Penumbral Lore; the Shadows of Science

As I type this, we have just begun Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year.  This means, of course, that across the world it is Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.  It is, of course, happening simultaneously - so we can illustrate two of the faces of the Time Cube (but we are educated stupid…)

Solstice is a time of great spiritual significance to many in the pagan community (neo- and otherwise), as well as the beginning of winter, and the harbinger of Christian holy days as well.   It can be a time to tie ones spiritual beliefs back into the physical universe, or just to pull out the old telescope and see if one can spot the Ursid Meteor shower.

As for me, well, I’m finally shaking off the last of this migraine (knock wood) and will stay inside and try to finish knitting my mother’s gloves (they’re looking quite nice, actually, but should have been done half a week ago).   Perhaps I’ll try some egg nog, if my tummy can handle it.  I will not be standing vigil tonight.

December has been an even lighter posting month than I had expected, but we’ve gotten this far without any bloodshed, so I’m optimistic that there will be a couple more posts before next year.

I’ve been giving a little thought to what to post for T-Day. My first thought was tryptophan, which you’ve all heard about before (even though I could find some research which might be news to you). My second thought was to write a personal expression of gratitude. While it would be appropriate to the day, and it would be an interesting writing exercise, I decided that it was too strictly personal for the tone of this ‘blog. (Remember when I promised not to talk too much about the kids or the cat…?)

So, instead I’m going to work through the scientific subjects I’ve used as tags, and acknowledge how I developed an interest in them. There may well be some gratitude expressed along the way.

archaeology (2 posts)

Richard Abell was one of those teachers who inspires his students for a life time. I was priviledged to study Archaeology in his class in High School, and I can’t begin to describe how it inspired me to think about the world. Richard (he encouraged all his students to call him by his first name) had actually studied agriculture in college, but was forced to change his life plan when he contracted polio as a young adult. I’m glad he was able to go back to farming after he retired as a teacher. Thank you, for everything, Richard.

astronomy (4 posts)

As I mentioned before, I fell ‘in love’ with astronomy in elementary school. I read an article about binary stars in an encyclopedia, and my imagination was caught by a beautiful illustration of a red giant/blue dwarf pair dancing around each other in close orbit. I actually majored in astronomy in my freshman year, but didn’t have enough of a math background to get the physics. It didn’t help that my father had a heart attack that year, and I was in no state emotionally to get through it. Took a semester off and got my head together, came back as ‘undecided’. No thanks to the co-requisite requirements.

biology (3 posts)

This was my eventual major in college, the one I received my degree in. I had a lot of good teachers in this subject, but no one of them jumps out at me. I do have a High School teacher, though, who I want to thank. Thank you, Mr. McKinstry (pdf download), for having us study fruit flies rather than doing dissections. Thank you, because by the time I actually had to dissect anything larger than a fruit fly I was a senior in college, and I was really ready to deal with it. Thank you because I actually had fun in your class, and because I developed my interest in genetics, which has lasted for my life time. Thank you, in particular, for never once making fun of my name while teaching genetics, because it would have been a really cheap shot. (Like I never heard it anyway - my father twice named dogs ‘Gregor’, because he could…)

cephalopod (2 posts)

Cephalopods are my favorite invertebrates of all time. Thank you to the National Zoo for opening up the invertebrate house and for introducing me to these wonderful creatures. Thank you to all my sushi loving friends for not trying to feed me eat calimari. (Thank you for not trying to feed me filter feeders, either, but that’s a whole other story…)

chemistry (1 ½ posts)

Thank you Mr. “Mas” George (another High School teacher), even though I can’t find any links referring to you. Thank you for introducing me to quantum mechanics. Thank you, even, for giving me a “C” on that stupid tannic acid concentration in tea paper, because you also explained then what a good experiment should do and why my experiment didn’t do it.

cognitive science (2 posts)

I’d like to thank my father (who I miss, even though we used to drive each other crazy), for introducing me to thinking about thought, and for being the first to admit that science has no real idea what intelligence is, except that which IQ tests measure.

ecology (1 post)

I grew up in the 1970’s, when ecology was still more ‘movement’ than science. It’s a fascinating idea, that the entirety of life on Earth can be studied as a series of interrelated systems. I want to acknowledge that it still takes a conscious effort, for me, to try to live in some sort of balance with the world, but it is an effort which is well spent.

genetics (1 ½ posts)

Again, thank you Mr. McKinstry, for introducing me to this subject. Thank you, Dr. Stein, for never telling me that I was too klutzy to work in a lab, although sometimes I wish you had. Those few years I spent working, for a biotech firm and at NCI were a wonderful time in my life. It was at NCI that I discovered the joy of picking up and reading a scientific journal simply for its own sake.

geology (0 posts)

Thank you, Mom, for spontaneously taking an interest in plate techtonics. Thank you for always showing me that learning is a joy in and of itself, and that, at any time, for any reason, you can start something entirely new and wonderful.

mathematics (1 post)

Thank you Mr. Consuegra (no link) for staying after class that day in sixth grade, when I bothered everyone by wanting to talk about the nature of infinity. No thank you to myself, for insisting on continuing to study Band (which I gave up after High School anyway) and therefore trying to take the ‘advanced’ calculus class rather than taking the ‘basic’ calculus class, which I probably would have gotten a lot more out of.

medicine (5 posts)

Once again, I’d like to thank my father. This time for never pushing me to follow in his footsteps.

paleontology (2 posts)

No specific thanks or acknowledgement here, but who doesn’t love dinosaurs?

quantum mechanics (4 posts)

Thanks, again, Mr. George, for those chemistry lectures where suborbitals and energy levels just suddenly made sense. Thanks, Edward, for letting me know what I got right, and where clarification was needed. Thanks again, Mom, for going off on that PT reading jag. It’s just all amazingly cool stuff.

Well, there are more tags, but this covers the basic scientific subjects pretty well. the sweet potato pie is out of the oven, and it’s time to start work on the roasted butternut squash pie.

Happy turkey day to my fellow Americans. The rest of you, I hope you, too, find something to be thankful for, if not today than every now and then.

It’s nice to know that people really do read the blog. According to Statcounter most of the hits are coming from Ravelry and from NaBloPoMo, which isn’t really surprising, but I’ve also gotten Google hits from searches on “medical activism” and “blood groups why are they different?” It’s nice to know I’m being read, and I even have a few comments to respond to.

Scooterbird, whose secret identity is my husband, Steve, commented on the post “Mathematics as a Language“

“It really isn’t “check the math yourself”…you have to check more than that. There’s more to the use of stats - often common sense will tell you enough to know that a number is being misused, even when the overall math is correct. Sure, 2+2=4, but what does “4″ mean in this context? And so forth…”

I’d agree with that absolutely. As I said,watch out for “liars, damn liars and statisticians”, and remember that sincere misinterpretation can be as dangerous as deliberate manipulation of the numbers.

meloukhia commented on “Why I Go Orgo” with the observation

“I hadn’t read that study on the nutritional value of organic foods; thanks for linking to that post. I had always suspected that organic foods were probably more sound nutritionally because of the healthier soil on which they are grown, which would suggest more absorption of useful minerals.

I would offer a note of caution with so-called “Free Range” foods, because that label doesn’t mean what most people think it means. Food labeling is extremely deceptive, and a “free range” chicken can still be raised inside a shed, as long as the farmer leaves a door open for a few hours every day. “Pasture raised” is probably a better bet, since it suggests that the animal actually gets to go outside and eat grass.”

This is a really good point. The truth is, while there are several agencies which will certify “Organic” produce (each of which has publicly available criteria) I don’t think there’s any agency doing the same thing for ‘free range’ or ‘pasture raised’ meat or dairy products. Your best bet is to buy locally, talk to the farmer yourself, and maybe even drive by for a visit. It’s not always possible, but it’s worth a shot.

Finally, I thought you’d enjoy this response to Bioethics, a Retrospective:

Well, that’s out there. I’m all for solving the problem of overpopulation, but I’m bothered by the doctor’s suggestion of ‘dramatic’ solutions and ‘forceful steps’. I suppose it’s possible to construct a set of ethics which allows for it, but that doesn’t mean that it could ever be moral. How about you, readers?

Oh, and a final, timely note:

Note: all links open in new windows.

This is the most difficult post for me to write so far. I considered writing on fossil remains of capybara the size of rhinoceri,  some of whom had tusks, but realized that only my husband would find that suitably scary for a halloween post.

I feel like I should have laid down a groundwork, talked about woos and defined their skeptical counterpart, the debbies. Discussed soft vs. hard skepticism, and the line between science and the religion of science…. by the time I got through all that, the post would be too long to get to the ghosties.

So, in the spirit of a happy halloween, I’m going to skip straight to the spooks, in the voices of those who spend their lives slogging to all those haunted houses. The Southern Wisconsin Paranormal Research Group, who sound like a fun bunch to hang out and have beer with unless you have a problem with rough language, have a podcast of their case files (41.1Mb .mp3).

Did you know Grant and Jason (from the SciFi show “Ghost Hunters”) have their own radio show? Beyond Reality can be heard on WXLM CT and RI FM and WPRO RI AM in Rhode Island, and online anywhere. Their 23 September episode was “Communication After Death” (45.6Mb .mp3). Jason and Grant are great, but their first guest was kind of hard for me to take.

A quick tour of You Tube turned up the following. I obviously can’t tell you anything about the veracity of the poster (but why bother to fake it), or what may have been happening outside at the time (has yard/neighbor noise really been ruled out)? Having said that, yes, I heard the child yelling “mamma”.