Eratosthenes to Starfish...

Sir Isaac Newton's impact on Optics. Link below.

Topics: Geometry, History, Science, Research

Every day, we conduct science experiments, posing an “if” with a “then” and seeing what shakes out. Maybe it’s just taking a slightly different route on our commute home or heating that burrito for a few seconds longer in the microwave. Or it could be trying one more variation of that gene, or wondering what kind of code would best fit a given problem. Ultimately, this striving, questioning spirit is at the root of our ability to discover anything at all. A willingness to experiment has helped us delve deeper into the nature of reality through the pursuit we call science.

A select batch of these science experiments has stood the test of time in showcasing our species at its inquiring, intelligent best. Whether elegant or crude, and often with a touch of serendipity, these singular efforts have delivered insights that changed our view of ourselves or the universe.

Here are nine such successful endeavors — plus a glorious failure — that could be hailed as the top science experiments of all time.

Eratosthenes Measures the World

Experimental result: The first recorded measurement of Earth’s circumference

When: end of the third century B.C.

Just how big is our world? Of the many answers from ancient cultures, a stunningly accurate value calculated by Eratosthenes has echoed down the ages. Born around 276 B.C. in Cyrene, a Greek settlement on the coast of modern-day Libya, Eratosthenes became a voracious scholar — a trait that brought him both critics and admirers. The haters nicknamed him Beta, after the second letter of the Greek alphabet. University of Puget Sound physics professor James Evans explains the Classical-style burn: “Eratosthenes moved so often from one field to another that his contemporaries thought of him as only second-best in each of them.” Those who instead celebrated the multi-talented Eratosthenes dubbed him Pentathlos, after the five-event athletic competition.

That mental dexterity landed the scholar a gig as chief librarian at the famous library in Alexandria, Egypt. It was there that he conducted his famous experiment. He had heard of a well in Syene, a Nile River city to the south (modern-day Aswan), where the noon sun shone straight down, casting no shadows, on the date of the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice. Intrigued, Eratosthenes measured the shadow cast by a vertical stick in Alexandria on this same day and time. He determined the angle of the sun’s light there to be 7.2 degrees, or 1/50th of a circle’s 360 degrees.

Knowing — as many educated Greeks did — Earth was spherical, Eratosthenes fathomed that if he knew the distance between the two cities, he could multiply that figure by 50 and gauge Earth’s curvature, and hence its total circumference. Supplied with that information, Eratosthenes deduced Earth’s circumference as 250,000 stades, a Hellenistic unit of length equaling roughly 600 feet. The span equates to about 28,500 miles, well within the ballpark of the correct figure of 24,900 miles.

Eratosthenes’ motive for getting Earth’s size right was his keenness for geography, a field whose name he coined. Fittingly, modernity has bestowed upon him one more nickname: father of geography. Not bad for a guy once dismissed as second-rate.

The Top 10 Science Experiments of All Time, Adam Hadhazy, Discover Magazine

China's Superpower...

Chinese revolutionary poster promoting the study of science in 1980. Credit: Pictures From History/akg-images

Topics: Education, Existentialism, Politics, Science, Research

The opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing featured ancient China’s four great inventions: the compass, printing press, paper and gunpowder. The lesson on display, as taught in classrooms across the country that today publishes the most research papers, is that Chinese innovation in science and technology changed the world.

Yet less than a hundred years before, the Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan wrote the provocative essay ‘Why China Has No Science’¹. The scholar — trained at Columbia University in New York City — argued that from antiquity, the nation’s philosophical traditions and unique understanding of the human relationship to nature had prevented the spirit of scientific inquiry from taking root. Feng, like many others at the time and since, urged that science was the only salvation for a nation in precipitous decline.

Placing the efforts to change the perceived lack of science in the context of China’s turbulent modern history is key to understanding how the nation arrived at its current superpower state. The red thread that runs through China’s past 150 years is its unwavering belief in science as the path to wealth and power. The entangled relationship between research and nationalism in China has obscured how this belief grew from a combination of foreign influence and Chinese adaptation ^2,3. Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, the Chinese government tried to focus on home-grown science, and succeeded in areas such as agriculture and medicine. But in the longer view, the periods of greatest advancement were those when China opened to outside influence.

It’s a salutary lesson as we brace for the challenges of the next 150 years, including climate change, resource depletion and space exploration. These require a broad engagement with the world.

1. Feng, Y.-l. Int. J. Ethics 32, 237–263 (1922).
2. Meng, Y. East Asian Sci. Technol. Med. 16, 13–52 (1999).
3. Huters, T. Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Univ. Hawaii Press, 2005).

China: How science made a superpower, Shellen Wu, Nature

The Lightness of Stupidity...

Anti-evolution books on sale during the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. Credit: Getty Images

Topics: Biology, Civics, Climate Change, Education, Science, Research

History.com: Scopes Monkey Trial

Nearly a quarter of a million science teachers are hard at work in public schools in the United States, helping to ensure that today’s students are equipped with the theoretical knowledge and the practical know-how they will need to flourish in tomorrow’s world. Ideally, they are doing so with the support of the lawmakers in their state’s legislatures. But in 2019 a handful of legislators scattered across the country introduced more than a dozen bills that threaten the integrity of science education.

It was a mixed batch, to be sure. In Indiana, Montana and South Carolina, the bills sought to require the misrepresentation of supposedly controversial topics in the science classroom, while in North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota, their counterparts were content simply to allow it. Meanwhile, bills in Connecticut, Florida and Iowa aimed beyond the classroom, targeting supposedly controversial topics in the state science standards and (in the case of Florida) instructional materials.

Despite their variance, the bills shared a common goal: undermining the teaching of evolution or climate change. Sometimes it is clear: the one in Indiana would have allowed local school districts to require the teaching of a supposed alternative to evolution, while the Montana bill would have required the state’s public schools to present climate change denial. Sometimes it is cloaked in vague high-sounding language about objectivity and balance, requiring a careful analysis of the motives of the sponsors and supporters.

Either way, though, such bills would frustrate the purpose of public science education. Students deserve to learn about scientific topics in accordance with the understanding of the scientific community. With the level of acceptance of evolution among biomedical scientists at 99 percent, and the level of acceptance of climate change among climate scientists not far behind at 97 percent, it is a disservice to students to misrepresent these theoretically and practically important topics as scientifically controversial.

Science Education Is Under Legislative Attack, Glen Branch, Scientific American

Quod Erat Demonstrandum...

March for Science, Washington DC, 2017 Credit: Becker 1999 Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

Topics: Education, Politics, Research, Science, STEM

Greek: ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι, "what was to be demonstrated," QED.

The March for Science in April 2017 was a unique demonstration of concern about the role of science and engineering in society and government. More than a million people in cities and towns around the world gathered in streets, made placards and banners, and heard speakers extoling the relevance and beauty of science—and also warning of diminished influence of science in policymaking. Some have dismissed the marchers as just another interest group advocating for more government funding for their work.

But the March, as I saw it and took part in it, represented something more: a significant change in how scientists see themselves and their work. This change had been slowly developing over recent decades and is now reaching a crescendo. Plans for another March for Science tomorrow indicate that the change among scientists is real, and that last year’s march was not simply a flash in the pan.

Scientists and friends of science are excited about recent progress in almost every scientific discipline. Whether it be observations of neutron star collisions, new findings on intergenerational epigenetic changes, macroscopic quantum entanglements, or human behavior, unprecedented scientific advances abound that will improve our future. Science marchers point to science as central to improving the human condition. At the same time, they are concerned about weakening public understanding and support of scientific research and the widespread neglect of scientific evidence. These concerns brought marchers to the streets in 2017 as much as pride in scientific accomplishments.

The March for Evidence:
Scientists and many others are frustrated by public decisions based on ideology or wishful thinking
Scientific American
Russ D. Holt, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

March for Science Triad...

Pale Blue Dot: Cassini

Pale Blue Dot: Voyager

Images from: Pics-about-space.com

Topics: Education, Politics, Research, Science, STEM

I participated in the March for Science in Poughkeepsie, NY last year. Alas, this year's conflicts tutoring SAT math tomorrow, an obligation I've taken on locally in Greensboro. I will miss this year, but be there "in spirit." I should be able to participate in Earth Day next Sunday.

From the Triad website:

“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.” ~Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Stand with us on Earth Day, April 22, when we march in concert with thousands of people in Washington, DC, and hundreds of cities around the world to show we value science.

Science is first of all a method. It begins with the simplest yet most profound act we humans can make: asking a question. It requires the best of our intellect to follow the lead those questions lay out on the map. It requires our courage when that path reveals truths we would prefer not to face. It requires our minds to stretch beyond their native intuitions; to imagine a petite three-dimensional sphere whirling through space when the surface beneath our feet is flat and big enough to hold billions of our kind; to conceive of scales outside the reckoning of our senses, from the tininess of our sun in a gargantuan universe to the immensities of space inside an atom too small too see without expensive, highly developed technology.

Science expands our senses, our curiosity. We live every day in a world that yesterday was impossible magic.

Yet, when lies become mainstream public currency, when borders close to the free sharing of research, when people are told to stop asking questions or to avert their eyes from evidence, the pursuit of science itself becomes an endangered species.

Yes, scientists themselves are human. They are people of their day and culture. Any endeavor that requires humans to carry it out will produce failures and mistakes, even horrific ones. Yet the solution is not to slam the door, shut down controversy, or retreat from the challenge. What better remedy than the methods of science: to address the errors by asking better questions, seeking more knowledge, engaging more minds in order to bring a broader variety of backgrounds and perspectives into the quest?

Ye Shall Know the Truth...

Allen Dulles, the fifth and longest-serving Director of Central Intelligence, took a personal interest in the construction of the Original Headquarters Building (OHB). He was the son of a Presbyterian minister and insisted that a Biblical quotation be fixed in stone in the OHB Lobby. The verse – "And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free" – John 8:32 – now stands as the Agency motto. At the dedication ceremony for OHB, Dulles included this quotation in his speech.
Source: CIA.gov

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Science, Politics

Whatever your opinions of them, that is the motto of our preeminent spy agency, one of the 17 intelligence agencies along with what's left of our allies that has confirmed Russia interfered in the 2016 elections that our current president* exhaustively and nauseatingly labeled "fake news."

On August 19, 2016, I wrote a blog post titled: "These Truths..." It talked about self-evident, rational truths, such as evolution, the age of the universe; governance. Those were halcyon days, when we had a president and not a president*/embarrassment. When we (at least, as member of the non-bigoted, saner part of the electorate), were convinced our president had fidelity to his marriage, his country and its Constitution.

Excerpt from "These Truths":

This year's election is unique as one political party has nominated such a flimflam artist as its candidate, that has made no bones about his hostility to science: "climate change is a plot by the Chinese against American manufacturing." As the New York Daily News opined on his loose 2nd amendment comments: "this isn't funny anymore."

This is an assault on fact versus fantasy, science versus psychobabble; sanity versus insanity. Flimflam's persona non grata interviewed on Alex Jones - the KING of conspiracy provocateurs - as a casual search of YouTube on his rant compilations attests, many right wing pundits have, as he's complained - mainstreamed his views in the public sphere without crediting him, only nourishing a faux ecosystem around Mr. Flimflam. FF sometimes quotes him verbatim, which Jones says admirably is "surreal."

This president*/flimflam artist denies knowing of $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Unlikely. His lawyer apparently gives it from his own home equity, supposedly not expecting to get repaid. The problem is, if the president* had paid him back, it wouldn't be an in-kind donation during an election, an FEC violation. And why ISN'T a "billionaire" writing a check for his own hush money payments? There is likely a prenuptial agreement he'd be in violation of if this proves out true, and that will cost flimflam what little money Putin lets him dip his toes in.

What it does mean: 1. A lawyer MUST inform his client of any contractual agreement s/he enters into on behalf of her/him. 2. By denying the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with an adult film star, he may have essentially nullified it. He also has one with a Playboy centerfold with which he supposedly had a long-term affair. Stormy's lawyer salivates at the prospect of questioning the president* and his lawyer under deposition. I relish when, as he did from his first spouse where he invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not self-incriminate ninety-seven times, he does so again - hilariously and maddeningly under oath.

What exactly is "truth" in this president*'s era? He has the all-time Olympic record for fabrications, fibbing; lying and obfuscations. His evangelical base seems unmoved by his past, his present dissembling and twitter ranting. They had conniption fits when President Clinton had a consensual relationship with an ADULT (albeit young) White House intern. A blue dress with spermatozoa was salacious; "grab 'em by the p----" on Access Hollywood deserving of a Mulligan. The rank hypocrisy of what amounts to an authoritarian political movement masking itself as a religious order self-imposed to tell everyone ELSE how to live is breathtaking. The word "EVILGELICALS" should become a thing in our modern lexicon; they should not recover, and the congregations in their immediate futures should be comprised of crickets.

If indeed, "the truth shall make you free"...an avalanche of lies from a president* backed by a faux religious order - evilgelicals - is a prelude to slavery.

The Evil Tree...

Image source: Adoption History Project: Eugenics [+]

Topics: Civil Rights, Commentary, History, Human Rights, Politics, Science

A new year with the same old/new challenges to our republic. Perfection is an admirable, and Utopian ambition. It is typically striven for, but never fully achieved. Getting close to perfection is typically quite enough. In the wrong hands, the pursuit of perfection can become the tools of genocide. Some things to consider November 6, 2018 (congressional midterms) and November 9, 2020 (the next presidential elections).

"Good genes, very good genes." Paraphrase of an oft-repeated self-admonition/description by the 45th president*.

Merriam-Webster says eugenics is : "a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed." I'm not the editor, but I think Webster could have thought this definition through better. As practiced in America and quickly adopted by the Nazis in Europe, it fell from whatever grace it may have enjoyed and is largely considered a pseudoscience. Reasonable people in our nation's complicated history gave it credence, like Dr. William Shockley - of the Shockley Diode Equation if you're tech, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics for co-invention of the transistor. He also has the notable distinction of having his own page at the Southern Poverty Law Center in their extremist files for his irrational eugenics views. His colleagues, Dr.'s John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain if they held these beliefs, didn't rise to Shockley's level of notice, or distinction.

"Good genes, very good genes"...

Snopes verified as true that "One aspect of President* Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget for the 2018 fiscal year has come under criticism for its potential effect on low-income seniors, particularly during winter months in colder parts of the U.S.

"The president’s* proposed budget eliminated funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which assists people who need help paying their energy bills."

Not that an ethnicity is emphasized, but low income citizens tend to comprise mostly people of color. If a few Anglos lose funding, they're probably considered negligible statistical "noise." This is the same president* that's stacked his administration with white nationalists and downplayed the actions of them, even before Charlottesville. Adding insult to injury, the corporate tax cut is paid for with the lives of people that will suddenly be with less healthcare, and Speaker Paul Ryan is gunning for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security cuts on his way out to "retire, and spend time with his family," as his is the archetype made popular by the media.

"Good genes, very good genes"...

President* Trump doesn't yet have his "big, beautiful" border wall, but the administration is ramping up recruitment of border agents going into the new year in a bid to enhance security with more manpower – if not bricks and barbed wire.

Up until now, the White House’s fix to immigration issues has included Trump reversing many of his predecessor’s policies, increasing round-ups of illegal immigrants and restricting the number of refugees allowed into the country.

"Good genes, very good genes"...

There are probably not "good genes" at the Texas-Mexico border, in Puerto Rico; the Virgin Islands as there are none [by this philosophy] in California, or any largely blue state with a growing diverse population. There are no "good genes" from the particular countries the Muslim travel ban prohibits. There's no reason to allow the Affordable Care Act (originally, a conservative idea from the Heritage Foundation) to actually work if the majority of people applying for it didn't get the fortunate/blessed/kismet luck-of-the-draw of "good genes," wealth and power's particular favoritism to a lack of Melanin.

"Good genes, very good genes"...

Positive eugenics encouraged the biblical "fruitful multiplication" of the aforementioned "good genes" and discouraged the procreation of "bad genes" (negative eugenics). In America, and sadly in the sordid history of my home state, that was achieved via a dark calculus, and forced unconstitutional means:

This of course is conspiracy theory, quackery and the highest level of intellectual buffoonery that can only result in innocents being irreparably harmed for myth.

This tree is an evil we've seen before as a species, dropping anvils on the heads of the Earth's meek and calling it rain. It's attributed to Mark Twain that “History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” A forced sterilization is not likely in our futures even as erstwhile congressmen known for throwing racial flamethrowers in gasoline pits coyly hint at it. What happened in North Carolina should be instructive to those of us that aren't cis-gender WASPs (white, Anglo Saxon Protestants).  Terminating all 16 members without notice of the president's advisory council on HIV/AIDS can only have the eventual effect of increasing HIV/AIDS from recoverable and manageable back to its previous epidemic levels. For all intents and purposes, a genomics Dachau aimed at the LGBT community. “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” (Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol")

As we try to make sense of the callous legislation that has come and will come, Occam's razor applies. As we see it affect heating to low income elderly, access to the voting booth; the response to the dwindling of the Republican Party's demographics, the majority status of people of color in 2042 (an online calculator at a growth rate of 0.02 shows us at ~541 million by then); the retweet of British white nationalists and white genocide by this country's president*; in a nation founded on the genocide of Native Americans and the uncompensated kidnapping of African Americans, we can no longer be surprised at the audacity of this scion of Andrew Jackson, or subtle in our response. We can no longer be surprised what a party dwindling in numbers and power would do, is capable of doing, or will do, nor can we be subtle calling that which is evil... just that!

"Good genes, very good genes"...

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

"What the hell do you have to lose?" ... I can think of a few things.

[+] Many people believe that eugenics disappeared in America after the specter of Nazism made eugenics synonymous with racism and genocide. While public discussion of taint and degeneration certainly decreased after World War II, blood and biology remained central themes in adoption history. Anxieties about miscegenation in transracial adoptions and international adoptions, as well as strenuous efforts to make racial predictions and offer genetic counseling in cases of mixed-race infants illustrate that eugenics did not disappear so much as change into a less aggressive, more polite form.

*The usage of the asterisk (*) next to president* I borrow from and attribute to Charles P. Pierce, a writer for Esquire magazine and frequent media commentator on MSNBC. He's also author of the prescient book: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free." And so, despite his and other authors' warnings to the contrary, our republic is at the stage-edge of this cliff...

Related links:

Eugenics
Eugenics in the United States

#P4TC:

Hidden History 13 February 2017...
The Shattering...
Oligarchy...

A Year in Rear View...

March for Science protesters gather in front of the White House with Muppet character Beaker.
Credit: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty

Topics: Commentary, Science, Research
\\//_...Out...oo\/_

It is poignant that this is the last post of 2017. Since the repeal of Net Neutrality (translation: Internet equality, i.e. all income levels can access the commons), I'll see how it goes the first weeks of 2018, or when any tiered charges take effect. With any luck and Gestapos notwithstanding, I should be back the 1st Monday in January.

The absence of Net Neutrality may or may not affect movements like #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo et al that got started essentially as viral mobilizations, like large flash mobs. That won't mean movements will be silenced, just likely they'll go back to some of their previous analog models and pool resources for access. If it affects the bottom lines of Amazon, CBS All Access, Hulu and Netflix, expect lawsuits. It may force a few of us to read more books at bookstores and newspapers, three commodities that have suffered from the advent of the Internet, and seeking a PDF versus a book, or buying a subscription to a newspaper or magazine. I have also felt the impact at the movies, since I'll be the first to admit I tend to wait until its streamed or released to video. It brings clarity to the colloquialism: "why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?" - from salaciousness to economics.

The Nature article below covers the following topics:

- The first observed collisions of Neutron stars using LIGO and Virgo;

- SESAME, the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, was inaugurated on 16 May;

- Quantum entanglement;

- The inauguration of our tragicomic, adolescent, pathological lying, conspiracy-theory influenced, Twitter-addicted septuagenarian, the 45th president*;

- The March for Science, which I participated in the local one in Poughkeepsie, New York;

- BREXIT and its heretofore unimagined consequences to science and UK tourism;

- "On 12 July, an iceberg twice the size of Luxembourg broke free from the Antarctic Peninsula" (read that one again);

- The EPA changed its acronym from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Environmental Pirating and land grab Agency (my pun);

- Genetics, hybrid fetuses with human and pig cells that could one day pave the way to grow organs for people;

- Cassini took a nose dive and we discovered TRAPPIST-1 has seven Earth-sized planets;

- #MeToo

- California wildfires exacerbated by climate change;

- AI and Quantum Computers.

* Random thoughts:

1. 2042: When white Americans becomes the numerical minority in the US, only 25 years, or a generation away. This was ironically published in 2008 on my birthday and before the election of the first African American president in the history of the US republic, launching a wave of bigotry almost unparalleled in recent memory.
2. It isn't much of a stretch that a political party that historically championed Civil Rights for African Americans - fighting a war over it, during which it started the National Academy of Science and now is anti-science, anti-evidence, anti-fact and anti-intellectualism would eventually find its avatar in a "reality" television star. Also note: birtherism was the first modern genesis of "alternative facts." Like the term "alt-right," it's the same old lies. It even creeps into history books.
3. The GOP is losing with women and youth: African Americans, Asians and Hispanics as visibly participating members are minuscule, statistical "noise." The party is becoming older, whiter and dying off. After the 2012 election, the GOP did an autopsy that was largely ignored. Wink-and-nod dog whistles were converted to carnival-barked foghorns by their eventual bigoted and Russian-assisted presidential candidate.
4. Howard Dean introduced small-dollar donations, followed by Senator then President Obama and imitated by every democratic candidate since. Republicans get the majority of their campaign money from big donors, hence the tax cut for them.
5. Russian interference in our elections hasn't been acted on as a priority by 45, nor by the republican-led congress - see random thoughts 1 and 2.
6. Unchecked, that interference will be in play during the midterms November 6, 2018 that like Alabama December 12, 2017, have to be overcome by sheer numbers.
7. The DNC hack is labeled as "fake news" by 45's White House of horrors, while not much is made of the RNC hack that occurred at the same time. Joy Reid seems to have connected-the-dots, and they lead to Kompromat.


What would a dwindling, desperate party DO to remain in power?

Perhaps anything, including selling out the country and their own souls.

The article below speaks for itself at the link. See you next year (hopefully).

2017 in news: The science events that shaped the year, Nature
Ewen Callaway, Davide Castelvecchi, David Cyranoski, Elizabeth Gibney, Heidi Ledford, Jane J. Lee, Lauren Morello, Nicky Phillips, Quirin Schiermeier, Jeff Tollefson & Alexandra Witze

Related link:

How To Talk to a Science Denier Without Arguing: A simple strategy with the acronym EGRIP can be surprisingly effective
Gleb Tsipursky, Scientific American

Seven Words...

Image Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Science, Research

The entrance paragraph on Scientific American couldn't be more stark and foreboding:

Do you want your medical treatment to be based on science? The Trump administration disagrees. It has now banned the top US public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from using seven words or phrases: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” [1]

Vulnerable - 1 : capable of being physically or emotionally wounded; 2 : open to attack or damage : assailable vulnerable to criticism

Entitlement - 1 : a : the state or condition of being entitled : right; b : a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract

Diversity - 1 : the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : variety; especially : the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization programs intended to promote diversity in schools; 2 : an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities : an instance of being diverse a diversity of opinion

Transgender - : of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth; especially : of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity is opposite the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth

Fetus - 1 : an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth — compare embryo [2]

Evidence-based - Evidence-based medicine is an approach to medical practice intended to optimize decision-making by emphasizing the use of evidence from well-designed and well-conducted research [3]; Evidence based practice (EBP) is the conscientious use of current best evidence in making decisions about patient care (Sackett, Straus, Richardson, Rosenberg, & Haynes, 2000) [4]

Science-based - Science-Based Medicine is dedicated to evaluating medical treatments and products of interest to the public in a scientific light, and promoting the highest standards and traditions of science in health care. Online information about alternative medicine is overwhelmingly credulous and uncritical, and even mainstream media and some medical schools have bought into the hype and failed to ask the hard questions. [5]

Truth is being burned, or at least objective truth. It is a tearing at what used to be our time-honored political norms, only possible in a republic made insipid by "lowest common denominator programming" - reality television, that slowly conditioned an Idiocracy public with as Sagan opined "critical faculties in decline," to think a former star and faux billionaire with a catch-phrase line could be president. It is slowly, daily being eroded by a mountain of lies that eventually he and his enablers figure we'll all get tired of joking our way through with late night hosts and SNL cold openings; that we'll collectively slump from sheer exhaustion of a Sisyphus resistance, and accept the insane. A relativism has crept into the public zeitgeist for at least citizens whose sanity and rationality I have to question, as they dismantle the critical thinking skills of the developing next generation by burning to ash the foundation of The Enlightenment.

This is the digital version to the 20th Century brute-force method done by Sturmabteilung (SA - assault division). Instead of brownshirts, we get irrational strains of credulity in White House press briefings; insane tweets from septuagenarians that somehow think themselves sex symbols still, throwing out 280-character mental defecations during morning bowel movements. We do have them though, as they occasionally show up at pep rally-styled events designed to pump the ego of a narcissist; with tiki torches or as online trolls, howling at anything that challenges their dogma or conspiracy theories. His presidential daily briefs have to be modified - translation: truth either omitted about Russian intelligence operations against us, else he'll be "upset" and the briefing will "go off the rails." Is that the description of an administration, or managing an inmate at Arkham Insane Asylum?

Seven words - magically shat out without a study, peer review or sign off by an authority at the Center for Disease Control (repeat: the Center for DISEASE Control) that won't STOP them from doing their jobs; just the public's understanding of it to be able to support whatever actions they instruct during a crisis. The reaction to pandemics could be slowed. That results in more (unnecessary) dead bodies. Or maybe that is the point.

Seven words - that could easily apply to the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation et al, any number of Biology, Chemistry, Engineering and Physics organizations that rely on objective EVIDENCE to design experiments, evaluate data from the same and make decisions that could affect the lives of 7.6 BILLION PEOPLE ON THE PLANET.

This is existential. This is Orwellian.

If this is NOT opposed and stopped, I am afraid our continuance is not (as it never was) guaranteed. Our brief "Candle in the Dark" out of ignorance is being snuffed by a tribe of baying nincompoops led by someone beyond human comprehension, enabled by opportunistic cowards that before interference by foreign powers, betrayed this republic to oligarchs awaiting our demise to harvest the mineral riches from our properties and corpses, picking their teeth with the bones of gullible brownshirts.

Seven words - that could easily be the lit match to the funeral pyre for our species.

[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/trump-to-cdc-these-seven-words-are-now-forbidden/
[2] Merriam-Webster online, from vulnerable to fetus
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine
[4] http://libguides.library.ohiou.edu/evidence
[5] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-science-based-medicine/

Freedom and Responsibility...

Image Source: Link below

Topics: Civil Rights, Human Rights, Science, Research

As a no-knock raid (s) may be going on in Washington, DC or surrounding suburbs, this is a follow-up from the piece "The Right to Science," the material sourced from the American Association for the Advancement of Science as is this post.

In the era of "doubling down" on inanity at 140 characters in wee hours of the mornings (paired with septuagenarian bowel movements), AAAS is being very explicit and direct with reality, not "alternative facts," lies and propaganda.

A quote from my professor in Nano Safety:

"All science and engineering has a moral and philosophical component. It is imperative that as future scientists you pursue your research ethically, thinking also of your impact on society going forward." (I have omitted his name for his privacy)

BTW: The interpolation homework wasn't that bad, and we finished the project report. On to the others in Nano Physics and Safety. I will hibernate after finals.

The freedom to pursue science, apply its findings and share its discoveries is linked to the obligation of the scientific community to conduct its work with integrity and keep the interest of humanity as a core tenet, according to a new statement adopted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Board of Directors.

The AAAS Board of Directors adopted the “Statement on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility” on Oct. 12 to govern the organization, its members and guide scientists across the globe – the first known such position adopted by a scientific organization, according to members of the AAAS committee that developed the statement.

“Scientific freedom and scientific responsibility are essential to the advancement of human knowledge for the benefit of all. Scientific freedom is the freedom to engage in scientific inquiry, pursue and apply knowledge, and communicate openly,” the statement says. “This freedom is inextricably linked to and must be exercised in accordance with scientific responsibility. Scientific responsibility is the duty to conduct and apply science with integrity, in the interest of humanity, in a spirit of stewardship for the environment, and with respect for human rights.”

The four-line statement is meant to be a lasting and widely applicable affirmation, recognizing that freedom necessary to extend the global scientific enterprise requires the scientific community to adhere to and apply high ethical standards, interlocking two longstanding pillars of science.

AAAS Adopts Statement Binding Scientific Freedom with Responsibility
Anne Q. Hoy, AAAS

Meanwhile We Are Here...

Image Source: Meanwhile, In America

Topics: Commentary, Politics, Science

A search term "war on science" will bring up several posts (this one now included) that predate our current epoch. We have a chief executive that used to be a reality show host, insisting on meting out his brand of "diplomacy" at 140-character increments - some misspelled. It like many social platforms was created by science, the very science his administration has decided must kowtow to "alternative facts" and unicorns.

The meme seemed apropos the day after "The Handmaid's Tale" won an Emmy for Best Drama series on Hulu (having read the novel, the reason why I purchased a subscription). Again, a venue we all take for granted on our laptops and Amazon fire sticks, also created by science.

An exhaustive list by Science Blogs follows. My Monday gallows humor, but don't lose heart or get exhausted.

The last one of these was in mid-June, so we’re picking up all the summer stories of scientific mayhem in the Trump era. The last couple of months have seemed especially apocalyptic, with Nazis marching in the streets and nuclear war suddenly not so distant a possibility. But along with those macro-level issues, Trump and his cronies are still hammering away at climate change denial, environmental protection, research funding and public health issues. As exhausting as it seems — and this is part of the plan — amongst all of us opposed to Trump, we need to keep track of a wide range of issues.

If I’m missing anything important, please let me know either in the comments or at my email jdupuis at yorku dot ca. If you want to use a non-work email for me, it’s dupuisj at gmail dot com.

The selections are by no means meant to represent a comprehensive account of everything written about science and science-related over the last few months. I’m not aiming for anything than complete or comprehensive. For example, there are probably hundreds of articles written about climate-change related issues over that period, but I’m just picking up what I hope is a representative sample.

Science Blogs: Confessions of a Science Librarian, John Dupuis

The Right to Science...

Image Source: European Society of International Law, Vol 4, Issue 1
Editorial board: Anne van Aaken (editor-in-chief), Jutta Brunnée, Başak Çali, Jan Klabbers

Topics: Civil Rights, Human Rights, Science, Research

The right of all people to benefit from scientific progress is spurring new research by science and human rights practitioners and informing organizations how to secure those benefits, according to presenters at a AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition Meeting, held July 27-28 in Washington.

The right to science is enshrined not only in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948, but also in Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, said Jessica Wyndham, interim director of the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law program and a coordinator of the Science and Human Rights Coalition.

The international provision requires governments to ensure the right of everyone “to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications, to conserve, develop and diffuse science, to respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and to recognize the benefits of international contacts and cooperation in science,” Wyndham said. A total of 165 countries are party to the treaty, which the United States has signed but not ratified.

The right to science is the subject of a new report, “Giving Meaning to the Right to Science: A Global and Multidisciplinary Approach,” developed by AAAS’ Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program and Science and Human Rights Coalition and released in conjunction with the meeting. The report can provide “a foundation for a shared understanding of the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications,” said Margaret Weigers Vitullo, director of academic and professional affairs at the American Sociological Association.

Human Rights Coalition Deepens Understanding of the Right to Science, Andrea Korte, AAAS

The Physics of Doomsday...

Image Source: Business Insider

Topics: Geophysics, Politics, Research, Science

I thought about delaying this one until Friday, but who wants to start the weekend with an image of the Grim Reaper (albeit an SNL skit)? It gets better through the week...

As of this posting, the current administration has yet to encounter a real world, geopolitical crisis (except the ones it creates on its own - I'll amend if that changes). "Wars and rumors of wars" is not simply biblical poetry and cliché, but a continuous existential threat that furrows brows and grays the manes of most normal, sane men or imaginative filmmakers. We can usually resolve our imagination-fueled angst in a few hours. Reality is not that forgiving. The Marshal Plan in Europe wasn't a microwave oven recipe we hit "start" on and walked away. The current world order - being openly defied by our current government - took seven decades to establish.

Wikipedia: Doomsday

Mother Nature is another matter. A government so dysfunctional that we're presently stressing over foreign election hacking here and abroad, that the crises involving what we cannot control - earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and our used-to-be usual, example-setting HUMANITARIAN response to them, typically the model of the world...before summing in all up in 140 characters of a "killer tweet."

Natural hazards threaten lives and livelihoods across the globe and can result in huge financial costs. Despite significant progress in understanding hazards, we are still feeling powerless and inadequate in the aftermath of destructive events, which can strike with little warning and often affect vulnerable communities. One of the core missions of the US Geological Survey (USGS) is to conduct research into a range of natural hazards so that the public and policymakers can be better prepared for these events.

The underlying physics of natural hazards, Physics World Multimedia

The Death of Expertise...

Image Source: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH BROCKWAY/THE DAILY BEAST

Topics: Existentialism, Politics, Science, Research

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." Bertrand Russell

I've had similar posts as well as off line conversations about this theme. The unexpected caveat from the "Information Superhighway" has been the rise of know-nothings that feel search engines are a part of human DNA; that become *experts* on any subject with a few inquiries and clicks. It has extended quite contemporaneously to members of the clergy: some work in pulpits without a license to preach, ordination or degree from a divinity school. They just look and sound good, thus *anointed*, not credentialed.

From the article excerpt:

These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learning anything. In the United States and other developed nations, otherwise intelligent people denigrate intellectual achievement and reject the advice of experts. Not only do increasing numbers of lay people lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to make a logical argument. In doing so, they risk throwing away centuries of accumulated knowledge and undermining the practices and habits that allow us to develop new knowledge.

This is more than a natural skepticism toward experts. I fear we are witnessing the death of the ideal of expertise itself, a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers—in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all.

I sincerely hope to not be a part of the "blog-sodden" or contributing to the morass. I used the term Information Superhighway - as the Internet was once publicly coined - deliberately, as the concern was there would be a divide between the "haves" (those who could afford $2,500 to plop down on a home desktop computer) and the 'have-nots," i.e. the urban poor demarcated by economics, ethnicity and cultural differences.

Enter the cellular telephone, first initially called a "brick" as it was heavy, clunky and analog as in Michael Douglas in "Wall Street." The conversion from analog to digital, the merger of phone and autonomous pager (obviously, the work of the devil); the miniaturization of transistors following Moore's Law increasing speeds and features to share cat, dog, owl and most recently cute baby elephants chasing birds on phones dubbed "smart", their owners another matter.

This has so far given us an interesting social makeup of a society that thoroughly depends on science and technology*, and disdains the people most equipped to bring about new systems and designs. The intellectual student is still a "nerd," noses are still shoved into lockers (or, students stuffed in them), bullying of them is still ignored; cheerleaders and jocks worshiped as the in-crowd cool gods from Mt. Olympus.

We tweet our versions of reality (45 is particularly deft at this), we join social media groups that conform to our already dug in notions. Google driver-less cars will likely lead to more distracted humans and stupid pet videos shared before they disembark.

The causalities of such an accidental dystopia are rationality, reality, science and ultimately what in an Orwellian era of "alternate facts" seems malleable and dangerously fungible: truth.

Social changes only in the past half century finally broke down old barriers of race, class, and sex not only between Americans in general but also between uneducated citizens and elite experts in particular. A wider circle of debate meant more knowledge but more social friction. Universal education, the greater empowerment of women and minorities, the growth of a middle class, and increased social mobility all threw a minority of experts and the majority of citizens into direct contact, after nearly two centuries in which they rarely had to interact with each other.

And yet the result has not been a greater respect for knowledge, but the growth of an irrational conviction among Americans that everyone is as smart as everyone else. This is the opposite of education, which should aim to make people, no matter how smart or accomplished they are, learners for the rest of their lives. Rather, we now live in a society where the acquisition of even a little learning is the endpoint, rather than the beginning, of education. And this is a dangerous thing.

* "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." Carl Sagan

America's Cult of Ignorance (excerpt), by Tom Nichols on The Daily Beast, author of The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.