Happy Birthday Dr. Franklin

Google celebrates Rosalind Franklin's 93rd birthday! Hurray for Science and Hurray for Google's celebration of Scientists!

In Defense of Ignorance: Heffernan Edition

An article making the rounds on Yahoo does a great job of reinforcing societal loathing of science. You know that stupid activity being done everyday by jerk wads and has given us things like clean water, antibiotics, the ability to feed 7+ billion people, wifi, etc.

Heffernan is not a scientist nor someone in a technology field and that's ok. Most people aren't.  But like most people, Heffernan likes the benefits provided by science and technology. For instance you might note she is publishing an article at Yahoo that was certainly written on a computer. She also admits to owning a smartphone. Clearly this is someone who embraces technology, even if she doesn't understand how it works.

She gives up the game in the first paragraph.

As a child I fell in love with technology, but I have to admit I never fell in love with science. I kept hoping that messing around with Macs and Atari and eventually the Internet would nudge me closer to caring about the periodic table, Louis Pasteur and the double-blind studies that now seem to stand for science. As it was, I only cared about the double-blind studies that told me what I wanted to hear—that potatoes are good for you or that people of my height are generally happy—and I liked the phrase “double-blind” when it was on my side because it meant “true” and “take that.” (emphasis mine)

See, she admits to not falling in love with science and what science gave us. She only cared about science when it told her what she wanted to hear. Someone should probably inform her that that is not how science works. That is actually more like how religion works. Interestingly, throughout the early parts of the essay, Heffernan establishes religion as being oppressed by science and those evil practitioners of science. And as you might expect, Heffernan ultimately admits to being a fundamentalist Christian. Of course she is not direct about and does an end around to try to hide her intentions from her 'dear readers.' (As a person who admits to only caring about information that reinforces what she already believes, she likely assumes most people are like her and will not think too deeply about what she is doing.)

Upon admitting that she is a creationist, she tells us that the last person she actually said that to stormed off in a huff. I suspect that is bullshit, a lie, a fabrication. I could be wrong, but I am sure there is more to the story than being said. As a rational skeptic and scientist, I think it is more likely she is lying or leaving out important information than a person up and left a restaurant simply because she said she was a creationist. Based on my reading of Heffernan, I do not think I would like hanging out with her, but if we were at a restaurant having an appetizer and a cocktail, I would still not up and leave simply because she admitted to being a moron.

Upon telling us she read many books, which she seems to read for pleasure and style focusing on the prose not the content, she then states 

I still read and read and listen and listen.

Remember this is the person who tells us she only cares about things that agree with what she wants to hear.

And I have never found a more compelling story of our origins than the ones that involve God.

Ok, for a humanities Ph.D. trained person complaining about scientific prose that is one god-awful sentence. 'than the ones' suggests she is lumping all magical creation stories into this sentiment. Basically suggesting that any mythology is better than reality. But no. Heffernan is clearly only talking about Genesis as interpreted the way she interprets it. We don't need to consider all those silly New England theologians who believe Genesis is metaphor. We can discount all those Catholics and other Christian denominations that believe Genesis is not true, because she has it all figured out.

Heffernan then tries to bring up the fact that science is always changing (it's not, at least not how she believes it does). As we get more information we understand the universe in which we live better, thus we revise our conclusions. Because of this cars get 40+ mpg instead of 2 mpg. Because of this we get more food per acre than we used to. Because of this we have the internet. I don't see Heffernan lamenting the fact she has to upload a crap pile of an article to Yahoo instead of using a good old fashioned telegraph to transmit her thoughts across the country. Stupid science.

See the bible never changes. The book of Genesis is still around in its original form, unlike that pesky science. Genesis has never been translated from the original texts, which we definitely have. And the ideas supported by the bible like slavery and murder of adulteresses have not changed. Ideas that women, even those named Virginia, being responsible for all sin and subject to men haven't changed. Or maybe they have and Heffernan only cares about things that affirm what she wants to hear. But why should I think that.

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It's time to read The Origin of Species....again

I kind of lost the energy to keep up with my Origin of Species (OoS) book club, but I'm restarting it. In part this is to renew my writing here at AbC, but mostly it is to finish reading the OoS. So I have skimmed over chapters 1 through 3 and gone over my notes.

Thoughts on the Prologue.
Thoughts on Chapter 1.
Thoughts on Chapter 2.
Thoughts on Chapter 3.

Now I am rereading Chapter 4 and getting ready to teach incoming College of Biological Sciences undergraduates for 2.5 weeks. Now's you chance to catch up and start. Because I am getting a manuscript to colleagues and teaching a shit ton (by number not weight) next week, the next OoS post will not occur before next weekend. You have time to catch up.

This is the OoS I am reading (it's the 6th edition and it does matter, at least somewhat)

Happy 130th Mr. Kafka

Google celebrates Franz Kafka's birthday. The Trial is one of my favorite literary novels and although I like The Metamorphosis, I don't think it's as good as The Trial.

Google

Paleofantasy on the Radio Tomorrow

If you want to start your day out right tomorrow, I recommend:

"Paleofantasy", Marlene Zuk on Atheists Talk #225, June 30, 2013 Oh, poor humanity. Poor, poor us, stuck in a world for which we are so ill-suited, better fitted by our genes for using crude stone tools than our modern technologies, haunted by ancient instincts, slowly being killed by our strange habitat and behavior. Or maybe not. In her new book, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live, evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist Marlene Zuk takes the stories we are told about how our deep ancestry determines the way we are and puts them under the microscope. They frequently come up lacking, but along the way, Zuk provides an entertaining education about our paleolithic and more recent pasts. Join us this Sunday, when Dr. Zuk shatters our myths about our past and gives us something more interesting to replace them with--the truth. Listen to AM 950 KTNF on Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio: 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to radio@mnatheists.org during the live show.

Google Hearts Microbiology

Today is a great day to do a google search. Google celebrates the 161st birthday of Richard Petri with a Doodle. Petri is the inventor or the plate that bears his name and is used by microbiologists, genetics, molecular biologists, etc. the world over. His wife also made an tremendous contribution to microbiology, by suggesting the use of seaweed extract (red algae to be specific) as a base for the growth medium used in the plates.

Descent into Madness

I enjoy the NFL, college hockey and basketball, and a little NASCAR to pass a lazy Sunday afternoon on the couch. However, I'm not a huge follower of any particular sport. I'll watch a fair amount of football and have even been known to go to the local watering hole to watch a game that was not shown locally. I don't really watch hockey or basketball anymore, my teams are not televised in Minnesota (Maine Black Bears and Arizona Wildcats, respectively). At best, Ill catch the end of a Sunday race.

When March Madness hits though, I do fill out a bracket. I know somewhere between jack and squat about the college teams, but it's free to play (or at least it can be).  I feel pretty good about filling in a bracket because I had a good experience back in graduate school. 

On this particular year (1993), our departmental pool was running. Some students kept a large scoreboard on one of the whiteboards in the hall tracking the competitors. It comes down to Championship weekend and there is a 3 way tie for first: myself, the department head, and another student. The department head and I had picked UNC to win and the other student picked Michigan. It was a close game until... 

That effectively eliminated student number 2. It was just the department head and me with total points being the tie breaker. I had 150, department head had 130 (or thereabouts). 

Lorax wins!

Not saying there was any money involved, but if there was, I would have offered to take the department head out for a consolation beer. Surprisingly, he came and still treated. I mean, if there had been some money involved, but of course there wasn't because that would constitute illegal gambling.

That represents my one March Madness claim to fame. However, it usually isn't as bad as this year. My bracket was dead on the first day when UNM fell to Harvard. In fact my entire West division is kaput. I also lost a second final four team when Georgetown choked. Ah well...