On composition, part 13: Purpose

Al Denelsbeck


So here’s a compositional aspect that I admit I have to remind myself of far too often: purpose. No, not the abstract concept that might be illustrated by someone striding determinedly with a clipboard in their hand, but the purpose of the image itself – what do you want to do with it?

For instance, I’ve already made it clear that I don’t really do ‘art,’ and instead try for illustration or interest. But, depending on your approach to photography (most especially, whether or not you intend to make any money from it,) it may serve you well to consider how many different purposes any image or subject can serve. It is just this aspect that is often addressed by specific photographic genres, like portraiture or journalism or abstraction, each requiring a different approach to the same subject. It can be very useful to consider multiple purposes when you have a particular subject handy, especially if it’s a rare or difficult subject. It can also do a lot for your employment opportunities, by giving you experience in different approaches rather than fixing you within a particular category.

When traveling, most people like to get their traveling companions in the frame with something that speaks of their location, which is great – but if it’s simply a pose struck in front of the Eiffel Tower, it only serves to document that you’ve been there. A more candid shot, however, may speak not only of the locale, but the activities, the appeal, the fun you’re having, the kind of people you’re meeting, what you’re eating, perhaps even opening or closing a story. Your frames might show both a nice introspective closeup of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte,) but also communicate the behavior of others in such circumstances, like the image at top. Very slight changes in shooting technique may turn lots of subjects into abstracts, which can be used in countless ways. You might illustrate the anatomy of a reptile, and its habits, its habitat, its food source, and throw in some artistic and expressive frames as well.

Even if you have a distinctive purpose in mind, such as an assigned shoot, it helps to periodically remind yourself what exactly the purpose is, and if there are multiple ways of approaching it. This might mean that, in an article about Alaskan wildlife, you not only get a photo of a caribou, but include something that speaks of the environment, conditions, or flora in the frame as well. And the more ways you approach something, the greater the opportunity for it to be used elsewhere. You might wait for a subject to look up or resume eating, or a model to appear relaxed or thoughtful. No one needs to smile for photos, and in many cases they’re much more expressive when you capture them in honest emotions, but the photographer should try for a range.

Remember, too, that when shooting people, they almost always see themselves differently, so getting a wider range of expressions and angles greatly improves the chances that you’ll get a shot that they like. A photo that you might be particularly proud of may be very damaging to your ego when your model rejects it out of hand, since you never considered how sensitive they were about their earlobes or whatever. Your purpose in such cases is not to promote yourself, but to please them, so you should be finding out more of what they like while getting a good variety of approaches anyway.

I will also stress something that I have to remind my students of: shoot both horizontal and vertical formats. While many subjects dictate what works best by their very nature, such as full-length portraiture nearly always working best in vertical, some subjects can appear well in both, and provide a different flair in either. I almost never shoot with the intention of using an image as a banner or panoramic, but the header images at top, which I keep adding to, prove that many frames can be altered to fit anyway. And again, this opens up further options for publication, since editors may have particular constraints depending on the layout they have to work within.

The other benefit that thinking of purpose provides is weaning the photographer away from grab shots and straightforward compositions. There’s a thing called “inattention blindness” that has recently gained a lot of attention (a ha ha) on the web, mostly in videos featuring gorilla costumes, but what it means is we can focus all of our attention on one particular aspect of a scene and fail to even register anything else plainly within our field of vision. It happens very frequently in photography as we try to catch the action, establish the pose, or make sure our subject is sharply focused, so considerations of purpose leads to breaking this narrowed attention and examining the frame more, seeing the possibilities inherent from the background, or a change of position effects the composition, or different lighting, and so on.

I always strongly discourage the use of the LCD on the back of digital cameras for use as a viewfinder if the camera actually possesses an optical one, for numerous reasons such as stability, the inaccuracy of exposure, and the inability to tell whether the image is truly sharp. But among them sits the frequent display of camera info in the very frame you should be using only for your subject. Battery life, image number, jpeg compression, f-stop, and all that jazz serves only to crowd your composition into the middle, out from under all this unnecessary detail, so either use the viewfinder, or shut off the info display. You will use the whole frame, and get much more dynamic when composing.

And finally, to learn from my own difficulties, it helps to get a variety of angles not only of any critter you might want to identify later, but also of any plant that they’re perched on or eating from. Identifying characteristics vary greatly by species, so the more sides and detail you have, the better your chances of confirming the ID. When in a botanical garden or zoo, you can even take images of the identifying plaques or displays, having them handy right in sequence with the species in question, and even linked by date by the EXIF info within the image file itself. And of course, the exterior shot of the facility also serves as a reminder. When shooting weddings, I used to set up an artistic shot of the wedding program, which could be used not only as an album opener, but was my own reference for just who the happy couple was ;-).

So, apply a little thought, and keep those purposes in mind – it may come in handy down the road.

Unprecedented

Al Denelsbeck


Yeah, despite my kvetching, I actually got some breaks in the clouds during the transit of Venus right now, and the thin wisps allowing the sun to peek through actually made the light level manageable without a ridiculously expensive solar filter (that I would use once.)

During the previous transit in 2004, I was living in Florida and had a basic Galilean telescope that might have produced some nice tight shots from the sunrise event, had a single towering thunderhead not obscured the sun until well after the transit ended. It was, quite possibly, the same thunderhead that I’d been doing time-exposures of hours before, which I think means, “You win some, you lose some.”

The Girlfriend and I tried a few projection shots with binoculars for tonight’s transit, but without strapping them down firmly (which works only for a couple minutes before having to be re-aimed,) we weren’t going to get anything decent. My biggest annoyance was, just as I got a sharp projection and was readying the camera, an airplane actually passed in front of the sun and threw a distinct image on the projection board. In about a second, it was gone, before I could get off a shot.

But I can’t complain, and my favorite image is this one, nicely framed through the tree branches. For working without any specialized equipment at all, I’m good with it.

Closer than you ever wanted

Al Denelsbeck



My mother is actually getting a kick out of hearing stories about our little vegetable patch, because when I was growing up she had to threaten me with no more Star Wars toys, ever, if I didn’t get out and help with the garden. In my defense, our current patch is very small, nothing at all like the half-acre we’d planted in my youth, and our present plants are tomatoes and peppers, which I like – it was very hard to stir adolescent motivation with all of the vegetables my folks had planted that made me gag. By the way, for all of those who insist that in adulthood you’ll start liking all those things you didn’t as a child, let me just say, the attempt to feed me Brussels’ sprouts now is something I consider assault and respond to accordingly.

Anyway, yesterday I discovered that the creature scarfing the tops of some of our tomato plants was not the suspected deer in the neighborhood, but a fat tobacco hornworm, the larval stage of a six-spotted sphinx moth (Manduca sexta,) closely related to, and often mistaken for, the tomato hornworm, larva of the five-spotted hawkmoth (Manduca quinquemaculata.) The bane of tomato-growers everywhere, hornworms aren’t really difficult to get rid of, for the home grower anyway – while a little hard to spot, all you have to do is pluck them off and fry them up with a little vinegar and hush puppies. All right, seriously, don’t follow that advice, because hush puppies aren’t very good for you. But I suspect people have more of a fear of hornworms since they’re huge as far as caterpillars go, bloated like a Hut, and have a nasty-looking little rapier on their hinders. Since I haven’t ever been tagged by either end of a hornworm, even years ago while fretting over not getting a Star Destroyer for christmas, I’m inclined to say the fears are unjustified. My subject here reluctantly served as a photo model before taking a dip in a nice cool and refreshing bucket of water (they’re also terrible swimmers.) Hey, don’t judge me, this is natural selection; just like tearing into a beehive for honey is a bad move, messin’ with a human’s tended garden is Darwinism at its most efficient.

We can see my freeloader munching on a small amount of vegetable matter, and the full-resolution versions makes it appear to be regurgitated which, if true, perhaps makes me more of a kindred spirit with them than ever suspected. It’s easy to make out the small forelegs gripping its food; the hunched posture and little stubby arms up by the [ahem] ‘face,’ almost give it the appearance of a little infant with its bottle. Almost. But for some real detail, we have to go deeper.



Are you one of those people who believe you can tell everything about someone by looking deep into their eyes? Well, aside from the fact that you’re definitely on the wrong blog, go ahead and peer away, and tell me what you find here, since those are the eyes lined up at the edge of all the yuck. You might think that, with that many manipulative appendages, hornworms wouldn’t be quite so messy eaters, but I’m here to dash all of your misconceptions today.

“But Al,” you say (go ahead, I can hear you,) “don’t tell me you had one of these lovely creatures, shining example of the beauty of gods’ creation as they are, and did not get a closeup of its delicate lips.” [Yes, I’m really that tuned in to the thoughts of my four readers.] Fear not, I say in return, because I often talk that way. I would not deprive you of such an experience, for sleeping soundly too many nights in a row could become boring. Behold!



For those of you with little sisters, I will be happy to send you a full-resolution version of this for printing poster size, because I get kickbacks from psychotherapists. Just don’t ask me if you’re looking at a hornworm tongue here, since no source that I’ve located has diagrammed caterpillar anatomy that distinctly. Just bear one little bit of trivia in mind: this critter (well, not this particular one anymore) will metamorphize into a six-legged flying insect with only a siphon for a mouth. It will sport compound eyes and no little jaws or mouthfingers. If I could get ahold of an adult sphinx moth I’d show you the difference – maybe in a later post. But essentially, moths don’t run into their school classmates and remark how they’ve barely changed a bit.

Anyone that has ever pulled a hornworm free from their plants knows that they have a pretty decent grip with their hind legs, and this is why:



I’m really not creating any new fans of hornworms here, am I? I mean, who wouldn’t envy a species that can count up to 712, and imagine if they learned how to make tiny guitars? As you might have suspected, the pink background that you’ve been seeing here is my own fingers, since The Girlfriend seemed rather cranky about something when I asked for her help.

If you’ve been wondering what the difference is between tobacco and tomato hornworms, the answer is, “Not much.” Tomato hornworms have V-shaped white marks on their sides rather than stripes, and straight blue-black horns rather than curved reddish-orange ones. Since tomato and tobacco plants are both from the plant family of Solanaceae, along with potatoes and some peppers, it’s not surprising that the two species of hornworm have such a distinct resemblance, or that they will interchange their host plants and snack on some others. Last year, the hornworms didn’t appear until very late in the growing season, and the Braconid wasps already had things well in hand. Or whatever. This family of wasps lays their eggs within the body cavity of caterpillars, where the young hatch out and eat the living tissue inside, then go to the skin surface to spin their cocoons on the outside, eventually emerging from the tops as adult wasps. This, perhaps rather obviously, is not too beneficial to the hornworm, as seen here in a photo I obtained last year.



Braconids are part of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea (man, I always wanted to be part of a superfamily,) which was a specific focus of Darwin’s attention in his contemplation of the familiar ‘beauty of god’s creation.’ He wrote (in a letter to Asa Gray):

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

Such things seem distasteful to us almost entirely due to the sympathetic tendencies we have as a social species, tendencies too clumsy to differentiate between our own species, where they have important social and survival functions, and any other species where they don’t. Note that this doesn’t rule out any form of god in and of itself, but it does raise some serious questions regarding the sympathetic and anthropomorphic nature of such a deity (or the assumptions we make thereof.)

Distilling this down, nature itself isn’t good or bad; it just is. The emotional reactions that we get from witnessing any aspect of nature are strictly our own. Hornworms eat our food plants, wasp larvae eat the hornworms; neither one comes from anything planned, antagonistic, or evil. They’ve simply adapted to the conditions available.

Brussels’ sprouts, however, are truly hell-spawn. You have been warned.

Moral: you keep using that word…

Al Denelsbeck

While I can’t say anyone has ever had the temerity to attempt to express this to my face (I’m not a little or meek-looking guy,) there is a very prominent tendency to automatically equate “atheist” with “immoral,” one of the little triumphs of religious influence – in fact, it may come second only to “faith is a virtue” in the realm of common beliefs that have no actual basis in reality. Atheism has nothing whatsoever to do with morals, as a moment’s thought will demonstrate – it also has nothing to do with political parties, child psychology, or the proper way to serve tea. Yet, we’re led to believe that morality can stem only from religion, and in most cases, one particular religion (which is, of course, the very same religion practiced by the person promoting this idea, imagine that coincidence.)

When one tries to find a useful definition for the term, the difficulties with the idea become clear – for something that dictates an ideal of society and permeates our conduct as humans, there is an inexcusable amount of vagueness in most sources, almost always dealing with “right and wrong.” This may be in no small part due to pressures from religions not to include any comments about common benefit, empathy, treating everyone as equals, or demonstrable advancement, all of which certainly have some say in my approach to morality while pulling the teeth of religious privilege. But overall, the lack of distinctive traits or measurements in the concept of moral allows people to insert their own ideas, or more often, buy into the definition promoted by religious leaders. Naturally, a supreme being would have final say on what’s moral, right?

But here’s the problem with that: The vast majority of religious morals are, as noted before, incredibly selfish, aimed only at individual behavior and not at, for instance, society itself. It’s true that any application of morality comes first and foremost through the individual, but if it applies only to the individual (“Don’t masturbate!”), then there is little application to society as a whole, and very little reason to elevate morality as a cornerstone. If I eat shellfish, or work on the sabbath, or covet my neighbor’s patio furniture, what hazard does this really communicate to anyone else? And why should anyone else concern themselves with my behavior? Obviously, what we think of as morals are intended to apply to everyone to provide community strength, promote justice, and maintain better relations – they involve codes of conduct between individuals, with the underlying implication that society is a greater concern than any one person.

This is why I find it amusing that atheism is considered so much lower on the moral ladder, if it appears at all, than virtually every religion in existence. The elimination of arbitrary rules provided by scripture for “personal salvation” means that morality actually deals with societal benefit, not getting muddied by individual piety or, worse but disturbingly prevalent, the selection of minute fractions of scripture to support a pre-existing bias. Without a supreme authority to claim as backing, atheists and humanists instead look to humans themselves when defining morality, seeking goals that actually support society as a whole instead of drawing circles around themselves to denote the heretics outside. Moral behavior becomes a practice of demonstrable and measurable benefit, and justice actually starts to have some relation to the statue of the blindfolded woman holding scales – it doesn’t matter what anyone calls themselves or what they wear around their neck, since it’s their actions that count.

Moreover, it helps lead away from the class consciousness that is also promoted by religion, as well as many other sources such as political affiliation, income level, or skin color. When any concept of morality revolves around an idea that a class of people has greater claim to the title, this actively works against both the idea and the benefit; just like “good” and “bad,” actions are moral, not people. Self-proclaimed authorities provide nothing of value to society, and are only examples of pompous attempts at manipulation.

In all fairness, there is nothing about atheism that promotes morality, either, nor any reason to believe the standpoint leads towards greater morality – it simply denotes no belief in deities. As much as this may be wielded by triumphant religious debaters, it doesn’t exactly have a lot of bearing on any argument, and anyone calling themselves an atheist tells us nothing about their approach to any other subject at all. However, once the conversation turns to morality, it becomes safe to say that atheists aren’t going to accept anyone’s choice of quote-mined scripture, and that morality is going to have a different definition than “faithful.” And humanism, which often correlates very closely with atheism, does have a specific approach to morality.

The other issue with religious morality is that it runs into serious problems when the debate turns to which religion; christians find that wielding their holy book doesn’t mean fuck-all to muslims doing the same, and the only thing they can resort to is exactly what any atheist or humanist does: either, “you have no proof of the accuracy of your book,” or, “morality should have more to it than arbitrary quoting from scripture.” Or, fairly frequently, the abject avoidance of any such debate in the first place. Atheism serves a nice purpose here in playing the evil enemy, allowing the religious to believe they’re all united rather than ridiculously at odds, with no arguments that cannot be turned against themselves.

On a related note, it’s not hard at all to find large numbers of people that seem to need distinct, firmly delineated definitions of any abstract subject, or they can’t seem to cope. When things such as abortion or human rights are discussed, they automatically seek any exception that can be found to any and every “rule” proposed, implying that without considering every possible exception, any such rule is worthless, or even that people won’t be able to handle any grey areas. But most people handle grey areas very well in the few circumstances when they have to, such as when it is appropriate to lie to someone (“I’m sure she didn’t suffer at all”), and the rare exception is no excuse to trash a distinctive benefit for 99% of situations. Simply defining morality as “providing the greatest benefit for society with the recognition of all humans as equal” covers most of the bases without issue; some qualifiers can be added of course, but that’s true of any definition, law, or guideline. Moreover, it automatically disqualifies any attempt to claim that legislation against same-sex marriage (and countless other examples) is morally backed. If no victim can be found, no detriment to society, who is the law supposed to be protecting?

While it might be nice to have all the important rules of life spelled out for us, since thinking is so hard (I know I expend as much as .003 calories per hour doing it,) finding our own way isn’t exactly something that we should feel threatened by. Most especially, if our thoughts on morality revolve around labels and titles, we’re not trying very hard. Which is rather disturbing for a species that considers itself so distinctive from all others.

Classical allusions

Al Denelsbeck

Just in case you were wondering what might have become of my Rubenesque models from this post, they’re still around, living happily (I’m assuming) in the azalea bushes out front – I make it a point to see if I can find them daily. The number I can spot varies; at least one is a regular resident, but at times I can spot two on one bush, then apparently a different one on another a day or so later, but it’s hard to tell for sure just how many are around. And two more younger mantises are now being found on the pampas grass nearby, which always houses a few each year.

Yesterday, I managed to capture some tonsorial rituals.


I should probably feel a bit insulted, since my model here (I believe this is a Chinese mantis, Tenodera aridifolia sinensis,) undertook its meticulous foreleg cleaning efforts immediately after I’d coaxed it to walk on my hand for the scale shot. Or perhaps this is a measure of mantis respect. My friend here is better than twice the size it was when I first found them and got the dew pics, about 4 cm in length, but still well below adult size (that’s my finger, in case it’s not clear.) Nobody has been cooperative enough to let me photograph the molting, even though I’m pretty certain it’s happened at least twice, judging from the color changes. The chances of my capturing this activity in images is slight, however; immediately after molting their chitin is still soft, leaving them very vulnerable, so they tend to perform the molt while hidden and remain so until they feel safe – the thick bushes provide plenty of opportunity for this. Still, I keep watching.

I’m pleased that I actually captured some of the facets in the eyes in the closeup pics – I can’t even speculate on how small these really are, but the head measures 4mm across the eyes. The little manipulative fingers alongside the mouth are called palps, similar in function to the pedipalps of spiders. We have lips, they have mouthfingers. Praying mantises cannot whistle, but we can’t clean between our toes with our mouths.


Well, maybe this isn’t exactly true. One of the benefits of a classical education is the connection that can be made to great works of art, such as the film gris chef d’oeuvre “Big Trouble,” specifically this scene with Stanley Tucci and Sophia Vergara:

I just have to note that I ripped and uploaded this video myself after finding that the clip on YouTube had been tagged as “adult” by some seriously uptight individual. I suspect it wasn’t because of the footie stuff, but that she smacked him with a crucifix…

Why would they lie?

Al Denelsbeck

There’s a common argument that crops up in discussions of UFO sightings, always from UFO proponents (which, for my purposes here, denotes those who feel that the large number of reports are indicative of something significant – there isn’t a consensus on exactly what.) It can also crop up in regards to paranormal and even religious experiences. Made in regards to eyewitness accounts and their veracity, the argument is, “Why would anyone lie about such experiences? What would they stand to gain from that?” It often goes on to say that there is little money to be made from such, and/or that anyone doing so is setting themselves up for derision and social ostracism. We’ll set these related points aside for a moment to tackle the primary one: why would anyone lie? This question was even raised by a book reviewer in his own defense recently.

The question itself seems remarkably naïve, but it’s possible that it doesn’t stem from naïveté, but instead from rationalizing a tendency to take eyewitness reports at face value because it serves as support for the favored notion of UFO sightings as ‘significant.’ Ignoring the pop psychology angle, the question is essentially the same as, “Why would anyone perpetrate a hoax?” It’s a question worth examining, but hardly very supportive of the idea that no one actually perpetrates hoaxes; of course they do, all the time really. One might as well ask, “Why watch sports on TV?” or “Why buy a car that can go 200 kph when the speed limit is 100?” and so on. It smacks of believing that humans are always and dependably rational.

Hoaxes, however, are an interesting topic, most especially those where no apparent gain is possible, or where a lot of effort is required to maintain them. Yet, a hoax is simply a practical joke applied on a larger scale, aimed more publicly (and usually impersonally) than a practical joke. A practical joke is not only done for humor, but often as a means of humiliation, or as a challenge: the perpetrator attempts to establish a form of superiority, however benign, over the victim in a battle of wits. Often, it is a manipulation of emotional reaction – the victim responds as if events are random or undirected, entirely differently than they would if they were aware that someone is trying to manipulate them. In these cases the joke exists solely because the victim does not consider the correct alternative.

These traits apply especially well to hoaxes. A successful hoax draws in as many people as possible, which implies that the hoaxer is more clever than all of the victims/believers, in effect raising the hoaxer higher in status (within their own perspective, at least) than all who succumbed. In many cases the hoax is intended as a comment on society, targeting the fixation on a particular explanation without considering alternatives; it may highlight the reliance on social support (all of these people believe, so I should too) that humans utilize a bit too often, instead of individual examination and weighing of the factors alone. Most hoaxes are non-harmful, victimless exercises, breaking few if any laws and rarely even disadvantaging anyone. The level of anyone’s involvement is dictated solely by themselves – if they either fail to fall for it or simply treat it as lacking significance, they are free from any ill effects. This means, in all cases where such traits are applicable, that the victim has simply done it to themselves.

True, not every hoax falls into such categories, such as fake bombs being planted in public areas – here the hoaxer preys on substantial fears and, frankly, rational erring on the side of caution; such ruses are both malicious (whether intended to be or not) and criminal. But the large majority of hoaxes avoid such targets in favor of harmless applications.

In some cases, hoaxes start out small, but gain more notoriety than intended or imagined by the perpetrator, and quickly pass the point where revealing the hoax would still be greeted with rueful laughs and shaken fingers – the Cottingley Fairies are a great example. The hoaxer is then placed in a position where they must either face serious public reprisal and embarrassment to reveal their intent, or maintain the charade until such a time when the revelation is either foregone or considered irrelevant. But this serves to explain how a hoax can become extraordinarily elaborate without any intention or planning, like a child playing with matches. We need to recognize that hindsight cannot be reasonably applied; a simple hoax that grew just a little too big might engender some fear of scolding from, for instance, parents or local authorities, which may be enough to discourage the hoaxer from admitting their stunt. As it continues to grow, the potential blowback becomes commensurately greater, making the parental scolding seem ridiculously tame in comparison – but is it safe to believe that any hoaxer could accurately predict how far it could reach? To assume that a hoax would be admitted before it got too big, therefore any large-scale public attention is evidence against a hoax, demonstrates a lack of perspective.

In situations such as UFO reporting, the willingness to believe of the majority of proponents is already well-known, and little support other than earnest storytelling is needed to perpetrate a hoax; this makes the task far easier. In fact, this can even result in the hoaxer gaining accomplices from the victims themselves, as the victims become reluctant to admit that they fell for it or that a hoax even exists, and struggle to find ways to support the premise of the hoax rationally. And this doesn’t just happen in UFO circles, as anyone familiar with the name “Chris Mooney” knows.

Seen from the hoaxer’s standpoint, every credulous remark, every news story, every believer, all feeds into their ego, racking up points on an internal scorecard. It really is no different than anyone pursuing sports records or high test scores, since these are also methods of placing any individual above a large number of others. In fact, it can even be said that the hoaxer accomplishes far more than the athlete, since not only are their skills more likely to be applicable to career functions (marketing, politics, sitcom writing,) any emphasis on reducing gullibility and increasing critical examination within the general public is solely beneficial. On rare occasions this is even recognized (“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”), but overall, hoaxes are resented more often than appreciated, generally from embarrassment over being caught – this is unfortunate when compared against the utterly pointless and selfish pursuit of sports trophies, and the generally positive reaction to such.

Returning to the question of what someone might stand to gain from a hoax aimed specifically at the UFO (or paranormal, or religious) community, one has to be unfathomably ignorant to ignore the amount of money someone can sell a story or a photo for, much less speaker’s fees and book rights. And in some cases, it may be true that “the general public” might find someone less than reputable, but the UFO community isn’t too discriminating and is more than happy to shower praise and huzzahs on even the weakest and least substantiated stories – and continue to do so for decades, long after the general public has stopped paying attention. It’s strange that more people don’t take advantage of this, really.

Consider, too, that any hoaxer who is treated as a crackpot or mental defective by any portion of the public knows that their story is a charade, specifically intended to provoke a response. They are far less likely to be embarrassed by such attitudes because they have no reason to take them personally – it’s an act. Any stage actor who plays a villain and provokes negative responses over their “evil” is proud of this, since their goal is to be believable. Failure, to any hoaxer, is only provoking no reaction. But what this also brings up is that it is much more likely that anyone honestly relating an actual encounter, personally and emotionally involved, is the person who will feel embarrassed by public derision and the loss of their reputation – which probably makes it more likely that a prominently publicized account is a hoax rather than genuine, at least when considered from the emotional standpoint. Note that this is exactly opposite how the argument is usually forwarded.

Finally, there is the notoriety aspect to be considered. While any claim of an encounter may generate certain amounts of both good and bad public reactions – support from UFO proponents on one hand, and ridicule from cynics on the other – both of these are considerably more attention than any individual typically garners. People are arrested all of the time for such pointless acts as streaking and public nudity, destruction of property, disrupting social events, climbing monuments, and various other less-than-reputable actions. Numerous celebrities are especially well known for being assholes. For some, it’s not a matter of good or bad attention, merely attention, sometimes in whatever manner works best. Consider, too, the practices of the internet troll, whose sole motivation is to provoke a response and “push buttons” – it is a form of manipulation, the psychological equivalent of using an opponent’s strength against themselves, and hardly qualifies as being a respected practice in the least, yet there is no shortage of these.

Failing to recognize the possibility of hoaxes naturally makes someone a prime target for such, and within the realm of UFO proponents and enthusiasts (and again, other topics as well,) this failure is far too prevalent. When most of the evidence advanced in support of extra-terrestrial visitation et al consists of personal accounts and indistinct photos and video, hoaxing is remarkably easy. Denying this makes it even easier. Worse, it opens the door to dismiss UFO proponents (et al) as not just unworthy of being taken seriously, but gullible and fatuous, by anyone who notices the lack of rigor. And while this seems nasty, one must ask how else such terms are reasonably defined?

Showoff

Al Denelsbeck

So yeah, I’m well outside of the range of the annular eclipse, still taking place as I type this I believe, and my friend in Kansas thought he was too. But at least he was watching carefully at sunset when he got the right conditions.



No filters needed when it’s this low on the horizon, since the atmosphere cuts the light levels down to manageable levels. Notice how the sun broke from underneath the cloud cover to make its brief appearance, by my estimate for less than 200 seconds.

Around here in North Carolina, the haze is usually too great to see anything within a few degrees of the horizon, and my only clear vantages that low generally have things like the interstate in the foreground. Typically, every meteorological event that’s come up in the past several months, including just plans to use the full moon two weeks ago as a light source for long exposures, has been trashed by bad weather. We’ve even had several electrical storms, all obscured by low clouds to prevent any lightning pics.

So yes, Jim, I hate you.


Too cool, part 14: Up close with the shuttle

Al Denelsbeck

Okay, first off, I apologize to those whose attention span will not be able to handle a 45 minute video – I know, this is the internet, the TL;DR Channel, where three minutes is a chore. Chill out, get a Pepsi or some tea, and stay on the same page for a bit (it’ll make me happier when looking at the site stats, too.)

Second, I’m really sorry they didn’t do this sooner, before the space shuttle orbiter was scheduled for retirement, because it adds a lot more interesting detail to the whole launch process. What I’m featuring here is a collection of clips during a couple of shuttle launches, taken by some of the 125+ cameras that keep track of various factors from very distinct vantage points, most of them at high-speed frame rates which provide excellent detail. You can watch the main engines ignite from front row, and actually see the explosive bolts that hold the solid rocket boosters in place on the pad fire off and release. And throughout it all are quite a few details about the cameras themselves and how they operate. Below, I include a short glossary of the abbreviations used by the narrators.

My one regret is that they didn’t either rehearse (and perhaps edit) the voice-overs, or perhaps obtain some professional voice actors. While it means a lot to have two NASA engineers explaining everything we can see, it comes off a tad unpolished. Still, I think most viewers can handle the video without the need for some infomercial-style enthusing.

Also note, there’s an HD version out there, but I had several issues with it pegging out, so I’m featuring the lower-res version here.

Glossary of abbreviations
FSS – Fixed Service Structure (“launch tower”)
KTM – Kineto Tracking Mount (great pic here)
LCC – Launch Control Complex (“mission control”)
MLP – Mobile Launcher Platform
RCS – Reaction Control System (maneuvering rockets)
SSME – Space Shuttle Main Engines
SRB – Solid Rocket Booster
TSM – Tail Service Mast

Here’s a couple of little bits of trivia. Throughout the video, you’ll notice the extensive use of water, not for cooling and protecting the launch area as one might expect, but for “sound suppression.” The thrust of the engines and boosters hitting the launch platform can actually send shock waves back up to the vehicle, potentially damaging it, so the water serves to dissipate the worst effects of the thrust. Also, note that when you see a launch producing huge gouts of smoke, bear in mind that the white clouds are not smoke, but steam (okay, pedants, water vapor) from this suppression system. The SRBs produce grey smoke, and the SSMEs produce none at all.

Also, the entire launch vehicle of shuttle, external tank, and solid rocket boosters are attached to the MLP (and transported) by just four bolts on the bottom of each SRB, the ones you see separating by small explosions as the boosters ignite. They boosters are placed onto the platform first and bolted down, then the external tank fitted between them, and the shuttle orbiter attached to that. The solid boosters are the only things not actually empty when this takes place – all other fueling and payload placement occurs after the launch platform has reached the FSS on the pad. For years, I thought the Tail Service Masts, those big blocks that sit at the base of the orbiter’s wings, served to hold the orbiter in place since it was so offset from the apparent center of gravity, but all they do is provide propellent and electrical connections to the SSMEs and RCS.

In the video, they mention the long-distance camera tracking stations situated miles away from the launch pad. When I lived in Florida, I was aware of one of them to the south, next to Patrick Air Force Base, so I went looking for the one to the north. Near as I can tell, it can be found by putting “28.702876 N 80.668605 W” into Google Maps, Bing, whatever. Thy look like miniature observatory domes. The one near Patrick is at “28.227168 N 80.599659 W”. Somewhere south of Cocoa is another, abandoned one that I have to try and find again.



By the way, the Fixed Service Structures on pads 39-A and 39-B, seen here in a pic from the wildlife refuge north of the Cape in 2004, are gone now, dismantled to be replaced by structures dedicated to the new Space Launch System, not unlike the old Saturn V system that carried astronauts to the moon (and Skylab into Low Earth Orbit.) And the Vehicle Assembly Building is going through a major overhaul inside for the same purpose – try to imagine that task. But if you really want something to imagine, there’s this:



Can you make out those faint wires stretching across the frame from the FSS? (Gimme a break – I was 3.5 kilometers away.) Those are one of the many crew escape options for shuttle launches. In the event that the crew could egress the shuttle by gantry but the FSS was compromised, for instance by a ground fire, they would have jumped into little baskets attached to those wires and slid down to the ground, whereupon they could then enter some modified M113 Armored Personnel Carriers and tool their way to safety (probably after pulling some donuts and trying to find an abandoned car to run over.) But hey, you don’t have to imagine it, because NASA was kind enough to take excellent video of the final release of these escape baskets. Trust me, I was grinning stupidly for the second half of this:

Yes, that’s the VAB you can see in the distance. Many thanks to NASA for such great perspectives!

Followup: The artful dodger

Al Denelsbeck

In the previous post, I took Philosopher of Science Elliott Sober to task for a relatively simple question that he’s been flogging at the expense of huge amounts of oxygen and electrons – and at the same time, ripped philosophy in general. I’ll be honest and say that I would really like someone to demonstrate that philosophy has much more use than I’ve given it credit for; at the very least, it would show that a whole lot of people aren’t wasting ridiculous amounts of time with nonsense. Yet, Sober at least has been given the opportunity and has failed to rise to the challenge. At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne posed three pertinent questions directly to Sober, basically cutting to the heart of the matter to try and clarify what he saw as the flaws in Sober’s argument. Sober did indeed reply… or at least, wrote back. I think the word “reply” at least implies that the questions were actually answered, and not avoided or twisted.

So, the breakdown (yes, I’m using that in more than one meaning). Coyne’s three questions are as follows:

1. Can you demonstrate that the logical compatibility of a rarely-acting God with evolutionary biology is a serious and important philosophical question?

2. Your argument about that logical compatibility would seem to extend not just to mutation and evolution, but to all of science. Is that correct? If so, why did you concentrate on mutation?

3. If the answer to the first part of (2) is “yes,” then would it be equally important for philosophers to write papers and give talks about how we can’t rule out the logical possibility that God influences coin tosses to favor outcomes He wants (like a favorite football team winning)? If not, why not? After all, isn’t the coin-tossing argument basically identical to the one you were making for mutations?

These are simple, direct, and consistent, no? They deal with factors that have immediate bearing on the lecture that Sober has given, and repeatedly defended – in fact, they address the very reason anyone would give such a lecture in the first place. Let’s see what Sober did with them:

If by “God” you mean a being who separately created species within the last 50,000 years, then I am an atheist. But sometimes when people tell me what they mean by “God,” their answers makes me doubt that science could ever provide evidence about whether such a being exists. In this case, I feel obliged to be an agnostic. This is why I find statements like “there is strong scientific evidence that shows that God does not exist” unsatisfactory; the claim is correct for some concepts of God, but not for others.

Note that, in the last sentence, Sober is dealing with another subject entirely; neither the lecture, nor the responses given by Coyne or Rosenhouse, involved this statement at all. It is worth noting that, “there is strong scientific evidence that shows that God does not exist,” is not the same statement as, “there is no evidence for the existence of god.” Again, an argument from proving negatives and, bluntly, a straw man. And nothing to do whatsoever with his lecture.

Even before that however, Sober doesn’t answer the question posed to him, but wanders away into the definitions of others, admitting that the concepts of ‘god’ are too variable to provide anything of use. Which raises the question, why did he try to blame science (or even individual scientists) for their failure to consider something that he cannot even define himself? I hope I’m not being too unkind when I say that even an uneducated person is an idiot for arguing in consideration of something he doesn’t believe in and cannot define; a professor doing so is inexcusable.

On to questions 2 and 3, which for our purposes here can be combined. Sober admits that his supposition about cause can be applied throughout the sciences, not just within evolutionary biology. His excuse for spending all of his time on evolutionary biology?

The reason is that many theistic opponents of evolutionary theory think that accepting the theory forces one to be an atheist. They hear biologists say “mutations are unguided” and think that the theory says that God plays no role in the evolutionary process.

So, what Sober is saying here is that, because some bunch of neurotics are concerned that their personal belief system isn’t supported by biology, biologists should reword everything in the literature to express an opening that accommodates said neuroses.

Notice that there is no recognition that science is so extraordinarily useful because it emphasizes the elimination of preconceived bias. Or that scientific theories revolve around explaining what evidence we do have, not outlining the literally infinite possibilities of the evidence we do not. Not even that the pursuit of knowledge can only take place by accepting the results we get, regardless of how they make us feel. This whole situation openly demonstrates the flaws in setting emotions higher than reason, a pertinent and useful topic in philosophy, yet Sober spends his time only in perpetuating these flaws. And this is what a prestigious philosopher of science is providing?

It takes no effort to see how badly knowledge is hampered when ideology is accommodated (or forced upon, as history shows irrefutably.) It serves no purpose whatsoever to make allowances for people who fail to understand how the scientific method operates and why, especially when effort spent in promoting such understanding can actually eliminate the problem. Numerous further questions were raised by Sober’s backwards approach to biology, all of which illustrate problems solved decades to centuries ago and were directly responsible for the methodology we have now – yet Sober either remains ignorant of these, or chooses to suck up to religious whiners instead. It really doesn’t matter which.

There’s another useful thing to consider in here as well. Religion isn’t pursued because it provides answers, makes sense, or even guides us morally – it’s pursued through cultural pressures and because it’s indulgent (and, in the cases of religious leaders, because it’s a great way to make money from bullshit.) The religious problems with evolution do not stem from either evolution failing to explain some aspect of life, or from the few people who cannot reconcile the facts with their scripture; the problems stem from religious leaders actively trying to discredit it because, without “the fall” and the idea of sin, the entire structure of the abrahamic religions falls apart (and with it, the leverage religious leaders can use against the wallets of their flock.) This means that it’s not evolution that has the flaws, it’s religion. Yet evolution, in the US at least, is much more often simply ignored, considered propaganda and brainwashing – biologists aren’t heeded in the slightest among that population. Even if the efforts to find a crack into which could be stuffed Sober’s idea of “Feeblegod” reached more than .05% of evolution-deniers, this would do nothing towards a greater acceptance of science, since all it would signify is how one tactic of religious pressure actually worked; it would only lead to more efforts to discredit evolution.

Not to mention that corrupting the methods of science to gain greater acceptance of the methods of science is simply a fucked-up approach, which (again) you would think might be obvious to a philosopher of science. Unless, of course, such a degree was utterly pointless.

Final answers aren’t

Al Denelsbeck

Over at EvolutionBlog and Why Evolution Is True, Drs. Rosenhouse and Coyne have taken down the same philosophical question posed by Dr. Elliot Sober, to wit: Can science establish that genetic mutations are not caused by god?

It is questions like this that have guided my abiding dislike of philosophy, since a tremendous amount of time has been spent on a question that is totally backward. Aside from the basic idiocy of attempting to prove a negative, something no PhD of anything should commit (much less base an entire lecture on,) there is also the issue that one can replace the word “god” with anything at all and not change the question in the slightest. The question doesn’t have any meaning unless we assume that ‘god’ has specific and defined traits, up to and including a particular intention in causing mutations, an explanation why it would choose such a feeble way of evoking change, and a reason why this has any bearing on knowledge whatsoever.

Let’s put it this way: If we asked whether atomic decay (‘nuclear radiation’) can be ruled out in causing mutations, we at least know decay exists and has certain properties, and answering this question might tell us not to worry about exposure in certain circumstances. But ‘god’ doesn’t even have a clear definition nor any evidence of existence – what the question implies is that there is a possibility of such existence in the very lack of absolute surety, an impossibly tenuous avenue towards belief. And so, the voluminous discussions about scientific knowledge are subverted because the entire question isn’t about knowledge, but emotional supplication. Any and all concepts of deities are cultural structures, in most cases claimed to be openly and distinctly outside of empirical demonstration (that’s what ‘supernatural’ means,) so science is not even supposed to have any input into the question in the first place. But even proposing, for the sake of argument, that there simply exists a being as yet beyond detection, what would make us insert such a concept into genetic behavior, or anything else for that matter? We could propose the same thing to explain dark energy, but what does that do for us?

Moreover, you would think that someone who actually makes their living with philosophy would tumble to the fact that ‘god’ is a catch-all term for a plethora of remarkably personal properties – does the question refer to the christian god, or that of the Kalahari Bushmen? It would be nice if the choice was only two, wouldn’t it? It might have demonstrated some real thought had already been applied, anyway. One might argue that only the christian god is intended, which raises the question of how several hundred others were ruled out (something that not one philosopher, theologian, or devotee that I have ever encountered has answered); alternately, one might say that the term “god” is applied generically to any and all theology, which in essence departs from the realm of science since it has changed the nature of the question into an abstract – one might as well ask if ‘happiness’ can be proven to have no effect on mutation.

I said that the question was backwards, and in the realm of science, it is; biologists routinely ask questions more along the lines of, “What causes genetic mutations?” – you’ll notice that there isn’t any bias towards a particular answer in there, but instead an honest inquiry to gain knowledge. Instead of assuming a cultural posit, science relies on what evidence we can find to suggest the existence of anything. True enough, sometimes a temporary speculation is entertained – “I wonder if it’s affected by endocrine levels?” – but such things serve to provide avenues of specific research guided by known properties, something that cannot possibly be applied with an abstract term such as ‘god.’ And therein lies the trap that Sober hoped to spring when he outright said that science operates to rule out god. Yet, god is ruled outside science in the first place, according to most definitions of such, but ignoring that, how do you rule out something so vague? Is it being ruled out when it does not have any measurable effect in the first place, or has it never been ruled in? Can I accuse science of ruling out Darkwing Duck as a possibility? I can, apparently, if I’d wasted my life thinking that philosophy gives value to every inane question anyone raises.

What Sober probably wanted to imply was that, without a specific answer, then “god” should have been inserted as a possibility, a default answer in the face of uncertainty. Yet, we have a long history of how little use that’s been, from disease to weather to geothermal activity, where ‘god’ not only turned out to be wrong as an answer, it provided nothing of any use anyway. This is already well recognized by a fallacy called god of the gaps, which basically continues to relegate a deity’s possible influence into the smaller and smaller areas of mystery within our knowledge base. But worse, it is a non-answer, a dead-end in inquiry. If we knew what a god actually was and how it operated, we might have some use to which this could be put – praying for specific mutations, for instance – but god is instead a mystery beyond our reach. I feel obligated to note that this very trait was provided by theologians as the reason why god has no evidence or dependable responses and is indistinguishable from random events that can be explained without the need of divine intervention. The nature of science, however, does not take “we don’t know” as an answer or a stopping point, but as a challenge instead, which is the most damning factor against the compatibility of science and religion.

Part of human nature is to seek answers, which has worked pretty well so far. Interestingly, every answer that honest inquiry provides, that science provides, leads to yet another question or three – while at the same time providing applicable traits that we can put to use. Religion is entirely different. While frequently credited with providing answers in and of itself, religion serves instead to halt inquiry and constantly hide behind a claim that we are not allowed to see beyond a certain point, and its answers explain nothing. Religion did not provide us with the idea of genetic mutation itself; science did, and it served to explain how natural selection could shape so many different species over long periods of time, fitting perfectly with both the similarity of genetic makeup of every species on earth, and the curious progression of traits among fossil species. It bears noting that most concepts of gods are provided by creation legends that science, including genetics, has already trashed resoundingly. Trying to save a tiny vestige of such legends by glomming it onto functional science like some kind of parasite is evidence only of pathetic desperation, not honest inquiry.

Even if we found some fantastic, deliberate force within those mysteries still open to us, this cannot change the fact that every creation legend from every culture on the planet has been shown to be bollocks. Should we choose to call this force “god,” it will never be the god that any individual has envisioned, and its properties will remain to be determined. The chances are very great, given the long and detailed history that we already have, that our human desires and emotions are not going to be a prime concern of such a force – in other words, cosmic daddy is way too farfetched for serious consideration. It’s about time we grew up, stopped trying to find ridiculous ways to maintain emotional crutches, and faced what we can learn with eagerness and pragmatism.

And when we ask questions, let’s first try to determine that they’re useful, and not just self-indulgent horseshit.

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