Sorry I haven't had a lot of time recently to post new stuff here. But I found a really interesting new blog written by a dude who is eastern orthodox. It is called "crunchy cons" and I dig it sort of -- I'm also kind of repulsed by it but judge for yourself.

He recently has an interesting post that covers the subject matter of this blog -- where exactly should we be going as humans? Their vision seems to be some backwards agrarian society where family values are held dear. I've got some strong opinions on this but I'll have to wait. Anyhow read for yourself. And an open request, if you would like to post your own answer to that question -- just let me know.

God as your true self

I've had these ideas floating around in my head for a long time, perhaps since high school, so bear with me as I flesh them out.

The idea here is that you could substitute the concept of God/Jesus for the concept of your true (inner) self and everything about christianity would still make sense. Of course now that I think about this, there are some exceptions but let me give some examples.

Let's take forgiveness, one of christianity's great attractions is the ability to confess your sins and be forgiven. God forgives your sins and a great weight is lifted from you -- Jesus has taken your sins from you and sacrificed himself instead. Well since we don't really actually observe our sins being removed from us, what is probably happening is that we are forgiving ourselves. If we can be convinced that God would forgive us, that allows us to forgive ourselves -- so really God is our true self.

Faith is another central concept in christianity. We are exorted to have faith in God/Jesus/Holy Spirit and we will be saved. I propose that what this really means is that we have faith in our true selves. If you don't have faith in yourself -- what can you accomplish? This seems to be like confidence, but is really something different. Having faith in God is accomplishing the same thing -- it gives you the strength to adhere to your true self and believe that you are a good person and you can be great. Does that inner strength really come from some external presence or does it come from inside yourself?

An interesting Bible passage -- found because I was looking up John 3:16 (because of the LOST episode tonight). This is John 3:19 - 21
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

This is a pretty sweet passage. One could say the light here is the illumination of self-knowledge and the darkness is the ignorance of self-deception. I especially like verse 20 here, because anyone who is full of self-deception secretly knows it, and hates to be reminded lest their deceit be exposed. They are usually hiding it from themselves. You simply have to do what is true and you will come into the light (self knowlege).

I'll end this with my most favorite quote from Lord of the Rings, and the reason why Gimli was my favorite character. It also has really made me think about what exactly we mean when we talk about faith:
"Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens" - Gimli

Valley Networks formed by basal melting

Well just to show that my wildest imaginings are indeed backed up by scholarly research -- here is an article by Michael Carr (2003) about:

Basal melting of snow on early Mars: A possible origin of some valley networks

He writes that:
The perception of an early, warm Mars is, however, being increasingly questioned because of (1) failure to detect weathering products from orbit [Christensen, et al., 2001], (2) the vulnerability of an early atmosphere to losses by impact erosion [Melosh and Vickery, 1989], (3) the likely rapid scavenging of CO2 from the atmosphere by weathering under warm, wet conditions Pollack et al., 1987], and (4) climate modeling studies which show that it is difficult, if not impossible, to sufficiently warm Mars with a CO2-H2O greenhouse so that rainfall could occur [Haberle, 1998; Kasting, 1991]. The latter problem is particularly acute early in the planet’s history, when the Sun’s output was likely significantly less than it is today [Newman and Rood, 1987].

There is a lot here about how the thermal physics could create melted ice water, but very little about the morphology of the valley networks and whether they are consistent with this type of formation. Is anyone familiar with more work done on this hypothesis?

Biere De Mars...

Well, ever on top of the exciting intersection between beer and Mars, I'm happy to report that Biere de Mars will be back and perhaps with a new recipe. The old label is pictured to the left here, with the new label below.

Turns out -- you learn something new every day -- that Mars really means March. So while they played the Mars planet card in their old label, the new label doesn't look so martian.

I look forward to tasting the new beer.

Mars Explained... I think.

So this blog is supposed to be about Mars too, at least that is the title. So I thought I'd lay out my current thinking on the subject from the big picture perspective.

I just had a paper come out in Nature Geoscience about the sediments at Meridiani Planum -- please go and see it. The abstract is the following:

The sulphate-rich deposits at Meridiani Planum, Mars, discovered by the rover Opportunity, were proposed to be playa evaporites that had been reworked by eolian processes. Alternative hypotheses include volcanic or impact-driven formation of the sediments. Here we argue that the cation chemistry, scale, mineralogy and structure of the Meridiani sedimentary deposits are best explained by eolian or impact-driven reworking of the sublimation residue from a large-scale deposit consisting of dust and ice. We suggest that silicate material underwent significant acid weathering inside the ice deposit when thin films of water, formed through radiant heating, enabled the reaction between silicate material and sulphate-rich aerosols deposited from the atmosphere. The massive ice deposit could have formed during a period of high obliquity or polar wander, and subsequently sublimed away when obliquity changed or the pole moved to a new location. We propose acid weathering inside massive ice deposits as an explanation for the formation of many of the sulphate-rich layered deposits on Mars, which share many characteristics, including mineralogy, structure, erosional characteristics and size, with the sediments found at Meridiani Planum.

So with that introduction, my grand unified theory of Mars, at the risk of coming out half-baked or maybe even a quarter-baked:

1. In the first couple hundred million years of Mars' history (perhaps shorter) conditions on Mars were probably very different from today, the planet had just accreted, I imagine there was a fair amount of chaos. The question is whether or not this period featured any significant aqueous alteration that we can see today. This hinges on whether or not significant water was present on the surface, and not boiled away by impacts, volcanism, or just not degassed from the interior yet. I'm going to posit that the extensive phyllosilicates detected in ancient crustal rocks are from this period -- but I've got another couple of possibilities later on.
2. As things calmed (and cooled) down the next question is whether there was a thick atmosphere -- and how long it lasted. My argument is that if there was a thick atmosphere it was not long lived (not more than 100 million years or so), it was lost to space through impact events, stripping by solar wind, etc.. My reasons for thinking this are that we don't see well developed fluvial features, I don't think evidence for an ocean is strong, there are not extensive carbonates or other evaporite deposits from this period we've found (Please read above for Meridiani).
3. I think Meridiani is really the key for understanding the conditions during this period. Most important in my mind are the constraints posed by the chemistry and mineralogy. We've got a deposit of silicates that have been completely altered by aqueous alteration but show no fractionation in cation composition from a basalt. This indicates that it was weathered in a closed system -- a low-water-rock ratios.
4. So we've got a planet where there are fluvial features, ice deposits, and the like, which all require some sort of recharge. But we don't have enough CO2 to account for a warmer climate and rainfall. Instead we have a planet which undergoes huge obliquity variations through time which serve to redistribute the ice from the poles to the equator. This could be the recharge mechanism we are looking for. And if this ice-weathering idea proves to be feasible, we can explain sulfate formation as well.
5. Outflow channels -- require huge volumes of water, repeated surges. But their source regions aren't large basins with many tributaries leading into them -- they are just relatively small chaos terrain. So we have giant channels that require massive floods but no obvious source that's big enough. Ice seems to meet this requirement as it would sit on the surface and provide a massive source -- it also has the tendency of creating large floods.
6. Layered Terrain -- This includes interior layered deposits (ILD's), crater mounds, as well as plains deposits (meridiani-type). The idea here (not original of course) is that layered terrain closely resembles polar layered deposits and formed from the same mechanism. It is though polar layered deposits are a result of obliquity variations. One issue is reworking - and this is what needs work - some of these deposits would preserve their original layering -- even though ice has sublimed away (perhaps ice still exists in the cores of these ILD's and crater mounds?), others would be reworked by aeolian, impact, and fluvial processes. Can we tell the difference?
7. Valley networks -- Might be related to basal melting of obliquity ice deposits. I find it interesting that they are generally located on an equatorial band.

I think that pretty much captures it for water on Mars. Comments anyone?

Update: Check out the article at space.com

The greatness of the Trinity

Ok, well I always imagined that if I started a blog my first post would be about God. So it took me a few posts, but I think I finally have gotten to it. I want to talk about how I see God because I think it really is probably the most important aspect of understanding my outlook on the world. I think the most important thing about God is that he is unknowable.

I have recently become very familiar with the Eastern Orthodox Church as I was baptized and married into it. Coming from a more secular background this was a big step for me, but perhaps one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It is definitely not something I ever would have considered doing if it wasn't for having met my wife. I truly feel that I have grown substantially as a result.

Ok, onward...I really think that the christian church nails the depiction of god in a number of ways. Everyone pictures God like he is depicted in the Sistine chapel, old man with a flowing beard sitting on a cloud somehwere. But if you really pay attention to the christian belief you'll see that really isn't it at all. I think the trinity doctrine is perhaps the most brilliant part of christianity.

At first the whole trinity concept just pissed me off. Let's be truly honest here. It doesn't make any friggin sense. It's a monotheistic religion with one god who is really three people but no just one, no three, no one, etc... Basically it is positing that 1+1+1=1. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that that math just doesn't add up. And it doesn't matter how you spin it -- three states of water liquid, vapor, ice but all H2O, it never makes sense. It all comes back to the math and it just doesn't add up... literally.

But then I realized the genius of this whole thing. While I don't think this is attributed to any one person, from what I can tell it mostly came about with a guy named St Basil the Great. Most of you who aren't orthodox haven't probably heard of him, but he was the man. The church was facing the threat of the Arian heresy, the believers of which proclaimed that Jesus wasn't really God. How this philosophy didn't win out I'll never know, because frankly it makes a lot more sense - monotheistic religion, if Jesus is god then where was the old man hanging out when he was on Earth? Who was driving the bus -- or did he just let it go completely?

Well, it didn't win out because Basil was the man, he comes up with this idea of consubstantiality which somehow feasibly ties the Father, Son, and Holy spirit together and makes 1+1+1=1 start to sound reasonable. But the best part about it, and the reason I think this wins out, is because in so doing he really actively demonstrates the unknowability of God. It doesn't make sense and it shouldn't make sense because God is unknowable. Man this is some elegant shit.

So Basil comes up with this very specific description of God which simultaneously solves the theological problems that had raged for 400 or so years, and also becomes the best example of the unknowability of god. It's enough to blow your mind. Except that now that Christ is in fact God + Man together at the same time he becomes the rosetta stone for the human experience. The bridge that we can use to understand divinity. He becomes the example we all can follow to be more like God.

In the Orthodox church this is called Theosis, the pathway for becoming more like God. This is how I see God, as an example that we all should be striving for -- Our goal should be to literally become God. For me, this makes my job as a scientist have even more meaning - I feel that by learning more about the world and ourselves we are becoming more like God.

"God became man so that man might become God." - St. Athanasius

"Let us become the image of the one whole God, bearing nothing earthly in ourselves, so that we may consort with God and become gods, receiving from God our existence as gods." - St. Maximus the Confessor

Let's see, how about Abortion?

Well, I've been getting abortion video's and comments from Ani's cousin and I thought it would be just as good a topic to blog about as any here. My attitude on abortion is more of a pragmatic one but hopefully different than what you've ever heard:

So the first point I want to make is that almost everyone would agree that abortions aren't a good thing. I don't think anyone would actually try to defend abortion as something that would be happening in an ideal society. I think this is something that isn't really appreciated by either side of the debate and it is a major source for common ground.

Actually once you've understood this, the whole debate about when life begins becomes academic and pointless. Who cares when everyone agrees that abortion is a bad thing that should be avoided if possible? So everyone, let's stop talking about this.

The debate we really should be having is about what we should do to reduce and get rid of abortions. I think it is pretty clear that just making it illegal, while probably being a step in the right direction, really won't accomplish much in the way of really reducing the amount of abortions. The reason for this is the same as why outlawing alchohol really didn't stop anyone from drinking -- the law is really a bad means for dictating moral behavior. The demand for abortions would still exist, and would just be met by black market means, people in other countries, the drug trade, etc.. So while everyone would feel good about outlawing something they thought was wrong, it wouldn't do much of anything in really driving down the number of abortions.

A much more effective strategy would be to attack abortion on the demand side rather than the supply side. Namely birth control and education. The fastest way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Now I mostly side with the pro-choice side of things even though I think abortions are generally wrong, would never want to have one done on a child of mine, and would never recommend anyone to have one. The reason I side with pro-choicers is because when you have the above discussion with a pro-life person you rapidly discover that their problem is not with abortion so much as it is with birth control and education.

Now this is the debate we should be having in this country -- there should be no reason why we shouldn't support more birth control and more education.