Negative Karma Engine

An Open Letter to Penn State University: For the Glory of Old State? WE ARE… Not Abusers

2011-11-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

An Open Letter to Penn State University: For the Glory of Old State? WE ARE… Not Abusers

To:
President Graham Spanier,
Coach Joe Paterno,
The Daily Collegian,
The Penn State Alumni Society,
The past, present, and future Penn State student body

I will be the first to admit that I am not the most rabid of Penn State fans. Although well known for their athletics program I attended Penn State more for the reputation of academic excellence than for the sports. However, I like to feel that I still took great pride in my school and the two degrees that I earned during my ten year tenure in Happy Valley. Up to this moment I had been able to look back upon my years at Penn State with a type of fond remembrance that I’m sure many alumni also feel. After reading the news today I’m afraid I will never be able to experience those feelings again.

I quite honestly do not have the words to describe the disgust I feel regarding the news that child abuse was not only conducted by members of the Penn State community but that it was known and silently allowed to continue. There is quite simply no defense permissible when such acts come to light. I will never view Penn State, nor my time there, the same again.

To have this travesty compounded by the additional news of the public figures of my alma mater rushing forward to defend those responsible and to cover their own asses is simply deplorable. The administration of the Athletics department and the university had a moment to consider the consequences of their actions and you made the wrong choice. You as individuals, and as representatives of the spirit of the university, have lost my respect. Penn State has lost my respect. While respect itself is a rather tenuous concept it does have some very real consequences. This open letter is not only meant to outline my personal views but to also act as a call to action for others to show the university that there are consequences for the stance they have chosen to take.

The university is proud to have one of the most active and giving alumni communities in the United States. I truly hope that does not continue into the future. You do not deserve our support. Your actions do not represent me and I certainly hope they do not represent the many other graduates who are now ashamed to call themselves Penn Staters. In fact, I urge all alumni to stop giving to the university. Mail not only the university officials but the Alumni Association and let them know how the actions of the university have made you feel. After that, simply stop sharing your money.

To the current students and others who are upset, let people know. Share this message and your feelings with others over coffee, Facebook, video, wherever. By letting others know we make the impact of this felt by the university. The more people who know what has happened the more likely we will be to see change and the correct message by the administration. I know that sharing a message like this can be acutely painful. I have had to get up and walk away from my computer several times while writing this one. And I certainly do not want to go into my place of employment tomorrow and have my co-workers find out about how my school handles suspected child abuse. But cowardly actions that allow universities to defend and hide child abusers work because people are scared and ashamed of talking about their actions. By letting others know what happened and how you do not support the university’s stance you bring the light of openness upon such acts and make them impossible to hide in the future.

To all the fans of Penn State football and athletics, please stop attending. Do not buy Penn State merchandise. Do not attend our football games. Money has power. The simple fact that the abuse was allowed to continue can be tied directly to the fact that Penn State football makes the athletics department and the university a lot of money. However, we are the ones who give them that money. We have the power to show them that we will not allow our dollars to support child abuse. Stop going. There is a game this weekend and I know that many will be in town with the sole purpose of attending that game. Please reconsider. Call the athletics ticket office and ask for your money back if you have purchased tickets already. Call the athletics department and let them know that you will not be purchasing tickets in the future. Even if you think that money that you have already spent should not be lost think about all the things that go along with a trip to a football games. The jerseys and soft footballs, the food and drink you consume, even paying for parking. Paying that money now is a choice on your behalf to say that you think their actions were okay. Let’s make this the poorest and least attended end of season Penn State football has ever experienced.

Letting the university understand that their actions are not defensible is important. Here are just a few contact points for members of the university. Please call or mail them and make your outrage heard.

Penn State Athletics Customer Relations
Phone: 1-800-NITTANY (1-800-648-8269)
Email: golions@psu.edu
Twitter: @1_800_NITTANY

President Graham Spanier
Phone: 814 865 7611
Email: president@psu.edu

Coach Joe Paterno
Phone: 814 865 0411
Email: jvp1@psu.edu

Director of Athletics
Tim Curley
Phone: 814-865-1086
Email: Athletic_Director@athletics.psu.edu

Associate Athletic Director for Football Administration
Fran Ganter
Phone: 814-865-0411
Email: fxg2@psu.edu

Executive Director Penn State Alumni Association
Roger Williams
Phone: (814) 865-6516
Email: rlw1@psu.edu

With deep shame,
Bridget M. Blodgett
Penn State Alumna 2005, 2011

Academic Job Listing

2011-01-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

Hello.

I've had a few requests to share this list with others so I'm posting here to make things simple.

A few things to go over first. This list was created for the students in my college. You are more than welcome to join but we do ask that you share at least 1 new listing that has already not been posted.

I'm in an i-school so be aware that not all of these postings may match your interests. They run a pretty large range of job types but overall these are for individuals looking for post-doc/tenure track/starting PhD type jobs.

Here is the link to the Google Group. You will need to message the Admin to join.

http://groups.google.com/group/ISTgrad_jobseekers

20 Hour Flights Suck

2009-07-21T02:28:00.000-04:00

So this shouldn't come as too surprising but being stuck in airplanes/ports for 20 hours straight really sucks. I'm finally back at my parents house after finishing up the Oxford Internet Institute's Summer Doctoral Program. This was a fantastic experience overall.

As I mentioned in my last partial post the weather and overall area of Brisbane is completely awesome. The city is very beautiful and there are a bunch of different cultural and out door activities there to do. The food in the area is particularly great as well. There is a strong Asian cuisine influence but finding other types of delicious edibles isn't very difficult. On the final dinner of the program, our sponsors took us to a closing dinner at an authentic Australian restaurant. I ate kangaroo. Besides being incredibly cute and fuzzy, kangaroos are also extremely tasty! They also allowed us to taste a emu and crocodile as well as a wide variety of local berries and nuts. And because my roommate was offended when I intimated otherwise, Australia has a wide variety of excellent wines. We had a different one almost every night and I wasn't disappointed with any of them.

The program itself was very enlightening. Everyday we had 2 - 3 student sessions where each student had to get up and speak about their dissertation research. We have a pretty diverse group of students there from journalism, communications, architecture, IT, and others. People were also in very different stages of their research: some just made their slides and picked a topic the night before their presentation, others like myself are doing data collection and just need to start writing. After each presentation there was time for feedback and questions from the tutors as well as the other students. This was great because it really allowed you to get excellent and personalized feedback and a very friendly environment. The tutors often laid out some though provoking issues while many students were able to offer support and advice on some of the more mundane issues that one goes through during a dissertation as well as astute and often unthought of issues.

The tutor and guest presentations were very stimulating. They often focused on the research done by the tutor but were from a very diverse set of topics that often pushed the boundaries of modern science. There were also many valuable methodology workshops that were great because of their interdisciplinary approach. So often methods classes in school are offered from a particular disciplines perspective. It was great being able to understand the different methodologies and how they apply to a very broad range of studies. It was great to be able to then approach these individuals in a friendly and open atmosphere and discuss their work. There wasn't the same pressure to shut up and let someone important talk as there often is at conferences.

Everyone there was so incredibly smart it was unbelievable. I never felt out of my depth but it was great to be able to walk up to any particular group at tea and find an interesting conversation to listen to. Speaking of teas... I've never had so many coffee breaks in all my life. We had coffee and tea available every morning. Then at ~10:30am we would have the first tea. At 12:30pm it would be lunch. 2:30pm another tea and at 5:00pm we'd go home to have dinner and wine. Most of us students were crazy caffeinated but even then there were some sneaking away during lunch (the only time they didn't offer coffee) to buy another cup. Considering that we were just sitting there all day it never got boring or tiring.

Of course, it helped that we had discovered this little tool called Etherpad which was fantastic. I wish I had it during all my classes. It's a combination collaborative note taking tool and chat room. Mostly I used it for the chat since it allowed everyone to have a back channel where awesome conversations could happen. Instead of waiting for the question period at the end of a presentation, it allowed us to engage in a rapid conversation during the presentation and develop complex thoughts and ideas. Also LOLsdp. It was also great when presenters threw a particular reference or work out there that most people didn't catch. It almost always showed up within a few minutes in the chat log, meaning you could save/follow the actual articles and references speakers use. It also allows you to save and export all your saved files and chats so that I'll have the notes from the institute well into the future! This is also one reason I didn't feel a pressing urge to type up a synopsis in this blog for every presentation. Once I found out they were being recorded like this it allowed be to concentrate on what was being said and develop my own thoughts.

Overall I had a great time. I made some good friends and did a lot of useful networking during the entire event. If I'm lucky there may be some collaborative papers coming out of this expereince as well to boost my CV in the future. I really look forward to seeing several people at the AOIR Internet Researchers 10.0 conference in the fall!

Pictures can be found at the shared public Flickr group.

Sciency BAYM!

The video that we made as a legacy project:

Australia Update and Retrospective

2009-07-16T05:09:00.000-04:00

Well, we're heading into the last day of the Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Program. It has been quite an experience here in Brisbane. Firstly I'd just like to address the fact that I love this town. It's simply beautiful, today has been the coldest day so far at 64F. Now keep in mind it's the middle of the winter here! I can deal with that kind of winter.

EDIT: I'm posting this late. I had saved it as a draft but this is as far as I got.

2009-07-15T03:44:00.001-04:00

Eventually I would like a tattoo of this either on my wrist or the back of my neck:
It's a generic bar code for Meat.

2009-07-12T23:53:00.000-04:00

So I ran my dissertation proposal through wordle to see what would come up as a result. Some of the big words aren't at all surprising but the second level ones were interesting. I like to use the word however a lot.

Update Letter to Mom

2009-07-06T02:56:00.000-04:00

Mom,

Hello! Sorry I couldn’t talk long I was pretty tired and confused when I called. I will talk to David tonight about how exactly calling with his phone works. If I can I will give you a call later this week.

The flights went well. We managed to catch the first flight out of Philly and I took the chance to sleep most of the way. We ran into a bit of a problem at LAX since our flight landed at 10am (LA time) and we couldn’t check in for the plane until 5pm! Even then the flight wouldn’t board until 10pm. So we had a lot of downtime on our hands and we also had all our baggage for quite some time. Luckily the international terminal had a food court that did not require you to go through security and we were able to get some food and find a lounge to sit down and relax there. LA is amazing. As we were landing I thought that I was seeing a lot of desert because it was all brown. But as we got closer I could see that it was all the roofs of the houses. As far as the eye could see it was neighborhoods. Pretty amazing in the scale of the city.

The flight over from LAX to Brisbane was very nice. The plane and service were fantastic! I slept most of the time however despite being in a small mostly upright seat. Customs was surprisingly easy to get through. It took only 20 minutes to get through everything, very different from the US. It was cold in Brisbane but not as chilly as winter at home. It was much closer to the temperature of the early spring (mid-50s).

The apartments are nice but I don’t have internet access there. We had a small problem with the roommate and ended up having a swap in roommates made. Getting along very well with our current one however. Really spent much of yesterday asleep so not too much happened. Today has been spent in listening to talks which have been pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to giving my talk. We will be trying to take our camera around a bit as we go out during the evening and day. I have no idea what Dave is planning I think he was spending today planning his two weeks.

I will talk/write you again in a few days! I’ll be updating my blog when I can http://negativekarmaengine.blogspot.com and may be uploading pictures to my flickr account or dave’s picasa. I’ll send you the link as we upload them.

Love you!
Bridget

A quote just for phil

2009-07-06T01:50:00.001-04:00

This came up during one of the talks today...

“[the sudden increase in creations of studies about] GenY is just the fear of people getting old and living in ghettos because they can’t do all this digital stuff.”

The Doctors - Misinformation for the Sake of Entertainment

2009-06-30T17:08:00.000-04:00

So I have a bad habit. Around 5pm most days I will frequently tune my TV to The Doctors. This show features a panel of 4 "doctors" who address different medical and health issues. The show is a spin off of Dr. Phil and an Oprah affiliate. As such I don't really watch the show for any real medical information, actually I seem to watch the show more for the opportunity to scream at my TV than anything else. I have a number of problems with this show, many of which are encapsulated by the episode being aired today, Teen Health Questions.

Well first off.. the hosts keep mentioning "important teen health questions" but what they really mean is girl's questions. What about young men? Don't they have important teen health issues that need to be addressed? Admittedly, some of the questions are pretty general and could apply to a teen of any gender but all the specific questions are related to women. As if only female teens ever feel awkward or unknowledgable about their health. Men are inherently born with all of this information in their heads, I guess.

There is also a specific question about getting pregnant while having a period and immediately the hosts all break into a discussion about how "you can't trust what boys are saying" regarding sex. Boys just want to have sex, for both the social status and the experience, and have an uncontrollable sex drive. It's the young girl's responsibility to control the sexual experience and harness the male sex drive. This is such a common and bullshit sexist statement. It ends up harming both young women AND young men by forcing them into uncomfortable roles that end up limiting their feelings about sex and their own body. And this message (girls must be in control and men just can't) is repeated over and over again every time a sex question comes up. Talk about misinformation!

In addition, the panelists all impress upon the girls in the audience the dangers for them if they start having sex "too young." The usual suspects end up here: pregnancy, STDs, getting fat (?), poor personal image, etc. Actually I'm surprised social reputation didn't show up as well. Once again, what about young boys? If girls are having sex young... well it takes two to tango. Do boys some how manage to bypass all the negative aspects of engaging in sexual activity at a young age? Instead of looking at the sociological issues it's really meant to be a scare tactic, reinforcing the sex=bad message for young girls. Boys have many of the same health risks in terms of disease and emotional trauma caused by engaging in sex before they're ready. Now admittedly its much easier for men to walk away from some issues such as pregnancy. There are also the continuing social differences between the genders regarding sexual knowledge and participation, with boys being "players" and girls being "sluts". However, this doesn't excuse advancing different advice.

Then the show starts in about birth control pills being hormone control pills. Now of course the entire time they're talking to the mother of this young girl.. not the girl herself mind you. Parents do have a lot of control over their child's health but really something as important as changing a girl's period really should be the option of the girl not her mother. And SO WHAT if she decides to have sex while on birth control? Why should that really be her mother's business or if mom is concerned why not discuss sexual health and responsibility with your daughter instead of dragging her onto a nationally syndicated TV show.

In general the show also gives too equal a footing to "alternative" medicines which haven't been shown to be at all useful for what they actually are talking about. In some instances this can be quiet dangerous. At one point they held up sprouted grain breads and claimed they were gluten free (they're not). Now luckily I read up on the bread before buying any since it would have set off my celiac's disease if I had just bought some on their advice. But how many people in the audience would question them about this and look up the information beforehand? In this episode it was yoga and acupuncture for cramps. Now, to my knowledge, neither of these methods has ever been scientifically proven to aid in the pain management of menstrual cramping. Could they help? Maybe.. but we have no way of knowing if they do or how well they work or if it would just be easier to take several Advil. In the absolute worst of this they actually had Jenny McCarthy (and through her the loons at Generation Rescue) on the show. I didn't watch this episode... I couldn't even make it through the commercials. It seemed like generally the panel gave her a real argument against the trash she was spouting. However, even having her on the show legitimizes her point of view. For individuals like this they don't care if all of their arguments are shot down. They were able to get the spotlight and spread their message.

I will give them this.. I was expecting the show to be a big push for abstinence education with the panel coming down hard on any type of teen sexual activity. Despite giving out and distorting sex information the panel did well at acknowledging that teens have sex and trying to provide some good information to them. However, the show often seems to run a thin line between medically valid information and crazy woo. Not to mention they pretty systematically buy into cultural stereotypes that at best are dull but can be further damaging when taken seriously as medical advice.

2009-03-30T16:37:00.000-04:00

2009-03-25T22:21:00.000-04:00

One Year Retrospective

2009-03-24T20:42:00.001-04:00

So I've been thinking back to where I was approximately a year ago this month. There have been some major changes in my life since then and I think most of them have been for the better. The most obvious one is my health and diet since last year. Last February (a year ago not last month) I was exhausted all the time, my back hurt constantly, and I was getting sick very frequently. I didn't know what was happening but I knew that it wasn't good.

In early March I was diagnosed with Celiac's Disease and had to make a drastic change to my diet in order to feel better. The sickness and tiredness were related to the fact that my body was dumping important vitamins. This was caused by the fact that Celiac's is a gluten intolerance so anytime I ate anything with flour, wheat, MSG, barley, rye. oats, etc. I would cause me to get sick. I needed to drop all of those from my diet. It was a really hard things to do. The ingredients that I can't eat are in almost everything, in particular MSG. I still struggle with this from time to time and I will for the rest of my life but I'm feeling so much better now I can't believe that something so little could make such a difference.

Besides being tired all the time, my weight motivated me to ask my doctor before I was diagnosed last year. I saw a lot of weight gain in a very short period of time. Part of this was due to my sickness. My body went into starvation mode and started storing everything I ate as fat. The other part is due to lifestyle. I felt very frustrated since I did try very hard to lose weight but never seemed to have much luck with it. Of course it's almost impossible to do when your body is fighting you. I haven't made much progress on this front in the last year but I've dedicated myself to eating healthier and getting to the gym three days a week. It will take a while but I'm sure I'll see the results of this dedication eventually. I still have bad days when I feel frustrated or upset about my body. Luckily on these days I have the support of my loving husband along with great information on the web. Thanks everyone out there for making me feel like I'm not alone in this!

I've finished most of my classes as well as defended my dissertation proposal. Both of these are pretty major steps in the PhD process. It feels good to have them done but I'm continually surprised at how much time is taken up now that people know that I'm not working on either classes or my proposal. I feel like its a struggle to complete my objectives every week but it also feels good to be able to do my own research and really get involved in my dissertation topic. Now I just need to convince the people I'd like to interview that it's worth their time.

I spent some time living away from my friends and family last summer. It was good to get out on my own. I had to live away from my husband as well (I actually missed our 1 year anniversary) and I missed him a lot but I think it was beneficial for the both of us. We spent so much of our time together that having a small break and remembering who we are as seperate people is good for us. It let me get to know a friend better and it let me make some new ones (something that's always scared me!) It also let me know that I have no interest in pursuing a industry position after my PhD is done.

Overall I have to say that it was a tough year but one well worth it. I'm happy with the progress that I've made both academically and personally. I look forward to the year I have a head of me and making it as interesting and varied as the last year has been.

Higher Learning and Science Education

2009-03-22T15:16:00.000-04:00

PZ Meyers has an excellent post up today regarding changes to high education funding during this economic crises.

I support most of the comments that he makes within that article. In particular, it is scary to see the cuts being made to science education. As a whole science education has had to cut back but you don't usually see the deaths of whole departments on the science side. You'll hear about philosophy, women and african studies, other humanities sure... but science, never (Not that them is a good thing either)! But as a PhD student I have a slightly mixed feeling about this trend. Fewer faculty means that more graduate students will have a chance to work in the classroom and possibly teach a section by themselves. This is a really important skill to have when you go out on the job market.

However, it doesn't bode well for you once you're on the job market. The next few years will be desperate for recent graduates as the number of positions is reduced but the number of graduates does not. At this moment there has been talk in my department of having 300+ applicants for a new position as being the norm. This means that when I hit the job market in the next year I will have 299 other people going against me as I apply for jobs. Unlike the professional market, there aren't as many open positions for me to shop myself around to. Competing against this high a number means it will be extremely difficult to get a position.

I have also recently heard that the R&D department that I interned for last summer have since had their funding cut back and moved from new project development to still product line upgrades. The project that I was able to work on was interesting and innovative and not obviously connected to improving any particular line the company already had on the market. That position and research is now gone in that company, the leading one in its industry. So that means there aren't any professional positions for graduates to move into either further putting fuel on the fire as they begin to get desperate to find a job, pay back college loans, and finally make some actual money. I wouldn't be surprised to see departmens start pushing to get their supported graduate students out the door either. Its not cheap to support a PhD student and having them out and graduated means you don't have to pay for them. I don't think stories about finding PhDs working at McDonald's during the next few years will be uncommon.

This is a bit of a plus for the universities who have the money to higher new faculty. They have a large pool of applicants to choose from and can select the cream of the crop for their positions, improving the quality of the education and academic work for which that department is known.

Repost: Yea, this sounds about right

2009-03-14T01:38:00.000-04:00

From Warren Ellis on where he finds his ideas:

Here's the deal. I flood my poor ageing head with information. Any information. Lots of it. And I let it all slosh around in the back of my brain, in the part normal people use for remembering bills, thinking about sex and making appointments to wash the dishes.

Eventually, you get a critical mass of information. Datum 1 plugs into Datum 2 which connects to Datum 3 and Data 4 and 5 stick to it and you've got a chain reaction. A bunch of stuff knits together and lights up and you've got what's called "an idea".

Repost: Response to Methodology Matters

2009-03-14T01:36:00.000-04:00

The article for this week Methodology Matters: Doing Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences by Joseph McGraph. The basis of this article was an overview of the basics of method for research in the sciences along with the different measures that this research is test against. It is an extremely comprehensive article on this topic and goes so far as to creating a framework to breakdown the differences between the different methods available as well as their individual strengths and weaknesses.

I believe from both the way the article is written and several possible hints during the beginning that this is simply a chapter of a larger book dealing with social science research. As such is makes a number of connections between methodologies that are rarely pursued. The author also makes a point of treating each methodology fairly, something that shorter journal articles do no handle as strongly. Considering the wide range of interests and research areas that exist with in the behavioral and social sciences being able to narrow the range of methods down to the number that McGraph did without excluding an areas interests or primary method is difficult goal to achieve.

However, McGraph does take a very narrow epistemological view of science in these areas. He acknowledge that case studies and observations throughout the article but largely ignores that larger area of qualitative research. Qualitative methods frequently draw from a much larger epistemological bases that acknowledges that there are many types of knowledge out there and that only some of that richness may be captured by the methods McGraph discusses, even if you are able to maximize the three constructs he talks about.

The article I selected for this week is the page covering qualitative methods in information science research. This article fills in the gaps that I feel were missing from the McGraph article. In particular the page I linked deals with epistemology. While understanding the different methods is good knowledge for any scientist to have it's even better to understand where the method is coming from in its view of the world. The strengths and weaknesses that McGraph goes to such lengths to detail don't always make sense without seeing how the epistemology that is the basis of the methodology affects them.

Repost: If You Create A Better Moustrap...

2009-03-14T01:31:00.000-04:00

The reading for this week was an article from Scientific American dealing with the application of information technology to humanitarian relief efforts around the world. The article focused on the ways that new technologies: GIS, SMS, GPS, etc. have allowed relief workers to identify and aide individuals suffering because of a disaster as well as relay this information back to the larger organization so strategic planning may commence, in order to help the greatest number in the shortest time.

The article takes the time to detail several of these events separately, describing not only what the event was but also how technology was introduced and how this resulted in the positive outcome. The author also details some of the problems caused by the introduction of these new technologies including failure to have an outcome, failure to work when needed, failure to fit within the system, and human error in use.

Overall, the goal of the article remains the same. There is a hidden message to be read between the lines of these negative comments. "If only we could improve this technology to resist dust and damp." "If only we could train people to use the systems like they're meant to." "If only we would think about employing this technology sooner." All these problems would be solved and everything would work perfectly. There is a pervasive message of positiveness within this article. A kind of we can do it! attitude that makes it seem like these problems will eventually be overcome and technology will be the panacea that we were looking for.

While I don't find this attitude surprising, I think it does bear commenting. Technology is not a panacea nor is it a curse. It is a tool. Science has a way of spinning it's image so that the good outcomes are the ones that are shown and thought about. However, there is a law of unintended consequences. Science (and science writers) like to pretend that this law doesn't exist. To make my case I'd like to direct attention to this article.

The article is about the fact that the city of New Orleans is sinking. However, the key point is that New Orleans has always been sinking, this isn't an outcome of Katrina, and it's been that way almost since the city's founding. New Orleans is built on a river delta. These deltas are made of alluvial silt, a substance that is extremely fine and is deposited there from up river by the Mississippi. The problem arises from the fact that this silt compacts very easily and requires periodic flooding by the Mississippi to replace the volume of the silt that has compacted. For years this wasn't a problem, then New Orleans was founded. We knew the science of levees and dams. We could tame the mighty Mississippi and make her work for us. And so we did, and we reaped the boons for years in terms of shipping and trade that went through that port, a port that did not have to be rebuilt constantly because we had controlled flooding. However, as the delta silt compacted, and there were no floods to replace the lost volume the ground level began to drop. It has gotten to the point today where the highest point in the city is only 6ft. above sea level, the height of a tall man. We've known this, and we've employed science to continually solve the small problems that arose as the river and ocean moved higher than the city in some places.

It was the law of unintended consequences that exacerbated the events of hurricane Katrina. Because science takes the positive view point about its own actions and applications it fails to see the negatives that can also count a toll in human lives. Even when the bare nod to the negative is given, it is held up as a strawman, to be burned away by time and progress. This is one of the main views in science that needs to be changed today. I am not arguing that good does not come out of science, or that we should stop trying to find some. My argument is that the good and the bad need to be acknowledged as more than a temporary stepping stone to something greater.

Repost: Using Your Brane for String Theory

2009-03-14T01:30:00.000-04:00

In "What if String Theory is Wrong?" Sten Odenwald examines the basics of Superstring theory, the current big hope of astrophysics and advance mathematics for explaining life, the universe, everything. The author addresses the fact that at the current moment there is very little experimental proof to support the suppositions of this theory. The point is to look at the fallout, if string theory is disproved in the future when the new supercollider fails to find the particles that are essential for the theory to continue.

The author briefly mentions 2 concepts that I would like to follow further. The first is what would be the outcome for science if string theory falls through. I feel that this outcome was too short of a section. The title of the article made me feel like this was going to be a major component but it came in on the last half of the last page. I have a feeling that the author originally wished to speak about this part more but felt obligated to also explain a complex and not well known theory before he could get to it. He mentions that astro-physics will be "reset" but that mathematics will still have reached improvements that would have been impossible otherwise. I think that he gives physics less credit than it deserves in this case and paints too bleak of a picture. When a theory fails or is disproved and replaced by another theory the advances from that theory aren't erased. We have found dark matter and discovered new anomalies in space that should be there because of string theory. If the theory were to be removed it doesn't change the fact that those anomalies still exist. I think instead of causing a reset the failing of string theory would result in a dramatic increase in the amount of scientific research being done. All these findings will need to re-evaluated and examined. In the process a new theory of theories may arise and all the evidence of string theory will be examined again, producing new and more useful results. We won't lose anything we've found and may in fact discover more from objects that we only looked fro because of string theory.

The second concept that I would like to pursue further is the idea of a closed universe. The last that I heard the debate on what the shape of the universe is still undecided. The basic idea is that there are 3 outcomes for our universe. The first is that the universe is not closed since energy is permenant and we will continue expanding forever, galaxies moving further and further apart. The second is that there is a limited amount of energy and the motion of the universe will eventually stop and we'll go into a deep freeze as this energy becomes spread out enough for it to no longer transfer how it currently does. The final idea is that we are a part of a closed universe, or that there is a boundary to the universe and once we expand to that boundary the universe will reverse direction and come crashing back together, like an anti-big bang. The idea of a closed universe has arisen and been defeated many times but never in such a way that it's completely removed from possibility. Several scientist have brought back the idea using String Theory to explain it's major flaw. Basically, once the universe is once again in it's super condensed state the law of physics no longer apply, so what causes the bang again? The idea of this article is that particles particular to string theory actually result in two objects colliding, creating what would seem to us to be the big bang but since they exist seperate of the condensed mass the laws of physics hold. Basically, they're two large rubber bands, when they collide there's a big bang forcing the areas that collided apart. But they'll eventually bounce back to their starting area, pulling the universe back into a super condensed mass, and collide again. These particles are called Branes.

I think this shows the potential areas where string theory can add to science even if it doesn't last in the long run. It's explaining theories that existed before it did itself, expanding our ability to think about things that we had previous believed solved.

Repost: Response to Chaos: Making a New Science

2009-03-14T01:21:00.000-04:00

In Chaos: Making a New Science the author covers the development of Chaos Theory by a meteorologist and part-time mathematician at MIT. The chapter focuses primarily on the infamous "Butterfly Effect" but does develop some additional themes that play off this initial effect. Convection and the waterwheel are given as examples that Lorenz also developed as models to explain why small differences in the initial variable can have a big impact on the state of the system as well as to explain why patterns do not eventually emerge from these actions.

The chapter also briefly describes the focus on prediction and manipulation that were the previous holy grails of the field of meteorology. These were pursued in order to bring weather (or the stock market) under control of humans. For these individuals Lorenz's butterfly effect was misinterpreted. They saw this effect as meaning that small changes made by humans may have larger impacts on the outcomes of weather. Meaning that scientists can make a small change that will have a larger and "needed" outcome, such as seeding a cloud in Arizona and provided a much needed rainstorm for the mid-west.

The aim of the authors is clearly to educate the readers on the basics of chaos theory. They do this by giving the history of the theory's development and humanizing it in some aspects, embodying the concept in the Dr. Lorenz, and showing it as a struggle between humans, the arguments between the scientists that wanted to control and those that said it was impossible. Chaos theory is frequently seen as so complex that most people could not really understand it, look at all the cool lines that Ian Malcolm had in the book Jurassic Park that were removed in the movie!

By embodying the theory in a single person the authors do achieve their aim of making the theory and its concepts more approachable to a layman's understanding. However, I think that doing so also limits the areas of application that this theory has. Throughout the chapter the focus is on meteorology with a couple of mentions of economics thrown in but never really explained. Individuals that do not have previous knowledge of chaos theory may fail to see how it can be used in other areas that they are more comfortable or familiar with. One such example that I can think of is traffic patterns.

However, I think the authors do provide a needed service. Chaos theory has become increasing popular in the media since it's invention and I think that the authors do an excellent job of explaining a concept. A number of movies have used the theory or individuals concepts from it (Jurrassic Park, The Butterfly Effect, and Chaos Theory for example) but they don't explain the theory well or at all, using it in a different way to make for a dramatic plot device but not a scientific reality.

Others have provided a better description of the theory and what its importance may be to both lay people and scientists. The outside source I have is a description of the movie Pi: Faith in Chaos. The movie follows the story of a mathematician much like Dr. Lorenz who discovers the numerical sequence that makes all non-linear functions linear, solving the problems of chaos theory like predicting weather or the stock market. The movie doesn't skimp on the math concepts and gives an in-depth explanation of both chaos theory as well as number theory. Besides being an excellent movie, it covers the basics of the theory fairly and makes them entertaining as well. I think that as popular culture adopts these theories for their own use there needs to be good explanations of the theories so that individuals that are intrigued may gain an understanding.

Considering the declining rate of mathematics programs and general intelligence in the nation, the use of pop culture to explain and interest Americans could be a big boon to science.

Repost: Ts'ai Lun and Di Vinci Reaction

2009-03-14T01:18:00.000-04:00

Both articles this week dealt with men who were simultaneously geniuses and well placed in the ruling courts of power. The first dealt with the accomplishments of Ts'ai Lun of the Han Dynasty of Ancient China. In particular, the chapter focuses on Ts'ai Lun's development of the paper making process and the advantage this gave to China in their development as a nation. This chapter takes a historical view of Ts'ai Lun's invention by looking at its spread throughout the world and the additional advancements that were made possible by his initial invention. The second chapter is about Leonardo Di Vinci, one of the brightest minds of the European Renaissance. This chapter is read more like a biography of the man than an examination of his accomplishments and their results. It covers his early history and training up to the successors of thought that he left behind.

Two things distinguish both of these men in the readings. They were both individuals that were very curious about the world that surrounded them and were inclined to bend their copious minds to solving practical problems that they saw. It was only through this genius that made the inventions of these two men possible. However, there were also other factors that are mentioned in both of these chapters that also play a strong factor in the outcome of their inventions. Genius has been found in many different areas and has just as often withered and died from lack of input or fostering. The circles of power and prestige that both of these men were born into allowed them to succeed and prosper how they did. It was through generous patronage that both were funded and given the ability to pursue less practical matters of the mind and imagination. This allows them to devote the time and energy to art, engineering, architecture, etc. that their inventions required of them.

History is full of others who share similar stories to Di Vinci's and Ts'ai Lun's. However, there are many other stories that are just very frequently left out or achieve their place through a different means. Two that come to my mind, given my own interests, are Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. Both are women who have arguably changed history but did so through a struggle outside of the circles of power. They both had to play within areas that were not welcoming to them and both are occasionally mentioned in the annuls of history, typically as a footnote. While it is easy to point at the individuals who are obvious in your society, the Paris Hilton's if you will, it's frequently the individuals that move within the shadows that often have a larger and more progressive impact on the world.

Repost: Reaction to An Incomplete Education

2009-03-14T01:15:00.000-04:00

Normally I like to start one of these posts with a brief summary. However, I just don't feel that is possible with reading. How do you summarize a summary of all of science? The purpose of this book chapter is to briefly address many of the major areas of scientific thought that have some popularity or presence in regular people's lives today. It does this in a succinct and well written manner that is meant to draw the user in, educate them, make a few jokes, and move on quickly so they don't get bored. I think is manages to achieve these goals very well. I initially groaned when I saw the page count for the reading, but when I glanced at how many pages I read the first time I was surprised to see I was up in the 20s already!

I can't claim to be able to say exactly why the authors chose to write this book. However, I do feel that this chapter is an attempt to do exactly what our last 2 readings have lamented about the progress of science. Overall, there has been a focus on how fragmented science is and how hard it is to educate the general populace about scientific principles. Although the authors may not have been inspired by the same readings that we have done the last few weeks I think they may have taken up the same cause without even knowing it. And they found a beautiful way of doing so, in a newspaper serial fashion. While most books on the topic would probably devote an chapter to each section, I think the authors here wrote with the general American public in mind as an audience and avoided this route. They wrote small sections that were simple to understand, didn't overlap, and could be published separately, like novels used to be (n.b. Look up how Charles Dickens used to write to understand this).

I think their goal and audience also takes into account general public discourse. There is a focus in this chapter on "hot topics" of science, particularly controversial areas like cloning, global warming, and evolution. In many cases these areas are treated as "scientific theory" by their opponents i.e. they aren't proven yet and are probably wrong, instead of scientific theory i.e. gravity is a theory and just as possible to be overturned as evolution. I think one of the ways that avoid having to wade into this mess of controversy is their tone in the chapter. They take a very authoritative and "well this is just common sense" voice throughout the paper. It doesn't brook discussion to debate and makes everything seemed well researched, logical, and almost inevitable. I found this to be particularly humorous when they were talking about Chaos Theory in this manner, since nothing is inevitable according to that theory. I think one of the reasons they took this tone was due to the fact that these are debated areas in science but they are still important for people to know. Many people I think are turned off from science when it debates morality and religion. By downplaying that debate the authors can successfully reach out to these turned off individuals and engage them again, something that needs to be done more often. One of the reasons that groups like the Dover Township are successful is because most individuals don't want to get involved or are turned off.

However, I think that in order to achieve their goals of education the authors do cut out some important aspects of the scientific constructs that they present. In particular, they tend to simplify the constructs and make them seem naturally occurring, we only unearth or uncover them. Since i think they had a secondary goal of avoiding debate this action makes sense. However, I think it ends up making science look more dogmatic than it really is. This does give fuel to the critics of many scientific theories since these the constructed natures of the theories can then be turned against the dogmatic statements as if they were examples where the theory was wrong.

The article I selected to share with the class is a brief piece from the magazine Science. The article covers 3 areas of scientific research (centered around anthropology since I really like Lucy). Each smaller section deals with a different scientific construct (human ancestry, genetic history, and social actions). It shows how each of the constructs is being developed however. It has a similar tone to the main article we read, authoritative, but it doesn't become dogmatic and shows the debate within fields of science. However, it treats this debate not as a question of validity but as a method for the expansion of knowledge. They aren't asking if Lucy lived. They're debating what the fossil record says about how she lived. This paper also gives a few cues on where a reader could do follow ups if they're interested about a topic. The Incomplete Education doesn't do this as well as the Science article. You are left to randomly search for information about string theory, possibly coming across bad science or total baloney regarding the topic. Whereas in the Science article you are given names and arguments that you can follow, making for more detailed searching for information.

I really enjoyed the article and I think it provides a great primer for people who don't know about science. I don't know if it will help win over fanatic opponents in some of the current debates that science has been pulled into but I do think it will help those sitting the fence at the current moment.

Repost: H.G. Wells History of Science (and religion, and art, and architecture‚ and everything else)

2009-03-14T00:59:00.000-04:00

In this chapter of his book The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind H.G Wells attempts to cover the history of culture and life in Western Civilizations from their foundations to his present day, around 1919. This book received accolades when it was first published and became one of the most popular history books of the time. Wells obviously had a view of history in this book that he felt was overlooked or ignored. It has been noted elsewherethat Wells was disgusted by the state of history education at the time and felt that better text books were needed to flesh out areas of knowledge as well as give timelines of advancement.

These thoughts are clear within the text itself, which has a heavy focus on the spread of knowledge and education as being important factors in the advancement of civilization in the West. In fact, as several points Wells comments that he doesn't have the space to really write about certain aspects of history (Joan of Arc for example) but he does devote several pages to the development of the printing press and the spread of standardized education. This difference is notable given his recorded motivations for writing the book.

I do feel that Wells' opinions on the subject matter are apparent throughout the chapter itself. Some artists and scientist are highlighted for their exploratory and brave work while others are condemned for being imitative or not daring enough. There are also omissions due to "time" pressures within the book but I feel that Wells purposely left some individuals out of "his"tory and regulated them to the dark recesses of the past. I don't know why he would chose to do such a thing, possibly he felt that their role had been played up in other books and that any readers could look elsewhere for information about them.

There are other factors where I think Wells' personal interests show through, in particular the dueling roles of science and religion in history. Overall the picture that Wells paints of religion is a harsh one at best, but this may be expected from one of the premier science fiction writers. From the beginning the actions of scientists (philosophers) were seen to be noble and expansive, broadening the lives and minds of all mankind. The role of religion was to subjugate and control, unless you chose to give up actual structured religion and instead take up with a type of religiously focused communism. Towards the middle of the chapter Wells does deal with how the end of the battle plays out and I think this is where his opinion on the matter is the most clear. The religious communes are always crushed by the higher structures, and structured religion is not toppled but regulated to a side role by science.

Considering Wells fairly radical socialistic viewpoints I think this interpretation of history is clearly how he sees it. It follows the idea of a social revolt by the religious proletariat and it's repression by the higher authorities. However, much like Marx it seems, Wells apparently feels that taking the religious path at all will cause the failure, since it is atheistic science that wins in the end. Wells saw that victory as being almost absolute. While the "old beast" of religion wasn't killed it was removed from power and made to play only a bit part in the shaping of a global society.

I don't think Wells anticipated religion's next bid into politics however. The article I submitted deals with the current battle between science and religion over the teaching of the theory of evolution. The most obvious reason why Wells missed this new front of the battle is that there wasn't even a rumble of war until 1926 and the Scopes "Monkey" trial. While Wells may have been aware of evolution at that time there was no question about which view was taught in school. The reason that this debate continues until today is because of many of the things Wells addresses, poor education being one of the primary targets. Because of the state of science education in the United States today it becomes easy for the wrong interpretation of vocabulary and general concepts to be spread and used as an argument against science. While we make sure to give the mass populace an education there isn't a focus on quality or making sure that individuals really understand. It's become more of a system of punishment and babysitting than the enlightening one Wells dreamt of. However, I think this article exemplifies many of the qualities that Wells enjoys about science.

Overall I think Wells opinions about science today would be very interesting to hear and it is a shame that we don't have his general opinions written down in a manner. Instead we must make perform the messy job of reading between the lines of his publications to find out what he thinks about science and culture.

Repost: Reaction to Bush's As We May Think

2009-03-14T00:56:00.000-04:00

As We May Think is possibly one of the more notorious scientifically aimed articles produced in the last 100 years. It has earned this place of honor by making a number of predictions about technology in the future that have turned out to be highly accurate, something that doesn't commonly occur in similar publications. While Bush's predictions make the article famous, it's his focus in this essay that makes it of particular interest to IST.

Bush is writing during a very tempestuous time in our history. 1945 saw the closing of World War II, a war that produced a loss of life on a scale that had never been considered before. But accompanying this loss of human life there was almost as high a cost in the physical destruction of property. These properties of Europe often contained historical and religious artifacts that were irreplaceable and in some cases undiscovered or explored. While knowledge of war and science would survive intact after the war, Bush saw the destruction of vast parts of the human history as something that was not only possible but also happening at a very rapid pace.

The main focus of his essay is on the ways to contain, index, and most importantly copy the whole of human knowledge. While he makes predictions about future technologies the whole focus of these technologies is to capture human knowledge and store it in a matter that is easily accessible to the scientist and eventually the common man. This becomes more apparent when Bush fully develops his concept of the Memex, a device similar to modern computers. He constantly stresses the importance of being able to replicate this information and make easily replicable additions to it. Given the focus of science that Bush saw develop in the previous years, accompanied by the massive destruction of human life and knowledge acted as a spur to Bush to suggest a new future where such knowledge is not so easily destroyed.

There is one other way that the time period of the writing influenced Bush's essay however. As We May Think is extremely optimistic in its outlook. Bush has just seen how science can aid in purposeful destruction and he just as purposely turns his eyes away from this continuation in the future. He can only see this technology as being useful or helpful for spreading knowledge and expanding thought in the future. I think it is interesting to compare Bush's optimism in this regard to Orwell's Big Brother. Both see the same future for the sum of human knowledge, it could be stored and accessed almost instantly. For Bush this is used to the benefit of human kind, allowing us to follow trails of thought and create interesting references patterns and findings. For Orwell this same process is used to systematically deny and falsify human knowledge in order to control and enslave people to a system.

Bush's predictions do bear a second mention however. His focus on the continuation of knowledge made him acknowledge faults that currently existed within the system of science. It wasn't so much an amazing ability to predict the future, as it was humility about the process of science. While Bush closed his eyes towards the possibility of destructive outcomes of his Memex he can keep them open regarding the faults of the present. By being able to step back and see the flaws of a system, like logic, allows him to see and make suggestions on how to improve it. This allowed Bush to make generalized predictions about future inventions like hypertext, digital cameras and photography, even Wikipedia.

The only flaw that Bush had was his failure to see past pure mechanization. He saw the future technologies as being the same mechanical ones that have existed in the past. There was precedent at the time for digital technologies that preceded the ones today but Bush did not pursue them. However, even this problem is addressed in the opening of his essay. He acknowledges the problems with the current system about spreading knowledge. It's possible that he may not have known about these technologies and the futures in them that were being worked out at the time.

Bush's essay is well grounded in both the time it was written but also has the knowledge and potential to inform and educate many years later. His ability to speak out of the history of his time and recognize the problems of science make his predictive powers seem uncanny.

Repost: Asimov‚ Views of Science

2009-03-14T00:50:00.000-04:00

In the first chapter of Asimov's Guide to Science, the author covers a brief history of scientific thought. In the process he also covers the basis of logic and philosophy in both their natural and theistic contexts. While this is a very brief overview, Asimov does an excellent job of covering a wide range of scientific history, managing not only to mentions the scientists themselves but also giving detailed descriptions of the discovery and their impact on society. He does this so that his readers understand why science is the way that it is today, as such it is fairly simplistic and stripped of many facts. However, it does excel at expressing it's points clearly, and in a way that is open to individuals that haven't had extensive training in either scientific knowledge or history/philosophy of science.

However, Asimov's treatment of the history of science does show several differences in thought from more modern pieces of analysis. The first that is noticeable is the fact that Asimov takes a very deterministic viewpoint when dealing with science. While much of this feeling can come from the fact that the summary of all of science requires stripping out details that show where science went wrong, there are several places where he states explicitly that he feels science has inevitably evolved to this point.

There is a meta-narrative that states that the actors (the scientists) don't really matter, if they didn't make the discovery that they did someone else would have eventually. There is also a clear point of view that past science was primitive and under-developed. Modern science is much more refined, we are much closer to perfection now than we were in the past. While Asimov talks about levels of abstraction in thought the message that he is sending is that there is an observable and objective reality that science can eventually perfectly describe. This is a viewpoint that has come under critique at the time Asimov's book was written. Paul Feyerabend as well as other philosophers of science have contested that there is no object reality and that the dichotomy, which that system of thought is based off of, is inherently flawed.

In addition to the commentary on the direction of science Asimov makes additional commentary on the social status of non-scientists. In Asimov's world, scientists exist on a higher platform. They are knowledgeable and exalted. Non-scientists are individuals that spread discontent and disinformation that must be enlightened. Raised up into the glorious realm of scientific knowledge and enlightenment. For an individual who fought against dogmatic views of religion, this view of science falls strangely close to those of fundamental Christians. By taking this view Asimov can acknowledge that there were dissenters to modern science but he doesn't have to address their point of view seriously, they simply don't know all about science yet.

Overall in his essay, humans become secondary. In the goals of science they are replacable by other scientists. In the overall social structure they are unenlightened and misguided by primitive instincts. Asimov takes very contradictory tones in his essay if one takes the time to examine what is said "between the lines". Considering the fact that Asimov was one of the foremost humanists of this century and according to his impressive literary career believed in the ability of man to survive and compete such contradictions are interesting. Unfortunately, the world has lost their chance to really find out the solution to these contradictions.

The Lost Coast

2009-03-14T00:43:00.000-04:00

I randomly decided to set this blog up instead of using the one that I have through school. Eventually, I'll be posting information about virtual worlds, PhDs, and my personal interests. I'll also make sure to import my older posts from the other blog.

Also, just randomly checked out The Lost Coast on Hulu tonight. A very interesting but sad movie. I think I depressed my husband to the point where he didn't want to do anything else.