Drafts of two chapter from a book on Why global warming is Polarizing George Philander, Princeton University July 2012

3.
A Poignant Tribute to Science Several times a day, every day of the year, where a winding road through the African bush crosses the perfectly straight, invisible equator, just to the north of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, a young African, Nelson Olango, welcomes tourists on safari and invites them to watch a demonstration of the Coriolis force. Nelsons apparatus could not be simpler: transparent water in a plastic bowl. Members of the audience nonetheless are fascinated, because they are highly-educated, schooled in geography and physics. They know that the equator is a special line, and know about the Coriolis force, how it causes the winds of a hurricane to swirl clockwise in one hemisphere, counter-clockwise in the other. Will the water in Nelsons bowl behave similarly? What happens at the equator? To address these questions Nelson starts his demonstration in the northern hemisphere, some ten paces from the equator. There he pours water into a plastic bowl, drops a few blades of dry grass onto the water to visualize its motion, and asks everyone to watch carefully as he removes a small plug from the bottom of the bowl. As the water drains out slowly, it spirals in an anti-clockwise sense. Next Nelson walks ten paces into the southern hemisphere where he repeats the experiment. This time the water spirals in a clockwise sense as it flows out of the bowl. Finally Nelson returns to the equator where he performs the experiment once more. Now the grass on the surface of the water simply floats downward, towards the hole in the bowl, without spiraling at all. Everyone nods approvingly. In his concluding remarks, Nelson mentions that, to determine the location of the equator, he needs no GPS -- the Global Positioning System that determines latitude and longitude precisely by means of artificial satellites in space. All he needs is water, and a bowl with a hole. The tourists concur, ask Nelson to pose with them for photographs, and hand him modest tips. Nelsons final comments prompt Chris Karsten, one of the younger tourists, to start toying with a GPS instrument he happens to have with him. (It is one of many gifts he received after his recent graduation from college; the trip to Africa was another gift.) He notices that, according to the instrument, the hand-written sign that says Equator is at a considerable distance from the true equator. The error in the location of the sign is so large that Nelsons three experiments actually took place in the same hemisphere.

When Chris hesitantly mentions his misgivings concerning Nelsons experiments to some of the other tourists, they promptly dismiss his concerns. They assure him that his GPS instrument is defective. Everyone knows that the latest electronic gadgets often malfunction; this is yet another instance. How can Chris doubt what he, and everyone else, had just seen with their own eyes? What could be more convincing than Nelsons simple, elegant demonstration? No intricate electronic circuits, not even strings and pulleys. Nothing but transparent water in a plastic bowl. Chris has additional reasons to be uneasy about Nelsons experiments. He recalls that, in his physics for poets class, the professor explained how the Coriolis force has a strong effect on the winds in a hurricane that covers thousands of kilometers, and that persist for several days, but has only a very weak effect on the winds of a tiny dust-devil that lasts for a few seconds at most on a mesa in Arizona. In the case of a huge hurricane the winds always spiral clockwise in the southern hemisphere, anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. The winds in a dust-devil, on the other hand, can spiral either clockwise or anti-clockwise, in either hemisphere, because the Coriolis effect is very small. Nelsons bowl is even smaller than a dust-devil, and the water takes only a few seconds to drain. Chris therefore concludes that this is too short a time for the Coriolis force to influence the flow of the water. Chris happens to be a very persistent young man. He points out to the other tourists that, in the science courses he took at university, the results from experiments had to be replicable. Experiments by different people had to give the same results. A very distinguished scientific body, the Royal Society of Great Britain, took this principle to heart by adopting as its motto: Nullius in Verba which basically says take nobodys word for it; see for yourself. Chris therefore asks whether he himself could perform Nelsons experiment. Some of the tourists object that Chris is being impolite to their host, but his wish is nonetheless granted. His results turn out to be very different from Nelsons, even after repeated attempts. For example, in one set of experiments, when Chris pulls the plug, the water always spirals out of the bowl in a clockwise sense. This happens to him in the northern hemisphere, in the southern hemisphere, and also at the equator. The tourists respond to Chris failure to replicate Nelsons results by concluding that Chris is not nearly as skilful an experimentalist as Nelson. The tourists unanimously agree that Nelsons demonstration is successful, but Chris is not. A very different perspective on Nelsons demonstration can be found on the World Wide Web (by typing Coriolis into Google for example.) On some of those websites scientists denounce Nelson, and his cohorts who perform the same demonstration at other locations along the equator, as fakes, cheats and imposters who deceive gullible tourists by performing fraudulent scientific experiments. The scientists explain how several forces affect the motion of the water as it spirals out of the bowl. The Coriolis force is so negligibly small in comparison with some of the other forces that it is of no importance at all. In Nelsons bowl the water spirals, not because of the Coriolis force, but because of the way he filled the bowl with water from a bottle. (When he pulls the plug, the water is not yet motionless; there are very slight swirls that amplify when the

water starts draining.) Nelson could perform his experiments, with the same results, across any arbitrary line, drawn in Chicago or Tokyo for example. The different participants in the purported demonstration of the bemusing Coriolis force, respond in entirely different ways. To the observers, the tourists on safari, the demonstration is a satisfying scientific experiment. It reassures them that the abstruse science they learnt in college is relevant to observable reality. To the demonstrator, Nelson, the water spiraling out of the bowl is part of a weird ritual that pleases the tourists for reasons he can not fathom. To the absent scientists who post angry commentaries on the World Wide Web the demonstration is a deplorable hoax. The tourists and scientists respond in ways that suggest that the answer to a scientific question is the demonstration a hoax? determines the answer to an ethical question should the demonstrations be stopped? The tourists encourage Nelson to continue the demonstrations by giving him tips. The scientists insist that the demonstrations be stopped. What should Nelson do? The scientists are correct in asserting that the demonstration is a fraud, but they, not Nelson, are the culprits. He is innocent. He is merely an examiner who tests the students of the scientists, namely the tourists. Despite the strenuous efforts of their teachers, the students perform atrociously. The scientists are guilty of teaching science poorly. This news is discouraging and frustrating, but is no reason to punish the messenger. Scientific results have no ethical implications. The answer to a scientific question does not determine the response to an ethical question. Once we accept that the demonstration is a hoax, it is then clear that we face a very difficult dilemma: to stop further demonstrations is to deprive an African of a living; to allow them to continue undermines the teaching of science. Which is more important: scientific truths, or the well-fare of an African? The innocent demonstration at the equator is rich in ironies, ambiguities and dilemmas. On the one hand the response of the tourists to Nelsons demonstration can be viewed as an embarrassing exposure of how poorly science is taught in developed countries. Some of those tourists are shrewd, successful businessmen from the cold, calculating, capitalist world, where economic success depends on continual scientific and technological advances. How can they be deceived so easily by a simple experiment involving only water in a plastic bowl? Alternately, the demonstration can be regarded as a heartening sign that laymen are genuinely interested in science. (Note their willingness to make time for the hard science of physics during a vacation devoted mainly to the soft science of biology.) Is the African an unscrupulous scoundrel, a swindler and charlatan, taking advantage of nave tourists, or is he an astute entrepreneur who lacks opportunities to build on his considerable skills as a performer?

Are the angry scientists who denounce the African on the World Wide Web hiding frustration with their students, the tourists? Or does their anger help them avoid the wrenching dilemmas that arise when the intellectual needs of science, and the visceral needs of the poor are in conflict. Science is of such rapidly increasing importance in our daily lives that the widening gulf between scientists and laymen is cause for concern. The public held scientists in high esteem as recently as a few decades ago, at the peak of the Cold War, but today scientists feel beleaguered. Some colleagues in the humanities insist that science is not objective, that it is just another point of view, another discourse. Some people, who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible, hold similar views and are clamoring for the dogma of intelligent design to be declared a science. Most laymen take little interest in science even though its miracles transform their daily lives. Are scientists the innocent victims of misunderstandings and confusion, or are they so peremptory, and overconfident in their claims that they themselves are to blame for their problems? Are scientists doing enough to educate the public, not only about the spectacular successes of science, but also about its curious methods and severe limitations? A contemporary poet has a suggestion: Relativity and quantum looked as if they were going to clean out the whole problem between them. But they only explained the very big and the very small. The universe, the elementary particles. The ordinary stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about clouds - daffodils waterfalls and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks. Arcadia, Tom Stoppard. Many people are disenchanted with science, and take the miracles of relativity and quantum, computers and cell-phones, for granted because they find it difficult to relate to the inconceivably small electrons and photons that make those powerful tools function. However, the same people are passionate about nature. Phenomena they can discern with their senses fill them with wonder and awe. Laymen are likely to find science engaging provided it concerns the ordinary stuff which is our lives -- clouds, daffodils, and the way water spirals out of a bucket near the equator. Scientists complain that laymen are woefully ignorant of basic scientific facts and theories, but they need to keep in mind that, for most laymen, many years have passed since they tried to absorb an overwhelming amount of scientific information in courses with little relevance to problems encountered in daily life. It is therefore heartening that these former students are still able to recall something about the Coriolis force. They tend to generalize too much assuming that winds spiraling around the eye of a hurricane, and water swirling out of a bucket have much in common but that is a peccadillo. Generalizations can lead to brilliant insights. Everyone knows that the force of gravity can cause an apple to fall from a tree-branch to the ground. Isaac Newton is celebrated for a breath-taking generalization, for proposing that the same force extends

far, far into space and attracts the moon to the Earth. Newton was then able to explain why the moon orbits the Earth, why the planets orbit the sun. The tourists should be applauded, not scolded for their generalization. Their interest in the way water spirals out of a bowl indicates that Nelsons innocent demonstration can be an effective vehicle for discussions of science in general. To some scientists the demonstration at the equator is a deplorable swindle, but it can also be viewed as a wonderful opportunity to bridge the widening gulf between scientists and laymen. Rather than criticize Nelson, the scientists should invite him to join in their efforts to explain science to the public. He could potentially be a powerful ally, given his considerable entrepreneurial skills, and the success with which he keeps tourists interested in something as dull as water spiraling out of a bucket. The tourists suffer from a poor science education. To them science is a collection of facts and theories, each relevant to a specific phenomenon. They do not realize that science gains its power and beauty from the connections it finds between what seems to be unrelated facts and theories. In response to a question about a phenomenon, science provides a context, showing it to be part of a pattern, to be but one example from a wide range of possibilities. Water spiraling out of a bowl is but one example of a rotating system; another example is a planet orbiting the sun. Attempts to understand what those phenomena have in common prompt us to explore new phenomena and to ask further questions, concerning hurricanes and spiral galaxies for example. A salient feature of science is that the answer to one question leads to further questions, thus underlining Alexander Popes observation that a little learning is a dangerous thing. (Dangerous in the sense that, the more we learn the more we want to learn.) Is it possible for Nelsons demonstration to be modified in such a manner as to make an indelible impression on his audience, one that will motivate them to continue exploring science after they return home? The modification must of course be such that Nelson continues to earn an income. Nelson grew up near the equator and never thought of it as a special line until he noticed that many tourists stop there in the belief that the line is special. When he heard some of them chat about the Coriolis force, he immediately saw a business opportunity. He clearly is a clever, astute entrepreneur. The challenge is to turn the entertainer who performs fraudulent experiments, into an educator who motivates his students to make further enquiries. He must become a successful science teacher who instills a sense of wonder in the students, heightening their curiosity about seemingly ordinary phenomena, even something as mundane as water spiraling out of a bowl. How should the demonstration be modified to accomplish this goal? To answer this question we first have to identify the mistakes the tourists make.

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4.
The Methods of Science (Organized Skepticism) The tourists watching Nelsons demonstration at the equator commit the very common error of allowing preconceived ideas to influence their observations, a problem that Francis Bacon identified several centuries ago: The biasing of observations by pre-existing theories is the main impediment to scientific objectivity. Francis Bacon ( 1561 1626) Because of what they already know about rotating systems such as hurricanes, the tourists have certain expectations when the water starts spiraling out of the bowl. They are naturally pleased with Nelson when he fulfills those expectations, and shower approbation on him, but they judge Chris to be incompetent when he fails to reproduce the expected results. How do scientists avoid the errors the tourists make? How do scientists prevent pre-existing theories from influencing their observations? Some people are of the opinion that science is objective because it is derived from the facts. They are under the impression that scientists follow procedures similar to those of the detective in the television crime series Dragnet who demanded of the key witness Just the facts, Mam, just the facts. They assume that scientists establish facts by means of observations and experiments, and then deduce general laws from those facts. Isaac Newton held such views: For the best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first diligently to investigate the properties of things and establish them by experiment, and then to seek hypotheses to explain them. An example of this procedure is presumably Newtons study of the nature of light.

In a famous experiment in 1666, when he was twenty-three years old, Newton passed light through a prism and made the wondrous discovery that a beam of white sunlight is composed of the colors of the rainbow. In his writings Newton at first reported eleven different colors. At a later time he counted five. He finally settled on seven: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Such was Newtons influence that nearly three hundred years later some schoolboys (myself for example) were still obliged to memorize those seven colors even though, by that time, scientists had concluded that, between red and violet, we can count as many colors as we please; the number is practically without limit. Why did Newton decide on seven colors?

A clue is available in Newtons illustrations where he arranges the colors of the rainbow in a circle so that violet is next to red. To a physicist there is no obvious reason for doing so. The distinctive property of each color is the degree to which it is refracted (bent) by a prism; red refracts more than orange, and much more than violet. Why did Newton draw a circle, with violet next to red? Apparently Newton was searching for parallels between light and sound. Pythagoras and his associates demonstrated a connection between sound and mathematics. A string that produces a certain note when plucked, produces a new note, an octave higher, when the string is divided in two. In the diatonic scale, an octave is divided into seven musical tones; the eighth is the same as the first, at a higher pitch. Newton, the prince of scientists, allowed subjective considerations, a desire for parallels between sound and color, to influence his interpretation of the results from his experiments with prisms. Even Homer sometimes nods. It is extremely difficult to prevent pre-existing theories from biasing our observations. Even though we are fond of saying that seeing is believing, in reality we tend to see what we already believe. The art historian E.H. Gombrich pointed out that an existing representation will always exert its spell over the artist even while he strives to record the truth. A famous example is the woodcut of a rhinoceros by the Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer. Durer had never seen a rhinoceros; he produced a print strictly on the basis of secondhand evidence, and his own imagination, which presumably was colored by what he had heard about strange beasts, especially the dragon with its armored body. For more than two hundred years, Durers rendition, although it was faulty, was a model for drawings of the rhinoceros, and even appeared in books on natural history. In 1790 James Bruce berated modern philosophers whose drawings of the rhinoceros from life were flawed because of preconceived prejudices and inattention. However, Bruces drawing of a rhinoceros he had seen in Africa shows strong evidence of preconceived prejudices acquired from Durer! The first attempts of European-trained artists to draw and paint the Grand Canyon are further examples of how we tend to see what we already know. The artists were skilled in drawing the Alps whose sublime, snow-covered summits reach to the heavens. The Grand Canyon, seen from its rim, presented these artists with an unfamiliar landscape, one with which they could not cope. There is no sublime descent to darkness, no way to celebrate the abyss except as negation. The artists therefore trekked to the bottom of the canyon and made pictures of what they saw from below, from the banks of the Colorado river. In their pictures the Grand Canyon resembles the Alps. There is abundant evidence that our perceptions of reality depend strongly on factors such as our education, culture, religion and ethnicity. That is why we can easily tell whether a landscape was painted by a Dutch or a Chinese master. That is why a cock crowing in the morning says cock-a-doodle-doo to the English, cocorico to the French and kikeriki to the Germans. Is it really possible for scientists not to be influenced by subjective factors and preconceived ideas? Having our beliefs confirmed is

immensely satisfying and comforting so that we tend to reject evidence that challenges those beliefs. How do scientists avoid this impediment to objectivity? The notion that scientists establish facts by means of careful observations and experiments, and then develop theories to explain the facts, is untenable. Charles Darwin pointed this out in a letter he wrote in 1861. About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not to theorize How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service! Facts can only be established in the light of a theory. Theories, however, are fallible and sooner or later require revision. This is implicit in the dismissive statement: it is just a theory. How is it possible for science to make progress if its theories are always questionable, but the theories are nonetheless needed to interpret observations? Some people question whether science can cope with this dilemma. They deny that science progresses towards an objective truth. They argue that reality is a social construct. To them, scientists are not objective, skeptical, free thinkers but are members of a conservative community with its own beliefs, values, strange language, and culture so that science is simply another point of view, another discourse. This extreme position contributes to the culture wars between some humanists and scientists. A widely discussed skirmish involved a hoax that a prominent scientist played on humanists by publishing a nonsensical article on a scientific topic in a leading journal of cultural studies. The article pretends to support the hypothesis that reality is a social construct, while actually criticizing the hypothesis. That the editors, humanists, chose to publish the article demonstrates a common tendency to be far less critical of arguments that support our beliefs, than of arguments that question them. In the view of the historian Thomas Kuhn, scientists do have conservative tendencies. They usually share a set of beliefs about what are the problems worth solving, what are the methods to be used, and what constitute solutions and explanations. Scientists accept such a paradigm in normal periods during which they apply their knowledge to solve problems that extend the scope of the paradigm. This continues until experiments or observations yield results that do not fit existing theories, or until the theories are discovered to have inconsistencies. Next comes a revolution that overthrows the paradigm, introducing a new way of looking at nature. An example is Einsteins theory of relativity which, early in the 20th century, replaced Newtons paradigm with a new understanding of space and time. There are several examples of major paradigm shifts in science, but whether the intervening normal periods can always be described as harmonious is questionable because those periods often involve passionate debates and disagreements. Constant questioning is the distinctive feature of science. Some scientific disputes attract public attention, sometimes to the dismay of the scientists involved. For example, Einstein responded as follows to a report on his work in the New York Times of May 4, 1935: It is my invariable practice to discuss scientific matters only in the appropriate forum and I

deprecate advance publication of my announcement in regard to such matters in the secular press. This request can not always be granted because some topics, global warming for example, are of such importance to laymen that the secular press has an obligation to report on the debates amongst scientists. The press usually tries to present opposing points of view in a balanced manner, giving equal weight to different opinions. When a clear majority of scientists favors one point of view, the matter is often regarded as settled. Scientists, however, do not adopt democratic methods to resolve their disputes. (They do not conduct referenda to decide on the validity of Newtons laws.) How do they settle disagreements? Sometimes the courts are asked to rule on disputes concerning science. In Pennsylvania in late 2005, a federal judge ruled on a case involving Intelligent Design. He gave the members of the Dover, Pa. school board a stinging rebuke for deciding that the teaching of Intelligent Design should be part of the science curriculum in the local schools. The judge admonished the members of the school board for making a decision of "breathtaking inanity" that "dragged" their community into "this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources." Despite this reprimand, the advocates of intelligent design strongly disagree with the judges conclusion that intelligent design is not science. Some argue, correctly, that scientists do not turn to courts to determine whether or not their results are valid. The manner in which the judge in Pennsylvania conducted the hearings is of considerable interest. He called on experts in various branches of science for testimony, and in effect organized the equivalent of scientific seminars, prompting a reporter to write that the trial was rather like the biology class you wish you could have taken in college. What the participants learn in such seminars is that the scientific enterprise is a huge communal effort to explain a great diversity of natural phenomena by appealing to a relatively modest body of general concepts. This effort, involving an ever increasing number of scientists exploring an ever expanding range of phenomena, has as its salient feature the continual testing of observations and theories. The reasons for this sustained exercise in checking new and even established results are summarized in a famous aphorism usually attributed to Newton: If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Each scientist contributes to the scientific edifice by building on the achievements of his colleagues and predecessors. The soundness of the structure is therefore of great importance and has to be checked repeatedly. The beauty of the edifice derives from the consistency of the innumerable inter-connected parts. Science demands of its practitioners a firm commitment to skepticism because the strength and coherence of the scientific edifice depends on the continual questioning of all results, old and new. This constant questioning makes science self-correcting. Attempts to sway opinions, and to settle disputes, by fabricating fraudulent information, are very rare. Dishonesty may bring short-term benefits, but exposure is inevitable. Deceit is so uncommon in science that the perpetrators, usually isolated individuals, receive enormous notoriety when exposed.

Not only individuals, but groups of scientists can go astray when they allow shared beliefs to undermine their commitment to skepticism. A particularly unfortunate example has its origin in the phenomenal rate at which scientific knowledge grows, causing science to progress rapidly. This can lead to a belief in progress in general, a belief that can influence the interpretation of scientific results. Consider, for example, biological results concerning evolution. Given a belief in progress, it is tempting to describe evolution in terms of the metaphor of a ladder, with homo sapiens occupying the top rung. Early in the 20th century concern that the best human beings were not reproducing as rapidly as the inferior ones, that the human gene pool was deteriorating, led to horrendous and disgraceful efforts to prevent the unfit and degenerate from breeding. Several prominent scientists and prestigious scientific institutions supported the theory of eugenics, presumably because of its laudable goal the improvement of humankind. They failed to recognize this as overt racism. The theory of eugenics proved to be without any scientific basis. Many people suffer from the delusion that the appropriate metaphor for evolution is a ladder. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly favors the tree of life as an appropriate metaphor; the species homo sapiens amounts to a twig at the end of one of the many branches of that tree. The theory of eugenics is a shocking reminder of the degree to which beliefs and values can influence the activities of scientists. To prevent the recurrence of such fiascoes, the community of scientists is obliged to practice organized skepticism, a firm commitment to the constant questioning of all scientific results. This practice has a number of discomfiting consequences. Scientific results, because they must constantly be subjected to tests, are all tentative; none is final. The validity of a result can never be established beyond doubt. However, if a result is incorrect, then it is possible to establish conclusively that that is the case. Consider the trivial example of the hypothesis, arrived at after observing many swans, that all swans are white. We can never be certain of the validity of this statement because it is possible that a black swan will be born sometime in the future. Although the validity of the hypothesis will always be uncertain, its incorrectness can be established conclusively by merely sighting a single black swan. In general it is impossible to prove that a scientific hypothesis is correct, but it is in principle possible to demonstrate beyond doubt that it is false. Such reasoning leads to the proposal that, for a hypothesis to be scientific, it must be falsifiable. The tentativeness of all scientific results can, in principle, lead to difficulties when trying to put the results to use. Fortunately, practical difficulties usually arise only at the frontiers of science -- they concern mainly newly discovered phenomena -- and do not afflict the vast body of results in which scientists have great confidence. Consider for example the theory of relativity which, early in the 20th century, fundamentally changed the way we think about space and time. For practical purposes, however, the theory altered mainly the results concerning phenomena involving very high speeds approaching that of light. It did not render Newtons laws of motion invalid, except for the case of bodies traveling at speeds close to that of light. When calculating the orbits of planets, or the trajectories of space rockets, scientists still use Newtons laws. Einsteins

contributions are extensions of, and not alternatives to those of Newton. This is an example of how scientific advances are cumulative; they bring us closer and closer to objective truths concerning nature. The very wide range of phenomena governed by Newtons laws of motion include the water swirling in Nelsons bowl. One way to understand such rotating phenomena is to follow Newtons advice: first diligently investigate the properties of things and establish them by experiment. Because science demands the continual testing of all results, controlled experiments must be replicable. Nelsons experiment should therefore be repeated. The tourists are naturally pleased when Nelsons demonstration appears to confirm their expectations and beliefs concerning the Coriolis force, but they should nonetheless approve Chris request to repeat Nelsons demonstration. Let us assume that the tourists, after watching Nelsons apparently successful demonstration, and then watching Chris failure to reproduce Nelsons results, conclude that Nelsons demonstration is a hoax. In principle the tourists, by becoming skeptical of Nelsons results, have made progress. In practice they have become confused and disappointed. They were under the impression that they know the rule that governs how the winds swirl around the eye of a hurricane, and hence could anticipate how the water will spiral out of a bowl, but apparently the rule is not universal. Why does the rule not apply to water swirling in a bowl?

The tourists are in a quandary because they are poorly educated in science. They have no context for Nelsons demonstration; they are unable to see it as but one of a range of possible rotating systems that includes dust-devils, tornadoes, hurricanes and spiraling galaxies. Whereas the winds in a hurricane always whirl around its eye in an anticlockwise sense in the northern hemisphere, those of a tornado or dust-devil can spiral in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise sense. What are the key differences between these various rotating phenomena? Is there a scheme or pattern and where does the swirling water in Nelsons bowl fit into the scheme? A mad tea party can help us address these questions.

NOTES Bronowski J. Science and Human Values, Harper and Row, New York, N.Y. 1956 . Popper Kuhn T.S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago 1962. Weinberg S. New York Review of Books, Vol XLV, Number 15 (1998). Science Wars Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Wednesday November 29, 2006.

Pyne Stephen.J. How the Canyon Became Grand Penguin Books, New York, 1998 Sokal Allan Transgressing the Boundaries; Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. Social texts pp 217-252, 1996. Magaret Talbot: Letter from Pennsylvania; Darwin in the Dock; Intelligent design has its day in court. The New Yorker December 5, 2005 pages 66-77. Tom Stoppard Arcadia