The Journal of Astronomical Data 2014, Volume 20 ABSTRACTS =============================================================== [JAD 20, 1] BOOK REVIEW: Science and Eastern Orthodoxy. From the Greek Fathers to the Age of Globalization. E. Nicolaidis, C. Sterken The long debate on the ambivalent relation between science and religion in Western civilization is well documented in the literature on the history and philosophy of science and religion, but few studies paid attention to that relation within Eastern civilization. Nicolaidis' book provides an overview of the relationship between science and Christian Orthodoxy, the official church of the Oriental Roman Empire. The study covers a time span from the fourth to the twentieth century. The author documents the vision that conflicts between science and the Greek Orthodox church were not science versus Christianity, but rather ecclesiastical debates that traversed the whole of society. This book provides a wealth of information concerning the attitude of the Orthodox (i.e., non-Slavic) Church to science today as well as in the past. But the book covers much more than science and religion: also political debates are documented, as well as the role played by Byzantine emperors in relation with science and Orthodoxy. The book presents a very useful time line of events and works covering circa AD 300-1980. There are short descriptions of the Ptolemaic cosmos, the spherical universe with its seven planets (i.e., excluding the Earth, but including Sun and Moon), the Hellenic Aristotelian world view, the duration of the world (eternal or created), the place of the Earth, the matter of creation, the nature of darkness and light, day and night, the Sun and stars, the laws of nature. The last two chapters about Greece, from the independence to the European Union (but also covering science and religion in the Greek State), are quite interesting. Particularly fascinating for astronomers is the fact that the very first establishment (in 1842) of the Greek nation-state that could be termed a research institute was the Observatory of Athens, made possible by a donation from a very wealthy diaspora Greek who resided in Vienna. This is a very useful book to serve as supportive document for the teaching of the history of science and philosophy. It is a well-researched work, with more than 450 notes, and a dozen pages of references. It is a pity, though, that the substantial geographical references and descriptions are not supported by even a single geographical map to guide the reader around Greece and Byzantium. Unfortunately, this publication is pockmarked by just too many typographical errors that were left in place during the copy-editing process. Worse even is the terrible habit of the translator of transposing native first names into modern English look-alikes: John the Grammarian, Marc Eugenicos, John Moisiodax, and the most ridiculous "John Dominique" Cassini (for Giovanni Domenico/Jean-Dominique). [JAD 20, 2] BOOK REVIEW: Evolution and Belief. Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist. R. J. Asher, C. Sterken The author says in the prologue of this book: "I want to chart a course through the false notion that evolution rules out religious belief". That is exactly what he does, in twelve well-documented and well-written chapters. The author's viewpoint is that science (evolutionary science in particular) and religion occupy non-overlapping domains, and are basically compatible with one another in the sense that they deal with fundamentally different questions. He also describes in detail what he means by the phrase "materialist orientation of modern science". This book recounts discoveries in molecular biology and paleontology, nevertheless it contains several useful lessons for anyone active in the earth and space sciences. For example, that long periods of equilibrium can be disrupted by what appear sudden episodes of change: this issue is a fact that is well known to variable-star observers, even more so in any research that relates to period changes. Another useful field to learn from by analogy is classification of whatever kind of phenomenon, or the non-randomness of some mechanisms (like evolution by natural selection). Not to forget that cosmology - just like evolutionary biology - took centuries to emancipate from its misappropriated religious implications. The author describes that there are two factors that contributed to the modern revolution in the utility of molecular data for genetics: improvements in laboratory techniques, and the Open-Access DNA databases that are fed by compulsory submission of every DNA sequence that has been used for a paper in a scientific journal. Improvement of observational techniques, and free access to (virtual-)observatory databases are exactly what drives progress in astronomy, though compulsory publication of data is still wanting. Not to speak of an important lesson: since we do not know in advance which data the future will need in particular investigations, "the process of adding more data is iterative, not circular". This is the best response to the endless mantra of "too many data" that I ever read. The last chapter offers some interesting thoughts about academic freedom and the fact that science is not a democratic endeavor. Together with the author's credo acknowledging that his religious belief is non-scientific, though entirely rational: his evolutionist views as a paleontologist, and his evangelical convictions seem to be entirely reconcilable. This book is extremely well documented (more than 580 notes covering almost 40 pages), with numerous references and internet resources that are very up to date. The illustrations (gray scale photographic reproductions) are all of good quality and of appropriate image resolution, and the data tables are rich and well formatted. Asher's language is clear and direct, nevertheless the work is at times somewhat difficult to follow for an uninitiated like myself. The book's target audience obviously is the community of evolutionary biologists and paleontologist, but it also serves the wider community of natural scientists, and very well suites the generalist history of science reader. [JAD 20, 3] BOOK REVIEW: From Stars To Stalagmites. How Everything Connects. Paul S. Braterman, C. Sterken This fine book offers a wide range of significant scientific subjects, viz., the age of the Earth, atoms and molecules, the discovery of the noble gases, the problem of the ozone hole, the greenhouse effect, nucleosynthesis, stellar evolution, and so on. The book also contains an interesting presentation of facts related to global warming, a very detailed chapter on metals, and a very useful chapter on uncertainty. The last chapter describes the events from the Big Bang to the present day. The subjects treated in each chapter of the book are of prime scientific interest, and some topics illustrate important interactions between scientific developments and society. Each theme is presented within its historical and intellectual context, and is discussed in clear and well-written non-technical language. As such, the combination of history and science writing is extremely fruitful as seen from the educational perspective. Paul Braterman clearly explains simple concepts that are often misunderstood - for example, the difference between mass and weight. He also explains units, and provides etymological background information on Greek and Latin words and terms that are used in science. The author pays ample attention to models - crude as well as more sophisticated - with due attention for the simplifying assumptions of the underlying scientific theories. In addition, he also focuses on physical mechanisms. The book continuously explains how science works, and explicates what makes science so difficult to manage. The author also touches on the impact of science on society, and he poses many - apparently rhetorical - questions, and gives fitting answers. Reference is made to stubbornness and conservatism in science, as well as to the ever changing attitudes vis-a-vis shared authorship. The finishing paragraph of the book simply lists some misconceptions of great thinkers from Epicurus to Bohr. This book is very well typeset, with very few typographical errors. Regrettably, the volume contains almost no graphical illustrations, although some concepts like, for example, the Hubble law, would very much deserve graphical explanation. The readership of this book consists of science students (physics, chemistry, astronomy, but also the Earth sciences), scientists, teachers, PhD supervisors, and science administrators. The book is great value for the money. [JAD 20, 4] APASS discovery and characterization of 180 variable stars in Aquarius Ulisse Munari, Arne Henden, Andrea Frigo and Sergio Dallaporta During a search for RR Lyr variable stars candidate members of the Aquarius stream, which led to the discovery of 71 such objects, we also discovered an additional 180 variables which are presented in this paper. Of them, 141 were previously reported as variables and 39 are brand new. For all 180 objects, we provide: our epoch photometry, accurate positions, mean magnitude and amplitude of variation in Landolt B,V and Sloan g, r, i bands, cross-identification with WISE, 2MASS and GALEX surveys, accurate BVR_C I_C gri photometric sequences and finding charts identifying the variable and the stars of the photometric sequence provided to support follow-up observations. We carried out a Fourier search on all 39 new variables and found periods for 11 of them. [JAD 20, 5] Detectability of micro-variables in the ASAS database: the Scorpius–Centaurus Complex M. David, H. Hensberge and C. Nitschelm We present a star-by-star discussion of the light variability of stars belonging to the Sco-Cen Complex, as detected in the ASAS-V database by David et al. (2013). Most of the variables (30) are young stars with irregular and/or cyclic patterns of variability, almost all with spectral types that indicate that they did not yet reach the zero-age main-sequence. The ZAMS starts at A3, F2 and F4 for the Upper-Scorpius, the Upper Centaurus-Lupus and the Lower Centaurus-Crux subgroups, respectively. A minority of stars (7), mainly of spectral type B or late-A, show strictly (multi)-periodic variability induced by rigid rotation of a spotted magnetic star, by slight deformation of the stellar shape in a binary, or by pulsation of stars situated in the instability domain of either SPB, delta Sct or gamma Dor stars. For some stars comments on yet unpublished high-resolution spectra are included.