The Nature of Science

Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts

This Is What a Culture of Guns and Violence Looks Like

The man who is advocating gun culture is Louie Gohmert, a Republican member of the United States Congress representing the 1st Congressional District of Texas. Gun control will never be successful as long as a substantial number of Americans think like this. Gohmert won the last election (Nov. 2012) with 72% of the vote.

Change the culture. Violence is never the answer and more violence will never fix the problem. Change the culture and gun control automatically follows, as in most other countries. It's unlikely that tweaking a few gun laws will make much of a difference as long as everyone thinks it's okay to act like a gun-toting vigilante.

America Is Headed Toward Socialism or Something Much Worse

I thought that people like Chuck Norris were big fans of the idea that America is the greatest country in the world. Apparently I was wrong.

This is an appeal to evangelicals to prevent the triumph of evil and 1,000 years of darkness.

[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Redshirting: Holding kids back from kindergarten

Until a few minutes ago I had never heard of "redshirting" although I was familiar with the concept. Some parents want to hold their children back from kindergarten (or have them repeat kindergarten) so they will be older and more mature than the other students in their class. A school teacher advised us to do that for one of our children but we adamantly refused. Best decision we ever made concerning the education of our children.

When I was growing up the best and brightest students were allowed to skip a grade if they were doing well. (I took grades three and four in a single year.) It was a mark of achievement to be among the youngest in your class, especially if you were doing as well, or better, than the other students. On the other hand, if you were the oldest in the class then your achievements were discounted because you had an intrinsic advantage.

When I was growing up it would have been psychologically devastating to be the oldest student in the class and not be at the top of the class academically. (That's partly because the oldest students were usually the ones who had flunked a grade.) I wonder if parents who hold their children back have ever thought about the potential negative consequences? What happens if your child is just average and redshirting doesn't work?

Here's a 60 Minutes segment on redshirting. It features two people from the University of Toronto: writer Malcolm Gladwell (B.A. 1984, Trinity College) and economist Elizabeth Dhuey a professor in the Department of Management.

Countries That Execute Their Own Citizens

Most civilized, democratic countries have abolished capital punishment. This is especially true of those countries with a Christian tradition.

The last execution in Canada took place in 1962 and the last one in Mexico was in 1961. Here's a short list of other countries with the last year of execution: Australia (1967), Israel (1962), Brazil (1876), Argentina (1916), United Kingdom (1964), France (1977), and Italy (1947).

[Blue: capital punishment abolished for all crimes; Green: abolished for all crimes expect some committed in exceptional circumstances; Brown: abolished in practice; Red: legal form of punishment]

The United States differs from its geographical and cultural neighbors. Why does the United States still carry out executions in 2011 when the practice has ceased in all those countries with a similar cultural and religious background?

The Lost Art of Wit and Sarcasm

PZ Myers on Salon reviews a book that I'm never going to read [David Brooks' dream world for the trust-fund set]. Unfortunately he uses language and style that's probably far above the heads of those who need convincing. But it's loads of fun.

I made it almost a third of the way through the arid wasteland of David Brooks' didactic novel, "The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement," before I succumbed. I had begun reading it determined to be dispassionate and analytic and fair, but I couldn't bear it for long: I learned to loathe Harold and Erica, the two upscale avatars of upper-middle-class values that Brooks marches through life in the story. And then I began to resent the omniscient narrator who narrates this exercise in unthinking consumption and privilege that is, supposedly, the ideal of happiness; it's like watching a creepy middle-aged man fuss over his Barbie and Ken dolls, posing them in their expensive accessories and cars and houses and occasionally wiggling them in simulated carnal relations (have no worries, though: Like Barbie and Ken, no genitals appear anywhere in the book), while periodically pausing to tell his audience how cool it all is, and what is going on inside his dolls' soft plastic heads.

I did manage to work my way through the whole book, however, by an expediency that I recommend to anyone else who must suffer through it. I simply chanted to myself, "Die, yuppie scum, die," when I reached the end of each page, and it made the time fly by marvelously well. In addition, there is a blissful moment of catharsis when you reach the last page and one of the characters does die, although it isn't in a tragic explosion involving a tennis racket, an overdose of organic fair-trade coffee, and an assassination squad of rogue economists at Davos, as I was hoping. That's not a spoiler, by the way; the book is supposed to be all about the happy, productive life histories of Harold and Erica, from birth to death, so it's no surprise that at least one dies. It is incomplete, in that the other one survives ... an unsatisfying ending that I could happily resolve with one more bloody page, and that represents the only case I can imagine in which I'd ever ask David Brooks to write another word.

Inciting Hatred

This video is making the rounds. I'm including it here because so many people have been discussing "civility" and "politeness" in the wake of the Tuscon mass killing. In my opinion, it's not lack of civility that's the problem. The problem arises when you start treating your opponents as anti-American and unpatriotic and their ideas as illegitimate (not just a difference of opinion). That's when it becomes reasonable to consider using force to prevent your enemy from destroying the country. You are protecting America against dictatorial traitors and that's exactly what reasonable citizens should do.

Glen Beck is a master of this technique. He should not be surprised if some of his followers jump to the obvious conclusion. Indeed, CUNY professor Frances Fox Piven (78 years old) has been receiving death threats ever since Beck's rant aired on television last November [Glenn Beck's Ranting Sparks Death Threats Against 78-Year-Old Sociologist]. Is anyone surprised?

Why does Glen Beck still have a job?

A note to Canadian readers. Pay attention. This is the real problem, not simple lack of politeness.

John Lennon (1940 - 1980)

John Lennon died on Dec. 8, 1980 when he was shot four times in the back by Mark David Chapman. His ashes were scattered by Yoko Ono in Central Park in New York at the site of the Strawberry Fields Memorial.

That was thirty years ago today. A whole new generation has grown up since then and I fear we are in great danger of forgetting what Lennon and The Beatles did to help change our culture for the better.

Bill O'Reilly "Discusses" European Paganism

I don't watch Bill O'Reilly's show very often so I missed this segment. I find it extremely interesting that a major television network could air such a discussion in the 21st century. To me, it says something about popular views in American culture. It doesn't say that a majority of Americans agree with these idiots but it does say that their point of view is an acceptable part of the cultural mix. That's shocking.

The priest's comments are interesting from the perspective of the accommodationist wars. He claims that Roman Catholicism conflicts with all kinds of things, including socialism. Who knew?

[I haven't been keeping up with financial news. Is it true that Europe is in much worse economic shape that the USA? I didn't notice that during recent visits to Europe and the USA.]

[Hat Tip: Pharyngula: A priest, a scientist, and a Communist discuss morality]

Free Health Care Clinic in a Country that Needs It

Remote Area Medical (RAM) is a group of doctors, optometrists, dentists, nurses etc. who donate their time to setting up free temporary clinics in primitive places where the natives don't have access to affordable heath care.

Here's a video of this year's annual clinic in Wise County, Virginia. Isn't it strange that such an event is held in a country with the best health care in the entire world?

I got this from Jennifer Smith at Runesmith's Canadian Content: This was Wendell Potter's Epiphany. Read her blog.

The Dutch are p*ssed as well

You just can't make this stuff up, ... oh, wait a minute, it's Fox News. Carry on.

[Hat Tip: Pharyngula

Oops! Did New Scientist Goof Again?

New Scientist published an article on Science and art: Still two cultures divided?.

The journal invited six people to comment on the two cultures. Here's the list ....

Stefan Collini is a professor of literature and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge. He edited The Two Cultures (1993, CUP)
Susan Haack is a professor of philosophy and a professor of law at the University of Miami, Florida
Harry Collins is professor of sociology at Cardiff University in the UK
Mary Midgley is a philosopher and writer
Sandra Harding is a philosopher and professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles
A. C. Grayling is a professor of philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London

A perceptive commenter (Khoo) asks, "Why was an entire article written about the divide between the arts and the sciences, and not a single physical scientist or mathematician interviewed? Does the author believe these scientists have nothing to say about the arts?"

Good point. A classic demonstration of the two cultures in action.

Two Cultures in New York City

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of a lecture by C.P. Snow on The Two Cultures.

He said,

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the law of entropy. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' — not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had.

Not much has changed in fifty years. We still live in a society that is at best scientifically illiterate and, at worst, anti-science.

Tomorrow I'll be on my way to New York City to attend a conference on The Two Cultures in the 21st Century. The meeting was organized (in part) by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. It begins with a keynote address by E.O. Wilson followed by four symposia on ...

The Two Cultures in Historical Perspective: From Aristotle to "Science Wars" and the "Third Culture"
How to More Effectively Communicate Science Issues to the Public
Restoring Science to Its Rightful Place in Politics
A Better Future through Science Citizenship

Carl, (I Got Your Two Cultures Right Here), Zimmer will be there.

We all have our stories and our examples of the problem. The one I like to tell is the story about a group of knowledgeable adults at a cocktail party when something mathematical comes up in the conversation. Chances are someone is going to brag about how much they feared math in schools and how little they know about the subject. This will undoubtedly get murmurs of sympathy from many people.

Now imagine that the group was discussing modern literature and I said something similar; "I hated literature in school, I never 'got' the point of these modern writers and why they are so famous. Literature was way too hard for me so I stopped taking literature courses as soon as I could." Do you think there would be murmurs of sympathy and understanding? I doubt it. The group would probably think I'm stupid.

The two cultures problem will only be solved when the proper response to someone who claims to be an idiot in mathematics is the same as to someone who claims to be an idiot about art and literature.

The other problem is when people claim to be knowledgeable about science when they aren't. Chris Matthews of MSNBC has the right idea when he attacks Rep. Mike Pence (Indiana-R) ["You Want to Educate Americans About Science; Do You Believe In Evolution?"]. We can't allow people to pretend they know about science when they reject the core principles of science. If you are ignorant about science then you are ignorant, period.

Today's issue of New Scientist has an article on Science and art: Still two cultures divided? .