Wish Me Luck

In three days, assuming that the coming snowpocalypse doesn' engulf us all, I'm going to be teaching a class for a group of Webelos scouts (for those not familiar, it's the level below being a fully-fledged Boy Scout, with cooler scarfs): the class will be a quick survey of the requirements to receive their Geologist pin. The pins indicate more advanced achievement in understanding basic concepts, or at least, as much advanced as a group of nine or ten year-olds can have.

I've taught these requirements several times before, and this is material that I know extremely well. I just hope that the darling little nine and ten year-olds are ready to pay attention and learn something. I've met these kids before, and I can only think of the "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch, you know, the one about the football hooligans. Remember?

No, really, it's not that bad. First off, did I mention that they're only nine and ten? So really, the comparison is only made for comedy value.

It's not that I doubt my side of things, or that the subject isn't intrinsically interesting. But the other groups that I've gone through the requirements with were - not to put too fine a point on it - well-behaved. They had been taught that it was rude not to pay attention. And while my son is a good quiet lad (and no, I'm not just saying that, ask anyone), the rest of them are... not. But maybe they are now.

Mainly, though, it's about not looking like a berk in front of my son. I mean, not yet. I'm sure that time will come, if it hasn't already. But I can take comfort from the fact that really, he doesn't particularly care about the other kids in his scout group... mainly, he's just in it for the badges. Which sentiment I completely echoed, once upon a time.

"I Was Told There Would Be No Math"

The other day, one of the regular Science Club families was in the store, and one of the teen-aged boys, after showing me an interesting fossil, was persuaded by his mother to ask what my feelings were on having to learn math in order to be a paleontologist. Fortunately I managed to avoid making any references to Chevy Chase's impersonation of Gerald Ford.

Since I'm not a paleontologist, I couldn't speak first-hand, but I do know that there are some areas of the discipline where advanced maths are, if not a necessity, certainly helpful. Although there are computers and calculating machines almost everywhere, it's still important to understand how one arrives at an answer, in order to be able to have a sense not only of what your answer means - say, in performing radiometric dating, for instance - but if it makes sense in the context of the fossil.

As someone who struggled with some considerable difficulty through pre-calculus and then stopped, I say this without a trace of irony. I have a great respect for maths, and know that I should probably set about learning some things again, and some for the first time. I'm not sure when I'll find the time to do this. Perhaps after the book is a solid international bestseller? We'll see. But the point is this: if there's a chance that you're going to need at least some mathematical background (and in the sciences, this is pretty much a racing certainty) why would you put it off, or try to avoid it? Never mind calculus: the young man wasn't all too thrilled with algebra. For that matter, though, neither has anyone else ever been.

The next question made me feel less of a hypocrite: was being able to write important? Yes: absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt. I proceeded to drag out the oldest cliché in the file: if you want to write well, read authors who write well. In the case of a young man interested in paleontology, I recommended the books of the late (and much-missed) Stephen Jay Gould. Not only was Gould a phenomenal writer, but he was possessed of a remarkably lucid and wide-ranging intelligence, and was a damned good writer.

I don't know that I changed the young man's mind, but I hope that, if I have any credibility at all, I used it to his advantage, and reminded myself of some of the things that really do matter.

Sometimes a Great Photo

...is the one that you miss.

I happened to look out the window last night, and was greeted by a sight that I couldn't quite believe... the sun, warm and orange-red, descending, seemingly through a layer of cloud, over a desolate, snowy landscape. It was one of the prettier things that I'd seen recently.

Of course, I'd stopped carrying my digital SLR daily a while back, so it wasn't close at hand. The only recourse? My mediocre three-megapixel mobile phone camera. Which I attempted to use.

The photos that get away, though, as I said, are the ones that would have been the best. By the time I traversed the twenty metres out the door and down the pavement to get a clear shot mostly unobstructed by trees, the effect was gone, and I was left with this:

I understand that, even with the best camera in the world, I'm not a great photographer. I'm a passable hand at capturing family events, holidays, and a rough idea of the scenery. But what I know about the art and technique would not even fill a page. I do know, however, that trying to capture something poetic and moving on a mobile phone's built-in camera is doomed from the outset.

Next time, maybe?

Genuinely Shocking

Quackery has been with us ever since someone decided to hold a particular coloured stone or bit of weed over someone's aching head and pronounce them healed.

Unscrupulous types trying to make quick money off of too-trusting types are a feature of our world today. In the 1930s, as you could see recounted every Sunday night - seemingly - when I was a boy, farmers in Yorkshire would buy a bottle of patent medicine for an ailing cow or pig, dose them with it, then call out the long-suffering James Herriot, as ably played by Christopher Timothy. The ensuing conversation would go something like this:

Farmer:'ere, vitin'ry, thou 'as t'stuff I've been dosing 'er with.

Herriot: (Sniffs bottle) Blimey, George! That's pure turpentine!

Farmer: Wha'? But 'e were such a nice feller! Only charged me 'alf a crown!

Periodically, as in the case of the lamentable supplement, Airborne, these charlatans are brought to some sort of justice and made to redress the balance by offering refunds to those they have bilked. But like the turpentine seller illustrated above, they never truly seem to go away.

So when I saw this curious water jar the other day, let's just say that I wasn't surprised:

In the event that it's not clear from the photo (and here I should note that it's rather difficult to photograph text on a transparent glass bottle), one side says "Electrified Water Co. | Shreveport, LA. | "A Natural Pure Water" ", and the opposite says "Drink Electrified Water for Health | 8 Glasses A Day". A quick internet search yielded only one relevant result, from a blogger in Memphis, who was poring over an old performance programme and noticed a similar advert for "electrified water".

Guessing that this bottle dates to somewhere in the first three decades of the twentieth century, it falls in line with other known bits of quackery from that time, including lethal ones, like radium tonics and radium revigorators. But what is "electrified water"? I'll hazard a guess that it was probably simply water from the public mains, but if it were treated in some way, was electricity used for purification, perhaps?

Honestly, I don't know the answer, but when I find it, I'll be sure to add it to this post. In the meantime, enjoy this bit of historical oddity, and if you see that a live wire has fallen in your water glass, please, don't think drinking it will be good for your health.

---

EDIT: Already found one interesting addition if you're reading about water quackery anyway: H₂O dot con: Water-Related Pseudoscience Fantasy and Quackery. It doesn't address "electrified water", but is worth a look anyway...

Extreme Pot-Holing

Ever been down in a cave? If you have, like me, you most likely have memories of tight squeezes, crawling on your hands and knees, or even on your belly, cold, damp, dripping, and peculiar sort of cave-y smell. It's a peculiarly claustrophobic experience, the sort of thing that you don't readily forget having done.

Missouri is an American state known for its wealth of caves, and there are something on the order of five thousand in the state (by one figure, at least), a number of which are open to the public. There's also an excellent book discussing some of the caves in the region, entitled The Wilderness Underground, which is pretty lavishly illustrated and a good read if this is a subject on which you wish to learn more.

When I was younger I was in the Boy Scouts (full disclosure, I actually did earn the Eagle Scout award), and went to the Camp Osceola, formally known as the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation, near Iconium, Missouri. (I didn't learn who Osceola was until much later, sadly.) There were caves on the premises there, too, although I now suspect that the two I remember have been closed to the boys at camp: one was reached via a vertical drop of about fifteen feet which was only accessible by an iron girder with foot and handholds welded to the sides at regular intervals. Not the safest of passages, but a lot of fun if you were a bunch of anarchic fourteen year-olds.

Caves seem to feature in our family holidays as well. When camping in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, the Cave of the Winds was not far distant and a logical choice for an outing. On a short holiday in the Ozarks of southern Missouri, Fantastic Caverns was a cool stop on the way to the lake. I think that all of us enjoyed those experiences: it's a way to get acquainted with geology in a curiously human way, especially in those caves in which people have sheltered for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

However, these were nothing - and I say this in all seriousness - to compare to this cave in Vietnam, the world's largest:

I want to go. Sign me up!

Musical Interlude

Is it just me, or does everything seem a bit more heroic with Murray Gold's music from the revived Doctor Who playing in the background?

One of my favourite moments from the past few years, when the Emperor Claudius regenerates into Sam Tyler... or do I have my series confused? =)

Tributes in Unexpected Places

Some of you will have heard by now of the demise of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC news and comment programme, Countdown. I mentioned it in an earlier post, and I certainly wasn't the only person writing on the topic.

While casting around today, I found two things of quick interest: first, that Mr Olbermann has tweeted his intent to further tweet, so to speak:

"At exactly 8 Eastern tonight I will issue my first tweet. Well, other than THIS one :)"

...so that's 7pm, CST, and if my damned internet connection (which goes down everytime there's a light rain in the vicinity, never mind six inches of snow - curse you, Time Warner [but not as much as Comcast]) stays up, I'll be checking in.

What I noticed with some surprise, though, was that on Mr Olbermann's baseball blog, at which I have glanced in the past, of the fifty-three comments on his most recent post (Thursday, 20 January), after the first eight, the remainder appear to be about the cessation of Countdown, and the majority are overwhelmingly supportive.

A number of the commenters also mention that they aren't really baseball fans at all. Here, I should admit that I am a marginal fan: I like going to a game now and again, and I can appreciate the history of the game and even watch Ken Burns' excellent documentary with interest, but I'm not on superfan level - not even close. I've read one book about baseball ever, David Halberstam's Summer of '49, which I read on a bet and very much enjoyed, but that's as far as it goes. I don't remember statistics, and I don't even really have a favourite team, these days. When I think of baseball, I think more of a rural idyll, of playing - badly - as a youth, on a small town ball diamond, composed largely of cracked, dried dirt and a variety of enthusiastic weeds. I think of being smacked in the mouth in Cub Scout baseball and bleeding profusely - but not losing any teeth. I think of the only home run that I ever hit that same year. Gifted at sports, I was not.

Perhaps, though, I should read more, and maybe even make an effort to care, just a little bit more. If other well-rounded and intelligent people enjoy sport so much, am I perhaps allowing my own personal history to keep me from something genuinely wonderful? It's worth considering.

Equally worth considering are these tributes of other non-fans, who take the time to seek out a sports blog, and leave a comment, thanking Keith Olbermann for standing up and saying what certainly appeared to be the right thing to say, at the right time.

Which, in my own small way, I'm doing here.

Thanks.

... or, Perhaps Not

Apparently, I may have to leave Facebook. Boo hoo. Such a first world problem.

Here's the story: at one point, I had set up my blog to post automatically to FB when I actually got around to writing something. Ego, mainly. Now that I'm working at writing regularly again, I can't quite figure out how to disable to automatic posting, and some things that I want to say just don't have any place as Facebook posts. But when I disable Networked Blogs, and then post again... well, up comes the new blog entry in my FB feed, like a bad seafood dinner. Like this one did, no doubt.

There are other problems anyway. FB is a bit vapid, and a bit of a time suck. There are a few people whose posts I look forward to, and enjoy, I grant. As I often complain that I don't have any time, though, the obvious next step is clear. And just as I start to think "it would be nice to keep in touch with people", I realise that this is an unrealistic expectation. With a few exceptions, I simply don't have the time or the patience. I have enough for my immediate family and a few friends - most of the time.

GHR, as some of you will know, my wife and sometimes co-conspirator, gave up the Face-thingy last year, citing the waste of time factor. She's also been on a simplification kick since the new year began, and I am coming to see the charms of having fewer distractions from the truly important things. I don't know why I don't classify Twitter in the same way, but for now, I don't. Blame Stephen Fry, I guess.

Additionally, some of the privacy concerns which swirl around Facebook seem to be real, and I honestly don't want to have some vast swathe of my life spilled into the public domain because some git marketer got nominal permission to do so through some noxious trick or other (nor even a tiny trickle, as I don't add a lot to Facebook, but more still than I want in the hands of marketers chosen by bearded cardigan-wearing louts.)

So, people, if you actually read what I write (and I have no reason to expect that this is the case, in fact, I'd be rather surprised), or care otherwise, bookmark the blog, or otherwise drop me a line. But the FB presence will be gone before too long. Just a few last things to do.

Oh, and Facebook? You think you're going to trademark the word "face"? Really? Don't be a berk.

If It's Saturday, Then It Must Be Opera

I'm not particularly a fan of opera. This is not through want of trying. There's just something about it that I can never quite make myself enjoy. So when a bit of it came on the radio (well, on Classic FM), I was surprised by just how visceral and immediate my reaction was.

I was aged eleven years. It was a grey and wintry January Saturday, and I was driving round with my father in the early afternoon, because he wanted to go to estate sales and see if he could find any interesting bargains. My father always had the radios tuned to the local classical station - not because he particularly enjoyed it, I don't think, but because it was the least offensive thing to him on the airwaves, and he didn't just want silence. And on Saturday afternoons, the Metropolitan Opera of New York was always broadcast. Although I would listen, honestly, I could never learn to like it. So the grey January and opera became associated - quite unfairly, as much of it was written by Italians - in my mind. Never the twain shall part.

The winter sense of this recollection was very stark. As I write, another winter storm is bearing down, purportedly promising snow and ice in significant volumes. The older I grow, the less fond I am of winter, and no longer really have the thoughtless sense of diablerie that I had at twenty-five when it comes to going out in the cold. But as a child, well - children love the snow. I see it with my own kids, and can remember what it felt like then to be faced with the chance of a "snow day": words to conjure by. I just can't quite share the feeling. I can get close, but never entirely there. Which is a shame, and a defect on my part, I imagine.

The degree to which the sense memory triggered by a few snatches of opera was quite surprising, almost Proustian. And it makes me rather conscious of the fact that - inadvertently, I could produce the same result in my own children, twenty or thirty years from now. Hopefully, the association will be slightly better than mine.

Goodbye, MSNBC

(apologies in advance if this is something of a blurt)

Last night, I think that something in American media died.


Whatever reality emerges as 'fact' in the wake if Keith Olbermann's sudden, indeed, precipitous departure from his flagship MSNBC programme, it is difficult to see how the media landscape can be enriched by this event. Yes, there is a proliferation of Internet sources that cater to not merely left-leaning audiences, but to those of us who prefer our news to be built on fact, rather than on ham-handedly spun webs of illogic. No, I'm not sure that any of them are quite enough.

There has always been something in Mr Olbermann's presentation that I thought that I recognized. At times bombastic, as was his privilege, and occasionally taking what seemed to me to be the wrong emphasis on a topic, there was something familiar in his voice, something which resonated with me. A man who cited the life and work of Spike Milligan, for example, to my mind was of the same stripe as me. And yes, he also rekindled a liking for James Thurber in me too. And even if the Thurber segment was born out of his own personal tragedy in the death of his father, even his handling of that painful moment demonstrated what seemed to me a very dignified, and human, response to the realities of life and living, without descending into maudlin sentimentality or the crassly offensive platitudes of the religious.

Yes, the constant summoning of the ghost of Bill O'Reilly (link to him yourself, I'm not going to help his traffic) was a bit overmuch. The vile excrescence that is Glenn Beck likewise, Olbermann's anger and obvious bewilderment that some of the more vile people on the media and political scene of late had careers, never mind followings, was a reminder that we as members of a notionally-advanced western society have a right to demand more of our public figures, certainly more than what we are getting now.

Many people are just stunned. While Twitter burst to life on the announcement, other media was, at first, more muted. It's more likely the fact that so many people are bound by their contracts to keep quiet, like Rachel Maddow, the super-intelligent and sparkling Olbermann protege, who was a guest on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher when the news broke. The LA Times has a good précis in this morning's edition, but it seems to add little to what broke last night. Even Fox, which announced his departure with ill-restrained glee and are certainly no more gracious winners than they are losers, covered this story with their usual half-addled blend of journalism and spittle-flecked venom.

Finally, I wish that I could draw some other conclusion than that the sinister hand of Comcast was behind this, despite their immediate denial. Sometimes a denial is true, sometimes it is merely convenient and plausible. No one who knows can tell us, so let the speculation begin. Start feeding the rumor mill. If there are other conclusions to draw, let's have the evidence, but it just looks bad. In fact, you'd think a media company would have more sense about appearances and timelines, unless they're incompetent, or contemptuous. Which is it, then?

In the meantime, what to do with MSNBC? Reward them for this in some way? I both watch the channel (thankfully not on Comcast, who ever thought I'd be grateful for Time Warner?) and listen to their Sirius satellite feed when I drive (despite the rubbish adverts that they run). I consume two - well, now one, I guess - of their podcasts. And I won't immediately abandon the Rachel Maddow Show, nor Lawrence O'Donnell, for whom I am developing a taste. But I will be suspicious. And, ultimately, turning off the Telly and reading a book is often a better way to learn things. So take that, Phil Griffin and co.: you get ambiguity and a tentative sense of suspicion and betrayal. From your base. Happy?

Finally, thank you, Keith, if i may be so familiar. It has been a good run, and I've appreciated what you have done and tried to do. Your exit, whatever the motivation, was dignified and premature. Best wishes.

The Countdown website is still up for the moment. Enjoy it while you can.

Good night, and good luck.

Always More to Learn: the Orion Nebula

One of the easiest objects to see in the winter sky is M42, the Orion Nebula (also known to its friends as NGC 1976). Located in the middle of the "sword" which hangs off of the three-star "belt" in the constellation of Orion, the nebula is actually a star-forming region, some 1350 light years from the Earth. It is also a part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is a name given to the larger formation in the general area of Orion's belt and sword that also includes the well-known Horsehead Nebula. Orion makes for great winter-time viewing, as it's simple to find and visible even in small binoculars. In a six-inch telescope, it becomes truly impressive, and is well worth the time spent by any amateur astronomer.

Part of the fun of astronomy, of course, is that we continue to learn new things, even about old, familiar friends. In this case, news today is that a new, and highly-detailed image of M42 has been created, showing in even greater glory the features of this close interstellar companion (yes, it's 1350 light years distant, and yes, I call that close).

Take a look at the images of the Orion Nebula, and maybe go hunt for your own around the net. Then, if you have a free evening in the next few months that isn't too cold, have a look up into the winter sky, even if you just have your eyes to rely on. Find M42, and realise not only that the light you were seeing left before English was a language, but that we're very lucky to live in a time when some of these puzzles of the universe can be solved, enriching all our lives.

The Last Rose of Autumn

I wanted to take a few photos this morning, and when I plugged my camera into my computer to transfer them, I found that the last batch of photos that I had taken, fifteen days ago, revealed a very different world.

Originally, I had planned to try to do a photograph out over the front garden every day, but this effort was defeated by my inability to find my battery charger for some ten of those days. [Note to Self: Become Better Organised in the New Year]. But of those first snaps, I found this image, of one of the last of our roses from last autumn, before the cold finally settled in.

I am a fan of roses, but I don't put a lot of effort into their cultivation. It's generally a pleasant surprise when they grow well, as has this one particular bush. I'm looking forward to the late days of winter, when I can get out and trim back the roses (as well as savagely curtail the butterfly bushes, as they seem to do just fine, and they won't attack our cars in summer if properly snipped in spring). But for now, these last roses, frozen in time, were a reminder that summer will come again, even if I am currently finding winter depressing, for a whole host of reasons.

The stark difference in colour is clear, as well, from this photograph of the hummingbird feeder. Even in winter, without snow, there are muted greys, browns, as well as the never-completely-gone greens. Again, in the space of a mere fifteen days, how easy it is to forget.

Finally, though, was the real reason for taking pictures this morning, which was a reminder to myself. I haven't been reading the Art of Manliness much recently, but I feel that I already know their feelings on this point: real men shovel snow. GHR is always surprised when I insist on doing it, even when I hadn't gotten round to getting a proper shovel and was using a small, flat-bladed spade instead. It's just something that should be done, that falls within my purview in our domestic menage. No carping, no moaning about the cold, or about how my feet might get chilly: wrap up warm, wear gloves and a sensible hat, and get to it. That was how I spent my morning.

Finally, do note the thermometre to one side in this last image, which will give you an idea of how chilly it was. Not bad at all. In fact, if it were Antartica, it would be an incredibly balmy day indeed. Apart from the hope of finding a pair of Krynoid pods, I sometimes entertain the thought that travel to Antartica might be a fascinating jaunt. Perhaps slightly chilly, though. But just think of that as you deal with your next blast of snowy weather: it could always be worse.

I can't believe that I missed this...

What's the statute of limitations on being annoyed by something in the news? Two years? Good. Let me explain.

I was reading an entertaining list of the 50 Most Loathsome Americans of 2010 (H/T to the ever-present PZ Myers, who writes as much and as well as I one day hope to do). Sure, some of my personal favourites were missing from the list, but for the most part, it's a thoughtful examination of some of the more repugnant figures of the last year.

At Number 23 was the lamentable Joe Barton, best known in 2010 for apologising to BP CEO Tony Hayward (a classic wide boy if ever there were one) for the Obama Administration having had the temerity to ask that BP put money aside to pay for environmental damage caused by their [allegedly] negligent pouring of billions millions and millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Fine. I remember the incident well, and remember mentally classing Barton as clearly being the sort of nitiwt who would say something like that, based on a quick perusal of his voting record and some of his stated positions, such as that which he holds on Anthropogenic Global Climate Change (AGCC), about which he seems to believe he knows more than people who study the field for a living (HINT: you'll be surprised to learn that he rejects it).

But apparently, Barton, who whatever his faults does hold a degree in engineering, and who also worked for oil and gas company Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) back in the 1980s, before their purchase and eventual dissolution by BP America in 2000, revealed in a hearing in 2009 that... wait for it... that he didn't know where oil came from. And, further, that he doesn't understand one of the foundational notions of geology: plate tectonics.

Okay, lots of people don't necessarily know where oil comes from, or even assume that it is the product of dead dinosaurs, which is mainly the fault of cartoons (I never found 'The Flintstones' funny anyway) and those damned Sinclair dinosaurs. Hell, Keith Olbermann made that slip on one occasion, and I didn't get too bothered. It's a popular misconception. It happens.

But not only that: Barton didn't understand anything about where oil and gas came from. To quote the article:

"Chu and other administration officials are testifying today before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Barton, the top Republican on the committee and a recipient of $1,330,160 in oil money, was flabbergasted by the concept of continental drift. After Chu explained that “oil and gas is the result of hundreds of millions of years of geology and in that time also the plates have moved around,” Barton questioned whether oil didn’t actually reach Alaska through a secret Texas pipeline:

[Barton:]"Isn’t it obvious that at one time it was a lot warmer in Alaska and on the North Pole? It wasn’t a big pipeline that we’ve created from Texas and shipped it up there and put it under ground so we can now pump it up?"

I don't know enough about the man to be able to tell if he was trying to be funny, or if he's just an unmitigated ass. Let's leave my suspicions unspoken, shall we?

And further, Barton, who apparently didn't learn anything at school, thought that he had "baffled" Dr Chu, a physicist, as revealed in this tweet:

I seemed to have baffled the Energy Sec with basic question - Where does oil come from? Check out the video: http://bit.ly/O4m0p #tcot

No, you cussing prang-warbler, you didn't baffle Dr Chu, except perhaps in the sense that he was baffled as to how in the seven levels of hell that you, Mr Barton, ever became a member of a House Committee dealing with anything more important than sandwich fillings in the Congressional cafeteria. If anything, you gave him six seconds to answer a question that needs more time to answer, and you didn't comprehend the answer as far as he was able to get. The failure to understand, obviously, was yours, and not his.

Which leads me to my real question: what the hell is this man doing on a Committee that deals with the exploration for and exploitation of energy resources? It's been almost two years since this happened, and he's still bloody there. If that doesn't frighten you, just a little bit (even in a world of frightening things, many of them with an "R" after their names), then you, mon ami, are impervious to fear.

Here We Go Again: Creationists Set Sights on Missouri Public Schools

It happened last year.

It has happened again this year.

It will probably happen next year as well.

The consequences, if it does not fail, will be... what?

The National Center for Science Education is reporting that a new bill, House Bill No. 195, has been introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives. Its purpose? To instate religion in public schools, through the tired old trope of "science isn't fair, because our myths and fairy stories aren't taught as being of equal gravity and importance". No, it doesn't use those exact words.

Here's Section 3 of the proposed bill:

"3. This section only protects the teaching of scientific information and this section shall not be construed to promote any religious or nonreligious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or nonbeliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion. Scientific information includes physical evidence and logical inferences based upon evidence."

Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? In fact, to me, it sounds pretty reasonable. Schools have no business talking about religion at all, except to acknowledge its role in history. And students shouldn't be burdened with the philosophical views of others, beyond the evidence found in science. If a fifteen year-old wants to talk philosophy, they can do it on their own time, right (not that I'd want to be a part of that conversation - I remember being fifteen, so no, thanks)? But you knew there was a catch, didn't you? There is, and it's embodied in sections One and Two:

Section 1

"Section A. Chapter 170, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 170.335, to read as follows:
"170.335. 1. The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, superintendents of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including biological and chemical evolution. Such educational authorities in this state shall also endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies. Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution."

Section 2

"2. Neither the state board of education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, superintendent of schools, or school system administrator, nor any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrator shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of biological or chemical evolution whenever these subjects are taught within the course curriculum schedule."

The emphasis is mine in both.

I should point out, before going any further, that this has happened before. And each time, the bill has never even gotten out of committee. Which was a good thing, for the reasons that follow.

"Strengths and weaknesses" language is code. We've seen it in Kansas, in Texas, in Kentucky - in more states than I care to name. It is code developed by organisations which, rather than focusing on their own fields are determined to meddle in science education, and to put things into it that don't belong there. The argument goes something like this:

1. Evidence for unguided biological evolution is really strong. It comes from genetics, paleontology, comparative anatomy, geology, chemistry, and cosmology. And we don't like that, not one little bit.


2. We must therefore undermine the evidence by creating fake controversies, grey areas, and muddying the waters around key points of what are, to all intents and purposes, scientific facts. This ensures our continued power and control over a significant number of the next generation, because we have created doubt in the process not only of thinking about biology, but in thinking about evidence and ratiocination as a whole. If we pretend that evidence is relative or subjective, then we have all the doubt that we need.


3. To create these fake controversies, we must insert the "strengths and weaknesses" language into state level educational legislation, because teaching creationism and religion as fact in public schools has been struck down, repeatedly, in courts at every level.

I'll try to make this simple. Creationism is not science, it is religion. Intelligent design is not science, it is religion. If you use "strengths and weaknesses" language, you immediately give the game away that what you are trying to do is bring theodicy into public schools through some kind of magic door. It doesn't matter how much you conceal it in misleading terminology, in disingenuous arguments about "equal time for equal theories" (which they are not), in frankly mendacious comparisons of biologists and other scientists to every bogeyman in history. IT DOESN'T MATTER.

And when you say that "scientists disagree" about evolution, that's true. But what you should say - if you were honest, or if you understood or cared anything at all about science - is that scientists disagree about key points in evolutionary theory. They don't disagree about the theory's validity itself, unless they are one of your handful of third-tier biologists, dentists, and assorted designers of pencil sharpeners, who you seem to think have the same weight of evidence behind them as geneticists, molecular biologists, paleontologists and the like who actually do this work for a living.

What we have here is not a failure to communicate. What we have is a failure to understand.

Which in itself is readily comprehensible. How can you expect to cut school funding for a generation and still have an educated population which can evaluate data and make sense of it, or even think critically? In that way, I don't blame the voters of Missouri for botching this one. I do blame the cynical opportunists of politicians looking to shore up their misguided base for the next election cycle.

Why is this important? Consider this: evolution is the foundational notion of all modern biology, and all of the biological technology industries (biotech) rely on the implications of evolutionary thought . Is there some irony, therefore, in this: a two and a half year old statistic, published on Reuters, and of which I only became aware due to - of all things - a billboard on Interstate 35 on the Kansas side of downtown Kansas City:

"A national site selection magazine has placed Kansas in its Top 10 list of states in the nation for biotechnology, along with states such as California, Massachusetts, and Illinois."

-- Source

Note this, though: that selection was before the current economic disaster through which we are suffering, and, indeed, before Kansans cleverly elected a confirmed anti-evolutionist and former presidential candidate, Sam Brownback, to be governor.

Missouri, also, fancies itself as a biotechnology hub. The following statement is from the front page of the website of Stowers Insitute, a Kansas City, Missouri-based biotechnology research organisation:

"The Stowers Institute for Medical Research aspires to be one of the most innovative biomedical research organizations in the world. The Institute conducts basic research on genes and proteins that control fundamental processes in living cells to unlock the mysteries of disease and find the keys to their causes, treatment, and prevention. "

You will observe: it doesn't say word one about Intelligent Design. Or creationism. Or magic men knocking up a six thousand year old universe on a whim one Thursday when there was nothing good on the telly. Or any of the other fabricated fantasy propounded by these witless legislators. And it never would, because ID and creationism are, at best, philosophical positions (if you want to be really generous): THEY ARE NOT SCIENCE. It's against this backdrop that these slack-jawed yokels have once again flopped this bill like so much freshly-caught fish onto the legislative counter.

There's a concern among some observers that due to the particular brand of anti-intellectual, anti-science thinking endemic to this new class of Tea Party caffeine junkies and reincarnated Known Nothings, legislation like this bill might find its sea legs and actually be scheduled on a legislative docket. It might even come to a vote in the Missouri legislature. And if it were to pass, think of the waste. The waste of time, the waste of resources, and the waste of money. Imagine how likely high tech industries would be to locate in a state where it says, right there in the statutes, that the students you get from Missouri high schools and universities will be among the best and the brightest... as long as they aren't expected to evaluate a gene sequence, correctly date a limestone layer, or understand that our Sun didn't just switch on one day when someone said "fiat lux".

Know this: evolution is real. It is a fact. If that does something to your conception of the universe, then that's between you and the universe. It has nothing, however, to do with empirical reality.

Keeping a finger on the Pulse

So it occurred to me, as I was spending a few minutes organizing my feeds in my Pulse reader that I hadn't written anything here in a while and... Eff-ing hell! It's been a year?!

The funny thing is this: it's not as though I haven't been writing. And it's not as though I haven't had things to write about. 2010 was a year that had a lot going on in it for me (and here, just for now, let's pretend that the last sentence was vaguely grammatical). But the fact is that my perfectionism often gets the better of me, to the extent that if I find that I don't have the time to do something right, I tend to avoid doing it at all.

No more, though. Let's try this out for a bit, and see what happens.

The thing about organizing your feeds in an app like Pulse is that, if you're like me and have carelessly filled up all of the slots *before* deciding that you'd like to organise the five available columns of entries according to your own peculiar tastes, the task becomes rather more of a mind-cuss than it should be.




Example: do you remember, if you are of a certain age, the square puzzles with a single piece missing, locked in a grid so that the only way to solve the puzzle was to slide pieces around each other, in seemingly more chaotic patterns, until you were finally able to make up the image of a monkey, or whatever? Well,that much the same as organizing feeds in Pulse when you've filled up eleven of your available twelve slots in each of the five columns, and then decide that you want to undertake a wholesale move of every entry. And as I hated those bloody little puzzles as a child in the 70s, moving things in Pulse made me feel the same way.

The cheat, I then remembered, was to pop out the puzzle pieces and to click them back into place in the right order. Or, in the modern metaphor, to delete blogs that I realized I'd never bloody read anyway, and pare back to the core. There. Job done. Blog consumption happiness achieved, ghost of childhood frustrations, defeated, ridiculously First World sort of not-problem, solved.




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