Yikes, low enrollments are a problem

I still have to do something about the lack of garish chemicals. They’re mostly clear or gray or cloudy.

Every fall I teach 3 lectures a week in cell biology, and it used to be 3 lab sections. We pared it back to two labs this year, and then…one of them was drastically under-enrolled, so we’re shifting everyone in it to our Wednesday afternoon lab. I’m only teaching one lab this year??!? Feels like cheating.

I’ve still got at least one class every weekday, but suddenly a big block of time opened up for the spiders, which is good. My first year classes are filling up, which probably means I’ll be back to the usual number of lab sections next year. If you want lots of one-on-one attention in biology, though, this is the year to be here.

Elon Musk gets the Ronan Farrow treatment

Light up another one, Elon

Whoa. Cautious, fair, thorough…Ronan Farrow reviews Elon Musk’s life. Imagine an angel of utmost probity assessing his soul at the doorway to heaven, nodding kindly as he summarizes each decade, and then, sadly, pulling the lever that drops him into a blood-drenched flaming tunnel to Hell. It’s so satisfying.

Here’s a short sample.

“Given unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX, I intend to vote Republican in November,” he tweeted last year. By the time he bought Twitter, he was urging his followers to vote along similar lines, and appearing to back Ron DeSantis, whose candidacy he helped launch in a technically disastrous Twitter live event. Although Musk’s teen-age daughter, Vivian, has come out as trans, he has embraced anti-trans sentiment, saying that he would lobby to criminalize “irreversible” gender-affirming care for children. (Vivian recently changed her last name, saying in a legal filing, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”) Musk started spreading misinformation on the platform: he shared theories that the physical attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former Speaker of the House, had followed a meeting with a male prostitute, and retweeted suggestions that reports accurately identifying a mass shooter as a white supremacist were a “psyop.” Some people who know Musk well still struggle to make sense of his political shift. “There was nothing political about him ever,” a close associate told me. “I’ve been around him for a long time, and had lots of deep conversations with the man, at all hours of the day—never heard a fucking word about this.”

See what I mean? Farrow doesn’t pass judgement, he just calmly describes Musk’s appalling history of imposing his awful ignorance on everyone around him.

Read the rest. You won’t enjoy it, but much respect to the writer’s skill.

Open the floodgates

That Washington Post series on arch-racist Ales Hrdlicka has really stung the Smithsonian. The Secretary of the Smithsonian has written an op-ed apologizing for its history.

Anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka served as the head of the Smithsonian’s physical anthropology division from 1903 to 1941, when the majority of the human remains in our collections were obtained. During Hrdlicka’s four decades at the institution, he oversaw the acquisition of hundreds of human brains and thousands of other remains. The overwhelming majority of these remains were taken without the consent of the deceased or their family members, and Hrdlicka took particular interest in the remains of Indigenous people and people of color to undergird his search for scientific evidence of white superiority.

It was abhorrent and dehumanizing work, and it was carried out under the Smithsonian’s name. As secretary of the Smithsonian, I condemn these past actions and apologize for the pain caused by Hrdlicka and others at the institution who acted unethically in the name of science, regardless of the era in which their actions occurred.

I recognize, too, that the Smithsonian is responsible both for the original work of Hrdlicka and others who subscribed to his beliefs, and for the failure to return the remains he collected to descendant communities in the decades since.

OK, that’s a good start, but so far it’s just words. Tell me what you are doing, because that’s where the excuses get weak. The material changes so far are that they have repatriated a few thousand remains, they have formed a task force, and they promise future policy changes.

Our forthcoming policy will finally recognize these remains not as objects to be studied but as human beings to be honored. It is a long-overdue shift, and I regret that human bodies were ever treated with such disrespect at our institution.

If I may suggest an alternative response: reverse the obligations. Assume every single piece of flesh or bone must be traced to their origins as quickly as possible and returned to their peoples; the priority is to get rid of all of it. If anything is to be retained, someone must be named as responsible for the objects, and must have a specific scientific plan for extracting information from them in the near future, and then returned. Right now, everything is backwards, where we just assume if someone has a bunch of bones in a barrel, well, it belongs to them, even if all they can say is a vague assurance that it’s in a “teaching collection.” I always wonder what they plan to teach with them.

If you want to claim something is scientifically valuable, the onus is on you to justify that claim.

The last place I’d want to be in October is Vegas

Look at this rogue’s gallery of idiots:

These are the speakers at a Flat Earth Conference, which is a thing I can scarcely believe exists in the 21st century.

But then, I thought about it, and realized that from the perspective of a casino owner, these are precisely the group of people I’d want staying at my gambling establishment. Roll out the red carpet! I’d give these people all kinds of special rates, knowing that I’d be able to extract plenty of profit from some of the most confidently innumerate people on the globe.

You know, I’ve been to Vegas a couple of times, and I’ve stayed in casinos a few times, because they generally have cheap room rates…but I’ve never in my life placed a bet at one. I’m probably the antithesis of their desired clientele, while the prospect of a bunch of flat-earthers has the venue owners drooling. Unfortunately for their bottom line, I don’t think many people will show up for this specific event.

Reality check

If you read the newspapers or watch Fox News (nobody here pays attention to Fox News, right?) you may come away with a skewed perspective of the hierarchy of power at universities. Here’s a helpful perspective, with myth on the left, reality on the right.

The only omission is the absence of coaches, but maybe that’s OK. Coaches don’t actually make any decisions or contribute to academic life, they are off to the side, grinning happily as they skim off millions of dollars, with which the trustees and donors fill their pockets.

The students return to my university today. I’ll try not to infect them with my cynicism.

New acquisitions

I’m home from the exotic pet fair. I acquired a Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens! And a Northern Black Widow! They’re young juveniles, now I just have to fatten them up.

Photos will follow once I have them set up.

The power of the ellipsis

I’ve pointed out before how creationists like to butcher quotes from scientists to completely change their meaning, in a practice called quote mining. Guess who else does this?

Jordan Peterson. Tell me you’re surprised.

He and his publisher spattered the back cover of his latest book, Beyond Order, with blurbs from reviewers that praised it highly…or did they?

Another objection came from The Times reviewer James Marriott, because the blurb included from his review quoted him calling the book “A philosophy of the meaning of life… the most lucid and touching prose Peterson has ever written.”

In a now-deleted X post, Marriott noted that the ellipse covered up that his full sentence was “A philosophy of the meaning of life which is bonkers.”

“My review of this mad book was probably the most negative thing I have ever written,” Marriott said. He later added that he was amused by the situation, “Though my amusement is tinged with annoyance at being misrepresented to the tens of thousands of people who will buy that book in paperback.

Oh man, you can’t trust Jordan Peterson? Shocking.

I called it

Back in May, I suggested that we have seen who Ken Ham’s chosen successor would be. I was correct. It’s Martyn Iles. Ho hum.

Iles was formerly the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, and was kicked out because he was terrible at his job and godless Australians kept winning legislative victories while membership in the organization declined. Let’s hope he keeps his losing streak going!

There are many people at Answers in Genesis who have stood by Ham — I really wonder about the internal politics here, when the Big Boss brings in a total stranger over the heads of the existing staff and announces that he will be the next man in charge. I almost feel sorry for Bodie Hodge, his son-in-law, who has now been officially passed over.

Update: I don’t think they were lesbian spiders

I’m sorry to disappoint, but looking at my Steatoda borealis population, I think what I’ve got are dimorphic males: some with huge spiky palps, some with slender pencil-shaped palps. I have no idea if these are distinct subtypes, or just developmental differences.

I have the full story on Patreon, and posted some photos on Instagram.

Lesbian spiders would have been cool, though, unlikely as that was.