Mountebank Blog

For those of us who thought we were immune from anti-science interference in school curricula here in the blue states, a sad surprise.

The NCSE (among many others) reports on Assembly Bill 8306, introduced last week in the New York State Assembly. The bill will amend the state’s education law to require the teaching of “intelligent design” along with evolution in the state’s schools. The official bill summary claims that

The purpose of this bill is to assure that all theories regarding the existence of man, the universe and all it contains, are being taught to students in publicly funded schools by requiring that they teach both theories of intelligent design and evolution in their curriculums, and that all aspects of the theories, along with any supportive data, be examined.

Of course, this is dishonest on its face, since “intelligent design” is not a theory, and teaching it alongside evolution, which is a theory (under the scientific definition of that term) is hardly the same as assuring that “all” theories (under whatever definition you choose) are taught.

And the dishonesty continues in the bill’s justification:

The basic rule of science is to evaluate and examine all theories rather than to present just one. Teaching just one theory can inadvertently result in that theory being looked at as an absolute truth.

I’ll ignore the barely literate prose of this (“…that theory being looked at…”)–it is, after all, a bill, not sonnet. But just looking at the attempt at logic is enough to spin my head. The bill’s true purpose is right there–to promote an idea that evolution is somehow “not true.” And to present “intelligent design” as an alternative. But even if we accept that “intelligent design” is a theory, testable, and worthy of study in a science class, I can’t see how even an ideologue of the worst stripe would be able to claim that presenting two theories is the same as presenting “all theories.”

Of course, speaking of ideologues of the worst stripe, the whole thing becomes a bit more clear when we notice (as NCSE does) that the author and sponsor of this bill, Daniel L. Hooker (R–did you have even a moment’s uncertainty about that?), also recently introduced bills that would, if enacted, permit the display of the Ten Commandments on public buildings and grounds, declassify sexual orientation from civil rights status, and prohibit the solemnization of same-sex marriages. All, all, of a piece. His stripe is as clear and as broad and as bad as can be.

The bill has approximately zero chance of ever passing, or even making it out of committee. But that it would even be proposed is not at all a good sign.

PC Magazine runs a humorous last page (“backspace”) in every issue. It’s usually a bunch of funny misprints and typos, or photos of road signs, or other silly little chuckles. In this month’s issue (May 24, 2005), they decided to run a “Special Event: Bountiful Bonanza of Blogs.” The premise was set up this way.

Is blogging really the new journalism? Is mainstream media truly obsolete? We browsed through hundreds of blogs hosted at Blogger.com to judge for ourselves. Here are some highlights:

And then they posted the usual collection of silly blog entries–teenagers ordering new CDs, thoughts on dead skunks, “what I ate today,” and so forth. The piece was intended, apparently, to show how inane and insipid most blogs (contrary to “new journalism” claims) really are. A bit of sour grapes from a mainstream media outlet–no big deal.

But one of the entries they included was this:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Except PC Magazine did not attribute this passage (from the “Notebooks of Lazarus Long”) to Heinlein at all. They just attributed it to “About a Guy.” Now, maybe the unattributed quote (we call it “plagiarism“) orginates with “About a Guy.” But, as it turns out, there doesn’t seem to even be a blog by that name with that passage at blogger.com.

And, for pity’s sake, a very simple Google search, which one would think PC Magazine could manage, would have demonstrated right away that this passage has an author, a well-known and respected author, who has a right to be cited when he’s quoted!

UPDATE: To his credit, Don Wilmott responded very promptly when I emailed him about this:

Thanks for the heads up. Heinlein has many fans out there! We’ll be sure to give credit in an upcoming issue (the blogger obviously didn’t). I’m not too familiar with Heinlein so I didn’t catch it.

Don Willmott
PC Magazine

I guess he got more than a few of these gentle reminders! 🙂

Wednesday I was listening to an interesting show on Chicago Public Radio’s “Odyssey.” It’s a good program, and this episode, on “The Ghost in American Culture” (audio available here), featured interviews with Renee Bergland (Associate Professor of English at Simmons College) and Jeffrey Weinstock (Assistant Professor of Language and Literature, Central Michigan University). They both had some interesting things to say, and Weinstock in particular made some good points about the ideological work ghosts do in American literature, historically and in the present (I’d like to take a look at Spectral America: Phantoms and the American Imagination, which he edited).

But at one point in the conversation, Renee Bergland referred to the “Indian burial ground” theme (asking, “I have a house for sale, but it’s on an Indian burial ground. Are you interested in buying?”). It’s a very common theme, I don’t dispute that at all, but she went on to say that this was a device which Stephen King had used many times. I think she said “specializing.”

That claim is just not right. Stephen King has almost never used the Indian burial ground…in fact, the only time I can think of is in the (relatively minor and unsuccessful) Pet Sematary–and that’s not even a use of the theme in the way that Bergland meant.

It’s fine (and a good idea) for academics to connect their study of “canonical” literature to popular culture–I do it all the time. But if we can’t get it right–if we haven’t at least read Stephen King well enough, and respectfully enough, to make the connections accurate, then we’re really better off sticking with Hawthorne and Henry James.

It’s a bit embarassing to be so far wrong, but a year later I finally discovered that the lovely bug I found last summer was not even close to what I thought it was. I was thinking some kind of leafhopper (of which there are many, some colored just as nicely), but it turns out I was way, way, off. It’s not even a homoptera of any kind, not even a beetle at all. I was looking at the pictures again, as I assembled some albums for the new flickr photo album, and I realized those antennae were awfully long–way too long for it to be a leafhopper. Then I started looking around, and found a very similar plate in the Peterson’s Guide. The “ermine moth” (yponomeutidae). A little internet sleuthing, and I’ve got a definite ID.

It’s an Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva Punctella)–which makes perfect sense, because we’ve got plenty of Ailanthus growing here in Brooklyn.

I thought I was a better observer than that–the differences between lepidoptera and homoptera should be apparent even to my casual eye. In my own defense, I could say that I didn’t capture or kill (much less dissect) the little guy, but I looked at him closely enough to take those photos–you’d think I’d realize that he was a moth, not a hopper!

Better late than never, I guess. 😳

According to Science Blog, two former Cornell entomologists have named three new species of slime mold beetles (g. Agathidium) for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

The incident reminds me of a very similar scene in The Nutmeg of Consolation. Stephen Maturin visits Thomas Stamford Raffles (the lieutenant governor-general of Java):

‘I am about to achieve immortality [he tells Raffles]. Mr. Sowerby intends to name a nondescript plant after me.’
‘There’s glory for you!’ cried Raffles. ‘May we look at it?’
Stephen broke the seal, and from several layers of specimen-paper inside the letter he drew a flower and two leaves.
‘I have never seen it before,’ said Raffles, gazing at the dirty brown and purple disc. ‘It has a superficial resemblance to a stapelia, but of course it must belong to an entirely different family.’
‘Sure, it smells like some of the more fetid stapelias too,’ said Stephen. ‘Perhaps I should move it to the window-sill. He found it growing as a parasite on the glabrous bugwort. These viscid tumescent leaves with inward-curling margins incline me to think that it is also insectivorous.’ They considered the plant in silence, breathing as it were sideways, and then Stephen said ‘Do you think the gentleman may have had some satirical intent?’

I have to ask the same question of the two entomologists! 😉 Although they protest, with completely straight faces, that their intent was nothing of the kind…I still have to wonder.

If so, if satire was the intent….then bravo, Doctors Miller and Wheeler! 🙂