Curse you, John Wilkins!

I’m all bleary-eyed this morning because late last night, Wilkins linked to this article on Pink Floyd and incidentally sent me off on a late night music jag. He is truly a horrible person.

Pink Floyd was the soundtrack of my youth, from adolescence through grad school and starting a family. I have all their albums, and have listened to every one multiple times — I know (or at least, used to know) the lyrics to “The Gnome”, even, that’s how bad it was. So it was very triggering of Wilkins to remind me, and I had to play a bunch of them very loudly on the home stereo and wallow in the sound.

Don’t worry, Mary was away, so it was just me, alone in a big empty house with most of the lights out, listening to “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” after midnight. I felt like a lonely anomie-laden teenager again. It was great! I’m just paying the price this morning…this morning when I have to bunker down in my office and grade papers.

So now I have to inflict some of it on you. Here’s one of my favorites, “One of These Days”, from Meddle.

Oh, man, there were good memories in there. When my kids were little, we had a tradition of sleeping in on Sunday and then making pancakes (if they’d been very good, chocolate chip pancakes), and sometimes I’d put on Atom Heart Mother while I was puttering in the kitchen, just because “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” was the perfect accompaniment. Now I can’t hear it without an overlay of maudlin sentimentality and memories of happy kids.

Anyone else remember when bands would put out music that was more than three minutes long?

OK, now must go grade.

Today is the day

Today, the Minnesota legislature is supposed to vote on gay marriage. I know because the pressure has been at fever pitch — I got three phone calls yesterday from advocacy organizations calling to get me to call my representative. I’ve told NOM to take a flying leap, but Minnesotans United, despite the annoying dunning, have my favor.

Apparently, my representative, Jay McNamar, is one of those dumbass undecideds. He’s been waffling over the issue, an uncertainty which doesn’t just leave me cold, it makes me actively dislike him. I’ve called him several times to tell him that this is the civil rights issue of our era, and if he can’t make up his goddamn mind about something as basic as human decency, he’s not on my side. If he votes against it, he’ll never have my vote ever again; if he can muster a little integrity and principle, maybe I’ll reluctantly put a mark next to his name on a ballot next time around.

But the word is that we’ll know today. Don’t disappoint me, Minnesota!

If the air force wants to recruit rapists, they’re off to a great start

A man, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who was in charge of a branch of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, was arrested after groping and assaulting a woman in a parking lot. How can that be? Didn’t he read his own specialty’s literature on sexual assault?

Maybe he did. You should take a look at the Air Force brochure on sexual assault. Not one word telling men not to do it, but lots of lecturing to the woman readers on what to do.

“It may be advisable to submit [rather] than resist,” reads the brochure (.pdf), issued to airmen at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, where nearly 10,000 military and and civilian personnel are assigned. “You have to make this decision based on circumstances. Be especially careful if the attacker has a weapon.”

The brochure, acquired by Danger Room, issues a series of guidances on “risk reduction” for sexual assault. Among others, it advises people under sexual attack in parking lots to “consider rolling underneath a nearby auto and scream loud. It is difficult to force anyone out from under a car.” A public affairs officer at Shaw, Sgt. Alexandria Mosness, says she believes the brochure is current.

While the brochure also explains that sexual assault is not always committed by people who “don’t look like a rapist” — attackers “tend to have hyper-masculine attitudes,” it advises — it does not offer instruction to servicemembers on not committing sexual assault. Prevention is treated as the responsibility of potential victims.

You know who is going to love that brochure? Rapists. Informing their victims to submit as a matter of official policy is simply a delightful inducement to go out and get some by force.

There is apparently some administrative inertia to making changes in the rape culture on air force bases.

“To any rational person this is completely backwards and shows the scope of epidemic,” Purchia added. “Fundamental reforms are needed — the reporting, investigation and adjudication of sexual assault must be taken out of the chain of command.”

That’s a step that the military has been reluctant to take. At today’s hearing, Welsh and Donley expressed concern that doing so might pose a risk to “good order and discipline,” as Donley put it. (“This is not good order and discipline,” replied Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand of New York.)

That’s exactly what I was thinking. How does rape fit into the ideal of good order and discipline?

Will Smith must be stopped

He has a new movie coming out this summer, After Earth. It looks awful, but then, that’s what I’ve come to expect from Will Smith’s Sci-Fi outings.

Jebus. Anyone remember that abomination, I, Robot? How about I Am Legend? I steer clear of these movies with a high concept and a big name star, because usually what you find is that the story is a concoction by committee with an agenda solely to recoup the costs and make lots of money…so we get buzzwords and nods to high-minded causes and the usual action-adventure pap. Just looking at the trailer, I’m getting pissed off: it’s supposed to be a pro-environmentalism movie, and what’s it about? A guy running around in the wilderness fighting off the hostile wildlife.

Anyway, I got one of those generic invitations to help reassure the world that it’s a good science movie. Here’s part of what I was sent:

On May 31st, Columbia Pictures is releasing what is perhaps the biggest movie of the summer, After Earth, starring Will Smith, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

No. Just no. Shyamalan is a hack. Why do people keep handing him big money and big projects?

There are a lot of science parallels to this film, and I write to see if you or a colleague might be interested in interviewing one of After Earth’s top filmmakers and or a scientist associated herein.

Famous futurist Ray Kurzweil

Jesus fuck. Kurzweil is a consultant? Pill-popping techno-geek with an immortality fetish and no understanding of biology at all is the consultant on a movie with a supposed environmental message? WHY?

explored with Will, his son Jaden Smith, and Elon Musk, how science fact meets science fiction in After Earth, and tghis can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RocpHuJWolc. As well, XPRIZE has teamed up with Sony to launch an unprecedented robotics challenge (information attached). What’s more, NASA plans to disseminate a lesson plan to teachers based on the scientific implications of After Earth, as seen here http://www.lifeafterearthscience.com/.

OK, I checked out the lesson plan. It’s not bad, but it has nothing to do with the movie — it’s all about biodiversity and cycles and climate change and that sort of thing, by a respectable author of biology textbooks. It’s a merkin to cover the toxic crap that will be in the movie.

In After Earth, earth has devolved, in a sense, to a more primordial state, forcing mankind to leave. One thousand years after this exodus, the planet has built up defense mechanisms so as to prevent the return of its previous human inhabitants. It might be said that nature reacted this way because it perceived humans as a threat to its survival.

“Devolved”? “Primordial state”? Look at the trailer. It’s a lush planet thick with plant and animal life, nothing to force people out. Except, of course, the bizarre hint that there are rapid — really rapid — weather changes (I won’t call it “climate”), in which you can be running through a temperate forest and suddenly a tree will freeze. Yeah, right. As for the teleological rationale, just gag it, goofballs.

Given the backing behind it, the extravagantly expensive Will Smith, the fact that he’s using it as a vehicle to give his son star billing, the horrible director, and the hints of bad science in the trailer, I’m going to call this one right now: it’s going to suck. It will be shiny and glossy and have lots of CGI, but it will suck hard.

I saw Iron Man 3 last night, and let me just say…I am so tired of SF movies that resolve all of their conflicts with a big battle with the baddies, preferably featuring huge explosions and impossible physics. This one is going to up the ante with idiot biology added to the profit-making mix.

They asked if I wanted to interview any of the scientists or writers involved. I don’t think so.

Although a conversation with Ray Kurzweil could be…fun.

But what about capitalism, Rush?

Rush Limbaugh’s network has lost millions of dollars this past quarter, and he may be on the way out. Apparently, the problem is that advertisers have fled his show in droves, especially after his rages against Sandra Fluke. But you knew he’d have an excuse: it’s all the women’s fault.

Despite sources close to Limbaugh that accuse Dickey of scapegoating the radio host for a bad quarter, Limbaugh himself has addressed his advertiser woes in the past. But Limbaugh doesn’t see his offensive bloviating as the problem driving mainstream advertisers away; instead, he accuses media buyers who are ”young women fresh out of college” and “liberal feminists who hate conservatism” of “trying to harm” him.

I had no idea that women now controlled all the media; did you women reading this know you had such immense power?

Now I have a few requests. Right after you’re done flushing Limbaugh’s career down the toilet, could you shut down Fox News and Glenn Beck (well, you’ve been doing a good job on him so far), and perhaps redirect some small fraction of those advertising dollars to Freethoughtblogs.com? Thanks, much appreciated.

Say it ain’t so, Genie!

Eugenie Scott is planning to retire from the NCSE. This is not possible. There is no one fit to replace her!

Although…perhaps I should apply for the job. I looked at the qualifications, and it was like looking in a mirror, man — especially that last bit about “the ability to work effectively and diplomatically with diverse communities and allies”. It sounds just like me, right, gang? I should go for it.

Look here, we’re like clones of each other! If I can so perfectly emulate her lecturing gestures, there’s no reason to assume I won’t be as great at the rest.

pz_genie

<quick cut to directors of the NCSE, all looking horrified…then scrambling to find more inducements to Genie to keep her on>

Christian de Duve has died

Christian de Duve won the Nobel prize in 1974 (along with Claude and Palade) for his work on the biochemistry of the cell. He also wrote several books on the origin and evolution of life. Here he is speaking at the Lindau meetings a few years ago.

Christian de Duve is now dead at 95, by euthanasia.

“It would be an exaggeration to say I’m not afraid of death, but I’m not afraid of what comes after because I’m not a believer. When I disappear I will disappear, there’ll be nothing left,” he told the Belgian daily Le Soir just a month ago.

De Duve had decided to commit euthanasia after suffering a fall in his home but was awaiting the arrival of his son from the United States in early May in order to die surrounded by family.

“He left us serenely and refused to take anti-anxiety pills before the final injection. He left with a smile and a good-bye,” his daughter Francoise told Le Soir.

What a dignified and honorable way to go!

How about if we all end the killing?

deathtoatheists
One point! One demand! Atheists must be hanged!

Half a million Islamists marched in Bangladesh, chanting their desire to murder people who don’t believe in their demented, angry god. I take that personally — they want to kill people like me, for the crime of not thinking as they do. If I’d been there, that mob would have torn me to pieces.

And it’s not just atheists they hate. Women must live in service to the men, they are to have their rights diminished. Education is to be crippled, reduced to rote memorization of their holy books. This is awful, poisonous stuff, and I condemn it without reservation.

But let me remind you, the United States has been carrying out routine drone attacks against Muslims…attacks that kill children.

drone-attacks

So angry mobs threaten and howl and promise to roll their culture back to the Middle Ages. Americans calmly sit in air-conditioned rooms and push buttons and joysticks and send robots through the skies to pour death on civilians. Obama calmly rationalizes the murders and cracks jokes about predator drones.

obama
The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside of the United States.

One side wants to kill people like me, is furious and destructive, and rages passionately about killing the Other; the other side wants to kill people outside our borders, is calm and dispassionate, and marshals machines to execute the Other without risk to ourselves.

I cannot condemn one without condemning the other. Especially since our tactics seem to be so much more effective at butchering people.

What I taught today: FINAL EXAM TIME!

I’m in Arizona, on my way to Orange County, but that doesn’t stop me: I’ve given my students a take home final exam. I wouldn’t want them to be bored over finals week, you know.

1. In the last lecture, I tried to give you a little context, and explained that a dynamic picture of biology would include evolution, ecology, and development, all subdisciplines that deal with change over time. You’re all upper level students; explain to me how developmental biology fits into the perspective on biology that your experience here at UMM has given you so far. Are there pieces you wish our curriculum emphasized more? Why?

2. We’ve spent most of the semester talking about animals — as it currently stands, evo-devo has an unfortunately limited emphasis on metazoans, with an occasional nod to higher plants. Explore a little deeper. What would an evo-devo of fungi, or bacteria, or protists talk about? Is the toolkit we’ve been talking about truly universal? Give me a brief precis of the developmental principles for any other kingdom.

3. Imagine that after you graduate, you find yourself in an unexpected job: you’re working in university press office or as a science journalist. You have to explain scientific research to the public every day. What general principles would guide you? These should be ideas about ethics, effective communication, psychology, etc. in addition to purely scientific concerns. Tell me what standards you’d have to become a great reporter of science.

There. That should make them think.