CelestialFamily

I think science is very cool. I’m not talking about technology or any of the applications of what science has discovered. Sure airplanes are cool. MRI machines are cool and on and on, but what I’m talking about is the process of science. I’m fascinated by the fact that human beings have developed a process that we can learn test and get answers to things that we didn’t understand before we started.
I reject the popular concept of scientists as just a bunch of know-it -alls sitting around gloating about everything that they already know. As Tyson said in my post the other day, “If you aren’t at the drawing board every day you aren’t in the game!” Science isn’t the list of facts that we collect it’s the process for learning those facts.
In Junk Science: How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us By Dan Agin Ph. D., Agin shows many of the ways that science gets perverted by politicians, the media, religious leaders and the scientists themselves. The book is very thorough and covers many of the recent popular scientific discoveries and media controversies. Agin gives his take on what real science is behind the discoveries and then explains where and when those involved went from real science to bad science and then to junk science.
He make clear distinctions too. In order for it to be called real science it has to follow all of the rules. It puts away presuppositions, uses strict controls to avoid unintentionally biasing the results, is open and encourages others to duplicate their process and find any mistakes, and many other things. Bad science is frequently just when some of those protocols and procedures get sloppy. If the input gets sloppy the output can no longer be trusted.
Most of the book focused on the last category, junk science. All too frequently people with agendas other than honest discovery use a process that some observers mistake for science. My daughter gets a kick out of these so-called Ghost Hunters who walk around with insterments they don't really know how to use and then when something, anything happens that they don't understand they call it, "something significant". Sometimes these people have financial motives for going to the dark side(Andrew Wakefield and the Anti-vaccination movement) sometimes religious motives (Michael Behe and the Discovery Institiute) and frequently political motives (the Global Warming denialists). But regardless of their motives they all too frequently start with their conclusion and then look for evidence to prove it. This is backwards. With this attitude they are no longer doing science. They are doing junk science.
Again believes as I do that science deserves more respect than it gets in the public perception. I worry that in many ways we are going backwards. We are allowing religion and politics to define and even to trump science. I think that all three can have a place in a civilized society. I have no problem with a civilized debate on how to respond to a scientific discovery. But let’s not corrupt the science or deny it just because it may not be morally or politically what we’d like to do.
Science is just now starting to understand some processes that may have profound impacts on humanity. Stem cell research, for instance. Now I understand many of the ethic and moral concerns that have been raised by those opposing it. I agree that this should be the subject of vigorous debate. But leave the science alone. It stands outside the debate and should not be a part of it. Years ago doctors discovered a link to testosterone and hair loss. Identical twins where one had been castrated and the other had not the intact twin lost his hair and the castrated twin did not. Now is anybody recommending castration as a way to stop hair loss? Not that I’m aware of. You see in that case we had the science and we understood it. But we simply chose not to act upon it for social, political, or ethical reasons. But the science was not corrupted to make the arguments. In my opinion we need to have similar respect for the science behind many of the issues that are happening today. We can’t even begin to have a decent political discussion on global warming because so much effort is being spent on denying the science. The same goes for stem cells and several other top hot button issues. Let’s take the first step and accept the science as valid. Then we can have an honest discussion about how to react to the discoveries or even if we need to react at all.
It took me a while to get through this book, primarily because it is so thorough. I have no criticism at all of his points or his logic. If you’d like to read more on this subject I’d recommend reading Voodoo Science by Robert Park first. It isn’t quite as though but it’s easier to read and covers many of the same themes. Then come back and read Junk Science.

"In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness."
Carl Sagan

Dan Brown is somehow able to put nicotine into print. His books are just like cigarettes, repetitive, predictable, bad for your brain and yet somehow incredibly addicting. His latest book The Lost Symbol continues this theme. If you’ve read any of his books you’ve read them all. He just changes a few of the specific details and sticks the same plot onto each new scene. Just like The Magnificent Seven was just a remake of Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai all of Brown’s books are just remakes of the previous in slightly different settings.
Here are few of the details that you need to write a Dan Brown book:
1. A gorgeous and brilliant lead female. It is also important that she be single and have suffered a serious family loss at the expense of another character in the story. She must be deeply involved in a fringe scientific pursuit.
2. A professorial type male lead character to run around and explain what’s going on to the female lead. Once he describes this character in his turtleneck, chinos and Harris tweed flip to the dust jacket and look at the picture of Brown in his turtleneck, chinos and Harris tweed.
3. A loner psychopathic killer who has some disturbing physical characteristics, full body tattoos, self mutilations albinism, etc.
4. A fatherly mentor to the main characters who has some serious skeletons in his closet.
5. A treasure hunt that involves running around a famous city while being chased by government entities that do not quite agree with each other.
6. An obligatory page at the front stating a few things about the book that are fact. It helps if you imply that even more things are fact. So you could say that a group called The Flat Earth Society actually exists and then push the bounds of this statement my insinuating that their claims are also true.
7. Throw in a couple horrendous torture scenes of old men. This is a very common theme too.

I could go on for quite a while but I think you get the point. His books are hardly original from one to the next. I was barely introduced to the bad guy in this book before I’d figured out who he was and what his motivation was. The rest of the book was just an exercise to get it over and see if I was correct. I really enjoyed reading the first couple of his books but now they have gotten so repetitive that I just don’t want to bother with them anymore. I’m actually upset with myself for taking so much time out to read it. I’ve put other, much better books on the back burner to get this one back to the library sooner and I wish I hadn’t.
Brown did manage to throw in a few things to annoy me even more than normal. The factual and continuity errors were completely over the top in The Lost Symbol.
Most glaring was his full moon. As an astronomy geek this was particularly annoying. He describes the full moon as being directly overhead and shining straight down through a window in the middle of a ceiling and lighting up an alter in the middle of the floor. This can only happen if that building were in the tropics or very close to it, not in Washington D.C. Then he describes the same thing happening three weeks later. Never in history has a full moon followed the previous one by only three weeks. This takes, by definition one month.
In another scene he describes how the light from the moon breaks into a dark room and was so bright it was about to reveal a characters position to the enemy. Yet when they get outside a few seconds later he describes how dark it is and the difficulties they have even walking across a parking lot. Which is it Dan? Is it bright or not?
Brown takes a whole chapter to describe the construction of a special lab that is electrically, magnetically and every other possible way shielded from outside energy sources so they could study Noetic science. Yet countless times characters make and receive cell phone calls in the same lab. Go figure. I thought all the talk about shielding was foreshadowing and building up suspense for a later scene when the cell phones wouldn’t work, but he seems to have forgotten about shielding the lab. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I had a hard time enjoying a book that has science as a major theme if he wasn’t even going to try to get the science correct.
I recently heard a lecture given by Jennifer Ouellette. She is a science advisor to Hollywood. She acts as a liason between script writers and the actual science that they are writing about. I find it very refreshing that with the success of show like NCIS, Bones and House that actual fact-based science is marketable. Getting the science right actually sells better than having to make things up or rely on psudeoscience. Its too bad that Brown hasn't caught on to this trend yet and makes no attempt to understand how our universe really operates and yet has to rely on Noetic science and other hocus pocus to tell his story.

The Lost Symbol was a disappointment. Brown has gotten lazy. He knows that people will buy and read it either way so why take the effort to make it a really good book. He just pasted his standard plot onto a new city and a different secret society.

In the last decade or so there has been a carefully orchestrated attack on expertise. Little by little those who knew what they were talking about were marginalized. If a graduate degree holder gives his opinion on an issue well within the scope of his training he is called an elitist. In school board hearings we are told that “Somebody has to stand up to these experts”
Rather than cast our vote for the candidate we think is the most qualified we’ve been encouraged to vote for the candidate we’d most like to sit down and have a beer with. As if being down home and an “Ordinary Joe” is a qualification for higher office. Scientists who know what they are talking about are marginalized simple because they are experts. Doctors are accused of being tools of “big pharma” and patients are turning to modern day witch doctors and celebrities for their advice. Never before in our history has being an expert been viewed as a liability. It’s as if the jocks of the world gained power and decided that the geeks and the nerds didn’t deserve to participate because they knew too much. We used to be a meritocracy. People who worked to be expert in their fields gained higher positions and more respect. Now we label them elitist and marginalize their advice as if their expertise itself disqualifies them.
I just started reading Charlie Pierce’s Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. When we check books out form the library they give us a little receipt that is roughly 3”x5” that tell us when the book is due. I typically use the same receipt as a bookmark as I read. Victoria has taken to tearing little pieces of the receipt off and using these scraps to mark the interesting parts of the book. Up until know I’ve avoided this technique. But I’m already had to mark several passages of this book and I’m only a few chapters in. I may need to get more scraps of paper because my bookmark is getting really small already.
Pierce is really funny. But you can tell that his humor is his coping mechanism. He’s upset. He’s seriously bothered at the tremendous steps our country has been taking backwards in the last few decades. He makes you laugh with the way he describes the situation before us but the laughter is followed shortly by shame for having taken it so lightly. Because, sadly, he’s right.
In our world where everybody has a blog and everybody is an expert, nobody is. The views of Stephen Hawking are put on an equal footing with any crank on the internet who claims that the world is flat. The view of a hysterical mother are promoted on Oprah as if her discoveries have completely overturned science and the doctors who really understand the disease are only allowed to ask questions from the crowd. We treat everybody’s equal right to have an opinion as if it means that all opinions stand on equal footing. Not true at all. Some opinions deserve to die so that those based on fact and evidence can live on.
Pierce describes our awakening from this state as if describing the first glimpse of lucidity after a hangover wears off:
"This is that moment in the hangover in which you discover that your keys are in your hat, the cat is in the sink, and you attempted late the previous night to make stew out of a pot holder. Things are in the wrong place. Religion is in the box where science used to be. Politics is on the shelf where you thought you left science the previous afternoon. Entertainment seems to have been knocked over and spilled on everything. " (p.30)
Pardon my pessimism, but I think his description is a bit premature. I feel like most of America is still hung-over and quite a few are still enjoying the party and not even thinking about the consequences yet. I’ll give a complete review when I’ve read the whole book. So far Idiot America has been a hilarious yet humbling read.

As most of my readers will know, I really enjoy exploring issues of science, politics and religion. I particularly enjoy looking into where they overlap. Some of the best books I have read are on exactly this subject. Whether fiction or non-fiction I enjoy seeing how different characters balance these sometimes conflicting priorities in their lives.
With this in mind I was really apprehensive about Ron Howard’s film adaptation of Dan Brown’s book Angels and Demons. The book was very well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It seemed that each and every character in the book had a slightly different way of balancing science and religion in their lives. New details that were revealed in the process of the story unfolding forced these characters to have to reevaluate their decisions. How each of those characters responded to this problem was what gave depth and reality to the book. It was a very cerebral book.
As many others have pointed out, Brown does take a very liberal interpretation of what he refers to as facts. As he did in The DaVinci Code and all of his books he frequently twists the facts a little to make the codes and mysteries in his story work. I don’t really have a problem with this as long as he doesn’t claim that those details are facts. Brown does claim that those details are facts and it gets the church and others outraged and just draws publicity to the book. I enjoyed his books as fiction and something to provoke thought and further research but they are fiction so I’m not going to get too hung up on those details.
Anyway, I was apprehensive about seeing the movie because I really was unimpressed with Howard’s interpretation of The Davinci Code. Now I’m not one of those who gets all upset just because every detail and nuance of a book that takes days to read isn’t spelled out in a two hour movie. I understand the differences and the strengths of both mediums and I enjoy them both. Although I typically enjoy reading the book better than the movie I have seen a few movie versions that I enjoyed even better than the books. Jurassic Park and Contact are the first two that come to mind.
I just thought that Howard left out far too much of Angels and Demons. The depth of each character in the book was defined by how they responded to their internal conflict regarding the balance of science and religion. The movie avoided this conflict completely with most characters and only hinted at it with one or two. Sure the chase through Rome to find the killer was a good action story but without the internal struggles of the main characters you didn’t understand or even care why the chase was important. One of the main characters in the book was a prominent scientist who you suspected may have even been the one behind the murders was left out of the movie all together. His internal struggle and ultimately his decision to assist the church was one of the more dramatic character conflicts in the book. I have no idea why he was wholesale written out of the movie as well as nearly all of the other character’s internal struggles.
In the movie and in the book you really grow to love one character who comes across very likable and reasonable. At the end of the book his positive attributes are rewarded. However in the movie adaptation this character does not get the same reward. I can see no reason at all to make this change in the movie. It would have cost no extra film time and would have been a nice way to reward a likable character.
I've seen a few book to movie conversions where I liked the movie much better. This just wasn't one of them. I wish I’d have waited for the DVD.

I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. I particularly like stories where the science is as correct as possible. Don’t get me wrong, Star Wars was fun but it’s hardly scientifically plausible. The best you could call it would be science fantasy. My favorite science fiction author is Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke’s stories are rooted in hard science. In his stories you understood the rules. He didn’t defy the laws of physics to tell his story. He worked with them. Rather than being a limitation his strict philosophy made the stories easier to understand and added much more depth than if he had just invented magical ideas like warp drive or light sabers to tell his story. I’ve heard some friends criticize Clarke saying that the science got in the way of the story. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. In Clarke’s stories the story was just a way to express his love of science. With Clarke the science was the ultimate goal.
I’ve just finished reading another book that reminded me a lot of Clarke because of the strict adherence to real science. Death from the Skies by Phil Plait Ph.D is not even disguised as a fiction book. Phil is a real astronomer and the proprietor of one of my favorite blogs, badastronomy. The book is a real science book. Phil goes chapter by chapter to describe the myriad of ways that the universe is out to destroy us and he does not miss a single detail.
The thing that made me think of Clarke as I read it was the interesting vehicle he used to introduce each new concept. At the beginning of each chapter Phil adds a three or four page fictional story of the world as we know it coming to an end. Each story is different from the next and unrelated to the previous. In one life on Earth is destroyed by a solar flare. In another it’s aliens. In another it’s a gamma-ray burster. It was really a fun way to grab your interest and keep you reading through the rest of the details.
Phil is a great writer. His funny personality and childlike love of astronomy comes across on every page. Nowhere does the book become tedious.
In spite of the doom and gloom title this is a very upbeat and positive book. Yes all of the dangerous events described in the book are theoretically possible, however most are extremely improbably. And the most probable scenarios may even be preventable and he goes into great detail how we could do it. You won't finish this book and be afraid to go outside. On the contrary, I felt even more of a desire to go outside, stare at the stars and ponder the possibilities.
I really enjoyed this book. If you’re considering picking up a science fiction book please consider Death from the Skies. No question the science will be better and you’ll be educated and entertained as well.

Please also check of Phil's blog.

My mom was requested to play at Camp Creek by Eve's former preschool teacher, Crystal. Crystal now does Read Across America, so she read a story, then my mom explained about the Highland Pipes, the Shuttle Pipe, the chanter, and the history of the Georgia tartan. She performed for Eve, Noah and Rachel's classes and a group of 2nd graders and kindergartners that she didn't have a grandchild in attendance. Here she is playing for Eve's class:

She played classics and a newer composition by Sir Paul McCartney.

::::::::Another Noahism:::::::

We took Rachel to Fernbank Natural History Museum to do a memory study for Emory University's Bauer Research Center. Since we had a family pass we took the rest of the kids. I went up to the Member Service counter and presented my identification to the young man behind the counter to get our tickets. Noah came up to stand next to me and asked the the man, "Hello Sir, but could you tell me if your necklace is metamorphic, igneous or sedimentary rock?" The poor guy looked shocked and befuddled, then he said, "It's a citrine." So Noah asked, "So what is a citrine?" The guy responded, "I don't know. It's just a citrine."


Michael took Aaron, Noah and Eve around to the different exhibits, while I went with Rachel and the researcher around Fernbank. Rachel was given a digital camera to take different photographs of things in the facility. She was assigned some specific items to photograph and sometimes she was allowed to take some of her choice. She had to take 3 photos of each thing because they said the image would process in her memory better that way. She kept commenting on the dead bird exhibits and that she wouldn't photograph any animals private parts. She believes in "Privacy".
After the researcher was finished with Rachel we joined the others to play in the hands on exhibits. The kids really love to make giant bubbles.

Rachel went to the research lab on Tuesday and they put the cap on her head that would allow them to monitor her brain waves. They put her in a room and gave her a thing that was like a computer game controller because they figured that apparatus would be easiest for computer savvy kids to operate. She was having a little bit of a learning. So they took a little more time to explain how to use it to her. Michael said he explained that she didn't play computer games much, that she liked to read a lot. They asked what she was reading. She told them, Pride and Prejudice, also Johnny Tremain. The researchers then put her in a dark room and displayed photographs, some were hers and some not, to see how and where her brain responded. We love science!

:::::::::::::::Parent/Teacher Conferences Begin::::::::

Michael and I went tonight to conferences for Rachel and Noah. I don't think I've walked away so at ease for the progress of two of my kids. The best news is that Rachel's teacher is now cancer free!!! All the parents clapped and cried for her. We really are pleased at the rapport she has with the her class. She is such a fantastic teacher and she tries to keep the bar raised, so the kids really achieve and stretch. Rachel scored well on all of her tests, but could use some help with fractions.


I had to run up after 10 minutes to make my appointment with Noah's teacher. I was surprised that all she had to say was good stuff. She said he has matured and really works hard to turn in assignments on time. His reading tests for the accelerated reader program are showing he is reading at grade level. His other tests show he needs improvement in punctuation, capitalization and another grammar area. He was outstanding in every other area, so my little man with poor fine motor skills is really coming along.

:::::::::::This Morning::::::::


Another Noah story. Noah decided he didn't want to watch morning programs on PBS, or play on the computer. He wanted to create circuit that he had made with Michael before. He said it wouldn't take long because there were only 11 steps. He called me in after a few minutes because he said he couldn't find the right resistor. He had a code that listed the color he needed. We went through all of the resistors, but couldn't find the one he said he needed. I grabbed the phone and called Michael at work. After talking to Noah for a couple of minutes he realized that Noah confused the resistor for the integrated circuit he actually needed. We thanked Michael and got only a few steps into the circuit before he had to run off and get on the bus. Interesting morning for an 8 year-old.



I hope y'all have a happy Valentine's Day! I will be baking sugar cookies for Eve's Kindergarten class to decorate tomorrow. I will be using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, of course. (((HUGS))) to all!

The book currently on my reading list is about a subject very close to me. The book is Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine and the Search for a Cure by Paul A. Offit M.D. To begin with, my father was a microbiologist at CDC and we used to discuss his work a lot. I even did a science fair project using some of the data that CDC collected. Although I am far from being an immunologist, I do have a working knowledge of the theory and the processes. So when Offit describes certain aspects of his work I understand the concept pretty quickly. Secondly, for the last fifteen years or so I’ve had a personal interest in the search for a cure for Autism. My brother-in-law is autistic. So this field is not just an academic pursuit for me. It’s somewhat personal.
If you are not familiar with the controversy around autism this book would be an excellent primer. Though far more than just a primer, it goes into great detail of the history of vaccines, the testing they do to insure and keep them safe, and the ongoing checks and balances in the field. In comparison to the patient, detailed, extensive research done on vaccines those who proclaim that vaccines are unsafe appear at best to be amateurs who are letting personal profit, opinion, bias, or just an unrealistic optimism cloud their judgment and research. Far from just being ad hominem attacks on his opponents, Offit takes each study and points out the flaws, deviations from protocol, biases and conflicts of interest.
Offit does an amazingly thorough job of explaining the big picture concept of vaccinations. If you think that the airplane, the internet, cars or any other technical marvel has most changed our world in the last century, Offit will convince you that they all come in as distant seconds in any comparison that includes vaccines. Quite literally, many of us would not be here today if it were not for the life-saving ability of vaccines.
There is a group of people out there who base their opinions on emotion, flawed research, conspiracy theories and the hope against hope that they can find a cure. While I share their frustration, I deplore their tactics. Offit details where many of these groups sidestep logic and proper scientific procedure and truly join the ranks of the lunatic fringe. Jenny McCarthy self describes those on her side as an “angry mob”. The prologue to the book details several of the death threats that he and his family have received in response to him testifying in favor of vaccines. How ironic that those claiming to be all about saving lives are threatening the lives and safety of an immunologist and his children.
To spoil the ending for you; there is zero correlation between the MMR vaccines and autism. None. Zero. There is zero correlation between the preservative Thimerosal and autism. None. Chelation therapy is expensive and deadly and does not cure autism. Vaccines work. They save countless lives every single year.
If you get your news on this subject from Oprah, Jenny McCarthy, politicians with an agenda, or your Homeopath you will likely disagree with most of this book. However, if you prefer to trust respected scientist in the field, decades of research, and thorough evidence-based research you will enjoy reading this book. Offit won’t convert Jenny McCarthy with this book. But, if you are still open-minded, and able to be swayed by the evidence he will show you the facts and the research and let you connect the dots yourself.

“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, it’s that they know so many things that just aren’t so.”
Mark Twain