CNN screws the pooch

As part of an ongoing program of reducing their relevance and demolishing their credibility, CNN has just completely shut down their Science, Space and Technology unit. Who needs good science coverage, after all, since nothing important happens in that area…and as the US continues to dumb down its educational system, the number of interested viewers is probably dropping, too.

The media knows where the profits lie, and it’s not in that expensive journalism stuff — it’s in the cheap and popular domain of opinionated airheads shouting at each other. This is symptomatic of a deep intellectual rot in this country.

A Natural History of Seeing: The Art and Science of Vision

Simon Ings has written a wonderful survey of the eye, called A Natural History of Seeing: The Art and Science of Vision(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and it’s another of those books you ought to be sticking on your Christmas lists right now. The title give you an idea of its content. It’s a “natural history”, so don’t expect some dry exposition on deep details, but instead look forward to a light and readable exploration of the many facets of vision.

There is a discussion of the evolution of eyes, of course, but the topics are wide-ranging — Ings covers optics, chemistry, physiology, optical illusions, decapitated heads, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ many-legged, compound-eyed apts, pointillisme, cephalopods (how could he not?), scurvy, phacopids, Purkinje shifts…you get the idea. It’s a hodge-podge, a little bit of everything, a fascinating cabinet of curiousities where every door opened reveals some peculiar variant of an eye.

Don’t think it’s lacking in science, though, or is entirely superficial. This is a book that asks the good questions: how do we know what we know? Each topic is addressed by digging deep to see how scientists came to their conclusion, and often that means we get an entertaining story from history or philosophy or the lab. Explaining the evolution of our theories of vision, for example, leads to the story of Abu’Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haythem, who pretended to be mad to avoid the cruelty of a despotic Caliph, and who spent 12 years in a darkened house doing experiments in optics (perhaps calling him “mad” really wasn’t much of a stretch), and emerged at the death of the tyrant with an understanding of refraction and a good theory of optics that involved light, instead of mysterious vision rays emerging from an eye. Ings is also a novelist, and it shows — these are stories that inform and lead to a deeper understanding.

If the book has any shortcoming, though, it is that some subjects are barely touched upon. Signal transduction and molecular evolution are given short shrift, for example, but then, if every sub-discipline were given the depth given to basic optics, this book would be unmanageably immense. Enjoy it for what it is: a literate exploration of the major questions people have asked about eyes and vision for the last few thousand years.

Give Bill O’Reilly apoplexy

I have a suspicion that that photo of squid guts in the last post is going to make a few people feel squeamish, and now I’m going to show something even worse: Bill O’Reilly. <cue frantic screams from everyone…”More squid guts! Please! Anything but Billo!”>

Of course Billo is outraged at the news from Washington state. How dare they allow atheists to express themselves? This is a Judeo-Christian nation, and only Christians are allowed to have a voice in the public square (Jews, too, as long as they’re quiet and willing to pretend that they’re pre-Christians).

He urges his listeners to howl dementedly at Governor Gregoire. I may not have quite the reach of Mr Falafel, but I’ll suggest that you write polite, supportive letters to Gregoire as an antidote. If you want a little instant gratification, there’s also a poll to crash: Under freedom of expression do you approve of the atheist representation at the State Capitol?. It’s split 51:49 right now.

National science standards?

I’ll believe them when I see them. Greg Laden says we should all vote on this idea: that we ought to rather thoroughly revamp how science is taught in this country by setting national science standards on the teaching of evolution. I’d like to see it if it could be done well, but I predict that such an initiative would set up some awesome squealing from the creationists…which is another reason to support it.

Florida!

The temperatures here in Morris are dropping into the single digits °F, snow is on the ground and probably not going away until the spring, and the lakes are all frozen over — we spotted our first icehouse on Lake Minnewaska last weekend. So what does that mean? I’m flying south this weekend, to Orlando, Florida!

I’ll be speaking at the University of Central Florida on Friday, 5 December, at 7pm in Communications Building 101. Afterwards, we tentatively plan to adjourn to the Lazy Moon for refreshments — we can’t be certain because it’s a pizza place in a college town, so we may not be able to squeeze in, depending on how many show up. I’ll post an update if we have to move elsewhere.

On Saturday, 6 December, I’ll be speaking at Rollins College, at 6:30pm in Crummer Hall. I don’t have specific post-babbling plans there, yet, so perhaps someone can suggest something.

I fly away, mission accomplished, on Pearl Harbor day, that Sunday. I have to be a little concerned, though, that the shock of traveling from Florida to frigid Minnesota might be a bit dangerous. I’ll step off the plane in my flip-flops and bermudas and Hawaiian shirt and shatter from the shock. That means this might be the last time anyone gets to see me, so you better show up.

Ken Ham: still whining, but an online poll supports him

Yeah, poor Ken — he’s still distressed that his attempt to prop up his credibility with the Cincinnati Zoo’s was foiled. He’s also complaining about an “atheist (a professor from the University of Minnesota-Morris)” who engineered his defeat. I wonder who that might be?

Even more foolishly, though, he cites an online poll to back up his claims.

The news website NKY.com (http://nky.cincinnati.com/) ran an online poll on the controversy. They gave the following options:

YES–The museum promotes a religious point of view that conflicts with the zoo’s scientific mission.

NO–The promotion does not mean that the zoo endorses the museum or that the museum endorses the zoo.

As of last night, 86% voted “NO–The promotion does not mean that the zoo endorses the museum or that the museum endorses the zoo.” I know this is not a statistically valid poll, but I think it does show, as we have seen many times before, that most people are not intolerant. Sadly, it is an intolerant minority that can intimidate people to give in on matters they should take a stand on.

Crazy innumerate wacko. He notes that it is not “statistically valid”, and then in the same sentence claims it “does show”. No, it doesn’t, Ken. All it shows is that creationist fans beat science fans to this particular poll.

But we can fix that, can’t we, boys and girls?

The poll currently stands at 17% yes, 83% no, with a bit over 400 votes total. I suspect we can scramble that all around within an hour.