What if...

Pluto no longer a planet. That was as of 24 Aug 2006 and I have known today. That gives an example how scientific "facts" can be faulty at times. The average teacher today if a student answers the solar system has 8 planets would they mark him right or wrong? Not all know this I think. That made me think about other things scientist say.
I read the bible. I am a scientist. The simplest definition of science that I was taught in primary school is the one that has stuck in me:

science is finding out the truth about something.

I came to believe in God's because something about the explanation in science couldn't hold up: existence of a living thing by chance.(Do people still hold to this belief? Scientist shouldn't). Suppose a better explanation could be brought up could it weaken my belief? I see so much beauty, consistence and design in creation to just come into being by itself. What do I seek to find out? How did God create the earth? This will surely be known if not by me somebody will find out. He spoke words and things were. But how did they become from words(The process of changing nothing into something)? This is the question i ask as a scientist. Perhaps it could have been thoughts, conceived, planned, visualized and spoken into being as I would plan, write, run a computer program to automatically do something I want to do.
What do I want to say? Age of the earth. Is it multi-billion years ago or few thousands?
Formation of fossil fuels. And presence of fossil dinosaurs. Is there any other time in scientific history, archaeological history, biblical history when the conditions were so right?
I read the bible conditions required by scientific observations to me coincide with Noah's flood. 40 days and 40 night rain. 15 cubits water up covering the mountains. 150 days later the land is dry again.(Gen. 6).
This is why radio-dating could be wrong: Carbon-14. whatever happened seems to have affected carbon so much. The fossil fuel content is mainly Carbon and Hydrogen which confirms the possibility of mass death of carbon rich living things and abundant water reacting by whatever conditions probably heat which could account for the quick drying of the water. It seems undeniable that the conditions at that time affected the content of carbon in the fossils thereby making them seem as if they have decayed for a longer time than they actually have. Are fossils that old then?
Isochron dating. Something does not hold up:
comparing with meteorite radiation: meteorites may give different results taking into account the exposure to radiations and other conditions in space different from earth prior to their existence on earth;
determining the original content of radioactive isotopes: the half-life is usually thousands and milli0ns of years. The gradient of a curve seems to be constant when observed over a short range. In fact the dy/dx at a point is gradient of a tangent line. Exponential functions tend to change rapidly on one extreme and very slowly on the other extreme. how could we decide the change is constant? how long would it take for radioactivity to be low enough to allow the existence of first living things? What if the radio active content was actually already low at the beginning and we have projected it to be like "100%" uranium. That really wrongly projects it to billions of years before doesn't? If the radioactive decay is indeed constant, should there be existence of stable "decay products"? How do we determine the time these elements became stable? Is this accounted for in when dating?
The thing is we don't really know what really happened when first living things existed. We are all trying to find out the truth. Whatever we think might be right or wrong. If there is evidence things can't come into being on their own we search for what could have started everything. And I am sure there still isn't even now. An experiment was able to produce some protein. But did lightening strike the protein and produced a living cell? No body has ever produced a living cell from an experiment. if they will it will be a copy of a living cell that is already there. Does the fact that he is able to produce a copy of a cell prove that the cell existed on its own? Did the cells decide on their own to come together and be a human being? DNA-a series of instructions, a program that instructs the cell to be different from others and work together with other cells to makeup a human being. Did this program write itself? Somebody said the Bible said a woman was created from a rib and some fresh. What could be taken out of a man to create another DNA? some long strand of code. Moses saw this He thought ah, that a rib because probably it was taken from Adam's side where the ribs are.
One thing I find fault with experiments done in a controlled conditions. The results cannot always be as accurate as the way things really work in nature. Thats why we end up creating more problems with things we come up with.
What do I achieve anyway believing there is no God who loves me(John 3:16) who can give His only Son to die so I can have life? I may walk on my own but I eventually come to a dead end when everything in life doesn't add up and because I have disregarded so much that would have given me hope. It's all depression, hopelessness.
I wish you wouldn't always go by what the teacher marks right or wrong but what convinces you to be true. Investigate. Search. Read wide. If you never read the Bible give it a chance search through it whatever questions that have been bothering you. Read science, philosophy books find out what they are "really" saying. Usually reported speech is what distorts things. You will then stand confidently against what they say if you know their faults.
Surely you wouldn't be afraid to speak out to your teacher if he marks you wrong that the solar system has 8 planets now that you know will you?

Global Warming and Our solutions

Early 1900's we thought we have found solutions to transportation, manufactoring, etc because we could now make our own machines and we thought we don't need God any more(We thought if we depend on Him we want progress). We decided that He does not exist, not that He really doesn't but because we thought if we kept to the truth of His existance we thought we won't progress. Little by litte we started finding excuses, though our consciences not willing, to deny His existance. We said Darwin can explains the observations we see. True but He does not know everything still. He suggests a way he thinks things came into being. Should we say because his observations are true therefore his suggestion of existance of things is also true? Its like making a wrong conclusion on the right observations. And we accept it?
So we thought there is no God we started our way. By and by the gases from machines we thought were a solution accumulated and global warming was a result. And now we are looking for solutions. One of them is using ethanol. Here is what a classroom solution brought up:

During ethanol fermentation, glucose is decomposed into ethanol and carbon
dioxide.
C6H12O6 → 2C2H6O + 2CO2
During combustion ethanol reacts with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide,
water, and heat: (other air pollutants are also produced when ethanol is burned
in the atmosphere rather than in pure oxygen)
C2H6O + 3O2 → 2CO2 + 3H2O
Together, these two equations add up to the following:
C6H12O6 + 6O2 →
6CO2 + 6H2O + heat
This is the reverse of the photosynthesis reaction, which shows that the
three reactions completely cancel each other out, only converting light into
heat without leaving any byproducts:
6CO2 + 6H2O + light → C6H12O6 + 6O2

What did we forget? Photosynthesis is a natural process which we may not fully control without introducing another imbalance in nature. That leaves a lot of H2O and CO2 in the atmosphere and more globe warming? may be floods when the H2O condenses.
How do we overcome this? Do we fully understand how nature works? How can we understand the design if we deny the existance of the designer?
2 Chronicles 7:21 says it very clearly:

If my people, who are called my my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from
Heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their
land.

If our scientist humbled themselves and acknowledged God, won't He reveal the design of his creation to them and let them find a solution to our problems?
I think we have been like teenagers going through adolesence rebelling against God cause we thought we thought we have now "grown up" we know everything and can stand on our own. So God said "laissez faire". And we destroyed everything in our world and we are now afraid how are we gonna live on? God's laissez faire was 'cause He loves us and wanted us to understand Him. He says if we let go of our pride go to him say "Father forgive us for we never knew what were doing". He will forget that we did not acknowledge Him and heal our land.

Of Politics and Political Solutions

I watched a play by Nanzikambe on monday 3rd in the main hall at mzuni. It was a nice play touched my heart. I had been prejudiced against these guys their acting shakespeare play in the beginning put me off kind of like I thought they lacked creativity. But watching "Accidental death of Democracy" made me see how much I have missed. their acting is superb! Much, much better than the plays I have watched before by other groups. It wasn't like movies but it touched my emotions.
Thats not the issue here. What I learned from it is. Whatever government we might try to build there will always be a Mr Red-Suit Man(what was his name? Ponyamoto?) who will be jelousy and power hungry and always try to pull down those who fight for the good of others. So whats the solution?
It is sunday today but I do not think what I am going to say has been influenced by what was preached in church. I would have written this days ago but had no time as I was trying to prepare for my end semester exams. But here is what I say:
Daniel 4:25 says :

the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He
wishes.

Romans 13:1 says:

For there is no power but of God. The powers that exist are ordained of
God.

Matthew 6:33 says:

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His rightiousness and all these things
shall be added unto you.

If we ask God to give us good leaders won't He give us? There are always people saying its being lazy to find solutions from God but God is our father and like a father is always please when we ask Him for our needs.
Jesus says(Matt. 7:9-11),

What man is there among you whom if his son asks for bread, will he
give him a stone? Or if he ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask
Him?

He who gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall have life(John 3:16). Will He refuse us a good leader if we ask Him? No, indeed!

Encounter with Kibaki(The Virus)

I have dealt with several viruses but Kibaki virus was different from them.
Intelligent virus? It seemed to be learning: I delete one file to kill the virus after some time it replaces the file i deleted. From then on it replaces it instantly. I try to rename works the first time but I forgot to do something and I have triggered something else. The renamed file is replaced. Then on every time I rename the file it is replaced instantly. Seemed like some form of intelligence to me. Keeps truck of every file belonging to the virus.
Being made by africans, instead of being angry at it I smile wow! a virus that can give headaches to antivirus makers and its from Africa! So africans can do wonders.
I never used to like Visual Basic programming though I used it in my degree project. But this virus made me love VB(not to create viruses but do do wonders with it).
Anyway, I came up with a script that kills the virus and removes the registry values set by the virus and all one needs to do is scan and remove the remaining files with an antivirus like nod32.
You can download the script here. And you need to download the antivirus(nod32) too to remove the virus completely(need to do a full scan).

James Phiri vs Anonymity

I was looking at what are called metasyntantic variables 'cause now and again I am meeting foo and bar as identifiers when learning a new programing language. In my cryptography course we also often use Alice and Bob as communication parties and Eve as the eavesdropper. I have also come across names like "Jane Doe" in novels. So this all led me to the article on the use of these names especially "John Doe" with this:
The Doe names are often, though not always, used for anonymous or unknown defendants. Another set of names often used for anonymous parties, particularly plaintiffs, are Richard Roe for males and Jane Roe for females (as in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision Roe v. Wade).
It reminded me that we have a case here in Malawi which has raised a lot of controversy.
Look at it this way: You want to speak out against somebody who is a bully and you know once you are known that you spoke out you are in trouble. You don't wanna die young. But you know somebody has just to speak out if things are to be OK again for you and for everybody. There should be something in the law to protect you if you take that person to court. Something like hiding your true identity with a name like John Doe(Pseudo-Identity according to Grijpink & Prins). There should be a provision in the law that allows a person to "speak out" provided there is a third trusted party who knows the real Identity of James Phiri(our John Doe). If there isn't such a provision in our constitution it could be we never thought of such a case where somebody's freedom of speech could be exercised if he has a pseudo-identity.
There is also a possibility in which a representative name could be used to advance a "some cause" as we have seen in the quote above Roe v. Wade in which some group of people were speaking out on abortion. I see the case of James Phiri as a representative "Person"(I don't know what best word to use here) trying to question the legality of Muluzi standing again or not. It shouldn't be wrong to have such a representative person. We have had cases by "friends of the court". What's wrong with some 'People' representing themselves as 'James Phiri' to fight for some cause that is to question the legality of Muluzi standing again.
Whether James Phiri is using a pseudo identity or whether he is a representative person the question that I think we should be asking is: Is the cause he is fighting for constitutional(legal or whatever)?
I believe it did not matter if Roe was a real person in the Roe v. Wade case. I also believe there is nothing wrong for a person to sue somebody anonymously as long as he is safe in being anonymous. What about witnesses? They are allowed to testify without the public knowing their identity. Why should the public be interested in knowing the identity of James Phiri now? Lets wait and see what James Phiri has to say in court and support his cause if it is your cause too.