"Adorers of the Good Science of Rock-breaking"

"Make them like me adorers of the good science of rock-breaking," Charles Darwin told Charles Lyell once, long ago. This, from a man who also once said of Robert Jameson's lectures on geology and zoology, "The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology." That, of course, was before Adam Sedgwick lectured him in geology and took him out for field work, which seems to have done the trick. He did read another book on geology, Lyell's Principles of Geology, which became his constant companion on his voyage with the Beagle. The concepts of geology prepared him to think in deep time. Without his passion for geology, without deep time sinking deep in his mind, the theory of evolution that changed the world might not be Darwin's.

Outcrop on Doherty Ridge. Photo by Cujo.

I have become, like Darwin, an adorer of the good science of rock-breaking.

It's a love that bloomed late. It's always been there, since I was little and wondered at the mountains rising in my back window; at the vast chasm in the ground that revealed billions of years; at the sea that had become fields of stone. But just a bud, tucked away, unopened. I thought I knew what I wanted and needed from life: a degree in some sort of writerly discipline, like English or maybe History, until I decided the additional debt I'd have to take on wouldn't teach me any more than I could teach myself, and I left academia for the world of daytime wage-slavery and nighttime scribbling. I set geology aside, because what a fantasy writer needed couldn't be found in earth and stone. So I thought. I searched the stars, delved into physics, waved fondly to geology on my way to geography. I knew the basics: plates moved, mountains rose where they crashed. Enough to determine the shape of an imaginary world, wasn't that?

No.

And there was the small matter of a subduction zone, now: I'd moved away from the fossil seas. I didn't understand this terrible and beautiful new place. It wasn't a landscape I'd grown up with. So I explored it a bit, and the more I explored, the more I needed to understand, the more I realized a story world should be so much more than an ocean with a few haphazard continents sketched in. I wanted to understand this world so that I could understand that. So I delved, deep, into deep time, into continental crust and ocean floor. I turned to books on geology. They weren't enough. I found a few geobloggers. They were more, still not enough. I began writing geology in order to understand it, because there's no better way to learn than by teaching someone else. And it still wasn't enough.

The more I learned, the more I realized I didn't know.

And that isn't precisely the problem. If it was, I could decide that knowing a little more than most is quite enough to be going on with, and settle down, content with my little gems of knowledge. If I'd just stayed a bit more ignorant, it would have been okay.

There's a metaphor that explains why those few shining gems, no matter how many more I acquire, will never be enough. It's in the story I'm writing right now, in which Nahash, the Serpent of the Elder Tree, is tasked with giving knowledge and wisdom to a young girl. And this is what he does, the first time they meet:

He led her round the tree, to the spring that bubbled out from between the roots, clear and deep. Another branch hung low there, and there was fruit on it, so heavy and ripe it was ready to fall. He plucked one of the fruits and turned back to her. "This fruit is knowledge. Do you see? It's probably sweet. Could be sour. You won't know until you've tasted it." He held it out. She reached for it, but he pulled it back. "There's something else. Once you've tasted it, no matter whether it's sour or sweet, you'll always be hungry. You'll starve. And that water, there-" He waved at the spring. "Sweetest water in the world, maybe the whole universe, but once you've had a drink from it you'll always be thirsty. Starving and parched. Is that how you want to spend your life? There are other ways of living, you know, and some of them are no less worthy. Some of them are even fun. Or so I've heard."

She held out her hand, but didn't speak.

"Are you quite sure? Because there's no going back, you know. Not ever."

Should I ever become a famous speculative fiction author, people will accuse me of being autobiographical. And, aside from the fact that I was an adult when I ate that fruit and drank that spring water, and didn't actually munch unidentified fruit and drink from the spring of an actual World Tree Serpent, they'll be quite correct. This is completely autobiographical. Since taking a bigger bite and a deeper drink from the fruit and springs of science, especially geology, I've been starving and parched. I'm desperate enough for more that I've considered going deep into debt for a degree I may never earn a living from. I'd beggar myself to get a full meal, and I know I'd walk away with a $30,000+ tab, and I'd still be starving. Add several fistfuls of dollars for grad school, and I'd still feel I hadn't had more than a bite to eat and a drop to drink.

There's no going back, now I'm an adorer of the good science of rock-breaking. There's no end to it, you see. It's a vast old Earth, and there's no way for any of us to know everything about it. And even if we could, have a look out in space - lots more planets out there, all unknown, all fascinating, all with incredible rocks to break.

On Doherty Ridge, with George's rock hammer. Photo by Cujo.

Anne Jefferson asked, "If you are a geology enthusiast but not professional… what do you wish you could get in additional formal and informal education? What would you like from geosciences students, faculty, and professionals that would make your enthusiasm more informed and more fun?"

And these are the things I'll say to you professionals and pending professionals, you professors and students, you who have careers at surveys and for companies:

Do not withhold your passion.

If there's a book within you, write it. Let your love pour onto the page. Put as much of your knowledge and wisdom into words as you are able, and get it into my hands. You don't even need a publisher in this digital age: you can upload it as an ebook. I'll take whatever you've got. And if you need a wordsmith's help, well, you know where to find me.

If something fascinates you, blog it. Even if it's complicated and you think it's of doubtful interest to anyone outside of the geotribe, post it up there where I can see it. If you love it enough to spend time explaining it, chances are I'll love it enough to spend time doing my best to comprehend it.

If you've written a paper, share it. Blog about it, maybe even offer to send me a .pdf if you can. There's a huge, expensive double-barrier between laypeople and papers: the language is technical and hard, and the journals charge so much that even if we're willing to put in the work, we may not have the funds. We've already spent our ready cash on books and rock hammers and various, y'see. But if you're allowed to send out a copy, and you can give me an iota of understanding, I'll read it, struggle with it, combine it with those other precious bits of knowledge until I've made some sense of it.

Show me what you see. Post those pictures of outcrops. If we're in the same neighborhood with some time to spare, put those rocks in my hands. I know you've got a career and a family, and can't lead many field trips, but if you can take even a few of us out, do it. We'll happily keep you in meals, beer and gas money just for the chance to see the world through your eyes, in real time and real life.

Answer questions as time allows.

Point us at resources.

Let us eavesdrop on your conversations with other geologists and geology students.

And hell, if you want to make some spare cash, and you're not in a position where there might be a conflict of interest, consider teaching some online classes for a fee. There's plenty of us who can't quite afford college, but could scrape together some bucks for the opportunity to learn something directly from the experts.We'd practically kill for that opportunity, but the days when you were allowed to break rocks in prison are pretty much over, so there's not quite as much incentive to break the law.

In other words, mostly do what you're doing now, with maybe a few added extras.

That's what those of us without the cash for a college degree and not even a single community college class on offer need. We just need you to share as much as you can, challenge us as much as you can.

And you there, with the students: make them, like me, adorers of the good science of rock-breaking. Send them out into the world with passion, a hammer, and a desire to babble to the poor starving, parched enthusiasts hoping for just one more bite to eat and drop to drink.

Lockwood, Dana, rocks and rock hammer on Doherty Ridge. Photo by Cujo.

This post is dedicated to the geobloggers who adopted me, answer questions and write remarkable posts and answer my plaintive "I can haz pdf?!" cries with a grin and a quick email. Dedicated most of all to Lockwood, who taught me how to properly break a rock, and gave me such rocks to break! Thanks will never be enough, so when you're next in the Pacific Northwest, my darlings, I shall give you a fine road cut (or several), a substantial meal, and more than one beer. And I meant what I said about being your wordsmith, should you ever need help writing a book.

This Student Gives Me Hope

I don't know who she is, only what she has done. And what she has done is this: become a banned book library. When her school decided upon a list of things the kids absolutely must not read, due to parental outrage and a belief kids can be kept from great literature and harsh truths, she tested their limits by bringing in a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. When it caught the eye of a fellow student, she lent it out. And then things snowballed, and she now runs a clandestine locker-library full of banned books, which kids who had no interest in good books until they were forbidden to read them are now thoroughly enjoying.

Firstly, we have a young woman who's passionate about books. I already love her.

Secondly, we have a young woman who's not prepared to be told what she can and cannot read. Love kicks up a notch.

Thirdly, we have a young woman who's getting other young men and women reading intensely. Love shoots through the roof and becomes adoration.

I have news for parents and school authorities who believe they can shelter children from things they think are too awful for young minds: you'll fail. You have failed. You've always failed. Unless this was a very clever reverse-psychology ploy to get kids interested in books, in which case you've succeeded brilliantly. Bravo. A cunning plan - quite evocative of the way the potato was introduced to Greece.

Too bad I doubt the administration was that smart.

We jaded adults may believe kids these days are incapable of deep thought and literacy and scholarship, and we are so very, very wrong if we believe that. Look at this student. Look at what she and her fellow students are doing. Look at how much books matter to them. Enough to take not-inconsequential risks for. And they are smart enough and confident enough to decide what they can and cannot read, all for themselves, to hell with the naysayers.

I love this to pieces. It tells me that, despite rumors to the contrary, we're not raising a nation of apathetic know-nothings, although we've been trying very hard to do so. No, we've got a crop of brilliant, bold, and brave kids coming up, and the world will be better for them.

I just hope that once my books get published, they're summarily banned. I'd like to have this kind of readership. I want kids like this at my signings. Unleashing that wise, unruly literary mob upon the unsuspecting citizens of this increasingly stifled country would make me twelve kinds of happy, and prouder than I'll ever have words to express.

Hook 'em While They're Young

I need to hang around more young children. Most non-geologically inclined adults look upon my hand samples as a personal quirk, one of those odd things about Dana that's of a piece with her LOTR decor in the bedroom, and not quite as interesting as that. They like the pretty samples with the nice crystals and a lot of sparkles, but they lose interest by the time I whip out the mudstone.

But kids, now, they're a different matter entirely.

Old friends of mine have just moved to the Northwest, and they came by for a visit with their grandkids in tow. Once the two boys had finished exhausting themselves on the playground outside, they came in and started staring at the rocks. They said what all the adults do: "Wow, you've got a lot of rocks." That's true. I have so many rocks now it turns me pale when I contemplate moving.

I thought I shouldn't bore them, but I whipped out a few samples anyway, and started talking about how they were formed. I didn't shy away from words like "subduction zone" and "metamorphose." I gave them the hand lens and set them loose. And we ended up going through very nearly every rock in the house, even the little brown boring ones.

By the end of it, I'd enlisted the elder brother to pack samples out of the field, and he was talking about the need to start a collection of his own. The youngest begged two pieces of magnetized hematite off me. Then, when I walked them to the car, the elder picked up a pebble, asked me if it was granite (it was) and pocketed it with evident delight.

I've never had a more rapt audience, with more questions and understanding. They didn't blink at the hard words (probably helped that I'd throw in a simple definition whenever those words came up). They soaked the knowledge in without glazing over after ten minutes. And it was one of the greatest times I've ever had. There's nothing quite like giving kids the tools to understand a little more of the world around them.

It's a good thing their grandparents love this stuff, too, and won't mind that their charges are now going to be a bit rock-obsessed on hikes. Extra bonus: they'll tire themselves out more hauling all those extra pounds. This is not a small consideration when you've got two energetic kids to contend with. Anything that works off that energy is a boon for adults.

So, we've got a pair of kids who will now be able to identify granite, gneiss and schist in the field, who'll have a good chance at spotting turbidites, and know something of how a subduction zone works. They're already good with their volcanics and limestones, having been exposed to quite a lot of those before they moved up here. They make me wish I knew more, because it doesn't seem like there's any end to their curiosity.

That's the beautiful thing about kids. They're starving. They want to know everything, they're curious and adventurous, and all it takes is putting examples in their hands and talking to them about science to make them excited about it. Also, having grandparents with a "Got Science?" bumpersticker helps. We're hooking them on science young, and even if they don't go on to become scientists, they'll have an appreciation for it that follows them throughout their lives. They'll understand their world to a degree that many people never do.

Dumbing down science, or keeping it away from kids for religious reasons, is a travesty. So is the way we so often teach it, out of a book, with too little opportunity to get their hands on it. And don't get me started on "chemical-free" chemistry sets.

So here's what I've learned from that brief foray into informal teaching: kids are interested in the dull-looking stuff just as much as shiny, because they haven't told themselves there's nothing interesting about the dull-looking stuff. You can lob big words and concepts at them, and they'll catch them well enough, probably better than many adults. Then you turn them loose to use what they've just learned. Well, that and leave them to watch X-Men while the adults finally have that conversation they haven't been able to enjoy IRL for far too many years.

And I love this stuff. I've never wanted kids of my own, and still don't, but I'm going to have to borrow some more friends' kids more often. Showing them things about the world they've never seen is great good fun, and will hopefully help them get through the endless dull school days wherein it seems the only point is to quench the thirst for knowledge.

Mathematical Memories

There's this post, you see, up at a new blog called Hyperbolic Guitars, that's dredged up some old memories:

We should have, as a goal, to never hear the question “why are we learning this?” again.  No one asks why we learn to read.  The same should be true for basic mathematics.  Once students go beyond the basics, they should learn what their natural interests require of them.  The job of a mathematics teacher, once a student achieves basic mathematical fluency, should be to shine light on where mathematics lives in the world, and to point the curious student in the direction that they wish to go.  And then to stand aside.

The teachers, the engineers, the musicians, the artists, the scientists – all of us need to demonstrate – not EXPLAIN – how the quantitative complements the qualitative; the reasons that knowing why is as important as knowing how.  Or what.  Or when.  Or who.

I remember math.  I remember spending a good part of elementary school living in dread of it, because after I'd proudly learned my numbers and some basic addition and subtraction, it started getting nonsensical.  No one told me multiplication and division could be cool, just that they had to be done.  We had timed tests.  Those timed tests comprised a goodly portion of my academic dread (and I was a nervous child, mind).  I'd freeze.  I'd fail.  And freezing and failure led to more freezing and failure, until I became convinced that mathematics was an Evil Subject that Was Not For Me.


Something clicked early in middle school - don't know what - but we got to the more complex stuff at the end of the basic math courses and all of a sudden, I was flying.  Math was fun.  I could own this shit.  It made sense.  Numbers spoke to me.  Oh, and the tests weren't timed, so that pressure was off.  Just a nice, happy communing with numbers - until the school said, "Congratulations!  You're doing so well we'll just let you skip the rest of this and get right into pre-algebra."


It was rather like someone deciding a hole in the ground was as good as a finished foundation and trying to slap a house up on top of it.  I collapsed.  Numbers, once more, made no damned sense.  And the book - oh, that book, with its horrible word problems.  My dad, incensed that his daughter, the daughter of a civil engineer, couldn't do pre-algebra, sat down one night to explain to me just how easy it was.  He looked at the book.  He fell silent mid-rant.  He flipped a few pages.  And then he told me he didn't understand it, either.  What, he asked, did any of this have to do with real life?  This wasn't how math behaved in the real world.


He worked thirteen hour days, so he didn't have time to teach me when the teachers couldn't.  He tried, but by then, I needed too much time and attention, and his books were decades out of date, and what he did the teachers tried to undo the next day, because it wasn't the way it would be on the test, and so he gave up.  We both did.  Math became one of those subjects that I scraped by in.  The numbers never talked to me, and I could see no possible way it would ever be relevant to my interests.  I didn't need algebra to balance a checkbook.  I had calculators to deal with the calculations.  And all I ever wanted or needed to be was a writer, and what writer needs calculus?


SF authors, actually, but nobody ever told me that.


There was only one more time when math made sense.  It was in high school chemistry, and our chemistry teacher didn't take for granted we'd have learned any of the algebra we'd need.  So he taught it to us.  It had context, it was directly applicable to what we were doing, it helped us do interesting stuff with chemicals, and I loved it.  I could do it.  I could solve the problems.  But he was the only one who ever did that.  It was back to story problems and divorced-from-my-reality-bullshit-complete-with-blond-jokes-in-geometry for the rest of my academic career.  


And no one ever told me, ever, in all that time, that music and math were related.  Never told me where algebra came from, or how powerful it was.  No one ever said that calculus had been only a comparatively recent invention, and what a universe it had unlocked.  Math was never put in context.  The closest my math teachers got was some vague hand-waving about algebra being useful if you forgot to record a check in your checkbook (like we couldn't just call the bank) and some extraordinarily lame "What if you were trapped on a desert island without a calculator?" bullshit when they tried to get us to go without calculators.


I felt that, in that case, solving for x wouldn't be high on my list of priorities.


So I missed out.  There's a whole enormous universe of numbers out there, and I don't speak the lingo.  I can't understand what they're trying to say.  I never knew about "happy primes" until I watched Doctor Who and thought no such thing existed.  But they do.  There's whole realms of happy and sad numbers.  Why don't they teach recreational mathematics? 




I can't tell you how to fix education.  But I can tell you what I needed: I needed teachers who loved the subject.  I needed less teaching to the test and a lot more exploration.  I needed strong foundations built.  I needed the who and the what and the when and the where and the why.  I needed teachers who demonstrated what math was good for, and the astonishing things it could reveal, and how art and music and myth and fiction and science and engineering and politics and just about everything else used math, could be inspired by it, could be given power and potential by it.  I needed to be shown how math tied in to other subjects.  I didn't need it walled off from everything else, as if it was a noble gas that refused to react with anything else.  I needed to see it as something every bit as dramatic and exciting as a great story (which it can tell), and as uplifting and inspiring as a song (which it can be).  I needed to make friends with numbers.  I needed to understand you don't have to be born good at math in order to become good at it.  And I needed to know it was beautiful.

If my teachers had done even a fraction of that, I'd very possibly have gotten right up through calculus.  Equations would still hold mystery, but they wouldn't be mysterious.  I'd be able to suss out their secrets.  We'd be able to converse, these numbers and I.  Instead, we're doomed to stuttering, stilted conversations held only when translators are available, and I don't understand a tenth of what they're saying.  That hurts, sometimes physically hurts, and it's held me back in life.  It's kept me from delving as far into science as I'd like to go.

So yes, education in this country is failing miserably, and I'm damned glad there's a good place to have a conversation about it.  Maybe someday, if enough of us get talking, we can change the academic world.

Is There No End to Inanity?

By now, the more perceptive of you may have realized I haven't been writing about pollyticks lately.  That's not because I've lost interest, it's because I've been awash in a target-rich environment.  After so many hours of exposure to ever-increasing stupidity, day after day, my poor brain crawled out a convenient ear canal and ran away.  I've been luring it back by feeding it lots and lots of science, not to mention a heaping helping of Connie Willis.

We'll have a nice roundup of political dumbfuckery later this week.  For now, suffice it to say that if a politician in this country has got an R after his/her name and is currently electable, he/she is probably batshit fucking insane, so deplorably stupid that no words have been coined which properly describe the horror, and the fact he/she has any chance at all of getting elected solves the mystery of why great civilizations fail.  Forget all those theories of environmental catastrophe, barbarian invasions and so forth: it was probably the because they let their politicians become as horrifically idiotic as ours.

You'd think this current election cycle would have sated my appetite for stupidity.  Alas, no.  It's just caused me to crave a little variety.  IDiots are always good for a laugh, and watching ol' Billy Dumbski nearly get expelled for not toeing the good Baptist line gave me the giggles.  Still, I wanted more.  So I went though PZ's blogroll looking for new sources of entertainment, and came across a site called DC's Improbable Science.

Parents: if you have ever thought of sending your kiddies to a Waldorf school, unthink that thought now.

In an article entitled "The true nature of Steiner (Waldorf) education. Mystical barmpottery at taxpayers’ expense. Part 1," we learn that these schools are repositories of quackery of the first order.  We're talking people who think the moon's phase is important to crops, kiddies aren't completely incarnated yet, and pigeonhole them based on "The Four Temperaments."  Yes, just like the Four Humors, only in this case, even dumber.

Oh, and if you think your kiddies shall at least be taught to read, think again.  That, you see, would hinder their spiritual development.

As far as history class, well, you know, "'The narrative thread for Ancient civilisations often begins with the fall of Atlantis’."

You may remember the fear of being held back a grade because you were flunking reading, math, or science.  Well, kids in Waldorf schools have a whole other set of concerns:

To quote from The Age:

“One parent, who did not wish to be named, said she moved her son out of the school after a Steiner teacher recommended he repeat prep "because his soul had not been reincarnated yet".

"I just don’t believe it is educationally sound," she said.”

Ya think?

I marvel, my darlings, positively marvel, at the sheer volume of utter bullshit human beings seem capable of swallowing whole.  I guarantee you: down a cocktail of magic mushrooms and LSD, write down the insanity that ensues, blend it with the contents of the newage and religion sections of your local bookstore, pick bits of it at random, and serve it up after having translated it from English to Swahili to Japanese and back to English using Babelfish, and you'd still find people who would wholeheartedly believe every incomprehensible word of the resulting mess.

People are weird.

Why Science Education Matters

Yes, this is going to be one of those annoying adult "if I'd known at your age what I know now" screeds.  Get the fuck over it.*  One day you, too, will be pouncing upon innocent young things screaming the same phrases you now denounce, up to and possibly including "Get off my lawn!"  It's an unfortunate consequence of aging.

Have I got your attention?  Excellent.  Let's talk about science education, and why those classes you roll your eyes at now could just save your life one day.  Seriously.

Unacceptable

Most of the time, I feel pretty good about living in the very-nearly-enlightened state of Washington.  This, however, is not one of those times:

In this respect, Washington is no better than Arizona, the land where anyone with an accent can be bunged into jail for not presenting papers.  Both states are highly rated for overall evolution education, but seem to shy away from mentioning that humans are part of all that evolving.  Rather a significant oversight, that.

Now mind you, this data's two years old.  I took a ramble through the science standards online, but couldn't find anything definite, so I've queried a relevant official.  Perhaps she'll share the happy news that Washington's beating Arizona now.  If not, it appears we science supporters in Washington State shall have to kick up a wee bit o' a fuss. 

Especially since it looks like we may have to kick the English standards up a few notches, as exemplified by the comment at the bottom of this page.  Yeesh.

Colorado Springs Learns a Lesson

You want services, you gots to pay for them (h/t):

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.

I wonder how many of those "some residents" have voted against every fucking tax increase?

It's going to be interesting watching Colorado Springs learn that taxes aren't just pissed away on useless shit, but actually pay for a lot of those things that people take for granted.  Heck, with a few more lessons like this, folks might even start thinking sensibly and seriously about government, taxes, and priorities.

And yeah, I know that's about as likely as finding a rainbow-farting unicorn on my back porch in the morning, but a girl's gotta dream.

Combatting IDiots in the School Board

Spencer, Iowa kids are going to get the science education they need, thanks to folks who ensured the school board didn't get snookered by shysters.  And the lessons learned there can apply to anyone whose district is facing an invasion of IDiots:

The defeat of this "religious liberty" policy does harbor potential lessons for others trying to fight these anti-science actions in local school districts. First, college faculty members should not underestimate the power of their opinions on these issues even in school districts where these faculty members do not live.

Yes, some school board members might resent outsiders, but others welcome expertise and attention from respected institutions. This is especially the case if advice is given with courtesy and tact. The school board must be convinced that the aim is to further good science education rather than to impose some ideological hegemony on a small school district. One should try to contact school board members, and see how open they are to outside advice before dismissing any interaction as a lost cause.

Good coordinated actions by coalitions are extremely important. Although I am an incompatibilist in terms of religion and science (i.e., I don’t think that religion and science are philosophically compatible), the fact remains that many religious people do support evolution, science education, and the separation of religion and government. When a common goal is to keep creationism out of schools, and good science education in schools, then the practical thing to do is to work together with interfaith alliances.

Finally, vigilance and rapid action are always important. This means having shoes on the ground -- a ready group of educators, scientists, and other allies ready to write letters, draft petitions, and even travel (in our case, about 3-4 hours) in person to places where we could make a difference.

 Good advice, all.  Keep it handy just in case DIsco comes dancing into town...

(Tip o' the shot glass to the Panda's Thumb)

Texas Schools Admit Abstinence-Only is Bullshit

Looks like someone woke up and smelled the reality, eh?

Texas currently has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and “the highest rate of repeat teen births.” It also leads the nation in the amount of government money it spends on abstinence-only education. But some school districts in the state are now shifting away from that approach, admitting that it isn’t working:

“We mainly did it because of our pregnancy rate,” said Whitney Self, lead teacher for health and physical education at the Hays Consolidated Independent School District. “We don’t think abstinence-only is working.” [...]

Let's hope other school districts show as much sense. The teenagers of Texas deserve better than the misinformation they've been getting.

War on Xmas Stupidity Begins

Or maybe we should consider it a continuation, because these idiots never really stop fighting their silly little war:

The Texas State Board of Education is currently considering a proposal that would ensure sixth-grade students learn about at least one religious holiday from each of the five major world religions. Currently, students learn about more Christian and Jewish holidays, and Hinduism is excluded. The new proposal would replace Christmas and Rosh Hashanah with Diwali. “It’s outrageous that the war on Christmas continues in our state and in our nation,” said Jonathan Saenz, a lobbyist for the conservative Free Market Foundation.

[snip]

Sixth-grade social studies in Texas “is focused on world geography and cultures,” and Hinduism is the third-largest world religion, following Christianity and Islam. However, one Republican activist serving as an “expert” advising the board said that including more Christian and Jewish holidays “simply acknowledges with accuracy the religious culture of America as it actually exists that these holidays have been awarded their place in the culture by the people themselves.” [emphasis added]

These people are such ginormous fucktards that they don't even know what "international" means.

For those worried about poor neglected Christianity and Judaism, bear in mind that the kiddies are still expected to learn about Easter and Yom Kippur. Something tells me the students will walk out of class thoroughly Judeo-Christianized, even if they have also learned the shocking truth that a) America isn't the entire world and b) there are other religions that lots of people believe in. Shocking, but true.

Is Our Children Learning? Apparently Not

Nothing like Fail Blog to provide you with a simultaneous laugh-and-wince.

Mass-Energy Equivalence Fail



Quiz Fail


I weep for my country... but I'm laughing through my tears.

Need to Know

Summers in Seattle are short and fickle, so I've been squeezing every last drop I can out of this one. My adventures have taught me how much I need to know.

Learning is one of those endeavors without end. If you stop at a taste, you may believe you've been sated - I know people like that, people who nibbled at knowledge and then wandered away in favor of something easier. Maybe it's because they were force-fed rather than allowed to develop an appetite. Perhaps they came to believe learning was too hard, or they weren't good at it, or some other bollocks. If they're lucky, later in life, they'll get a second chance at the buffet and realize they've been starving all along. Maybe they'll realize how much they need to know.

Maybe they'll wander down to Ballard Locks and see a man with a telescope.

Wait a second, you say - a telescope at boat locks? In broad daylight? That's one of the things I love the most about this city, the incongruity of enlightenment, lodged in the most unexpected places. My friend and I headed down to watch the boats travel between Lake Union and Puget Sound, and stumbled into an astronomy lesson. A gentleman had his telescope set up on the lawn across from the visitor's center, pointed at the sun. He had a passel of people there waiting for their chance to have a close look. And while they sat and stared in awe at solar prominences and the mottled texture of the sun's surface (yes, it really does look like an orange peel), he gave a little lesson on our nearest star. All for free.

For the first time in my life, I got to view the Sun through a telescope. It looked something like this:

The filigree arches of those prominences will remain etched in my mind forever. There's nothing quite like seeing it for yourself. And it'll probably make you want to learn all about the Sun. Just don't go pointing a telescope toward it without learning about the proper filters, first.

This summer began with my first view of the Moon through a 24-inch telescope at Lowell Observatory. You've seen plenty of photos of the Moon. Head on down to your nearest observatory and see it for yourself. It fair takes your breath away.

I've spent the summer reading science books. I've read up on biology, geology, biogeography, anthropology, and just about everything else I could get my hands on. You'd think I'd be stuffed full o' knowledge by now. The think about knowing is, the more you know, the more you need. The more you learn, the more you want to learn. At least, if you allow yourself to have fun. And if you take field trips. Field trips are fun.

The more I learn about the world, the more it fascinates me. I don't take the Earth for granted anymore. I don't even take my fuchsias for granted now. After reading up on evo devo and evolutionary biology in general, each bloom, each new leaf, looks like a miracle. Even the flaws are fascinating. And I need to know more.

You all probably understand that. You're Elitist Bastards, after all, or you wouldn't be here reading this. You've felt the need to know.

I'm going to take you two steps further.

First, challenge yourself to learn about something you never had any interest in before. For me, that was biology. For you, it may be chemistry, or political science, or something really arcane like lapidary. Pick a topic and run with it. Learn all you can. See if you don't discover that a little knowledge means you're left with a burning need to know.

Second, challenge others. I don't mean in-your-face challenge. I mean take your knowledge and throw it out there for people to grab hold of. Astronomers, set your telescope up in a public park. Chemists, do some sidewalk demos. Whatever your talent, whatever your area of expertise, even if it's something as arcane as dorodango. Take it public.

Some religions fish for souls. We shall fish for minds. And I'll bet you we can hook quite a few. People need to know.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to know how the Cascades formed, what waterfalls really are, and there's all that Arizona geology I need to know more about...

Right-Wing Fucktards Axe Lincoln

Work continues apace as shit-for-brains rabid right fundies take a wrecking ball to the Texas curriculum. The latest:

According to a draft of the proposed new textbook standards, “biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen F. Austin have been removed from the early grades.” At the same time, Peter Marshall wants more teaching of Christianity’s role “in America’s past“:

Marshall…also recommends that school children get a better understanding of the motivational role the Bible and the Christian faith played in the settling of the original colonies. [...]

“In light of the overwhelming historical evidence of the influence of the Christian faith in the founding of America, it is simply not up to acceptable academic standards that throughout the social studies (curriculum standards) I could only find one reference to the role of religion in America’s past,” Marshall said in his review.

Actual education professionals in Texas appeared dismayed at Marshall and Barton’s assessment.

I imagine they did. I also imagine they wish they were merely having a nightmare rather than living one.

If my Texas readers know of any way to counter this crap, please do let us know. It's gotten ridiculously far out of hand.

The Amazing Adventures of the Abstinence Fairy

Bristol Palin's decided to crusade for abstinence. The opportunities for mockery are endless:

Bristol Palin has successfully shed her image as a jilted unwed mother. Through the magical gullibility of Republican voters and the mainstream medias' ability to completely suspend their viewers' disbelief, Bristol Palin has been miraculously transformed into... the Abstinence Fairy!

Faster than a speeding condom...
More powerful than raging teenage hormones...
Able to leap her Mom's hypocrisy in a single bound!

Look! Up in the sky!
It's a bird. It's a plane. It's the Abstinence Fairy!

I wonder if this miracle of fail will be any consolation to the abstinence-only shysters who are even now wailing and gnashing their teeth over the loss of their funding, stamping their feet and screaming "Are too successful!" in the face of studies debunking their efficiency? After all, there are few spokespeople more effective for abstinence than those for whom it didn't do diddly-shit.

(Tip o' the shot glass to Mike at Crooks and Liars)

Democracy for Dumbshits

Two books Cons desperately need.

Cujo's got a great tutorial up on the Constitution, the Courts, and how American democracy works. Perhaps if it's patiently and repeatedly read to Cons, something will sink in.

In that spirit, let's start by repeating this part of the lesson:

The way that the framers of the Constitution tried to ensure that government would be bound by the Constitution was to set up a court system that could interpret it. Article III defines the Supreme Court, and specifies what powers and responsibilities it will have. Section 2 includes this sentence:

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

U.S Constitution: Article III, Section 2

Obviously, I've added that emphasis, which points out that courts, to at least some degree, were allowed to interpret what the law was. Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Number 78 wrote this about the role of the courts:

The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

The Federalist No. 78: The Judiciary Department

In a perfect society, where the government always correctly interpreted and observed the law, court powers of this nature would be unnecessary. Of course, in a perfect society, courts would probably be unnecessary in every way we now use them.

Do you think it would help if we tattooed it on their chests, where they could see it every morning as they're flexing their flab in front of the mirror pretending they're Jack Bauer?

Gilding Shit

You know what they say about shit: dip it in gold, it's still shit. For some reason, that old saying keeps coming to mind as I read up on various and sundry attempts at "rebranding."

The Republicon party's trying it. Yes, again. Arlen Specter's done it by changing his label from Con to Dem (and changing nothing else). When "clean coal" didn't fool anyone but the willingly fooled, Newt Gingrinch rebranded it "green coal." Now the abstinence only crowd's decided to take a whirl on the rebranding bandwagon:

It's been a rough several months for the abstinence-only sex education crowd. As study after study continues to confirm that their approach just doesn't work, the Obama administration has cut $14 million of funding to their programs and specified that remaining curricula will need to meet actual scientific standards. "When the National Abstinence Education Association gathered on Capitol Hill last month for their annual lobby day, the sense of fear in the room was palpable," writes Joe Sonka at RH Reality Check.

But they're not ready to admit defeat! The NAEA's constituent organizations are giving themselves marketing makeovers in an attempt to keep the gravy train rolling. "They would," writes Sonka, "simply rebrand themselves as curriculum that 'wasn't just about abstinence,' but was all about 'holistic approaches' to 'healthy lifestyle choices.'"

[snip]

Sonka points to WhykNow, a major abstinence-only program. With a PR firm's help, they've changed their name to OnPoint and made some noise about promoting "healthy decision-making skills." Nothing, however, is forthcoming about whether OnPoint will change its abstinence-only message.

One somehow gets the feeling that the answer to that last one is "no." They're just hoping P.T. Barnum was right about all those suckers, and relying on air fresheners to cover up the smell of bullshit under that thin gold leaf.

Christian "Science"

I'm sorry. I know this is probably going to make you wince, or possibly land in the hospital with a severe overdose of stupidity, but this is just too funny to pass up.

The Association of Christian Schools International is trying to sue the snot out of the University of California because U of C doesn't think the "science" classes taught by some Christian schools are quite up to snuff, and therefore refuse to award credit for those classes. Ed Brayton has the brief filed by attorneys made famous by the Kitzmiller trial, and highlights a possible reason U of C is being such a big meanie:

This brief deals primarily with the science classes that were rejected, classes that used one of two books: Biology for Christian Schools and Biology: God's Living Creation. These books are both virulently anti-science, teaching that anything that contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible must be false.

Beginning with the first page of its introduction, the third edition of Biology for Christian Schools makes absolutely clear that its perspective on the nature of science is irreconcilably at odds with that of the NAS and the scientific community in general. From the outset, the textbook instructs the student that everything in the Bible is literally true and that, therefore, any scientific observations or conclusions that conflict with the Bible are necessarily false "no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."...Similar statements appear throughout the textbook, drumming home the message that, with respect to any "fact" contained in the Bible, empirical evidence is irrelevant. See, e.g., id. at 197 ("Because God is the source of all truth, all accurate scientific knowledge will fit into th[e Bible's] outline. Anything that contradicts God's Word is in error or has been misunderstood."); id. at 201 ("God's Word is the only true measuring stick of scientific accuracy."); id. at 204 ("All scientific facts and the interpretation of those facts, therefore, must fit into the model prescribed by the Word of God. A scientific 'fact' that does not fit into the worldview outlined in the Bible either is in error (and therefore not really a fact) or is being misinterpreted."); id. at 251 ("[T]he Bible is the source of all truth, and everything, not just science, must be evaluated based on Scripture. If a hypothesis or scientific model seems to make sense and all of the evidence points to an answer that is contrary to the Bible, then the evidence, not the Bible, must be reevaluated and the conclusions changed.").

Easy extra credit to any commentors who can hazard a guess as to why these "science" classes might be considered unacceptable to a university system that takes science seriously.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go seek medical attention for the side I just split...

The Necessity of Knowledge

It's cliché time at the cantina, my darlings, because I want to talk about a simple truth: knowledge is power.

In observing politics and religion, you soon notice a distinct abundance of stupidity. And I call it stupidity, not ignorance, because refusing knowledge is stupid. Everyone at times refuses knowledge, but some people raise it to an art form. It's a constant in their lives. They can't be bothered to think.

I thought of it watching the teabaggers get manipulated by the corporate lobbyists. These people were tools, and they were too stupid to realize it. It's not that they were ignorant of what was going on - the information was out there in abundance. They had it in their own hands.

There's a tradition in religion and conservatism that says, "Don't question authority. Trust received pronouncements." Therefore, you get people who can be told that Obama's leading the country into socialism. They know this not because they've seen evidence, not because they know what socialism is, but because they've been told Obama's a socialist, socialism is bad, and therefore Obama is bad:


A little bit of knowledge would've gone a long way, there. Knowing what these social programs are, how they can work, and why being a selfish stupid git isn't the best survival strategy would completely disarm GOP attacks.

If people bothered to gain a bit of knowledge, they wouldn't be snookered by Newtie's latest "green coal" blabbering. They wouldn't elect ignorant fools like Michele Bachmann and John Boehner who don't know the difference between necessary and toxic levels of carbon dioxide, and exactly which greenhouse gas it is that cows emit. Note to Boehner: it's not CO2.

A little bit of knowledge combined with an ocean of ignorance is a dangerous thing. Michele Bachmann's statement that carbon dioxide is a vital part of life on earth may sound persuasive if all you know is that CO2 is what plants eat. If you didn't know other things, such as what happens when too much of a good thing gets into the atmosphere, then you'd think she had a good point. Alas, too many ignorant and willfully stupid people do. And so the planet boils.

Speaking of global warming, Sen. James Inhofe has "a list of 700 prominent scientists who oppose global warming." Wow! With that many scientists saying global warming doesn't exist, there must really be doubts, right? Here's where knowledge gives us the power to resist fake science, though, because knowing who those "scientists" are changes everything:

Like the Discovery Institute's similar list involving evolution, there are some real laughers on the list. Like this one:

One of the listed prominent scientists is Chris Allen, who holds no college degree, believes in creationism and belongs to a Southern Baptist church.

Allen is a weatherman at the FOX-affiliated TV station in Bowling Green, Ky.

[snip]

The list also includes a retired professor with no training in climate science who says that the earth "couldn't be more than 10,000 years old." And these names were listed as "prominent scientists" in an actual Senate report.

Outrageous fucktards can get away with this shit only because people don't know any better. They haven't bothered to learn. They don't know how to verify claims. They don't know how to think critically. If all of us had knowledge and knew how to apply it, the Senate wouldn't be disgraced by idiots like Inhofe, because they wouldn't get voted in there in the first place.

Given enough knowledge, people wouldn't fall prey to vitamin pushers. They wouldn't get taken in by fake medicine. And they sure as shit wouldn't get snookered by priests trying to use science to shore up their homophobia. No wonder the powerful religious, political and corporate interests hate knowledge so.

Knowledge is necessary to keep us from falling prey. Knowledge is our power. I suggest that as Elitist Bastards, we teach a lot more folks how to use it.

Prescribing the Disease as the Cure

Leave it to the uber-religious fuckwits to come up with genius ideas like this:

I had to laugh at the absurd assumptions behind this headline from the American Family Association's OneNewsNow:

STDs have gone up, therefore we need more abstinence-only sex ed. Never mind that study after study has shown that kids who get abstinence-only sex ed are less likely to use condoms when they have sex.

You know why I love Ed Brayton? Because he's merciless with the statistics:

Let's look just at the state of Texas, which leads the nation in abstinence-only sex ed. 94% of all Texas school districts teach abstinence-only sex ed, with only 3% teaching abstinence-plus (abstinence plus condoms and other forms of birth control).

The result? Texas teenagers also are among the nation's leaders in unprotected sex.

Fifty-sex percent of high school students in Texas report having used condoms at last intercourse. Only three states have lower rates of condom use among students.

We already know that Texas has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the nation, despite 94% of them being taught abstinence-only. It's certainly no surprise that they also have an extraordinarily high rate of STD infections:

Young people ages 15-24 comprised twenty percent of Texas' new HIV cases in 2006.

Texas' youth, especially young women, are at risk for STIs:

• Youth ages 15-24 experienced 73 percent of the total number of Chlamydia cases in Texas in 2006.
• 
  
• Youth ages 15-24 experienced 61 percent of the total number of Gonorrhea cases in Texas in 2006.
• 
  
• For all youth in this age range, young women were most at risk for STIs, experiencing 83 percent of Chlamydia infections and 60 percent of gonorrhea infections.

So much for that argument.

I think it's time we turn the tables. Anti-choicers like to shove pictures of discarded fetal tissue in people's faces. Why not take a page from their book and start parading around outside their churches with blown-up photos of the effects of STDs? We can ask them why they're ruining kids' lives.

Here's just a few pics to get us started:

AIDS:

Advanced Kaposi’s sarcoma with marked lymphostatic oedema in a patient’s face.

(© J.H. Frenkel, Univ. Frankfurt)

Syphillis:

Lesions

Courtesy of the Sexual Health Guide blog





Chlamydia -

"A wicked case of crotch rot"







This is what they sentence kids to when the only advice they give is "Don't have sex."