DarkSyde's blog

I know there are millions of brave, decent conservatives. My apologies to those folks for the following. But good grief, when did the Republican Party become infested with what sound like so many loud, whining cowardly pundits?  One second Reagan is up there standing toe-to-toe with the Rooskis, negotiating cool as a cucumber with 20,000 nukes pointed at him, and the next thing I know, the likes of Limbaugh or the crew at Powerwhine and Freeperland, are all shrieking like a class full of tweaked-out, neurotic fifth-graders having a panic attack every time OBL pops up in a grainy video with a rusty AK in the background. What the hell happened to the GOP I once knew?

As a science writer--or blogging Internet hack to be more accurate--I attempt to convey the wonder and beauty of the natural world through words and metaphor. But a picture is worth a thousand words as they say. And we primates are, after all, highly visual creatures. There are times when my meager efforts pale in comparison to the visual and artistic mediums: This is one of those times.

If natural wildlife art were part of the classical metric, Mr. Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen would be a candidate for Michelangelo and his life's work in Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding might adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and line the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His posts about science, politics, the environment, or anything else are all beautifully illustrated with original paintings that add a powerful ingredient to the text:

[Link] Our entire reality is based on the fact that for the past century, we've had essentially free energy in the form of petroleum. Soon, perhaps very soon, the supply will be increasingly difficult to extract, and increasingly more expensive, both monetarily and ecologically. Right now, the question I'd like to be able to answer is, “What kind of oil production does the least ecological harm?”

I had a chance to chat with Carel about his work and feature some of his paintings. So if you'd like to see just a sample, with links to much more, make the jump--and take the kids along with you. This is the kind of good old fashioned brush-to-canvas work that causes the child in all of us to clap our hands at the pretty pictures and ask questions about the underlying science.
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I remember it like it was yesterday: Speeding through the empty Texas prairie, Dec 26th, 1968 at 2 AM. I'm laying above and behind the back seats, my six-year old body easily stretched out on the old style rear console, staring up through the slanted glass of a Ford sedan at a crystal clear nightscape. The Milky Way spilled across the sky like powdered sugar. In a moment of pure Synchronicity the radio played a static filled, crackling Season's Greeting carried a quarter million miles on the gossamer wings of invisible light, conducted by bone to my inner ear via the speaker beneath my head, as I stared into the starry infinitude:

For all the people on Earth ... ... the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you ...

My wonder aroused, the rest of the family dozing, I asked my father about those brilliant stars. He began to explain to me quietly, patiently, using analogies of distance a child could grasp. And IT hit me.

In an electrifying jolt of acceleration it was as though I was thrown head over heels off into the endless heavens, an infinitesimal mote of consciousness dwarfed by intimidating immensity. I was swallowed whole by space and time, united with uncountable tiny points of light flickering in a boundless black abyss.

It was terrifying, it was exhilarating, it was glorious. I was mainlining cosmic eternity, and like that first warm bourbon buzz for the latent alcoholic or that first rush for a burgeoning junkie, after my transcendental ride ended, all I could think of was: I want some more.
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First, regarding Yearly Kos and the convention: It's important that folks know how truly wonderful it's shaping up. I can't go into details, but trust me on this. Some of the names and programs that have been talked about ... lets just say if you want to ride the crest of the coming wave; you will regret missing out. It will be one of those spectacular, rare, hip, underground kind of events that we all get a chance to be part of only a handful of times in our lives.

As far as the volunteers putting it together: I can say they are among the most impressive folks I've ever dealt with on any project. The passion and expertise they bring is both humbling and astounding. Several have quit their jobs to work on it full time for the next six months. More on the science book on the flip.

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Glenn Morton

Glenn Morton is a petroleum geophysicist who holds a Bachelor of Science in physics and currently makes his living as Director of Technology in charge of petrophysics, reservoir characterization, reservoir simulation and geophysical visualization, at a large independent oil company. Unlike the creationists reviewed in this series to date Glenn is unique: He fully accepts evolutionary biology, geochronology, and astronomy, along with the findings of pretty much all of science. So why does he classify himself as a Creationist and why would I do so here?

Glenn is a devout evangelical Christian who embraces a view called Theistic Evolution (TE). This is the faith based position that the universe, the solar system, the earth, and the history of life up to and including the evolution of anatomically modern humans from earlier primates, were created by God using processes created by same which humans can understand and explain to some degree through careful scientific investigation. In this view there is no contradiction possible even in principle between believing in a Creator and any valid facts gleaned from studying that Creation. Technically this could be considered a form of Creationism as it assumes a Creator Deity which produced the universe and everything in it. But if so, Theistic Evolution is the only form of creationism which is 100% fully consistent with modern science. So I represent Glenn as such with his permission and as an admirable example of an honest Christian in the hope that anyone reading this doesn't get the idea that Know Your IDCists is a thinly veiled series seeking to bash Christians out of sheer malice by tarring them all with the embarrassment of a few fanatical anti-science extremists.