Friday, January 23, 2004

Coming adventures in creationism...

Stay tuned. The state senate education committee had their review of the science standards today, and the reports I’ve heard make it sound like it was a real circus, with creationists of various stripes dominating the discussion. It wasn’t just Intelligent Design Creationists making their disingenuous pleas for “equal time”, but also at least one follower of Kent Hovind, a rather weird Young Earth Creationist, who ranted about evolution as a cause of immorality and venereal disease. It’s mortifying to be a Minnesotan, but I don’t think the Intelligent Design people are going to be very pleased at seeing the baggage they bring with them exposed, either.

I’ll post more details as they appear, and if anyone has any more information, pass it on to me, please!

I'm #1!

I opened up the university newspaper this afternoon, and my name jumped out at me: right there in bold print, it said I was the top-ranked professor at UMM!

Well, top-ranked professor in terms of the cost of my textbooks this term. $162.40. Second place went to a physics prof, at $150.

I feel so guilty...

Dean has my support, more than before

I caught the Howard Dean interview on television last night, and saw for the first time this “yell” thing that everyone has been making such a fuss over. I was shocked. I was horrified. But not at Dean—at the press and the pundits who have been raving over it and declaring his campaign over.

That was actually the kind of response I want my candidate to make. He came in third in Iowa, but that isn’t grounds for making a concession speech, no matter how much some people wish he would go away; Dean was being loud and uncowed and declaring his intention to continue a ferocious fight. Contrary to Dean’s own disavowal, that is being presidential, as far as I’m concerned. Yell more! We have a corrupt, ignorant, backwards-thinking administration, and we ought to be screaming bloody murder. The kind of craven weenies who whine about anger while rolling over for every Republican whim are the ones I don’t want running the show in the Democratic party, and they seem to be all we’ve got in Washington.

If you ask me, that long-winded maunder Kerry made after his victory in Iowa is more grounds for concern. If Kerry is the Democratic candidate, I’ll vote for him without hesitation...but hearing that drawn-out incoherent ramble had me worried. I think I’d be more reassured if he’d just come out and yodeled like Tarzan.

I don’t seem to be alone in this, at least. I read this lovely comment on making contact:

The incessant media attention on Howard Dean’s post-Iowa caucus showing and the effect it is no doubt having on undecided voters is depressing beyond words. It demonstrates a phenomenon in this country that I neither understand nor accept: that anger and extreme passion--especially the display of them--are inappropriate, childish, damaging to one’s reputation. I was drawn to Dean originally because ofhis angry outbursts. Here is a man, finally, who brings some much needed passion to the Democratic party, I thought. Here is a man who says what he thinks, a man who recognizes bullshit when he sees it and isn’t afraid to name it.


But Dean’s willingness to express emotions that are deemed socially inappropriate or “unpresidential” are becoming his undoing; meanwhile, a man sits in the White House who misleads the American public and squanders vast resources in a war and foreign occupation that didn’t need to occur.

Exactly how I feel.

I also like the suggestion on MaxSpeak:

On Monday, MaxSpeak proposes that we all afix a slogan to our front page voicing our own, individual choice of primal scream over the miserable failure of this Administration and Congress. Scream your defiance of the sh*ts that are ruining this country. Scream like you’ve never screamed before.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Yecke's hypocrisy

A new comment from the claque of intelligent design creationists our state education commissioner recruited on the proposed science standards:

The minority report on the science standards addressed to Minnesota Education Commissioner Cheri Yecke says that “with the exception of the treatment of evolution, we are confident these new standards will increase the quality of education for Minnesota students. However, we remain deeply concerned that the proposed standards fail to require students to learn enough information about evolution to be able to understand the theory’s weaknesses as well as its strengths. Unfortunately, this completely one-sided approach to evolution lowers the quality of science education and is more likely to polarize Minnesotans than unify them.”

At the start of the process of writing the science standards, Yecke declared that she wanted no discussion of evolution at all, because it was “too controversial”. Now she wants to claim that there isn’t enough discussion?

Republicans. The party of Stupid Ideas.

Behold, the power of cheese...

We have another guest in the house, courtesy of the Stevens County Humane Society. This is Cheddar.

Cheddar is a sad case. He was found rummaging through the dumpsters at the local grocery store, sick with the sniffles and mites and hunger, but was incredibly affectionate and readily leapt into the arms of anyone who’d pay a little attention to him. We suspect he was a happy little house kitty who was abandoned by his owner at the semester break...and he was not doing so well. He is not temperamentally inclined to manage the feral lifestyle well, and it’s been TEN to TWENTY FREAKIN’ DEGREES BELOW ZERO lately.

That’s all in the past now, though. He’s staying with us, he’s been cleaned up and given a clean bill of health by the vet (and neutered—there was a downside to his rescue, I guess), and he’s filled out well on a regular diet. Now he’s looking for someone to adopt him.

Avatars

Here’s a brilliant idea from Amy Greenwood: storing personal morphometric data to use in online shopping.

Imagine, however, that for a modest sum and the time it would take to undress only once, you could get a virtual and accurate 3D model of your own body. You could then use this avatar online to “try on” clothes. At the simplest level, your avatar would just be the collection of your volumetric measurements taken while standing by the same sort of body scanning technology used to create special effects animation for the movies. At a more sophisticated level, your avatar could include information about your coloration, range of motion, and flesh quality (i.e. jiggle factor). With a fair amount of effort, it might even look and move reasonably like you.

I’m not at all interested in the shopping for clothes aspect of the idea (I’m a guy; I’m content with loose bags of fabric that slop over my shape somehow), except in the sense that it would make a tedious and uninteresting process more efficient. I’d really like to see this technology used to regularly sample and compare physical changes as a guide to health, though. Imagine if you could get this kind of scan done as easily as stepping on a bathroom scale, and if you could archive and compare the data—you could see things like the fact that your butt is expanding and muscle mass is disappearing from your calves, and see the effects of not moving much from your office chair much more vividly. Longitudinal data like that would be extremely useful for medical care.

Realistically, though, I know where this technology is first going to appear and see regular use: games. Everyone will want an avatar that looks like themselves for first-person shooters. Well, sort of like themselves: the software will come with tweaks to automatically cinch in the waist and broaden the shoulders for guys, and since the software will probably be written by men for men, the ladies will all come out looking like Lara Croft. That data won’t be much use for buying clothes.

Snowman Evolution

This contemplative metaphysical moment brought to you by a cold day in January in Minnesota.

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

A new anti-evolutionary paradigm

Those lousy anti-evolution groups seem to spring up everywhere, but at last, there is one that actually makes sense: the Unintelligent Design Network, Inc..

...we at UDN, Inc. have found a theory that effectively merges the strengths of the two theories without the weaknesses. The intelligent design people say there are too many holes in the fossil record, and that evolution is only a theory; the scientists say there’s not enough evidence of intelligent design. So we say, instead, that life has indeed been designed, just not very well.

(via The Sixth International)

'Should I get a biology PhD?': The Quiz

My previous comments about whether you should get a PhD in biology were incomplete. There are some people who really must go to grad school in the field, no matter how stressful it is and damn the difficulties in getting a job. How do you know if you are one of those people? Here’s a little quiz to help you out.

---

PZ Myers’ Advanced Biology Aptitude Test

1. A stray dog has been killed by a car in front of your house.

1. You call the police and the ASPCA, and tell them to track down the criminals who did this.
2. You call the streets department and ask them to pick up the carcass.
3. You grab your shovel and bury the poor creature in the garden.
4. You snap on your latex gloves, grab a butcher knife and pair of pliers, and take it down the basement, where your family knows not to disturb you.

2. You’re in a hot and heavy make-out session with a person to whom you are romantically attached. How do you refer to the various organs and secretions that are subsequently unveiled?

1. Not at all. Ladies and gentlemen do not talk about such things.
2. Plainly, but respectfully, and with a little humor.
3. In Latin.
4. In Latin, in deeply fascinated detail. Hand lenses and microscopes are involved.

3. When you watch The Bride of Frankenstein, with whom do you sympathize?

1. The monster and the bride, hapless victims of amoral experimentation.
2. The villagers who suffer from the depradations of the monster.
3. Karl, the crippled laboratory assistant, who needs a new body.
4. Henry Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius, creators of a new world of gods and monsters.

4. The characteristics you look for in a family pet are:

1. Small. Cuddly. Big eyes.
2. Furry. Friendly.
3. Smart. Independent. Loyal.
4. Fangs or chelicerae. Chitin or scales.

5. Your beverage of choice is

1. beer.
2. tea.
3. coffee.
4. anything with caffeine in it, any time of day.

6. The kinds of insect you would like to collect are

1. Ick. Insects? I would never collect those. I like stamps. And coins. (-1 penalty for beanie-babies.)
2. butterflies and moths, because they are so pretty.
3. beetles and dragonflies, because they are so diverse.
4. maggots and parasites. No justification needed.

7. At Thanksgiving, when it is time to carve the turkey,

1. you defer the job to others. Cutting up meat ruins your appetite.
2. you’re first in line for a big slab.
3. you get the job, because you always do it so professionally and efficiently.
4. everyone conspires to keep you away from it. You’re just a little too keen about it, and hearing the details about muscle groups, arteries, veins and nerves ruins everyone else’s appetite. And your slices are...unconventional.

8. It’s summertime, and the gang all heads down to the swimming hole. How do you spend the afternoon?

1. Lazing in the sun, getting a tan.
2. Diving off a rock and splashing about.
3. Relaxing and savoring the beauty of the natural world.
4. Turning over rocks, collecting leeches, arthropods, and other interesting invertebrates.

9. Your idea of a romantic evening with your beloved is to

1. snuggle up and watch a video.
2. take a pleasant stroll through the park.
3. snuggle up and read books together.
4. take a pleasant stroll through the local cemetery, to observe the bats and lichens.

10. Your favorite household tools are

1. Sorry. I don’t do tools.
2. socket wrenches, hammers, screw drivers, that sort of thing.
3. torx wrenches and soldering iron.
4. It’s amazing how handy a set of dental picks and a needle-nose rongeur can be.

11. Ouch. You smash your finger in the car door.

1. You cry for help. You feel faint and can’t bear to look at your injury.
2. You drive down to the local clinic to get it looked at and bandaged.
3. You wash, debride, and bandage the injury yourself, and are diligent in caring for it until healed.
4. You make daily measurements of the progress of the injury, taking digital photos that you consider turning into a time-lapse recording. When the nail falls off, you keep it in a jar.

12. When you die, you think

1. you will be with the angels.
2. your family will be comforted with a traditional funeral.
3. your organs should be donated, to help others.
4. it would be really cool for your corpse to end up at the Body Farm, and be used for forensics research.

---

Now, give yourself 2 points for every (d) answer, 1 point for every (c), and subtract one for every (a). Here’s my career recommendation for you:

22-24: You must go on to do advanced study in biology. Your life will be meaningless and incomplete without it. And if you don’t get a degree, your neighbors will think you are just plain creepy.

16-21: Well, it’s an option. You’d probably find it rewarding, and it might correct some of your deficiencies of taste.

11-15: You don’t quite make the grade. Med school.

0-10: My father used to tell me that refrigerator repair was a lucrative career.

<0: We’re from different worlds, you and I. You shouldn’t even be asking me for advice.

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

'Should I get a biology PhD?'

Steve Krause asks a question:

"Should I get a PhD?” you ask?

He gives three answers, geared more towards the English major, and discusses them at some length. I’ll try to address it for the biology major, and only include the greatly shortened version of his answers (you know, like, go read the whole thing).

The first part is “probably not."

Sadly, I have to agree. In a perfect world, we’d be free to pursue intellectual dreams without concern for the consequences, and explore the world of ideas without concern for what comes after. Unfortunately, grad school can be an extremely painful process (but not always; I was lucky enough to have a good, supportive advisor, but it still wasn’t exactly a bed of roses), and the job market afterwards is ghastly.

Also, if you have to ask, it probably isn’t for you.

So here’s the second part of the answer: before you get yourself into a PhD program, go get a job for a year or two.

I have mixed feelings about this. It’s a good idea if you think you might not be cut out for grad school, but only because you might find something better to do with your life and end up not going to grad school at all (see answer #1).

On the other hand, if you are excited about biology and want to do biology, don’t waste time, plunge in. It is very rare to get a job really doing biology without some kind of advanced degree. Taking a job before grad school usually means not doing anything related to biology...which is not a good thing for a biologist.

I would also add that going into academia means deferring lots of things as it is—you’re going to spend 4-6 years in grad school, another handful of years as a postdoc, and then if you’re lucky, you’ll land a job and spend a bunch more years working towards tenure. It takes a long time to get where you’re going, and putting it off for another year or two to work on something else just means you’ll be a year or two closer to geezerhood by the time you get through the process.

The third part to my answer is you should realize that the laws of supply and demand apply to English departments and PhD studies. Or here’s another way of putting it: there are way too many people with PhDs in literature and way too few positions to go around.

I don’t think there is any field of science with a deficiency of PhDs. Not only will you have trouble landing a position, but once you do, you’re going to be working for cheap.

I would add that another important issue is the matter of family. It isn’t unusual to find yourself doing the academic dance, marching all over the country chasing down jobs, and if you’ve got roots somewhere, they are definitely going to be ripped up. My roots are all in Seattle, and if I’d realized I’d have to move to Utah, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota before I’d be able to settle down in my forties, I know I would have had second thoughts. Marriages are also going to be subject to some harsh stresses in this whole mess, too, especially if that significant other is also an academic, as often happens. Kids? I’ve had to yank mine out of schools and away from friends to move them a thousand miles away a couple of times.

This is a cruel, cruel business.

Pharyngula

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