FAIR WARNING TO READERS

I had an incident today, and there's a possibility that it may affect my blog. During my 7th period class, two young 'ladies' began brawling in the front of my class, and in the process knocked over my podium, broke a stapler (one threw it as the other) and (tripping all over the power cords) unseated the video card in my computer. I'm trying to run it now, but it's looking creaky. I may need a new monitor, or a new video card, or both.

As a precaution (who knows what else might have happened during the melee) I'll bring in a portable hard drive to back up my main drive on my school computer later this week. In the event that there is a failure, I'll be able to get the blog up and running with an older Windows XP computer that I've kept around for such an eventuality, but I might be out of action for 2-3 days.

Otherwise, don't worry. And yes, for the record, those girls will not be back in my class again, ever. I feel sorry for them, especially (ironically) the girl who provoked the conflict, but that's the way it's going to have to be. It's a shame that, in order to effect that, I'll probably have to threaten high dungeon and bring in the union, etc. but I can't have anyone who does anything like that in a science classroom. Thank God that this didn't happen during a lab with glass or flame. In my world, it's safety first, social engineering a distant second.

VOX DEI-BATE #14: COMMUNICATION GAP

In my previous post, I waxed at length about why I felt that Vox's impression of how the scientific community actually operates missed the boat. A lot of his sympathetic readership felt my post missed the boat, and felt it was largely bloviated excuse-making. To those folk, I would say this: if you think the distinctions I raised in that post are irrelevant, I invite you to explain why you feel that way here. Of, if you don't understand why scientists might feel those distinctions matter, then you need to try harder, frankly. I'm just saying.

Now, on to the exchange. I don't see any purpose in belaboring Vox's admission that he misread the Lejeune example that we've been discussing. It is a mark of his intellectual integrity that he would acknowledge his momentary misstep, and that he would take steps to get up to speed. Many of my critics referenced in the above paragraph could learn from his example.

I also want to say that Vox is one-hundred percent dead-on right when he notes: ".... that if scientists wish to be understood by anyone but other scientists, they have simply got to stop saying the equivalent of "I predicted the results would be A, the results were X, so therefore my prediction was correct", ESPECIALLY when trying to explain things to those who can't possibly be expected to know the jargon."

Well, right on. Science, and particularly biology, has become more complex by orders of magnitude since the genetic code was determined. The requisite level of technical expertise now needed to parse even general review articles in the literature is often beyond the ability of non-specialists to absorb without serious research. The truth is, scientists increasingly struggle to communicate with each other, much less the general public.

It might interest Vox and his readership to know that real scientists are aware of the problem. Scientists like Ken Miller, whose presentation on this topic featured heavily in a previous post, has gone on the record with this blunt assessment:

Speaking on what specifically the scientific community could do to fight this, Miller said it must change its attitude, particularly paying attention to public issues such as that in Cobb County and helping to educate the general public. "Frankly, we suck at popularizing science," he said.

That, in a nutshell, is why I think it is important for science educators to engage the public in non-traditional fora such as this. That is why people like me should seek out well-spoken folk outside of the scientific community, including (gasp!) those with religious convictions, and engage them on the science. I'm going to continue to do that, because I think for those of you who are on the fence, there is much to be gained by considering the views of others.

In my next post, I'll discuss the question Vox raises as to the number of genomic predictions and the nature of those predictions, which in the main are eliminative. The failure of scientists to communicate the fact that much of science is eliminative in character can be shown in that only a very small percentage of high school science students can evaluate a hypothesis, so we will discuss that, as well.

REPOST: BEHIND THE CURTAIN

PREVIOUSLY POSTED

Well, as anyone who's been following this blog knows, a lot of it has to do with supporting science education, and (which dovetails nicely) criticizing the attempts of those, such as creationists, who seek to undermine good science. One could easily get the impression that I'm one of them there Godless 'evilutionists'. But I'm not. Like a lot of people, I'm a theist who accepts the powerful evidence in support of 'Darwin's dangerous idea.'

That's not to say, however, that I regard science as just another way of "proving" my beliefs. I think it's dishonest to pretend that science can rue definitively on such questions one way or the other, and it's almost as cheesy to blithely intone that science and religion agree, or that there are no points of conflict. Yet this is the sort of mantra that we hear a lot from either side of the divide between science and religion, and it seems to be the way that the majority of folk in this country desperately want the issue to be couched. They like their science, and they love their faith, and they want to keep both---and the idea that there might be some irresolvable impasse bothers them. Better, many of them think, to hush that up.

And so, I have great admiration for anyone, scientist or otherwise, who in a spirit of inquiry openly entertains honest doubt about faith, Gods, religion, etc. Some of those folk might be interested in reading about items of faith, and some won't. I don't want to bore or alienate my fellows who fit in the last category, but one of my motives for starting this blog was to explore where this tension between faith and reason might lead me! With that in mind, I'm proposing a new category: "Behind The Curtain."

Those of you who are interested will soon learn to look for posts with the prefix BTC. Those who can do very well without faith-head talk can learn to avoid same. I hope those skeptics who do choose to read it, however, will feel free to comment and keep my feet to the fire.