very structure of DNA, Dr. James Watson, has recently come out with a passionate defense of stem cell research.
After this entire discussion, I have one final point for dogmatic opponents of stem cell research. Instead of allowing pessimism and fear to prevail, and forecasting stem cell research creating a world with faults similar to that of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, imagine the following: if your priest contracts Alzheimer’s disease years down the road, and is lying gravely ill on his deathbed, won’t you feel the least bit guilty that you couldn’t sacrifice a microscopic ball of cells now to aid in research that could in the future have saved the holy priest’s life?
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