I was once a political science major, and while it wasn't a huge waste of my time, I wouldn't exactly describe it as a positive experience. For one thing I quickly grew tired of, as a fellow science major put it, "classes where my opinion counts more than facts" secondly I quickly fell in love with geology after my first class, and changed from another directionless college student, to a dedicated geology student because it is simply more fun.
Well recently I came across a post at Cosmic Variance about this New York Times editorial. If you have seen either, the editorial basically said that poly sci researchers should not bother themselves with testing their hypothesis as unsubstantiated assertions work just as well. Well as you can expect every scientist who saw that article was understandably upset about it, and my main problem goes right back to the reason I dropped that major, Political Science isn't a science no matter how much they tell themselves otherwise. At best it should be called Political Studies, as you do study political systems but because you can't come up with any universal theories or even agreement within the discipline about important phenomena, like why do voters vote the way they do.
However, I can be somewhat sympathetic, as when political studies researches look at the success that physics has had in the past centuries it can seem daunting to try to replicate that work. It would be hard for just about any field to have analogous successes to Newtonian Mechanics or General Relativity, but it is important to remember the work it took to get there, and that the physicists' work hasn't finished. Although I would assert that political science (if it followed the scientific method in any sense or fashion) would resemble Geology more than anything.
You might wonder why I would say that. Well first off I don't mean to disparage geology at all by comparing it to political science; however, if political scientists acted like scientists, their research would probably be very similar to geology. First off the whole idea that the present is the key to the past would be a necessary part to this hypothetical political science as it is to geology. Presumably political scientists would have to look through much of history and retrace events that led to important political events, then they would have to hypothesize a cause for this change, find evidence to support their assertion WHILE PAYING SPECIAL ATTENTION TO EVIDENCE THAT CHALLENGES OR DISPROVES THEIR HYPOTHESIS. That was in all-caps because that is where political studies abandons all pretext of following the scientific method, and when they do provide evidence they cherry pick it, ignoring inconvenient facts. I know that it is human nature to do so, which is why political studies needs true peer reviewed journals if they want a legitimate claim to the "science" part of the field.
Political Scientists will say that the systems they study are too complicated to follow the scientific method, thus they should be exempt. However, geology is incredibly more complicated, it covers almost 4.5 billion years of Earth history, looking at evidence which has been changed into new and hard to read forms or in some case destroyed and now requires inference from analogous areas elsewhere in the world. Geologists try to understand how mountains formed, the history of life, and they retrace the movement of continents backwards in time; in addition, I would bet that nearly every geologist has seen a geologic cross-section that resembles a Jackson Pollack painting more than any stratigraphic layers deposited under Steno's laws; however, dedicated work by many real scientists can eventually clarify these confusing maps and turn them into coherent stories.
In the end, though if those involved in political studies want to be considered scientists they would have to start applying statistical methods and probably create mathematical and computer models to try and explain their research areas. In addition, they will have to learn to look at all of their previously hypothesis with a skeptical eye and evaluate them based off of the evidence not whether or not they align with their personal beliefs. This would require a tremendous amount of work to so completely change the discipline, and I doubt that those involved would be willing to do so. This is a shame as they could presumably discover some fascinating aspects of human nature, but until it does so I will refuse to call it a science.
Showing posts with label Rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rants. Show all posts
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
New Mexico Geology: Where Rocks Grow out of the Ground
I had this mostly written back in January, but then I got distracted and forgot about it. I will do my best to finish the New Mexico Geology series. Sorry for the delay
Almost a year ago I participated in a community service project called Eastern In Action, which is basically a beautification project for the town, and if you had ever seen a town in Southeast New Mexico you would think that would be sorely needed. Unfortunately, there is no oversight process so anybody can ask for help, so instead of being sent to help the elderly, disabled, or disenfranchised who needed the help, my group was sent to help a well off farmer in his fields. Now besides doing 'charity' work for a man who could afford to pay for that service, I was most annoyed at the fact that the problems in his fields were his own fault.
Why you might ask? Well you have to understand that the area I live in has a classic arid soil referred to as caliche soil. Caliche is easily identifiable due to the layer of calcite at varying layers within the soil. So what does this have to do with the greedy farmer? I'm getting to that; calcite dissolves in water so on the rare occasion that we do get rain, the mineral goes into solution, and then in the more common high heat, the water evaporates and as it does it pulls the calcite towards the surface. So when the farmer was watering his fields he was speeding up the caliche forming process, pulling up the calcite very quickly and creating numerous evaporite rocks in his fields. Thus we toiled in his fields for several hours in order to rid the field of the rocks he created.
Moral of the story? Mostly that trying to grow water intensive crops in an arid (well semi-arid, but it feels like a desert) environment is not a good idea. However, if you feel like doing so learn from the cultures who have been successful in that goal. One such group are the Mormons in Utah. When they built their society in Utah the only water they had access to was from the Great Salt Lake, so in order to water their crops without salting the land and rendering it useless they saturated the soil pushing the salt deeper into the ground away from the plant roots. However, when there is very little water to go around this doesn't work, and since we rely on fossil aquifers this solution is unworkable and would kill the area..
However, here are a few photographs of a cut into the soil, with the caliche soil is brilliantly displayed.
So this is probably the most interesting geology near the college, but there is one more thing. The area is a very slight valley and this is because it was once a large meandering river. The water dried up after the last ice age when the Pecos River was formed; this River is much faster and thus moved up through what is now New Mexico and pirated the ancient streams that once flowed off of the Rio Grande Rift.
After the river was cut off, some of its water was stored in the sands it once carried forming a perched aquifer (an aquifer sitting on top of an impermeable layer) so when settlers first came to Portales they had ample water and like all humans they quickly depleted them. In fact there used to be year long lakes in Portales where the ground dropped beneath the water table, something most of the students at the university would find quite surprising. Well I exaggerate, there is still one aquifer that hasn't been depleted, but the geniuses out here put a dairy on top of it because there is no way that the dairy could pollute the aquifer with E.coli.
Luckily we do have the Ogallala Aquifer to fall back on
Right there, where the star is, you know where it is losing water instead of recharging. Hey, can I come live with one of you? I don't think there is going to be much water here anymore.
Almost a year ago I participated in a community service project called Eastern In Action, which is basically a beautification project for the town, and if you had ever seen a town in Southeast New Mexico you would think that would be sorely needed. Unfortunately, there is no oversight process so anybody can ask for help, so instead of being sent to help the elderly, disabled, or disenfranchised who needed the help, my group was sent to help a well off farmer in his fields. Now besides doing 'charity' work for a man who could afford to pay for that service, I was most annoyed at the fact that the problems in his fields were his own fault.
Why you might ask? Well you have to understand that the area I live in has a classic arid soil referred to as caliche soil. Caliche is easily identifiable due to the layer of calcite at varying layers within the soil. So what does this have to do with the greedy farmer? I'm getting to that; calcite dissolves in water so on the rare occasion that we do get rain, the mineral goes into solution, and then in the more common high heat, the water evaporates and as it does it pulls the calcite towards the surface. So when the farmer was watering his fields he was speeding up the caliche forming process, pulling up the calcite very quickly and creating numerous evaporite rocks in his fields. Thus we toiled in his fields for several hours in order to rid the field of the rocks he created.
Moral of the story? Mostly that trying to grow water intensive crops in an arid (well semi-arid, but it feels like a desert) environment is not a good idea. However, if you feel like doing so learn from the cultures who have been successful in that goal. One such group are the Mormons in Utah. When they built their society in Utah the only water they had access to was from the Great Salt Lake, so in order to water their crops without salting the land and rendering it useless they saturated the soil pushing the salt deeper into the ground away from the plant roots. However, when there is very little water to go around this doesn't work, and since we rely on fossil aquifers this solution is unworkable and would kill the area..
However, here are a few photographs of a cut into the soil, with the caliche soil is brilliantly displayed.
 |
| The white rocks are evaporite calcite minerals |
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| This is right above the main layer, with a hammer for scale |
 |
| Here is the main layer with a hammer in it |
After the river was cut off, some of its water was stored in the sands it once carried forming a perched aquifer (an aquifer sitting on top of an impermeable layer) so when settlers first came to Portales they had ample water and like all humans they quickly depleted them. In fact there used to be year long lakes in Portales where the ground dropped beneath the water table, something most of the students at the university would find quite surprising. Well I exaggerate, there is still one aquifer that hasn't been depleted, but the geniuses out here put a dairy on top of it because there is no way that the dairy could pollute the aquifer with E.coli.
Luckily we do have the Ogallala Aquifer to fall back on
Friday, January 27, 2012
When My Optimism and My Cynicism Collide:
A lot has already been said about Newt Gingrich's promise of a moon base; however, I still want to talk about it because I sort of agree with the two ways this statement has been met-optimism and cynicism. First lets go with cynicism, it should be obvious this is shameless pandering from a politician who will hedge back and forth on science insulting it or complementing it depending on when it suits him. I am almost positive that if he was elected he would either forget all about or make a half-hearted attempt which wouldn't work. I think The Crux had one of the best cynical responses, and I have to agree with all of their points; however, I don't have to like it.
We should always meet all claims of politicians with skepticism, and just because they pander to our interests (or our dreams) doesn't mean we should throw away our rational thought and embrace them. I do not think many, if any, space professionals, students, or knowledgeable public took these promises at face value, though judging by some of the comments r/space the interested public did, and that's not good. It is very easy for politicians to play to people's emotions on a subject like this, and we have to be careful and not be taken for a ride. So it is a good thing that many people like Neil deGrasse Tyson are coming out to temper expectations. Newt's plan is unworkable, and anybody who pays attention to the space industry knows it won't work.
One last thing about Gingrich, in an early speech he criticized NASA as an overblown bureaucracy and said they have had "failure after failure" well maybe NASA, like any government agency has a lot of red tape, but are the Mars Exploration Rovers failures? They have outlasted their warranties by an incredible amount. They were supposed to last three months, and their mission duration is now measured in years.
Last year when I told my friends, family, and coworkers that I had an internship with NASA they were astounded and impressed. Why? Because NASA is on the frontier of science, they are the dream. It is the only government agency that continues to inspire everyone from small children dreaming about the moon and stars to college students planning their careers in STEM fields to old men and women thinking about the changes they have seen and the changes yet to come. If you dismiss NASA, you are ignorant of what they have accomplished and I pity you for living in that darkness.
Okay, on the optimistic side I want a moon base! A moon base is an amazing idea, and those of you interested in engineering or space science should go wide-eyed and misty just thinking about it. That was my initial reaction when I heard Newt's statement, then I crashed back down to reality.
However, I couldn't stand the hyper-cynical reactions many people had after the speech, many people who are fascinated with space had a visceral reaction to the speech. And understandingly so, because here is another politician offering something we love for votes with no intention to follow through. Though I can see some good coming from this speech though, maybe a lot of Americans may remember that they love space and they want this base. When they remember they may come looking for information on it, and be exposed to some amazing science and learn a thing or two (or hundred).
Let's not let our cynicism overcome us, this is important and a permanent human presence on another world is something we need to do, not just to prove we can do it, but to give us the ability to do amazing science and to start our manned exploration of the solar system and beyond. And if you don't think our government is investing enough in exploration write to your representatives and tell them so, and if they don't vote the way you want, vote them out. At this point, if we can change a few minds on capital hill that would be an improvement.
An article on io9 has some amazing reasons why; however, I want to go farther. We don't know much about the moon, there is only so much remote sensing and a half a dozen manned missions can tell us. What we need to really understand the moon are boots on the lunar surface. We need planetary scientists doing field work to further our understanding of the moon and how the Earth-Moon system formed. In addition, this will be valuable experience for Mars. Not just in how to live and work in the isolated environment of space travel, but also the development of new scientific tools and field techniques that will be needed. Planetary geologists will need new ways of taking measurements because a space suit isn't as easy to move around in as a flannel shirt and cargo pants. We have been studying the Earth for centuries and we still don't understand every geologic process on it; we need field planetary geologist to map the structure and features of the moon, and then we need field versions of every imaginable discipline of planetary science to really understand the moon. Then we will have to do this for every planet or moon that we want to understand and we can land on, and the adventure will be incredible.
I would love for Gingrich's plan to work, because by the time the moon base was up and working I would be finished with my doctorate and I still young enough to work there. I want that, we live in the future and we should have a moon base.
We should always meet all claims of politicians with skepticism, and just because they pander to our interests (or our dreams) doesn't mean we should throw away our rational thought and embrace them. I do not think many, if any, space professionals, students, or knowledgeable public took these promises at face value, though judging by some of the comments r/space the interested public did, and that's not good. It is very easy for politicians to play to people's emotions on a subject like this, and we have to be careful and not be taken for a ride. So it is a good thing that many people like Neil deGrasse Tyson are coming out to temper expectations. Newt's plan is unworkable, and anybody who pays attention to the space industry knows it won't work.
One last thing about Gingrich, in an early speech he criticized NASA as an overblown bureaucracy and said they have had "failure after failure" well maybe NASA, like any government agency has a lot of red tape, but are the Mars Exploration Rovers failures? They have outlasted their warranties by an incredible amount. They were supposed to last three months, and their mission duration is now measured in years.
Last year when I told my friends, family, and coworkers that I had an internship with NASA they were astounded and impressed. Why? Because NASA is on the frontier of science, they are the dream. It is the only government agency that continues to inspire everyone from small children dreaming about the moon and stars to college students planning their careers in STEM fields to old men and women thinking about the changes they have seen and the changes yet to come. If you dismiss NASA, you are ignorant of what they have accomplished and I pity you for living in that darkness.
Okay, on the optimistic side I want a moon base! A moon base is an amazing idea, and those of you interested in engineering or space science should go wide-eyed and misty just thinking about it. That was my initial reaction when I heard Newt's statement, then I crashed back down to reality.
However, I couldn't stand the hyper-cynical reactions many people had after the speech, many people who are fascinated with space had a visceral reaction to the speech. And understandingly so, because here is another politician offering something we love for votes with no intention to follow through. Though I can see some good coming from this speech though, maybe a lot of Americans may remember that they love space and they want this base. When they remember they may come looking for information on it, and be exposed to some amazing science and learn a thing or two (or hundred).
Let's not let our cynicism overcome us, this is important and a permanent human presence on another world is something we need to do, not just to prove we can do it, but to give us the ability to do amazing science and to start our manned exploration of the solar system and beyond. And if you don't think our government is investing enough in exploration write to your representatives and tell them so, and if they don't vote the way you want, vote them out. At this point, if we can change a few minds on capital hill that would be an improvement.
An article on io9 has some amazing reasons why; however, I want to go farther. We don't know much about the moon, there is only so much remote sensing and a half a dozen manned missions can tell us. What we need to really understand the moon are boots on the lunar surface. We need planetary scientists doing field work to further our understanding of the moon and how the Earth-Moon system formed. In addition, this will be valuable experience for Mars. Not just in how to live and work in the isolated environment of space travel, but also the development of new scientific tools and field techniques that will be needed. Planetary geologists will need new ways of taking measurements because a space suit isn't as easy to move around in as a flannel shirt and cargo pants. We have been studying the Earth for centuries and we still don't understand every geologic process on it; we need field planetary geologist to map the structure and features of the moon, and then we need field versions of every imaginable discipline of planetary science to really understand the moon. Then we will have to do this for every planet or moon that we want to understand and we can land on, and the adventure will be incredible.
I would love for Gingrich's plan to work, because by the time the moon base was up and working I would be finished with my doctorate and I still young enough to work there. I want that, we live in the future and we should have a moon base.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Update on Rio Grande Rift
In my last post on the Rio Grande Rift, I was hesitant to say if it was still spreading. I don't have access to all the journals, I had heard some conflicting opinions from a few geologists, and my cursory search didn't find a lot of information. However, the January issue of Geology did have a study dealing with exactly that. And guess what, the rift is spreading, about one inch every forty years, so that's pretty cool. I can't wait to read the full article (once I get my reimbursement check from my school and can afford to pay my student dues to the GSA).
However, due to my status as a college kid with limited funds; I unfortunately did not read about this from a cool source, instead I learned about it from this Yahoo News article which didn't even turn out to be an intelligent source. It doesn't start out bad, but then it starts saying a few things which demonstrate a lack of real understanding about geology. First off, it says this is a very slow pace (direct quote is "paltry rate", and it is compared to Usain Bolt or a landslide or really anything we deal with in our day to day experience. However, this is geology so almost everything happens slowly, so if you are going to say it happens slowly compare it to another plate. It is moving slowly compared to other plates which can move around 2.5 cm a year, while this rift is widening around 1 mm per year, 1/250 slower!
Then, the author makes a comment about controlling the expansion which seems odd and raised a few questions. First, why, it is barely moving and at those rates shouldn't disrupt humans at all; however, stopping the motion would just mean all the energy is pent up and then released when whatever is keeping from moving fails, causing an earthquake. Second, since when is it the goal of geology to stop plate tectonics? I've heard of geo-engineering projects, but I don't think anybody has ever even thought of something this large.
The article did leave a few questions I had unanswered. Do the scientists know if this rate is accelerating, decelerating, or remaining the same? This would be nice to know; is another East African Rift opening up in Southwest America or is this movement dying out. I would like to know this because there are inactive volcanoes around the rift (including near Albuquerque) and it would be nice to know if they might wake up. In addition, does this movement have any implications for earthquakes around the rift, especially in the Sandia Mountains where New Mexico's largest city sits on loosely compacted sediments from the mountains surrounding it oh and an aquifer. So as my Intro to geology professor once (somewhat gleefully) pointed out, should a large earthquake hit the city, the soil would probably liquify and consume large parts of the city.
By the way, I'm not too worried about earthquakes or volcanoes as a result of the spreading; however, it is not a stretch that some people who live in Albuquerque might be, and it would only take a extra sentence worth of effort to soothe these fears. Questions like this is why you should talk to a scientist before you publish a story because now I have to wait to gain anything valuable until I either bum the latest copy of Geology, or get the money to look at it online. Thanks Yahoo News, for all the effort you put into the story.
However, due to my status as a college kid with limited funds; I unfortunately did not read about this from a cool source, instead I learned about it from this Yahoo News article which didn't even turn out to be an intelligent source. It doesn't start out bad, but then it starts saying a few things which demonstrate a lack of real understanding about geology. First off, it says this is a very slow pace (direct quote is "paltry rate", and it is compared to Usain Bolt or a landslide or really anything we deal with in our day to day experience. However, this is geology so almost everything happens slowly, so if you are going to say it happens slowly compare it to another plate. It is moving slowly compared to other plates which can move around 2.5 cm a year, while this rift is widening around 1 mm per year, 1/250 slower!
Then, the author makes a comment about controlling the expansion which seems odd and raised a few questions. First, why, it is barely moving and at those rates shouldn't disrupt humans at all; however, stopping the motion would just mean all the energy is pent up and then released when whatever is keeping from moving fails, causing an earthquake. Second, since when is it the goal of geology to stop plate tectonics? I've heard of geo-engineering projects, but I don't think anybody has ever even thought of something this large.
The article did leave a few questions I had unanswered. Do the scientists know if this rate is accelerating, decelerating, or remaining the same? This would be nice to know; is another East African Rift opening up in Southwest America or is this movement dying out. I would like to know this because there are inactive volcanoes around the rift (including near Albuquerque) and it would be nice to know if they might wake up. In addition, does this movement have any implications for earthquakes around the rift, especially in the Sandia Mountains where New Mexico's largest city sits on loosely compacted sediments from the mountains surrounding it oh and an aquifer. So as my Intro to geology professor once (somewhat gleefully) pointed out, should a large earthquake hit the city, the soil would probably liquify and consume large parts of the city.
By the way, I'm not too worried about earthquakes or volcanoes as a result of the spreading; however, it is not a stretch that some people who live in Albuquerque might be, and it would only take a extra sentence worth of effort to soothe these fears. Questions like this is why you should talk to a scientist before you publish a story because now I have to wait to gain anything valuable until I either bum the latest copy of Geology, or get the money to look at it online. Thanks Yahoo News, for all the effort you put into the story.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Erosion vs. Weathering
I never really explained why I named this blog what I did, but there is a reason. You see, since I'm an undergraduate student (for only two more semesters) I wanted to tell the story of my journey from lowly and ignorant undergraduate through graduate school and into my own career (however long that takes). However, that only makes sense if you know the actual definition of erosion:
Erosion-The physical removal of rock by an agent such as running water, glacial ice, or wind.
And compare that to weathering:
Weathering- The group of processes that change rock at or near the Earth's surface
Now why do I care about that? Well besides confusing the two makes it seem like I feel like my education is disappearing or being torn down some how, the real problem is that erosion is used as a literary device by several people and it is almost always used wrong. Here are two examples:
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/19/halt-us-educational-erosion/
http://chronicle.com/article/Public-Higher-Education-Is/124292/
Now I understand that educational erosion makes a good almost alliteration (look at my blog title) however, they are not describing erosion. They are describing weathering, and there is a fundamental difference.
Weathering can be broken up into two categories, chemical and physical. Physical is the easiest to understand, as it is simply mechanical processes which break apart the source rock. Examples include frost wedging, water running over rocks or rivers down cutting into the ground, wind sand blasting formations, or even animals walking over the same trail numerous times.
Chemical weathering is different. This is when the minerals withing a source rock are changed into different minerals, which is often caused by water. Near Albuquerque are the three peaks, three inactive volcanoes which spewed basaltic lava thousands of years ago. On these volcanoes you can see the mechanical weathering from the water flowing down the slopes creating the classic V-shape indicative of mountain streams. However, the most interesting part is that where the black lava is along the stream, you can see how high the water gets when it does flow. As the once black rocks are turned white where they were submerged in the stream. This is due to chemical weathering, the Calcium Feldspars, indicative to basalts, are chemically weathered into calcite, a much softer mineral, which compromises the integrity of the formation.
Erosion, on the other hand, is all about transportation. So while the forces of weathering and erosion may be the same, the processes are different. Weathering breaks down a mountain, while erosion spreads the pile of rubble far and wide, flattening out the landscape. Some of the mechanisms of erosion include landslides, turbidity flows, rivers, and wind.
So please remember, I'm on an educational journey and my education is not being torn down. Thank you
Erosion-The physical removal of rock by an agent such as running water, glacial ice, or wind.
And compare that to weathering:
Weathering- The group of processes that change rock at or near the Earth's surface
Now why do I care about that? Well besides confusing the two makes it seem like I feel like my education is disappearing or being torn down some how, the real problem is that erosion is used as a literary device by several people and it is almost always used wrong. Here are two examples:
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/19/halt-us-educational-erosion/
http://chronicle.com/article/Public-Higher-Education-Is/124292/
Now I understand that educational erosion makes a good almost alliteration (look at my blog title) however, they are not describing erosion. They are describing weathering, and there is a fundamental difference.
Weathering can be broken up into two categories, chemical and physical. Physical is the easiest to understand, as it is simply mechanical processes which break apart the source rock. Examples include frost wedging, water running over rocks or rivers down cutting into the ground, wind sand blasting formations, or even animals walking over the same trail numerous times.
Chemical weathering is different. This is when the minerals withing a source rock are changed into different minerals, which is often caused by water. Near Albuquerque are the three peaks, three inactive volcanoes which spewed basaltic lava thousands of years ago. On these volcanoes you can see the mechanical weathering from the water flowing down the slopes creating the classic V-shape indicative of mountain streams. However, the most interesting part is that where the black lava is along the stream, you can see how high the water gets when it does flow. As the once black rocks are turned white where they were submerged in the stream. This is due to chemical weathering, the Calcium Feldspars, indicative to basalts, are chemically weathered into calcite, a much softer mineral, which compromises the integrity of the formation.
Erosion, on the other hand, is all about transportation. So while the forces of weathering and erosion may be the same, the processes are different. Weathering breaks down a mountain, while erosion spreads the pile of rubble far and wide, flattening out the landscape. Some of the mechanisms of erosion include landslides, turbidity flows, rivers, and wind.
So please remember, I'm on an educational journey and my education is not being torn down. Thank you
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Fallibility of Heroes
I have a personal hero, and like all humans he is flawed. However, he is flawed in such a way that I have to question my admiration of him, and I am left wondering what I should think.
I have looked up to Harrison Schmitt for a few years now for a few reasons. First he is the only geologist to walk on another world. Which is an amazing feat, and one that I dream about repeating myself (I doubt this would ever happen). As planetary geology is my dream field, this is the most amazing thing one could do in my eyes, actual field geology on another celestial object, and this alone would make him one of my favorite scientists of all time. I even have a poster taken of the Apollo 17 mission on my wall, I don't know if Dr. Schmitt is the astronaut pictured but there is a 50/50 chance that it is, and I like to think it is him.
Dr. Schmitt and I also share something in common, in that we are from the same state, not only from the same state, but we are both from small, southern New Mexican towns whose entire economy rested on the exploitation of a limited resource (copper for him, oil for me). Maybe this isn't the strongest connection; however, growing up I saw the people around me and thought that my home town was like a black hole and the people born or raised there were already past the event horizon. I honestly feared for years that I would never escape, that no matter what I did, there would be no way out. Thus the idea that there were people from the crappy and poor areas of my state (one Political Science professor at my school referred to much of southern New Mexico as the Third World within the First World) had lived the dream filled me with hope and confidence that I was not already past the event horizon, that there was a way out.
However, Dr. Schmitt is a Climate Change denier, a position I find irresponsible and uninformed. He has tried to do a tremendous amount of harm to the good science done by the climate scientists; I wouldn't be so upset about this if he wasn't a good geologist, but his body of work is impressive and he rightly won accolades earlier in his career. Thus to the uniformed his presence among the deniers seems like damning evidence.
It is becoming more and more evident that the position held by Schmitt and others like him is both wrong and dangerous. We see the effects all the time, pacific island nations looking for places to evacuate after the sea swallows their home, heat waves, storms; the evidence is so solid that the pentagon has become concerned that it poses a risk to national security. At times like these we need our best and brightest to look at the evidence without bias. It is pointless to bicker about the reality of situation, when its consequences are already barreling down on you.
I would like to remember Dr. Schmitt as the type of person I want to be, a brave explorer who advanced the cause of science both by increasing our knowledge about the universe and by keeping scientific progress close to our hearts and in our imagination. However, these wonderful things that he did are tainted by his recent actions as a politician and I cannot separate the two, though I wish I could.
I won't take the poster down, though, because at the moment it was taken, he was doing something noble and beautiful, something that I can still strive to emulate and surpass.
For more information here is NASA biography, and in the interest of fairness, his biography on desmog blog as well.
I have looked up to Harrison Schmitt for a few years now for a few reasons. First he is the only geologist to walk on another world. Which is an amazing feat, and one that I dream about repeating myself (I doubt this would ever happen). As planetary geology is my dream field, this is the most amazing thing one could do in my eyes, actual field geology on another celestial object, and this alone would make him one of my favorite scientists of all time. I even have a poster taken of the Apollo 17 mission on my wall, I don't know if Dr. Schmitt is the astronaut pictured but there is a 50/50 chance that it is, and I like to think it is him.
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| This is the image I'm referring to |
Dr. Schmitt and I also share something in common, in that we are from the same state, not only from the same state, but we are both from small, southern New Mexican towns whose entire economy rested on the exploitation of a limited resource (copper for him, oil for me). Maybe this isn't the strongest connection; however, growing up I saw the people around me and thought that my home town was like a black hole and the people born or raised there were already past the event horizon. I honestly feared for years that I would never escape, that no matter what I did, there would be no way out. Thus the idea that there were people from the crappy and poor areas of my state (one Political Science professor at my school referred to much of southern New Mexico as the Third World within the First World) had lived the dream filled me with hope and confidence that I was not already past the event horizon, that there was a way out.
However, Dr. Schmitt is a Climate Change denier, a position I find irresponsible and uninformed. He has tried to do a tremendous amount of harm to the good science done by the climate scientists; I wouldn't be so upset about this if he wasn't a good geologist, but his body of work is impressive and he rightly won accolades earlier in his career. Thus to the uniformed his presence among the deniers seems like damning evidence.
It is becoming more and more evident that the position held by Schmitt and others like him is both wrong and dangerous. We see the effects all the time, pacific island nations looking for places to evacuate after the sea swallows their home, heat waves, storms; the evidence is so solid that the pentagon has become concerned that it poses a risk to national security. At times like these we need our best and brightest to look at the evidence without bias. It is pointless to bicker about the reality of situation, when its consequences are already barreling down on you.
I would like to remember Dr. Schmitt as the type of person I want to be, a brave explorer who advanced the cause of science both by increasing our knowledge about the universe and by keeping scientific progress close to our hearts and in our imagination. However, these wonderful things that he did are tainted by his recent actions as a politician and I cannot separate the two, though I wish I could.
I won't take the poster down, though, because at the moment it was taken, he was doing something noble and beautiful, something that I can still strive to emulate and surpass.
For more information here is NASA biography, and in the interest of fairness, his biography on desmog blog as well.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Bad Lab Procedures and Bad Science
The above picture is used by my university (the one which decreed that there shall be no new geology majors) as one of the banner pictures for its website. Basically, this is a picture which is supposed to make prospective students want to come to our school. Well I have a problem with this. First off it has been a while since I took chemistry, but I can’t think of a chem lab where we used a solution that looks like this. I might be wrong; it might be a copper solution of some kind. However, I think this is the Chem lab for non-majors and that is water with blue food dye or this was a faked, thus staged picture.
Now I could be wrong, however there is something else missing from this picture which leads me to believe that it is not a representative of someone practicing real science. I blocked some of the face to hide this person’s identity (I don’t know who this is and I didn’t ask for permission so I’m covering my bases), however I believe you can tell what is missing here-SAFETY GLASSES! This person is totally exposed if something goes wrong with this reaction. Thus either this is a fake or this person (and whoever is watching the lab) has no clue what they are doing.
In the interest of being thorough, I will discuss both situations. If this picture is a fake, this makes the school photographer ignorant and lazy. There is no other way to put it, there are several labs a week happening, each doing very interesting things; instead, based off of this assumption the photographer decided to take a “science-y” looking picture and call it good. Why not go into an upper level chemistry (or geology) lab and take a picture of the students using the advanced (and really cool looking) equipment while wearing proper safety gear? It would have looked better and the picture wouldn’t scream BS to everybody who saw it and knew what actually happens in a science lab (including most High School students, the people this picture is trying to appeal to).
However, what if this is actually a class and that is water with blue food dye in it? I’m ruling out the chemistry classes for science majors. We always had to wear safety goggles and the Professors and TA’s were very insistent about that (as they should be). That means this is a Chem 113 lab designed for non-science majors, and college students are performing a lab best reserved for Junior High students at the oldest! I have a feeling that this might be the case, as I have talked to some professors and they have said they feel the need to dumb down the courses to make sure that the art and communication students understand it (the professors didn’t single out those majors I did). The problem is the students in those classes don’t understand science, they just pass easier classes. Now here in lies my problem with the system. All majors take the same introductory English classes including English majors. The same is true with introductory history and history majors, political science and poly sci majors. If you took Intro to business as an elective, you would take that class with actual business majors. In no other subject at this university are you told that you don’t need to know the basics that is required of the majors. In effect you are saying that these classes are too hard for the average student. I call BS on that. It is ridiculous that we think science is ‘too hard’ for most students; science is the building blocks of our society. Everything we do and everything we interact with relies on the body of knowledge and techniques that have been in development since Galileo. And the ignorance of these students is shown. This is a very conservative area, thus this university has a tremendous amount of Climate Change-deniers and creationists. However, conservative doesn’t mean stupid and ignorant, one of my good friends is pretty conservative and is a biomathmatical researcher (as an undergrad, the boy is smart), but science is never really explained to these students so they have no reason to trust it, so they live in a magical world where they can turn on the lights but have no idea how they turn on.
I am aware that some, if not most, students come to this school unprepared to take these ‘tougher’ science classes; however that should not stop them from getting to them eventually. When a student comes to college, if they are in need of immediate English, Reading, or Math, they take remedial classes, classes for no credit, but they are required for that student in order for them to advance to actual college level classes. Why not have remediate science classes in the same vein as those other subjects? Students shown in need of basic science education could be placed in the classes where they could learn about the scientific method, atomic theory, cellular theory, basic Newtonian mechanics (sans most of the math just the concepts), evolution, and in general be brought up to the national standards expected of High School graduates.
The point of a traditional liberal education is to become familiar with a wide array of subjects. I have credits for everything from Introduction to Literature to Comparative Government to US and World History and those classes would be the same as was required for the majors. However, if you live in a First World country and you do not understand science, you do not understand the world you live in. It is absurd to use a smart phone without understanding radio waves or how computers work, or to use an antibiotic other than Penicillin without understanding evolution. College is the last opportunity most of these students will have to understand science and if they leave ignorant, we know that ignorance will be twisted into a rope that someone will lead them around by. Be it a politician, cult leader, new age guru, or unscrupulous business owner, if you do not know how the world works someone will use it against you.
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
However, I would like to say there is a good banner photo of science on the school site:
Well, you can’t tell what the students are doing, but that skull makes the picture looks awesome!
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