"As far as Pete Pace is concerned, this country is exceptionally well-served by the man standing on my left," General Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon. "Nobody, nobody works harder than he does to take care of the P.F.C.'s and lance corporals and lieutenants and the captains. He does his homework. He works weekends, he works nights.That's almost a non-denial denial. To the best of my knowledge, none of the recent criticisms of Rumsfeld have involved his dedication, patriotism, or work ethic. In fact, I have little doubt that he is dedicated to something, works very hard, and considers himself to be a patriot. I think he's unbelievably stubborn, irresponsibly unwilling to face the possibility that he might be wrong, and mindnumbingly incompetent. Oh, and I definitely question his judgment, too.
"People can question my judgment or his judgment," he continued, "but they should never question the dedication, the patriotism and the work ethic of Secretary Rumsfeld."
15 April 2006
Rumsfeld
The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Peter Pace, had some interesting things to say in defense of Rumsfeld recently:
14 April 2006
Free Speech 101
Here's a quick lesson in how freedom of expression works:
Everyone get's to make their opinions known. That means everyone. Including people who have views that you don't like. Your right to freedom of speech does not include the right to keep other people from expressing their opinions.
A professor of Literature and Language has demonstrated a criminal lack of understanding in this regard - and I do mean criminal. According to several sources, including the Cincinnati Enquirer, Prof. Sally Jacobsen led a group of students from one of her graduate-level classes in destroying a display of 400 crosses that had been set up on the school grounds by an anti-abortion group:
For the record, the student group that erected the display had, as Jacobsen could easily have discovered had she bothered to ask, obtained the school's permission. And I strongly suspect that she's nowhere near as concerned about the appearance of NKU endorsing the message when it's one she approves of.
Personally, I think that the anti-abortion group's position on abortion is wrong. I've seen plenty of anti-abortion displays, including graveyard-type displays like the ones in question, and I really dislike them. If I had the power to pick and choose what opinions are allowed to be expressed, I definitely wouldn't allow those. And that's exactly why I shouldn't be given that power - and why nobody should have it.
Fortunately for Northern Kentucky University, their president has a much better grasp on what freedom of speech means than that idiot that they are, at least for the moment, employing:
The university has promised to take action against anyone involved in the incident, and I hope they stand by their word on that. In addition, the anti-abortion group has decided to press criminal charges against those involved. Good for them. This professor needs to learn that others have the right to their own opinions, even when they differ from her own. She also seems to need a refresher course in actions and their consequences.
(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
Everyone get's to make their opinions known. That means everyone. Including people who have views that you don't like. Your right to freedom of speech does not include the right to keep other people from expressing their opinions.
A professor of Literature and Language has demonstrated a criminal lack of understanding in this regard - and I do mean criminal. According to several sources, including the Cincinnati Enquirer, Prof. Sally Jacobsen led a group of students from one of her graduate-level classes in destroying a display of 400 crosses that had been set up on the school grounds by an anti-abortion group:
"I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to," Jacobsen said.The professor may not have wanted to comment on whether or not she participated, but there is a picture of her participating available on the campus paper's website. Apparently, she encouraged and participated in this act of censorship and vandalism because she didn't like the way the display made her feel:
Asked whether she participated in pulling up the crosses, the professor said, "I have no comment."
She said she was infuriated by the display, which she saw as intimidating and a "slap in the face" to women who might be making "the agonizing and very private decision to have an abortion.Wow. What an amazingly arrogant, obnoxious, and self-righteous piece of work she is.
Jacobsen said it originally wasn't clear who had placed the crosses on campus.
She said that could make it appear that NKU endorsed the message.
Pulling up the crosses was similar to citizens taking down Nazi displays on Fountain Square, she said.
"Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged," Jacobsen said.
For the record, the student group that erected the display had, as Jacobsen could easily have discovered had she bothered to ask, obtained the school's permission. And I strongly suspect that she's nowhere near as concerned about the appearance of NKU endorsing the message when it's one she approves of.
Personally, I think that the anti-abortion group's position on abortion is wrong. I've seen plenty of anti-abortion displays, including graveyard-type displays like the ones in question, and I really dislike them. If I had the power to pick and choose what opinions are allowed to be expressed, I definitely wouldn't allow those. And that's exactly why I shouldn't be given that power - and why nobody should have it.
Fortunately for Northern Kentucky University, their president has a much better grasp on what freedom of speech means than that idiot that they are, at least for the moment, employing:
"I am very disappointed that this happened," Votruba said. "At a university, the opposing views should be able to bump up against each other. Responding with pamphlets or speeches would have allowed the power of ideas to compete."I'm an extrordinarily big fan of the tenure system, and a huge fan of academic freedom. In this case, however, neither should provide enough of a shield to protect that clueless idiot's job. Actually, neither should provide any shield at all. Like freedom of speech, academic freedom only works when it protects all parties. It certainly does not extend to including the right to suppress any offensive view anywhere on campus. Professor Jacobsen at the very least inspired, and almost certainly participated in, an action that violated the free speech rights of the anti-abortion group, was antithetical to the basic principles of academic freedom. Along the way, she appears to have committed at least criminal destruction of private property, and possibly theft.
The university has promised to take action against anyone involved in the incident, and I hope they stand by their word on that. In addition, the anti-abortion group has decided to press criminal charges against those involved. Good for them. This professor needs to learn that others have the right to their own opinions, even when they differ from her own. She also seems to need a refresher course in actions and their consequences.
(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
Aplications of Evolution 4 - Migration and Sex
In recent years, the costs associated with genetic studies have dropped dramatically. That isn't much of a surprise. When the two main tools used in modern genetic studies, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing, were first developed, they were extrordinarily labor intensive. Initially, PCR required the scientist to spend hours and hours moving the samples from one water bath to another. DNA sequencing required the researcher to determine the order of bands on a gel by eye - determining a single sequence could easily take a whole day. Later, methods were developed to automate these processes, and they became much less labor intensive. Instead, they were simply very, very expensive.
Fortunately, technology tends to become cheaper over time, and this has proven to be as true for molecular genetics as it was for CDs and DVDs. In recent years, the costs have dropped dramatically. This means that using genetic techniques has now become feasible for many more researchers, and that they are being used to address many more questions. In many cases, the addition of genetic tools to a study has led to some amazing and sometimes unexpected results.
One interesting example just appeared in the "online early" section of papers for Molecular Ecology. (This means that the paper has been reviewed and accepted by the journal, and will appear in print in a future issue.) In this paper, a group of wildlife biologists used both radio-tracking and genetic techniques to look the effect of the Ventura Freeway on the Los Angeles area populations of bobcats and coyotes. The authors examined two types of data: they looked at the movement of individual animals that had been captured and radio collared, and they looked at the genetic structure of the populations. What they found is that many animals migrate from one side of the freeway to the other, but that few of the migrants are reproductively successful.
The authors used three study locations. Two were on the north side of the freeway, but separated from each other by a major secondary road. The second was south of the freeway, across from the northeastern site. This experimental setup let the authors compare the effect of the freeway to the effect of the secondary road. Over the seven years of the study, they radio collared and tracked 110 coyotes and 87 bobcats. Genetic samples were collected from all of the animals they captured.
The radio collar data allowed the researchers to see where the animals were moving. This technique has been around for a while, and is still used today. They found that only a small percentage (4.5% of coyotes; 11.5% of bobcats) of the animals they studied were observed to cross the freeway. A much larger percentage (~50%) of the animals crossed major secondary roads.
OK, there's nothing surprising about that. Anyone whose ever watched Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner square off can tell you that coyotes and highways aren't a real good mix. The bigger the road, the bigger the problem for the animal. That makes sense. However, the road is not an absolute barrier to the migration, and it only takes about one migrant per generation to keep populations from drifting apart, so it looks like the highway won't significantly fragment the bobcat and coyote populations. That's good news, because a fragmented population is usually at a greater risk of extinction than an intact one.
If the radio collar data does a good job at predicting the migration rate, the genetic data should show that there aren't big differences between the animals at the three study sites. To examine this, the authors used a series of statistical tests to determine whether the individuals sampled should best be considered to be a single population, or separate populations. They found that the coyotes grouped into two distinct subpopulations, and that the bobcats grouped into three. A second series of tests was used to determine how distinct the populations were from each other. This demonstrated that there were statistically significant differences between the populations. These results indicate that there is a very low level of migration between the populations.
So what's going on here? The radio collar data seems to point to a much higher migration rate than the genetic data demonstrates. What could cause such a difference?
It all comes down to that perennially popular topic - sex. It looks like physical migration across the freeway is relatively common. The genetic data actually supported this, too. Some individuals with the genetic signature of the south of the freeway populations were found north of the freeway, and vice versa, indicating that there are migrants. The reason that the populations show so much genetic divergence in the face of all that migration is simple: the migrants aren't reproductively successful. Their genes aren't winding up in the gene pool, and from a genetic perspective any migrant that doesn't reproduce doesn't count.
This is one of those experiments that screams to be repeated. If the pattern is real and holds true for a wide range of taxa, it implies that populations might be more easily separated than suspected, which might, in turn, imply that evolutionary divergence is also even easier than suspected. Even if the findings only apply for territorial animals such as bobcats and coyotes, they might require substantial changes in how those species are managed.
Fortunately, technology tends to become cheaper over time, and this has proven to be as true for molecular genetics as it was for CDs and DVDs. In recent years, the costs have dropped dramatically. This means that using genetic techniques has now become feasible for many more researchers, and that they are being used to address many more questions. In many cases, the addition of genetic tools to a study has led to some amazing and sometimes unexpected results.
One interesting example just appeared in the "online early" section of papers for Molecular Ecology. (This means that the paper has been reviewed and accepted by the journal, and will appear in print in a future issue.) In this paper, a group of wildlife biologists used both radio-tracking and genetic techniques to look the effect of the Ventura Freeway on the Los Angeles area populations of bobcats and coyotes. The authors examined two types of data: they looked at the movement of individual animals that had been captured and radio collared, and they looked at the genetic structure of the populations. What they found is that many animals migrate from one side of the freeway to the other, but that few of the migrants are reproductively successful.
The authors used three study locations. Two were on the north side of the freeway, but separated from each other by a major secondary road. The second was south of the freeway, across from the northeastern site. This experimental setup let the authors compare the effect of the freeway to the effect of the secondary road. Over the seven years of the study, they radio collared and tracked 110 coyotes and 87 bobcats. Genetic samples were collected from all of the animals they captured.
The radio collar data allowed the researchers to see where the animals were moving. This technique has been around for a while, and is still used today. They found that only a small percentage (4.5% of coyotes; 11.5% of bobcats) of the animals they studied were observed to cross the freeway. A much larger percentage (~50%) of the animals crossed major secondary roads.
OK, there's nothing surprising about that. Anyone whose ever watched Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner square off can tell you that coyotes and highways aren't a real good mix. The bigger the road, the bigger the problem for the animal. That makes sense. However, the road is not an absolute barrier to the migration, and it only takes about one migrant per generation to keep populations from drifting apart, so it looks like the highway won't significantly fragment the bobcat and coyote populations. That's good news, because a fragmented population is usually at a greater risk of extinction than an intact one.
If the radio collar data does a good job at predicting the migration rate, the genetic data should show that there aren't big differences between the animals at the three study sites. To examine this, the authors used a series of statistical tests to determine whether the individuals sampled should best be considered to be a single population, or separate populations. They found that the coyotes grouped into two distinct subpopulations, and that the bobcats grouped into three. A second series of tests was used to determine how distinct the populations were from each other. This demonstrated that there were statistically significant differences between the populations. These results indicate that there is a very low level of migration between the populations.
So what's going on here? The radio collar data seems to point to a much higher migration rate than the genetic data demonstrates. What could cause such a difference?
It all comes down to that perennially popular topic - sex. It looks like physical migration across the freeway is relatively common. The genetic data actually supported this, too. Some individuals with the genetic signature of the south of the freeway populations were found north of the freeway, and vice versa, indicating that there are migrants. The reason that the populations show so much genetic divergence in the face of all that migration is simple: the migrants aren't reproductively successful. Their genes aren't winding up in the gene pool, and from a genetic perspective any migrant that doesn't reproduce doesn't count.
This is one of those experiments that screams to be repeated. If the pattern is real and holds true for a wide range of taxa, it implies that populations might be more easily separated than suspected, which might, in turn, imply that evolutionary divergence is also even easier than suspected. Even if the findings only apply for territorial animals such as bobcats and coyotes, they might require substantial changes in how those species are managed.
12 April 2006
Faith-Based Problems
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune has an article that does a really good job at illustrating the pitfalls involved when it comes to using faith-based programs to provide social services.
Apparently, a conservative Lutheran church that was receiving money from their local county to provide hot lunches and other services to disabled and vulnerable adults turned away a potential client because the client was a post-surgery male to female transexual. The county, as a result, will no longer refer clients to the church program, and the church is now loosing money.
In this case, funding the faith-based group led to a lose-lose situation. The county needs to find (and fund) other resources to take up the slack, and the church program is now running with a massive deficit. There are really no winners here.
Something that is worth noting is that this situation illustrates how the first ammendment protects religion from the government. When a church takes money from the government, the government gains leverage over that church. Strings can be attached to the funding, and the funding can be cut if the church is unwilling to subordinate its beliefs to those of the government.
The government, on the other hand, cannot fund organizations that are not willing to provide services to everyone that the government believes is entitled to those services. If a transexual is entitled to government services, then the government has an obligation to provide those services. The government should not have to select the contractor that is the best religious fit for the client - that forces government employees to make religious decisions, and it makes the whole process less efficient.
This does not mean that religious groups should not be able to receive money to fund social service programs. That's been going on for much, much longer than Bush's faith-based initiatives thing. What it means is that any religious group that wishes to receive funding has to take the funding with the strings attached, and provide services without regard to how well the client fits their worldview.
The organization that I used to work for, Bronx Jewish Community Council, has provided a number of government funded services to the poor and elderly for decades now. They can receive the government funding because they do not discriminate. Clients are accepted based only on two factors: the need of the client, and the availability of the services. Nothing else matters. I used to joke around about being a token goy on the staff, but the hiring is actually totally nondiscriminatory (with the possible exception of an off-the-books insanity requirement). The only concession that the government made to the religious sponsorship of the agency was permitting the agency to close on jewish holidays - but only if the agency was open on an equal number of secular holidays.
Those types of government funded religious programs do good work, and have been around for ages. Providing money to those groups is not what the "faith-based" funding initiatives are about. Those involve funding groups who are unwilling, for religious reasons, to meet the non-discrimination standards expected of the government. That's an end run around the Constitution.
(Minor editorializing here: the most legally appropriate action the county could have taken under the circumstances would have been to pull all funding and clients from that church. The county claims that they did not do so because they were concerned about the possible effects on the clients already enrolled. I'm usually a hardliner on separation of church and state issues, but in this case I think the county made the right call. I've done a little work in social services in the past, and disruption can have big effects, particularly on seniors.)
(Additional editorializing: Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, but those schmucks won't feed a transexual. That's real Christian of them, isn't it.)
Hat tip: PZ Myers
Apparently, a conservative Lutheran church that was receiving money from their local county to provide hot lunches and other services to disabled and vulnerable adults turned away a potential client because the client was a post-surgery male to female transexual. The county, as a result, will no longer refer clients to the church program, and the church is now loosing money.
In this case, funding the faith-based group led to a lose-lose situation. The county needs to find (and fund) other resources to take up the slack, and the church program is now running with a massive deficit. There are really no winners here.
Something that is worth noting is that this situation illustrates how the first ammendment protects religion from the government. When a church takes money from the government, the government gains leverage over that church. Strings can be attached to the funding, and the funding can be cut if the church is unwilling to subordinate its beliefs to those of the government.
The government, on the other hand, cannot fund organizations that are not willing to provide services to everyone that the government believes is entitled to those services. If a transexual is entitled to government services, then the government has an obligation to provide those services. The government should not have to select the contractor that is the best religious fit for the client - that forces government employees to make religious decisions, and it makes the whole process less efficient.
This does not mean that religious groups should not be able to receive money to fund social service programs. That's been going on for much, much longer than Bush's faith-based initiatives thing. What it means is that any religious group that wishes to receive funding has to take the funding with the strings attached, and provide services without regard to how well the client fits their worldview.
The organization that I used to work for, Bronx Jewish Community Council, has provided a number of government funded services to the poor and elderly for decades now. They can receive the government funding because they do not discriminate. Clients are accepted based only on two factors: the need of the client, and the availability of the services. Nothing else matters. I used to joke around about being a token goy on the staff, but the hiring is actually totally nondiscriminatory (with the possible exception of an off-the-books insanity requirement). The only concession that the government made to the religious sponsorship of the agency was permitting the agency to close on jewish holidays - but only if the agency was open on an equal number of secular holidays.
Those types of government funded religious programs do good work, and have been around for ages. Providing money to those groups is not what the "faith-based" funding initiatives are about. Those involve funding groups who are unwilling, for religious reasons, to meet the non-discrimination standards expected of the government. That's an end run around the Constitution.
(Minor editorializing here: the most legally appropriate action the county could have taken under the circumstances would have been to pull all funding and clients from that church. The county claims that they did not do so because they were concerned about the possible effects on the clients already enrolled. I'm usually a hardliner on separation of church and state issues, but in this case I think the county made the right call. I've done a little work in social services in the past, and disruption can have big effects, particularly on seniors.)
(Additional editorializing: Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, but those schmucks won't feed a transexual. That's real Christian of them, isn't it.)
Hat tip: PZ Myers
Carnival Blogging
The latest issues of three good blog carnivals are up online, and all are worth looking at.
Tangled Bank #51 is available over at Discovering Biology in a Digital World.
The Magic School Bus hosts the 62nd edition of the Carnival of Education.
The 10th Carnival of the Liberals is up over at Pharyngula.
There are more than enough really good posts linked here to blow the hell out of productivity for the day. Enjoy.
Tangled Bank #51 is available over at Discovering Biology in a Digital World.
The Magic School Bus hosts the 62nd edition of the Carnival of Education.
The 10th Carnival of the Liberals is up over at Pharyngula.
There are more than enough really good posts linked here to blow the hell out of productivity for the day. Enjoy.
11 April 2006
Yet more desperation at the DI
In the latest misaimed blast from the Whine and Cheese Division of the Discovery Institute, Michael Francisco expresses shock and dismay at the idea that people would actually claim that Intelligent Design and creationism are the same thing:
In this case, they should probably blame the Governor of Kentucky himself. He seems to think that creationism and ID are somehow connected, and he hasn't been shy about stating that belief in public.
From his January, 2006 State of the State speech:
The Discovery Institute can complain all they want about people mistakenly thinking that Intelligent Design is another form of creationism. We've heard them say this before, but reality has contradicted the cdesign proponentsists once too often for anyone reasonable to believe them.
Finally, during the debate over [Kentucky Governor] Fletcher’s school board nominees, one House member argued they should "send a message that we are not a state that will fall prey to intelligent design, which is nothing more than creationism.” This argument merely repeats the common misconception that intelligent design and creationism are the same.With all the effort that those dedicated Discovery Institute folks have put into trying to convince people that ID really isn't creationism, what could possibly make people think that it is?
In this case, they should probably blame the Governor of Kentucky himself. He seems to think that creationism and ID are somehow connected, and he hasn't been shy about stating that belief in public.
From his January, 2006 State of the State speech:
Our founding fathers recognized that we were endowed with this right by our creator.And then there's that letter that he sent to the Kentucky Academy of Sciences, in response to their rejection of Intelligent Design:
So I ask, what is wrong with teaching “intelligent design” in our schools. Under KERA, our school districts have that freedom and I encourage them to do so.
This is not a question about faith or religion. It’s about self-evident truth.
My educational background provided me with thorough understanding of science [sic] and the theory of evolution. Our nation, however, was founded on self-evident truths. Among these truths are inalienable rights" endowed by their Creator." From my perspective, it is not a matter of faith, or religion, or theory. It is similar to basic self-evident objective truths that are the basis of knowledge.Later in that same letter, Fletcher says that, "Since 1970, state law specifically allows public schools to teach "creationism" in conjunction with the theory of evolution," indicating that he both thinks this is appropriate, and that he has no comprehension of the fact that such laws have already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Discovery Institute can complain all they want about people mistakenly thinking that Intelligent Design is another form of creationism. We've heard them say this before, but reality has contradicted the cdesign proponentsists once too often for anyone reasonable to believe them.
A mildly ironic picture
Catshark found and posted this picture the other day. The statue wound up where it was as the result of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, but the final position of the statue is just slightly ironic.
The subject of the statue is Louis Agassiz, a noted 19th century biologist and geologist. And creationist.
The subject of the statue is Louis Agassiz, a noted 19th century biologist and geologist. And creationist.
Am I a liberal?
The election season is starting to heat up. Scandals rock DC on what seems like a daily basis. The public is split, at least according to the polls, on many major issues. We are heading toward a political (and probably historical) crossroad. Now is the time for people to stand up for what they believe, and to help move the country in the right direction.
But where do I stand? Sometimes I have a hard time figuring that out.
I think of myself as a moderate, but whenever I take one of those online political spectrum tests, it tells me that I am a liberal. One of them even called me a socialist. I just don't get it. Why aren't my views middle of the road?
I believe that it is better to let a guilty man walk free than to incarcerate someone who is innocent, and that our legal system should err in that direction whenever possible. I believe that privacy is essential if a country is to truly be free, and that the convenience of law enforcement should come in second when weighed against privacy rights. I also believe that people who commit crimes should be held responsible for their actions, and that prison sentences should be considered to be a punishment for those actions, not just as an opportunity to rehabilitate the offender.
I believe that parents, not the government, are the best judge of what children should be exposed to on television and the internet, and that parents have both the right and the responsibility to oversee what their children watch and where they surf.
I believe that both religion and the government are better off when they are rigidly separated from each other.
I believe that the right to bear arms implies a responsibility to use them appropriately and safely, and that the government should be able to link the responsibility with the right.
I believe that all Americans should have an equal opportunity to succeed. I believe that the best route toward this ideal involves education, and that it is in everyone's best interests to have the government fully fund education for everyone here.
I do not believe that my ancestors would have wanted to lock the doors of Ellis Island behind them.
I believe that having a strong military is in the best interests of our country. I do not believe that our leaders have always used the military appropriately.
I believe that decisions about the economy and the environment should be made, as much as possible, from the perspective of our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I do not believe that they should be made based on the next election cycle, much less the next news cycle.
I do not believe that there are many politicians in Washington who are capable of thinking past the next news cycle. I think that is a bad thing.
I do not believe that spreading American ideals around the world is a bad idea. I do believe that it should be done by example. It certainly should not be done at the point of a gun.
I believe that corporations will act in the best interests of their shareholders whenever possible. I do not believe that the best interests of the shareholders will always correspond to the best interests of the environment, the economy, or the country. The government should, when necessary, stand up against the corporations to protect the rights of citizens.
I believe that if the health of our economy depends on a having certain unemployment rate, then we do have a responsibility to help the unemployed. We also need to recognize that unemployment isn't completely random, and that some people will be more likely to be laid off than others. We need to do what we can to give them a better chance to stay employed.
I do not believe that any of the things I've said are unreasonable or illogical, and I don't know why they make me "liberal." Personally, I think "common sense" is a much more accurate description.
But if "liberal" really is the best word to describe those beliefs, than I am proud to be a liberal.
But where do I stand? Sometimes I have a hard time figuring that out.
I think of myself as a moderate, but whenever I take one of those online political spectrum tests, it tells me that I am a liberal. One of them even called me a socialist. I just don't get it. Why aren't my views middle of the road?
I believe that it is better to let a guilty man walk free than to incarcerate someone who is innocent, and that our legal system should err in that direction whenever possible. I believe that privacy is essential if a country is to truly be free, and that the convenience of law enforcement should come in second when weighed against privacy rights. I also believe that people who commit crimes should be held responsible for their actions, and that prison sentences should be considered to be a punishment for those actions, not just as an opportunity to rehabilitate the offender.
I believe that parents, not the government, are the best judge of what children should be exposed to on television and the internet, and that parents have both the right and the responsibility to oversee what their children watch and where they surf.
I believe that both religion and the government are better off when they are rigidly separated from each other.
I believe that the right to bear arms implies a responsibility to use them appropriately and safely, and that the government should be able to link the responsibility with the right.
I believe that all Americans should have an equal opportunity to succeed. I believe that the best route toward this ideal involves education, and that it is in everyone's best interests to have the government fully fund education for everyone here.
I do not believe that my ancestors would have wanted to lock the doors of Ellis Island behind them.
I believe that having a strong military is in the best interests of our country. I do not believe that our leaders have always used the military appropriately.
I believe that decisions about the economy and the environment should be made, as much as possible, from the perspective of our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I do not believe that they should be made based on the next election cycle, much less the next news cycle.
I do not believe that there are many politicians in Washington who are capable of thinking past the next news cycle. I think that is a bad thing.
I do not believe that spreading American ideals around the world is a bad idea. I do believe that it should be done by example. It certainly should not be done at the point of a gun.
I believe that corporations will act in the best interests of their shareholders whenever possible. I do not believe that the best interests of the shareholders will always correspond to the best interests of the environment, the economy, or the country. The government should, when necessary, stand up against the corporations to protect the rights of citizens.
I believe that if the health of our economy depends on a having certain unemployment rate, then we do have a responsibility to help the unemployed. We also need to recognize that unemployment isn't completely random, and that some people will be more likely to be laid off than others. We need to do what we can to give them a better chance to stay employed.
I do not believe that any of the things I've said are unreasonable or illogical, and I don't know why they make me "liberal." Personally, I think "common sense" is a much more accurate description.
But if "liberal" really is the best word to describe those beliefs, than I am proud to be a liberal.
10 April 2006
Iran, the Bomb, and the White House
PZ Myers weighed in yesterday with his opinions on the recent news articles about our delusional executive branch planning possible attacks on Iran. My own take is slightly different.
PZ, as I understand it, is opposed to attacking Iran. The reasons that he provides are definitely sound:
At the same time, Iranian President Ahmadinejad is one of the people in this world I'd least like to see with nuclear weapons. (Jerry Falwell would scare me a little less, and Pat Robertson would scare me a lot more.) I worry about the consequences of bombing Iraq. And I wonder if the long-term consequences of not doing it aren't going to be even worse.
Given the long-term instability from the religious fanatics running Iraq, I think that erring on the side of caution in this case probably involves leaning toward taking action if there is reasonable evidence that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that whole "reasonable evidence" thing.
Determining if there is reasonable evidence that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons (as opposed to power applications) requires us to trust the administration. Again. After we've already been burnt once.
I'm pretty sure that the case is stronger this time, but I have to admit that I thought that some of the evidence for weapons in Iraq was strong right after Colin Powell's presentation to the UN, too. The fact is that after the last few years, I have no trust left in what the administration says.
It'd sure be nice if that whole "boy who cried wolf" thing was just a story.
PZ, as I understand it, is opposed to attacking Iran. The reasons that he provides are definitely sound:
When I say I don't want war in the Middle East, that includes pre-emptive strikes that would kill huge numbers of innocents, shatter and destabilize yet another country, and inflame the hatred against my country, as well as against Israel.I have a hard time arguing against that. He's probably right - any attack against Iran will probably have all those consequences, and more.
At the same time, Iranian President Ahmadinejad is one of the people in this world I'd least like to see with nuclear weapons. (Jerry Falwell would scare me a little less, and Pat Robertson would scare me a lot more.) I worry about the consequences of bombing Iraq. And I wonder if the long-term consequences of not doing it aren't going to be even worse.
Given the long-term instability from the religious fanatics running Iraq, I think that erring on the side of caution in this case probably involves leaning toward taking action if there is reasonable evidence that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that whole "reasonable evidence" thing.
Determining if there is reasonable evidence that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons (as opposed to power applications) requires us to trust the administration. Again. After we've already been burnt once.
I'm pretty sure that the case is stronger this time, but I have to admit that I thought that some of the evidence for weapons in Iraq was strong right after Colin Powell's presentation to the UN, too. The fact is that after the last few years, I have no trust left in what the administration says.
It'd sure be nice if that whole "boy who cried wolf" thing was just a story.
The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, My Foot, and My Mouth
Here's the latest update in the continuing saga of UT Professor Eric Pianka, and the articles from the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise.
I got up early this morning, and made several phone calls to try and get to the bottom of why all mention of Pianka had been expunged from the paper. Bottom line: big misunderstanding, and the articles are now back online. It had absolutely nothing to do with the paper trying to dodge responsibility for its actions, or the paper not standing behind the articles, or any of the other possibilities that I had thought were likely. It appears that I didn't have the full story, and jumped to some conclusions in the earlier articles that were not entirely justified.
Here's the details on how I figured this out, for those interested in checking my work:
The first call I made was to the Gazette Enterprise. There, I spoke with the managing editor of the paper, Mr. Christopher Lykins. When I told him that I was calling regarding the Pianka matter, he informed me that all decisions about that were now "being made by the home office," and that his paper no longer had "any jurisdiction" over those decisions.
That fired up my curiosity a little more. Andrea Bottaro and Reed Cartwright (of The Pandas' Thumb) were both kind enough to track down the ownership of the paper, and provide me with some contact information for the "home office." The Gazette-Enterprise, it turns out, is owned by a company called "Southern Newspapers Incorporated," which owns a number of small papers in the south. The staff at the office then referred me to Mr. Bill Cornwell, publisher of the Brazosport Facts, as a corporate contact.
All of this led me to believe that I was getting a very polite runaround, but that belief was quickly shattered when Mr. Cornwell returned my call. He was actually quite surprised to hear that the articles were not available online. Apparently, the company had directed that the transcript and the audio recording from the speech be removed because both were at least partially incomplete. That was apparently misunderstood, with the result being that all of the materials were removed. He has since gotten back in touch with the Gazette-Enterprise, and the articles are now back online.
My impression that the Gazette-Enterprise was trying to hide from their responsibility was wrong. This will serve as a lesson to me to make sure that I do my research more thoroughly before posting in the future.
As a final note, I think that this whole affair should be the topic of more than just blog articles. If anything, it could serve as an exemplar of both the advantages and disadvantages that are present in the new relationship between blogs and the more traditional media sources. It also provides some valuable insights into the way that fast-breaking stories can be used and misused by various factions for political gain, and how those factions can actually shape the story as it breaks. I'll probably post more on this over the next few days, and I'm also working on an article for print publication (assuming I can find someone to publish it).
I got up early this morning, and made several phone calls to try and get to the bottom of why all mention of Pianka had been expunged from the paper. Bottom line: big misunderstanding, and the articles are now back online. It had absolutely nothing to do with the paper trying to dodge responsibility for its actions, or the paper not standing behind the articles, or any of the other possibilities that I had thought were likely. It appears that I didn't have the full story, and jumped to some conclusions in the earlier articles that were not entirely justified.
Here's the details on how I figured this out, for those interested in checking my work:
The first call I made was to the Gazette Enterprise. There, I spoke with the managing editor of the paper, Mr. Christopher Lykins. When I told him that I was calling regarding the Pianka matter, he informed me that all decisions about that were now "being made by the home office," and that his paper no longer had "any jurisdiction" over those decisions.
That fired up my curiosity a little more. Andrea Bottaro and Reed Cartwright (of The Pandas' Thumb) were both kind enough to track down the ownership of the paper, and provide me with some contact information for the "home office." The Gazette-Enterprise, it turns out, is owned by a company called "Southern Newspapers Incorporated," which owns a number of small papers in the south. The staff at the office then referred me to Mr. Bill Cornwell, publisher of the Brazosport Facts, as a corporate contact.
All of this led me to believe that I was getting a very polite runaround, but that belief was quickly shattered when Mr. Cornwell returned my call. He was actually quite surprised to hear that the articles were not available online. Apparently, the company had directed that the transcript and the audio recording from the speech be removed because both were at least partially incomplete. That was apparently misunderstood, with the result being that all of the materials were removed. He has since gotten back in touch with the Gazette-Enterprise, and the articles are now back online.
My impression that the Gazette-Enterprise was trying to hide from their responsibility was wrong. This will serve as a lesson to me to make sure that I do my research more thoroughly before posting in the future.
As a final note, I think that this whole affair should be the topic of more than just blog articles. If anything, it could serve as an exemplar of both the advantages and disadvantages that are present in the new relationship between blogs and the more traditional media sources. It also provides some valuable insights into the way that fast-breaking stories can be used and misused by various factions for political gain, and how those factions can actually shape the story as it breaks. I'll probably post more on this over the next few days, and I'm also working on an article for print publication (assuming I can find someone to publish it).
07 April 2006
The Latest Newspeak
Today's nearly-hysterical attempt at redefinition comes to us from the Ministry of Truth White House Press Office:
Giving a selected few reporters selected crumbs of information = in the public interest.
Telling the public thatbig brother might be lithere is a "terrorist surveillance program" in which the government claims the right to listen in on some phone converstations without any due process = not in the public interest.
I'm glad they've cleared that one up.
The President believes the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter. And I think that's why it's important to draw a distinction here. Declassifying information and providing it to the public, when it is in the public interest, is one thing. But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious. And there is a distinction.So, let's see...
Giving a selected few reporters selected crumbs of information = in the public interest.
Telling the public that
I'm glad they've cleared that one up.
More on the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise Affair
A number of people commenting on my last article noticed and highlighted the disappearance of stories related to the Pianka affair from the website of the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise. Dave Thomas picked up the story, and posted it on The Pandas' Thumb. I'm going to provide a bit more detail on the scope of the paper's dishonest and despicable conduct, along with the text of an email that I've sent them.
As Dave pointed out, the paper archives stories for at least one month. Strangely, however, the stories that involve Eric Pianka all seem to have disappeared from their archive. I mean that literally. I went to the paper's search page, entered "Pianka" as the search term, and received 0 hits.
That's very strange, because stories about Eric Pianka appeared on the front page of the print edition of the paper on three separate days this week: April 2nd, 4th, and 5th. The links to those dates are to the front-page images currently available on the paper's site. Should those pictures also become unavailable, I will post the copies that I've saved. The website lists the news articles for each of those days. If you look at the pages (2nd, 4th, and 5th), you will find that all of the front page stories except the ones mentioning Pianka are still listed. That's the case at the moment, anyway. It's anyone's guess what the situation will be tomorrow.
The disappearance of the material is clearly not a technical error. What we have seen is the deliberate deletion of all material related to Eric Pianka from the paper's website. What we have not seen is any explanation for this inexcusable conduct on the part of the paper. They have not replaced the Pianka articles with anything other than a file not found message. There is no retraction available, there is no reason given for the removal of the files, there is not even any acknowledgement that the files ever existed.
That behavior is beyond dishonest. It is despicable. It is disgusting. It is irresponsible. It is cowardly. It is...somebody get me a thesaurus, I'm running out of words for it.
The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise's initial article sparked enormous amounts of criticism of Pianka from bloggers, newspaper columnists, talk radio hosts, and other media sources. He was demonized in front of a national audience. He has received death threats as a direct result of this publicity. He was questioned about his views by the FBI. All that can be traced directly back to the publicity that resulted from the Gazette-Enterprise's actions.
If they no longer stand behind those articles - and that is exactly what the selective deletion of the material from the website implies - then the paper owes the public an explanation and the professor an apology. What they have done so far in removing the articles without any sort of explanation demonstrate a degree of moral cowardice that is entirely inexcusable. If the paper wishes to cling to its last remaining shreds of professionalism and dignity, they will have to do better. And soon.
As Dave pointed out, the paper archives stories for at least one month. Strangely, however, the stories that involve Eric Pianka all seem to have disappeared from their archive. I mean that literally. I went to the paper's search page, entered "Pianka" as the search term, and received 0 hits.
That's very strange, because stories about Eric Pianka appeared on the front page of the print edition of the paper on three separate days this week: April 2nd, 4th, and 5th. The links to those dates are to the front-page images currently available on the paper's site. Should those pictures also become unavailable, I will post the copies that I've saved. The website lists the news articles for each of those days. If you look at the pages (2nd, 4th, and 5th), you will find that all of the front page stories except the ones mentioning Pianka are still listed. That's the case at the moment, anyway. It's anyone's guess what the situation will be tomorrow.
The disappearance of the material is clearly not a technical error. What we have seen is the deliberate deletion of all material related to Eric Pianka from the paper's website. What we have not seen is any explanation for this inexcusable conduct on the part of the paper. They have not replaced the Pianka articles with anything other than a file not found message. There is no retraction available, there is no reason given for the removal of the files, there is not even any acknowledgement that the files ever existed.
That behavior is beyond dishonest. It is despicable. It is disgusting. It is irresponsible. It is cowardly. It is...somebody get me a thesaurus, I'm running out of words for it.
The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise's initial article sparked enormous amounts of criticism of Pianka from bloggers, newspaper columnists, talk radio hosts, and other media sources. He was demonized in front of a national audience. He has received death threats as a direct result of this publicity. He was questioned about his views by the FBI. All that can be traced directly back to the publicity that resulted from the Gazette-Enterprise's actions.
If they no longer stand behind those articles - and that is exactly what the selective deletion of the material from the website implies - then the paper owes the public an explanation and the professor an apology. What they have done so far in removing the articles without any sort of explanation demonstrate a degree of moral cowardice that is entirely inexcusable. If the paper wishes to cling to its last remaining shreds of professionalism and dignity, they will have to do better. And soon.
06 April 2006
The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise and Misrepresentation of Pianka.
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**Update- 7 April 06, 18:00 HST -**
All of the Sequin Gazette-Enterprise articles linked to in this article are no longer available through those links, and I am currently unable to find them as live links elsewhere on their site. I will be emailing the paper for comment shortly, and will attempt to contact them by phone for an explanation if that does not work.
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It's been several days since the attacks on University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka first began, and there's no end in sight. Yesterday, Texas governor Rick Perry's office compared Pianka to the Nazis, and today he is being required to talk to the FBI so that they can make sure that he's not a terrorist. Meanwhile, various portions of the right-wing community are continuing to rave against Pianka - the Uncommon Descent folks alone have no less than four posts up on the topic today.
Also today, the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise (the local paper that got the ball rolling on this whole affair) posted the transcript of another, more recent, speech by Pianka. This is interesting because the transcript is for the same speech discussed in the April 2nd Gazette-Enterprise article that was picked up by the Drudge report, sparking the national outcry. Having the transcript available makes it much easier to critically examine the news article about the speech, and to see how well the material in the article reflects what was actually said.
The easiest way to do this, I think, is to look at the way direct quotes are used in the article, and then at the same quote within the context of the speech. It's as close to objective as I'm going to be able to get. The direct quotes will be placed in a bold font to make them easier to find.
From the article:
A little later in the article, we read:
I'm not sure that the same thing can be said about the next quote I'm going to look at:
Here's another chunk from the newspaper article:
Here's the context for the first part:
I'd almost be willing to write off the misquotes to poor memory and notetaking by the reporter, but the same trend shows up in a quote taken from written material:
Here's my attempt at a transcript:
I have a hard time looking at the quote from the article, listening to the audio of the actual exchange with the reporter, and viewing what was written as anything other than a deliberate attempt to make Pianka look bad. It seems clear to me that the first part of Pianka's answer was the result of him mishearing or misinterpreting the reporter. I think that was clear to the reporter, too. She cut his answer off to ask him point blank whether he was advocating terrorism.
The article in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise contains numerous misquotes and out of context quotes. All of them err in the same direction - making Pianka look bad. It is almost impossible to believe that this is the result of anything other than deliberate effort on the part of the paper.
**Update- 7 April 06, 18:00 HST -**
All of the Sequin Gazette-Enterprise articles linked to in this article are no longer available through those links, and I am currently unable to find them as live links elsewhere on their site. I will be emailing the paper for comment shortly, and will attempt to contact them by phone for an explanation if that does not work.
-----
It's been several days since the attacks on University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka first began, and there's no end in sight. Yesterday, Texas governor Rick Perry's office compared Pianka to the Nazis, and today he is being required to talk to the FBI so that they can make sure that he's not a terrorist. Meanwhile, various portions of the right-wing community are continuing to rave against Pianka - the Uncommon Descent folks alone have no less than four posts up on the topic today.
Also today, the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise (the local paper that got the ball rolling on this whole affair) posted the transcript of another, more recent, speech by Pianka. This is interesting because the transcript is for the same speech discussed in the April 2nd Gazette-Enterprise article that was picked up by the Drudge report, sparking the national outcry. Having the transcript available makes it much easier to critically examine the news article about the speech, and to see how well the material in the article reflects what was actually said.
The easiest way to do this, I think, is to look at the way direct quotes are used in the article, and then at the same quote within the context of the speech. It's as close to objective as I'm going to be able to get. The direct quotes will be placed in a bold font to make them easier to find.
From the article:
A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.From the transcript:
"Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine," Eric Pianka cautioned students and guests at St. Edward's University on Friday. Pianka's words are part of what he calls his "doomsday talk" - a 45-minute presentation outlining humanity's ecological misdeeds and Pianka's predictions about how nature, or perhaps humans themselves, will exterminate all but a fraction of civilization.
Now it is only a matter of time until Ebola got here evolves and mutates a little and it will be airborne, and then I think we might finally get a take. And when it sweeps across the world — we're gonna have a lot of dead people. Every one of you that is lucky enough to survive gets to bury nine. Think about that. I doubt Ebola is gonna be the one that gets us. I think it will be, uh, something else.If you look closely, you will see that the two sentences in bold do not entirely match. The newspaper quoted Pianka as saying "every one of you who gets to survive." The transcript has him saying "every one of you that is lucky enough to survive." It's a small difference, I know, but I think it is significant - especially since it seems to be part of a trend.
But did you ever wonder why things like SARS and now what the Avian Flu are continually cropping up? They're cropping up because we were dumb enough to make a perfect epidemiological substrate for an epidemic. We bred our brains out, and now we're being pegged. The microbes are gonna take over. They're gonna control us as they have in the past. Think about that.
A little later in the article, we read:
So what's at the heart of Pianka's claim?Looking at the transcript, here's what we see in context:
6.5 billion humans is too many.
In his estimation, "We've grown fat, apathetic and miserable," all the while leaving the planet parched.
The solution?
A 90 percent reduction.
The great North American saltgrass prairie and we just took it and turned it all into agricultural lands. We exterminated the bison, wiped out the Indians, totaled the prairie dogs and those black-faced ferrets. We just erased an eco-system. Now this is very nice for Americans because that rich topsoil has allowed us to grow food and we can feed ourselves and the rest of the world and we've grown fat and apathetic and miserable as a result of it. We've lost the bison — we've lost an awful lot and we'll never be able to recover.I do need to give the author some credit here - Pianka did use the quoted words. He did not do use them to refer to humanity as a whole, as the Gazette-Enterprise implied, and he didn't use them in reference to population growth per se. But he did use those words in pretty much that order.
I'm not sure that the same thing can be said about the next quote I'm going to look at:
"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said. "We're looking forward to a huge collapse."I realize that I didn't provide much context for that, but I didn't really think that it was necessary. I've got nothing to compare it to. Neither "scourge of humanity" nor "looking forward" appear anywhere in the text of that speech. Those phrases are also absent from the incomplete transcript of the Texas Academy of Sciences speech posted at the Pearcey Report earlier today. It is entirely possible that Pianka said those things at some point in time, but it does not appear that they were included in the 31 March speech. The page with the transcript does note that there are some missing portions, so I'll give the paper the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but the omission is troubling.
Here's another chunk from the newspaper article:
As of press time, Pitts - who sent his appeal via email Saturday - had received no response from the university, but he says, "It's too early for any responses to have been made." Meanwhile, Pianka urges humanity to heed his call to be prepared, saying "we're going to be hunters and gatherers again real soon."I apologize, but I won't be able to provide a single quote that contains both phrases. It would be far too long - over 1100 words separate "hunters and gatherers again real soon" from "This is gonna happen."
"This is gonna happen in your lifetime," he told his St. Edward's audience. "Do you wanna go there? We've already gone there. We waited too long."
Here's the context for the first part:
It's just a matter of time until the planet changes really bad. Some meteorological people have models that show thresholds where it shifts just instantly overnight. What I'm waiting for is when you go to the supermarket and there are no more Triscuits on the shelves and you say to yourself, "Hey, where did Triscuit come from, anyway."And the second:
We've lost touch with the reality of where food comes from. We're completely mislead. It's just a commodity that's bought and sold and people make money on it. You've got to think, you've got to think — and remember, humans were hunter/gatherers not that long ago and I think we're gonna to be again very soon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife recently released caribou off the islands off of Alaska to help the Eskimos, the Aleuts, get protein. And the herds from these islands — there were several islands — all grew exponentially just like the human population's been growing for quite a few years and then they ate everything they could eat and the populations crashed.Both of those quotes, read in context, are alarmist. But they are talking about completely different threats. Coupled together, they say do make a nice quote, but it's not what Pianka actually said. As was the case with the other quotes, it's a fairly small difference, but the cumulative effect is to cast Pianka in the worst possible light.
This is what's going to happen to us. This is gonna happen in your lifetime. Does that look like fun? Do you want to go there? You've gone there. We waited too long.
I'd almost be willing to write off the misquotes to poor memory and notetaking by the reporter, but the same trend shows up in a quote taken from written material:
The professor's not the only one who can articulate this concept. Because Pianka includes his doomsday material in his coursework, Ebola and its potential play a notable role in some students' studies. A syllabus for one course reads:The quote does not actually appear in Pianka's course syllabus. Instead, it appears on a website that lists reasons to take the class. Here it is in full context:
"Although [Ebola Zaire] Kills 9 out of 10 people, outbreaks have so far been unable to become epidemics because they are currently spread only by direct physical contact with infected blood. However, a closely-related virus that kills monkeys, Ebola Reston, is airborne, and it is only a matter of time until Ebola Zaire evolves the capacity to be airborne."
It is here that some say Pianka ventures from provocative food for thought to, as Wilkins said, "very extreme material" that violate many people's views - including his own - about the treatment of human life. While many praise Pianka's boldness and scientific know-how, others say he crosses an ethical line in his treatment of Ebola's viability as a killer.
During the past quarter of a century, world population has increased from about 3.4 billion people to over 6.4 billion, an increase of over 85%. In some parts of the world, human populations are growing even faster.It's clear that Pianka is not advocating the use of Ebola as a weapon in this passage. Instead, he is warning that a devistating epidemic is a likely outcome of continued population expansion. Interestingly, the reporter doesn't bring that up later on, when speculating on Pianka's motives for discussing ebola:
If humans do not control their own population (and we seem unwilling and unable to do so), then other forces will certainly act to control our population. The four horseman of the apocalypse (conquest, war, famine, and death) are all candidates. Most likely, lethal virulent microbes like HIV and Ebola zaire will set limits on the growth of human populations. HIV, by allowing infected hosts to survive years while they spread the virus and infect new hosts, has already become a pandemic, but it will be years before it decimates the human population. Although Ebola kills 9 out of 10 people, outbreaks have so far been unable to become epidemics because they are currently spread only by direct physical contact with infected blood. However, a closely related virus that kills monkeys, Ebola reston, is airborne, and it is only a matter of time until Ebola zaire evolves the capacity to be airborne.
Though Pianka turned down requests for a sit-down interview, he maintains he is not advocating human death.This quote appears to come from an exchange captured in an audio recording posted on the paper's website.
Does he believe nature will bring about this promised devastation? Or is humanity's own dissemination of a deadly virus the only answer? And more importantly, is this the motive behind his talks?
Responding to these very questions, Pianka said, "Good terrorists would be taking [Ebola Roaston and Ebola Zaire] so that they had microbes they could let loose on the Earth that would kill 90 percent of people."
Here's my attempt at a transcript:
Reporter: "My question is, do you believe that this is something that's going to come about naturally? Do you believe that this is something that humanity needs to take a step to cause? Because that's what's being said..."
Pianka: "Oh..."
Reporter: "...and there's a big difference in that."
Pianka: "Oh.. I think that umm [incomprehensible- I honestly can't tell for sure whether or not he used the word "good" there, but I don't think he did.] er... terrorists would be taking one of these and one of those other ones and trying to combine them so that they had a microbe that they could [let/set?] loose on the earth that would kill 90% of the people. I don't think they are that sophisticated...
Reporter: "...OK, but yes or no question, do you advocate that?"
Pianka: "I don't advocate killing people."
Reporter: "OK."
I have a hard time looking at the quote from the article, listening to the audio of the actual exchange with the reporter, and viewing what was written as anything other than a deliberate attempt to make Pianka look bad. It seems clear to me that the first part of Pianka's answer was the result of him mishearing or misinterpreting the reporter. I think that was clear to the reporter, too. She cut his answer off to ask him point blank whether he was advocating terrorism.
The article in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise contains numerous misquotes and out of context quotes. All of them err in the same direction - making Pianka look bad. It is almost impossible to believe that this is the result of anything other than deliberate effort on the part of the paper.
05 April 2006
On Science Education (or: I Want To Be PZ Myers)
I have a confession to make. (Yes, another one.) I want to be PZ Myers when I grow up and finish my PhD. Well, a sort of watered down version of him anyway. I'm not so sure about the whole agressively godless thing. And I can almost certainly do without the cephalopod fetish.
Ok. So I don't really want to be PZ. I just want his job. Or one a lot like it. I like doing research. I enjoy new problems, and I love finding solutions. But I also like to teach - I really enjoy it - and professors at research universities just don't do enough of it for me. Most of the professors in my department spend a quarter or less of their time in the classroom. I want more time working with undergraduates than that.
That's the big advantage that I see in teaching at a liberal arts college instead of a research university. The smaller schools exist to teach. In the research universities I've seen, the undergraduates may be the excuse for having a department, but the departments exist to do original research. Teaching seems to come in second as often as not.
Here's the thing, though. To get to the point where I'm reasonably qualified for a position teaching in the science department at a liberal arts college, I need to complete a PhD in the sciences. The PhD program I'm in is, like most others, entirely research focused. This means that the expectation is that the grad students will put most of their time into their research, take only classes related to their research, and do as little teaching as possible. We're required, at least in theory, to have one year of teaching experience before graduation. It is uncommon for students to TA for more than a year unless they can't find any other source of funding. Many advisors actively discourage their students from taking classes that are interesting but unrelated to that student's specific research area.
My department is not atypical in this regard. In fact, the majority of the faculty have been very supportive of my desire to get more teaching experience. Several of them have helped me with questions I've had about teaching, and in improving my skills. Ultimately, however, I am a student in a program that's designed to produce researchers. It is definitely not designed to produce educators.
So how does this tie in with science education?
As Janet pointed out in a post on her blog earlier today, the folks who teach science at the K-12 grade levels are not usually people who majored in science. They are people who took some science classes in college, but most majored in education. Of the fraction that completed an undergraduate science major, few have done any graduate-level work in science - which means that few have had substantial exposure to the practice of science.
Once a student reaches college, they get to take science classes taught by a real, live scientist. That's someone who has finished a PhD in their field, conducted original research, and knows how the scientific community functions. Their graduate program was almost certainly like the one that I'm in - focused on producing the next generation of researcher.
To put it another way, the people who teach students science before college have lots of training in education and little in science, while those who teach student science in college have lots and lots of training in science, but little to no formal training in education.
I'd like to go out on a limb here, and suggest that this situation is absolutely insane. It's bloody stupid. Look, and education degree is fantastic. If I've learned one thing from TAing the last two semesters, it's that teaching is a hell of a lot more difficult than it looks. Being able to effectively teach a subject requires much more than knowledge of the subject. To teach well, you have to be able to structure the course appropriately, present the material at a reasonable rate, present the material in a way that can engage at least a few of the students, write exams that actually test what you teach, explain why an answer is wrong instead of just saying that it is - and that's just a partial list. But you do need to understand the material.
The current system is set up to produce people who are skilled in either teaching or science. It isn't set up to produce people who are trained in and good at both. That needs to change. If we are going to have any hope in fixing science education in this country, we will need lots of people who can do both.
Ok. So I don't really want to be PZ. I just want his job. Or one a lot like it. I like doing research. I enjoy new problems, and I love finding solutions. But I also like to teach - I really enjoy it - and professors at research universities just don't do enough of it for me. Most of the professors in my department spend a quarter or less of their time in the classroom. I want more time working with undergraduates than that.
That's the big advantage that I see in teaching at a liberal arts college instead of a research university. The smaller schools exist to teach. In the research universities I've seen, the undergraduates may be the excuse for having a department, but the departments exist to do original research. Teaching seems to come in second as often as not.
Here's the thing, though. To get to the point where I'm reasonably qualified for a position teaching in the science department at a liberal arts college, I need to complete a PhD in the sciences. The PhD program I'm in is, like most others, entirely research focused. This means that the expectation is that the grad students will put most of their time into their research, take only classes related to their research, and do as little teaching as possible. We're required, at least in theory, to have one year of teaching experience before graduation. It is uncommon for students to TA for more than a year unless they can't find any other source of funding. Many advisors actively discourage their students from taking classes that are interesting but unrelated to that student's specific research area.
My department is not atypical in this regard. In fact, the majority of the faculty have been very supportive of my desire to get more teaching experience. Several of them have helped me with questions I've had about teaching, and in improving my skills. Ultimately, however, I am a student in a program that's designed to produce researchers. It is definitely not designed to produce educators.
So how does this tie in with science education?
As Janet pointed out in a post on her blog earlier today, the folks who teach science at the K-12 grade levels are not usually people who majored in science. They are people who took some science classes in college, but most majored in education. Of the fraction that completed an undergraduate science major, few have done any graduate-level work in science - which means that few have had substantial exposure to the practice of science.
Once a student reaches college, they get to take science classes taught by a real, live scientist. That's someone who has finished a PhD in their field, conducted original research, and knows how the scientific community functions. Their graduate program was almost certainly like the one that I'm in - focused on producing the next generation of researcher.
To put it another way, the people who teach students science before college have lots of training in education and little in science, while those who teach student science in college have lots and lots of training in science, but little to no formal training in education.
I'd like to go out on a limb here, and suggest that this situation is absolutely insane. It's bloody stupid. Look, and education degree is fantastic. If I've learned one thing from TAing the last two semesters, it's that teaching is a hell of a lot more difficult than it looks. Being able to effectively teach a subject requires much more than knowledge of the subject. To teach well, you have to be able to structure the course appropriately, present the material at a reasonable rate, present the material in a way that can engage at least a few of the students, write exams that actually test what you teach, explain why an answer is wrong instead of just saying that it is - and that's just a partial list. But you do need to understand the material.
The current system is set up to produce people who are skilled in either teaching or science. It isn't set up to produce people who are trained in and good at both. That needs to change. If we are going to have any hope in fixing science education in this country, we will need lots of people who can do both.
04 April 2006
Guilty Pleasures
I have a confession to make.
From time to time, in my own home and out of view of my children, I yield to temptation and read something written by Tom Clancy. It's wrong, I know, but it's hard to resist. The man's politics might have started to the right of John Birch Society (and drifted rightward over time), and his the mindset of his characters is overly righteous and simplistic, but his stories are decent escapist novels. If I need to turn off my brain for a while, Clancy isn't the world's worst way to do it. The thing is, though, unlike a large number of wingnuts, I know that it's just a story.
From time to time, in my own home and out of view of my children, I yield to temptation and read something written by Tom Clancy. It's wrong, I know, but it's hard to resist. The man's politics might have started to the right of John Birch Society (and drifted rightward over time), and his the mindset of his characters is overly righteous and simplistic, but his stories are decent escapist novels. If I need to turn off my brain for a while, Clancy isn't the world's worst way to do it. The thing is, though, unlike a large number of wingnuts, I know that it's just a story.
31 March 2006
Fieldwork 2: Minor Difficulties
This is a plant that is known locally as "Spanish Bayonet."
These are your pants after you fall into some.
Any questions?
These are your pants after you fall into some.
Any questions?
30 March 2006
Prayer and the Military
Some of our more self-righteous congresscritters have been making to have the president sign an executive order guaranteeing evangelical Christian military chaplains the right to pray in Jesus' name. To their credit, the organization that represents the majority of military chaplains has come out against this move.
Here's the bottom line:
Military chaplains pray in two different types of circumstance. They pray when they are conducting religious services for people who share their beliefs, and they pray in circumstances when people who do not share their beliefs are required to be present. Nobody is questioning the right of chaplains to pray as they wish when they are conducting the services appropriate to their own denomination. However, when praying in a situation when people from other religious traditions are present, it is entirely inappropriate for a chaplain to deliver anything but a non-denominational prayer.
The executive director of an organization that represents some evangelical chaplains and is pushing for the executive order is quoted in the Washington Post article linked above:
Any chaplain that cannot be sensitive to the differing beliefs of others in their unit is simply unfit for the needs of the military, and should be discharged.
Here's the bottom line:
Military chaplains pray in two different types of circumstance. They pray when they are conducting religious services for people who share their beliefs, and they pray in circumstances when people who do not share their beliefs are required to be present. Nobody is questioning the right of chaplains to pray as they wish when they are conducting the services appropriate to their own denomination. However, when praying in a situation when people from other religious traditions are present, it is entirely inappropriate for a chaplain to deliver anything but a non-denominational prayer.
The executive director of an organization that represents some evangelical chaplains and is pushing for the executive order is quoted in the Washington Post article linked above:
But Baugham said evangelical chaplains must represent the church that endorses them for military duty, and "they are not authorized to give nonsectarian prayers."That position is extrordinarily odd, particularly coming from a group that endorses chaplains for military duty. According to this army website, a chaplain's endorsement from their faith group should certify that the candidate is, among other things, "Sensitive to religious pluralism and able to provide for the free exercise of religion by all military personnel, their family members and civilians who work for the Army."
Any chaplain that cannot be sensitive to the differing beliefs of others in their unit is simply unfit for the needs of the military, and should be discharged.
25 March 2006
Fieldwork 1: Packing
Preparation is absolutely essential to doing good fieldwork. Some of the preparation includes obvious tasks like figuring out where you are going to go, why you are going there, and how you are going to spend your time when you get there. Figuring out how you are getting there is usually a good idea, too, as is making sure that you have any and all paperwork that you will need. That's often a bit harder for scientists, becuase there are frequently extra permits and permissions to be obtained. There's also the matter of setting up your schedule once you get on site. Time is precious, and it's common to have to budget time tightly to make sure everything gets done.
Let's put it this way: fieldwork doesn't often happen on a moment's notice. When it does, it's usually because something extrordinary has happened somewhere in the world, creating a research opportunity that might not be available for long. (Most people refer to these as 'natural disasters'.)
It's also important to make sure that the logistics for the trip are lined up ahead of time. Food and shelter come under this category, of course, but I'm mostly talking about gear. You need stuff to do science, and there's nothing worse than finding out that you aren't going to be able to get all the data you need because you forgot to bring something important. That's why you'll find scientists (like me) who would ordinarily pack for a two-week vacation without using a list putting together detailed packing checklists for fieldwork. Putting together the checklist is usually followed by staring at it for a while to make sure you haven't forgotten anything, packing it all, unpacking it to make sure you haven't forgotten something, re-packing it, and wondering what you've forgotten.
Anyone want to take bets on what I'll forget?
Let's put it this way: fieldwork doesn't often happen on a moment's notice. When it does, it's usually because something extrordinary has happened somewhere in the world, creating a research opportunity that might not be available for long. (Most people refer to these as 'natural disasters'.)
It's also important to make sure that the logistics for the trip are lined up ahead of time. Food and shelter come under this category, of course, but I'm mostly talking about gear. You need stuff to do science, and there's nothing worse than finding out that you aren't going to be able to get all the data you need because you forgot to bring something important. That's why you'll find scientists (like me) who would ordinarily pack for a two-week vacation without using a list putting together detailed packing checklists for fieldwork. Putting together the checklist is usually followed by staring at it for a while to make sure you haven't forgotten anything, packing it all, unpacking it to make sure you haven't forgotten something, re-packing it, and wondering what you've forgotten.
Anyone want to take bets on what I'll forget?
Into the field
I've been trapped in the lab for the last few months, but that's about to change. I'm heading out into the field tomorrow morning, on a short trip to the Death Valley, California area.
The fieldwork I'm going to be doing isn't really related to my own research, but I'll take what I can get. Actually, it will be nice, because I'm going to be getting back to my roots. Back when I was first getting into science, I started out intending to be a paleontologist. Evolution interested me, and I was very interested in broad-scale, macroevolutionary events. But somewhere along the way I was seduced by the Dark Side, and was overcome by the lure of molecular techniques.
This week, I get to be a paleontologist again. A group of six grad students and two professors at UH, including myself, are working on a review paper. The topic of the review is the origins of animal life, and we thought it would be a good idea to get to get more familiar with the field. We're heading to Death Valley because it's a site that has some nice places to see the evidence for Precambrian animal life.
We'll be staying just south of the National Park, in a little town with a population of about 80. I've got a hunch that internet access will be a little hard to come by, so I probably won't be able to post too much before I get back on Thursday.
The fieldwork I'm going to be doing isn't really related to my own research, but I'll take what I can get. Actually, it will be nice, because I'm going to be getting back to my roots. Back when I was first getting into science, I started out intending to be a paleontologist. Evolution interested me, and I was very interested in broad-scale, macroevolutionary events. But somewhere along the way I was seduced by the Dark Side, and was overcome by the lure of molecular techniques.
This week, I get to be a paleontologist again. A group of six grad students and two professors at UH, including myself, are working on a review paper. The topic of the review is the origins of animal life, and we thought it would be a good idea to get to get more familiar with the field. We're heading to Death Valley because it's a site that has some nice places to see the evidence for Precambrian animal life.
We'll be staying just south of the National Park, in a little town with a population of about 80. I've got a hunch that internet access will be a little hard to come by, so I probably won't be able to post too much before I get back on Thursday.
24 March 2006
Friday Random Ten
The Friday Random Ten is a blog meme of uncertain origins that's been around for years. I keep meaning to do one, and every week (until now) I forget.
Directions: Fire up the iPod, set to shuffle songs, hit play. List the first ten songs that come up. Don't cheat.
This week, my iPod seems to be a bit more random than usual.
1: Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington
It Don't Mean A Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing
2: The Clash
Should I Stay or Should I Go Now
3: Pearl Jam and Neil Young
Rockin' In the Free World
4: Pete Seeger
The Erie Canal
5: Sean Na'auao
Fish and Poi
6: U2
Pride (In the Name of Love)
7: The Who
Baba O'Riley
8: Black 47
Living in America
9: Buffalo Springfield
For What It's Worth
10: The Muppets
The Muppet Show Theme
Directions: Fire up the iPod, set to shuffle songs, hit play. List the first ten songs that come up. Don't cheat.
This week, my iPod seems to be a bit more random than usual.
1: Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington
It Don't Mean A Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing
2: The Clash
Should I Stay or Should I Go Now
3: Pearl Jam and Neil Young
Rockin' In the Free World
4: Pete Seeger
The Erie Canal
5: Sean Na'auao
Fish and Poi
6: U2
Pride (In the Name of Love)
7: The Who
Baba O'Riley
8: Black 47
Living in America
9: Buffalo Springfield
For What It's Worth
10: The Muppets
The Muppet Show Theme
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