Is bottled water tapped out?

In 1979 I started drinking bottled water. My bottles, however, contained tap water and were nestled in small cages on the frame of my racing bicycle.

Tap water was good enough then because we did not know how much healthier and tastier bottled water is. It must be, because Americans today spend more than $7 billion a year on it, paying 120 to 7,500 times as much per gallon for bottled water as for tap. Bottled prices range from 75 cents to $6 a gallon, versus tap prices that vary from about 80 cents to $6.40 per 1,000 gallons. We wouldn’t invest that for nothing, would we? Apparently we would. In March 1999 the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published the results of a four year study in which they tested more than 1,000 samples of 103 brands of bottled water, finding that “an estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle — sometimes further treated, sometimes not.” If the label says “from a municipal source” or “from a community water system,” it’s tap water. (continue reading…)

Michael Shermer’s tour for his book, The Science of Good and Evil, found him here explaining why we are moral, the evolutionary origins of the moral sentiments, and how to be good without God.

The difference between the creators of two new theories of science reveals the social nature of the scientific process

Consider the following quotes, written by authors of recently self-published books purporting to revolutionize science:

“This book is the culmination of nearly twenty years of work that I have done to develop that new kind of science. I had never expected it would take anything like as long, but I have discovered vastly more than I ever thought possible, and in fact what I have done now touches almost every existing area of science, and quite a bit besides … I have come to view [my discovery] as one of the more important single discoveries in the whole history of theoretical science.”

“The development of this work has been a completely solitary effort during the past thirty years. As you will realize as you read through this book, these ideas had to be developed by an outsider. They are such a complete reversal of contemporary thinking that it would have been very difficult for any one part of this integrated theoretical system to be developed within the rigid structure of institutional science.” (continue reading…)

Stephen Jay Gould as Historian of Science and Scientific Historian, Popular Scientist and Scientific Popularizer

This article appeared in Social Studies of Science 32/4 (August 2002).

Abstract

Science historian Ronald Numbers once remarked that the two most influential historians of science of the 20th century were Thomas Kuhn and Stephen Jay Gould. All historians are deeply familiar with Kuhn’s work and influence, and most know of the remarkable impact Gould has had on evolutionary theory through both his professional and popular works. But little attention has been paid to the depth, scope, and importance of Gould’s role as historian and philosopher of science, and his use of popular science exposition to reinforce old knowledge and generate new. This paper presents the results of an extensive quantitative content analysis of Gould’s 22 books, 101 book reviews, 479 scientific papers, and 300 Natural History essays, in terms of their subject matter (Evolutionary Theory, History and Philosophy of Science, Natural History, Paleontology/Geology, Social Science/Commentary), and thematic dichotomies (Theory–Data, Time’s Arrow–Time’s Cycle, Adaptationism–Nonadaptationism, Punctuationism-Gradualism, Contingency–Necessity). Special emphasis is placed on the interaction between the subjects and themata, how Gould has used the history of science to reinforce his evolutionary theory (and vice versa), and how his philosophy of science has influenced both his evolutionary theory and his historiography. That philosophy can best be summed up in a quotation from Charles Darwin, frequently cited by Gould: ‘All observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service’. Gould followed Darwin’s advice throughout his career, including his extensive writings on the history and philosophy of science. (continue reading…)

The lifetime of civilizations in the Drake equation
for estimating extraterrestrial ntelligences
is greatly exaggerated

In science there is arguably no more suppositional formula than that proposed in 1961 by radio astronomer Frank Drake for estimating the number of technological civilizations that reside in our galaxy: N = R fp ne fl fi fc L

In this equation, N is the number of communicative civilizations, R is the rate of formation of suitable stars, fp is the fraction of those stars with planets, ne is the number of Earth-like planets per solar system, fl is the fraction of planets with life, fi is the fraction of planets with intelligent life, fc is the fraction of planets with communicating technology, and L is the lifetime of communicating civilizations. (continue reading…)