Ogres are wikunyans...

We are having a great time listening to James as he expands his vocabulary. Two of our recent favorites are modified lines from Schrek, his current digital diversion of choice. Thus, 'Ogres are like onions' becomes (very adamantly), 'Ogres are wikunyans!' Not altogether surprising since he still likes to fish for yewwow perch -- but interestingly when pressed about the nature of wikunyans, he reports that they are a special kind of onion. Better yet, 'wake up and smell the pheromones' becomes 'wake up and smell the fire moons' -- a wonderful and appropriately poetic image. Anyway, I am not sure I want to try to explain pheromones to a three year old!

Pharyngula

More and more I find that monitoring a few selected blogs is becoming my preferred means of keeping up with those thing most interesting to me. One blog in particular has become a part of my daily routine, that being Pharyngula maintained by PZ Myers of the University of Minnesota at Morris. This site provides me with an up to the minute analysis of the breaking stories in evolutionary biology and genetics as well as insightful commentary and connections to broader happenings in the world. Don't know how he does it but I sure am pleased that he does!

Lenore, James, and I are at Lutsen this weekend for the annual fall bluegrass weekend. Still one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. A small crowd of fine musicians in an incredibly gorgeous setting. Lenore gets to fiddle to her heart's content and James and I get to swim until we're completely wrinkled! We've made this trip every fall for a while but missed last year following my surgery so it feels especially sweet this time around. /dps

Wonderful Weekend!

Our friend Jack visited from Mpls this weekend for opening weekend of the whitefish/cisco netting season and we had pretty good success considering that the water is still 46 degrees, a few notches too warm to have the run in full swing. We did get 20 cisco and a whitefish this morning and they are in the brine and should be in the smoker by Tuesday. Jack and I also got out our fishing rods Saturday afternoon and had an amazingly confortable trip for November. Caught a few small northern pike and a couple really nice largemouth bass (photo below). Even got some work done for a change and almost felt like a normal human being!

On Wednesday afternoon while waiting around BSU for my night class, I composed a very long and rather vitriolic venting about the election. After better than an hour of writing, my diatribe disappeared when I attempted to post it -- probably just as well but at least I did have the cathartic experience of putting my anger and disgust into words. Bottom line? This is no time for our nation to unite behind a smirking incompetent and his Halliburton etc henchmen -- it is time to wage a campaign of relentless and critical dissent. Bush got about 50% of a 60% turnout and 30% is no mandate (the outcome is not as bad as it looks!) In addition, I would guess that at least half of all Bush voters were primarily motivated by irrational fears fostered by snake-oil salesmen of various stripes -- which suggest that only about 15% of eligible voters actually support this regime. Finally, we have all those under 18 to consider since they will spend at least the first half of their working lives (plus their blood) paying for the reckless excesses of Bush & Company's so-called "conservative" agenda. /dps

All of a piece: connections and elections

Continuing yesterday's topic, one common response from students disenchanted with science is that the material "just isn't that relevant to me." Such a response always seems especially odd coming from Human Biology lib ed students since the entire course is devoted to understanding the workings and failings of our bodies and minds. At the same time, this sort of response is symptomatic, I think, of a fundamental problem with current modes of public education in the US. It seems that somehow we have moved toward training students to pile up facts and skills relevant to particular career goals or interests and have neglected the art of drawing (tentative) connections among diverse facets of human experience. Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto (Terence). Learning is "all of a piece" and each bit of new understanding illuminates all others, sharpening focus and (perhaps somewhat holographically?) improving conceptual resolution. Ability (both inborn and acquired?) to see and to critically evaluate provisional connections would seem to be a key distinction between profound wisdom and merely "useful' knowledge.

Because 'including the knower in the known' makes all human understanding necessarily incomplete, any provisional connections we draw between disparate and, at first glance, isolated nodes of knowledge must always be speculative conjectures. Moreover, the broader the span of these speculations, the easier it is to amass seemingly confirmatory evidence and thus to rather quickly believe that we have recognized some fundamental truth. Consequently, as Karl Popper realized, secure understanding ultimate must stem from a search for damning rather confirmatory evidence. Unfortunately, our system of public education has become intrinsically timid -- prevailing "I'm OK, you're OK" notions mean that students are never encouraged to think in a way that puts fundamental assumptions and conjectures at maximum (or even significant) risk. Ironically, while 'cultural sensitivity' has been most often championed by well-meaning liberals, it primarily serves the interests of the most reactionarily conservative elements of our culture -- those in both major political parties who benefit most directly from continuing business as usual. In addition, standardized testing exacerbates an already bad situation by emphasing knowing right answers over asking the right (hard) questions.

Undue respect for unquestioned assumptions and conjectures is at the core of the rotten situation in American political life. Pervasive "I'm not an expert" and "That's outside the bounds of my knowledge" stances tend to preclude the kind of long-term, big-picture thinking that constitutes wisdom. Both major political parties (and a vast majority of their respective ideological mouthpiece candidates) are built on fundamentally flawed conjectures about human nature. Are we really as one dimensionally self-interested as the Republican Party dogma assumes? Are we as altruistic as (at least some left-leaning) Democrats believe? Is the alternative to reside with John Kerry somewhere in the gray and mushy, neither-nor middle? Seems like there must be a better way. Stay tuned, news at 10:00... /dps

Curiosity

If curiosity killed the cat, what killed the curiosity? I've been curious about curiosity and lack thereof recently...the contrast between the insatiable wonder of 3 1/2 year old James and the intellectual lethargy of many (fortunately far from all!) BSU undergraduate students is painfully stark. I have taken to asking students about this constrast and the results of this informal 'survey' are most depressing. There seems to be a fairly widespread belief that life is easier and simpler (thus somehow better!) if one doesn't think or wonder too much. In several classes, I have posed the question, "What's the opposite of boring?" Overwhelmingly, the favored as answer has been "Fun" with "Interesting" typically coming in distant third or fourth, most often also behind "Entertaining" and "Exciting." I'll grant that pursuing interesting ideas requires a concerted effort and often leads away from comfortable certainty toward further (interesting!) questions and more work -- but it is also clear (at least in my worldview) that this is precisely what makes life rich and interesting. How can anyone be bored when navigating a fecund and mysterious terrain of perpetual questions only occasionally illuminated by the lightning of rewarded curiosity? Sadly, many students seem to hold deeply to an acquired conviction that learning must be fun, first and foremost; the idea that learning might ever be "hard work" (sorry GWB) seems totally outside the experience of a majority of students. This expectation of instant educational gratification seems to me to be one of the most troubling indictments of K-12 public education -- not exactly sure where it comes from our how to fix it but certain that it is a cultural pathology. Learning is often rather tedious and even frustrating work -- it is the fruits of learning that provide enjoyment. /dps

Halloween History

This was the first year that James was really 'into' Halloween so I had to add a photo documenting his costume and his enthusiasm!



By his own decree, he was a happy pirate (as opposed to a mean or a mad pirate!) /dps