Thursday, September 5, 2002

Salon has a nice piece on the potential social and geopolitical consequences of global warming. It does not follow the same tract that E.O. Wilson has been talking about for the past decade, but focuses on the rapidly diverging realities of life between those who are currently causing the greatest climatic impact and the poor of the world. At some point things start to give and the non-sustainablity that the biological community stress begins to manifests itself. This can be through social pressures and/or plagues and other terribly unpleasant events. Glenn Scherer focuses on increased terrorism as a likelyhood (which seems reasonable as the currrent wave of modern terrorism seems to have built itself on the "success" of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Groups with few choices sit up and notice what works.) This is only available to those with a paid subscription to Salon - something that I recommend. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/09/05/warming/index.html 6:59:54 AM     Yesterday I received the following piece from five people: "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.... And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." It was variously ascribed to Caesar and Shakespeare but I have never come across it (I'm reasoanbly familiar with Sharkespeare and would have remembered something like that. I also seem to remember (but am not sure) that a Caesar did not refer to himself as "Caesar." So I did a search of "Anthony and Cleopatra" and "Julius Caesar' online as well as from a CD of the works of Shakespeare that we have... nothing ... I then started poking around on the web and found the quote on numerous right wing sites as well as some very liberal sites. Somehow the piece manages to be inspiring to both groups. One could imagine a Shakespeare doing something like it (although the wording seems suspect), so it works. I must say I agree with the message, but where did it come from? Very strange -- a meeting of the right and the left... There needs to be much more dialog within and among the various political factions. Todd Gitlin has a nice piece in today's Times. We need to see more of this from other corners. A thoughtless and blind following of Mr Bush would be evidence that terrorism has won. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/05/opinion/05GITL.html 5:47:15 AM     MacWorld has a nice interview with The Woz. Anyone interested in the early development of home computers will be interested. He has a reputation for being an intuitive engineer with a passion for simplicity of design. http://www.macworld.com/2002/10/macbeat/woz.html 5:23:59 AM     Those of you who are using Mac OS X may be interested in Ken Bereskin's blog http://radio.weblogs.com/0100676/ It turns out that Ken is the OS X product manager at Apple. His blog has information that may not turn up elsewhere.. 5:23:31 AM     In light of powerful people being scientifically illiterate - Mr Bush's recent appointment of Fitzsimmons to Interior shows an appalling lack of sense on the part of appointer as well as the appointee - one would think that raising scientific literacy may be important . http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134526256_interior31.html Someone pointed out yet another article on fixing science/math/technology education in the US... http://news.com.com/2010-1071-956077.html Some of the points are good, but I am of the belief that a few things are fundamentally broken. Somehow an effort is made to discourage kids from curiosity by making the subjects boring. Mix in the belief that "math and science are hard and only doable if you have the right genes" and life becomes tough somewhere in middle school. The fact that schools are now being turned into test score tweaking factories would seem to increase the probability of discouraging curiosity. Folks who have PhDs in the physical sciences cite interesting science presentations when they were young (it is amazing how often the American Museum of Natural History comes up) followed by interesting articles in the media about current developments. This would lead into involvement in some amateur way .. trusting parents, mentors, etc. who didn't mind the occasional explosion, bad smell or basement full of ozone. Thirty years ago it was very easy to come by the makings of simple apparatus that a teenager could build on their own. It can still be done, but microelectronics can force an abstraction that may shield the kids from getting fundamental knowledge (not in all cases, and you can make arguments that it allows kids to go much further, but I still feel the effect is negative). Most kids get their information from TV rather than print (the Internet has not changed this!) With a few exceptions, TV does a poor job of explaining science compared with some of the better newspapers, magazines and books. I don't watch much TV, but have the sense that scientists are rarely portrayed as what they really are and the sense of what science is rarely comes across. People like Leon Lederman (somewhat of a maverick who, at the same time, has been splashed with Swedish Holy Water) argue for major changes in the curriculum as well as the presented image of what science is. Leon has been at this for fifteen years with little to show for on a national scale despite remarkable local successes. At the demand end another problem exists. Ph.D. physicists are trained to analyze complex systems, but tend to be underemployed and, as companies abandon research and long term development, unemployed. (if you know of opportunities for folks with Ph.D.s in Physics who are un/underemployed, I can supply a list of excellent talent). There are some enormous problems out there where this background might be useful - even crucial, but very little coupling of talent to the problems. I am very negative on seeing any major change unless there is something like a Sputnik event. There are a few bright spots, but they tend to be very local. Science is a wonderful thing for the curious and anyone can participate as an amateur. It is rare in comparison to most hobbies, but can be enormously satisfying. In some fields amateurs are an important part of moving towards a deeper understanding. A great place for aspiring amateurs to start is the Society for Amateur Scientists. http://www.sas.org/ Great people, a great leader and links to information. They have just received a donation of a pile of used equipment from Brown University which is currently available for bid. I can't recommend this organization highly enough. At the very least join to support a noble cause. Astronomy is another area where amateurs continue to make fundamental contributions. The connections between the amateur and professional communities are strong enough that a portion of Hubble observation time (as well as many ground based observatories) is available to serious amateurs. A good place to get started, or to enjoy regular news in the field, is with a subscription to Sky and Telescope. As a teenager S&T and Scientific American were fantastic inspirations (The Amateur Scientist conducted by C.L. Strong in particular). 5:23:03 AM

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