![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Guess what the temperature is? Yeah, add a bit.
Am still woefully behind on comments because I would like to reply sensibly. The cool change is slated for Sunday, expect replies, and a collation of the penis post results! Part two of Single Wizard's is with my brilliant beta, expect derangement.
I nearly leapt from my desk to strangle someone this afternoon when my idiot co-worker (there is always one) declared that although it was hot here, the record lows in the US showed that global warming was a myth. Instead, I held myself back and politely asked him why the top 10 hottest years on record had all occurred in the last 11 years.
'Yeah, but that's just in Australia.'
'No,' I replied. 'That's globally. Remember that many countries have experienced record highs and record lows in the same years over the last decades.'
'Well, I still think it's exaggerated.'
I sighed. 'Would you mind explaining where all the glaciers are hiding, then? Because I'd quite like them back.'
Talking with most journalists about science reminds me why I believe that journalists should have to pass a certified test before they are allowed to talk about science. There was the one a few years back who talked about the need to include his paragraphs on creationism in a story on evolutionary biology 'for balance'. I argued that it was a science story, and therefore religion was out of place. I argued that he hadn't included quotes from satisfied drug users in his recent story about the link between marijuana use and schizophrenia. I was ignored. The editor in chief said: 'What are you? American? Fuck that.' There was applause. (If you are even now saying But Creationism is real! go to footnote 1.)
Many journos also fail the logic test. It's not always their fault, schools are rubbish these days and the kids are taught that Wikipedia is a resource. (Not the kids I train, of course. They are taught that the very W word will make me froth with rage unless it is provided in the context of 'And then I went to find verification for all the assertions.')
Today a lovely cookery writer, who had been lead astray by Wiki and then gone a little further astray herself, wrote that powdered cocoa comes from chocolate liquor and that its separation was the first step in the chocolate-making process.
'I'm just going to tidy that up because there are a few factual errors there,' I muttered kindly.
'No, that's right. I checked it.'
'But chocolate contains cocoa. If you remove it to make cocoa powder, you end up with cocoa and cocoa butter, not chocolate. It's a separate process, cocoa butter is often added to other chocolate liquor to make some chocolates, and sometimes cocoa is used to make milk chocolate, but you're talking about the process to make cocoa powder, and you can't go from that to making chocolate as your next step.'
'But it was on the internet!'
'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
I sometimes worry that the internet has taught people not to think. 'I checked the footnotes, the article they linked to said the same thing.' is the most common defence I receive from writers and subs who have used Wikipedia as a reference. They do not distinguish between a publicity article from the British potato marketing board and a scholarly article from a leading agricultural researcher that has passed a stringent peer review.
When I was a young girl, I remember crying at the realisation that I would die without learning everything I could. Apparently, some people missed that moment. I should be grateful, it means I can charge a high hourly rate and work with fun people aside from the one idiot. But some days I despair and consider going back to books.
In unrelated but slightly amusing news, I was walking home today thinking that I really must call my mother. Some 10 metres away a car hooted and I heard my name called(2). It was her, and we had a quick catch up. Prior to this, I have not seen her in a year (this is quite normal, we like each other but lead separate, busy lives). I walked the rest of the way home thinking 'I really must buy a winning lottery ticket and secure a record-breaking book deal.' One never knows ...
1. Creationism is not science. However, as a friend of mine who is a devout Christian and a geologist says: 'The god that I believe in is certainly capable of setting in motion a universe that could evolve following the laws that are suggested by the evidence before us. I can cope with metaphors that are more complex than the ones Jews in the desert thousands of years ago used.'
My heathen little heart says that if your faith is threatened by good science, then it's your faith, not the science, that is the problem and you ought to be spending more time worrying about what you are learning in church and less time worrying about what the kids are learning at school.
2. 'How did you know it was me?' I asked, given that I was on the other side of the road with my back to her.
'Who else has hair that long and a red parasol?' she replied.
'Five year olds!'
'You're slightly taller.'
We're clearly related ;-)
Am still woefully behind on comments because I would like to reply sensibly. The cool change is slated for Sunday, expect replies, and a collation of the penis post results! Part two of Single Wizard's is with my brilliant beta, expect derangement.
I nearly leapt from my desk to strangle someone this afternoon when my idiot co-worker (there is always one) declared that although it was hot here, the record lows in the US showed that global warming was a myth. Instead, I held myself back and politely asked him why the top 10 hottest years on record had all occurred in the last 11 years.
'Yeah, but that's just in Australia.'
'No,' I replied. 'That's globally. Remember that many countries have experienced record highs and record lows in the same years over the last decades.'
'Well, I still think it's exaggerated.'
I sighed. 'Would you mind explaining where all the glaciers are hiding, then? Because I'd quite like them back.'
Talking with most journalists about science reminds me why I believe that journalists should have to pass a certified test before they are allowed to talk about science. There was the one a few years back who talked about the need to include his paragraphs on creationism in a story on evolutionary biology 'for balance'. I argued that it was a science story, and therefore religion was out of place. I argued that he hadn't included quotes from satisfied drug users in his recent story about the link between marijuana use and schizophrenia. I was ignored. The editor in chief said: 'What are you? American? Fuck that.' There was applause. (If you are even now saying But Creationism is real! go to footnote 1.)
Many journos also fail the logic test. It's not always their fault, schools are rubbish these days and the kids are taught that Wikipedia is a resource. (Not the kids I train, of course. They are taught that the very W word will make me froth with rage unless it is provided in the context of 'And then I went to find verification for all the assertions.')
Today a lovely cookery writer, who had been lead astray by Wiki and then gone a little further astray herself, wrote that powdered cocoa comes from chocolate liquor and that its separation was the first step in the chocolate-making process.
'I'm just going to tidy that up because there are a few factual errors there,' I muttered kindly.
'No, that's right. I checked it.'
'But chocolate contains cocoa. If you remove it to make cocoa powder, you end up with cocoa and cocoa butter, not chocolate. It's a separate process, cocoa butter is often added to other chocolate liquor to make some chocolates, and sometimes cocoa is used to make milk chocolate, but you're talking about the process to make cocoa powder, and you can't go from that to making chocolate as your next step.'
'But it was on the internet!'
'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
I sometimes worry that the internet has taught people not to think. 'I checked the footnotes, the article they linked to said the same thing.' is the most common defence I receive from writers and subs who have used Wikipedia as a reference. They do not distinguish between a publicity article from the British potato marketing board and a scholarly article from a leading agricultural researcher that has passed a stringent peer review.
When I was a young girl, I remember crying at the realisation that I would die without learning everything I could. Apparently, some people missed that moment. I should be grateful, it means I can charge a high hourly rate and work with fun people aside from the one idiot. But some days I despair and consider going back to books.
In unrelated but slightly amusing news, I was walking home today thinking that I really must call my mother. Some 10 metres away a car hooted and I heard my name called(2). It was her, and we had a quick catch up. Prior to this, I have not seen her in a year (this is quite normal, we like each other but lead separate, busy lives). I walked the rest of the way home thinking 'I really must buy a winning lottery ticket and secure a record-breaking book deal.' One never knows ...
1. Creationism is not science. However, as a friend of mine who is a devout Christian and a geologist says: 'The god that I believe in is certainly capable of setting in motion a universe that could evolve following the laws that are suggested by the evidence before us. I can cope with metaphors that are more complex than the ones Jews in the desert thousands of years ago used.'
My heathen little heart says that if your faith is threatened by good science, then it's your faith, not the science, that is the problem and you ought to be spending more time worrying about what you are learning in church and less time worrying about what the kids are learning at school.
2. 'How did you know it was me?' I asked, given that I was on the other side of the road with my back to her.
'Who else has hair that long and a red parasol?' she replied.
'Five year olds!'
'You're slightly taller.'
We're clearly related ;-)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:01 pm (UTC)And it was a conversation like yours with your colleague that first made me realize that I actually WAS capable of strangling someone and that I maybe should be just a tad bit careful about my temper :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:06 pm (UTC)I say this as a historian who has to live with the fact that most people tell me journalists write better history books because they're "more entertaining", or, to quote one particular guy, "You historians make everything sound so complicated!"
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:10 pm (UTC)A journalist or fiction author working ALONGSIDE an historian, with the historian being the final arbiter of what goes in, I could accept, but journalists are the people who tell me things like 'Spanish sailors made eating potatoes famous around the world in 1536'.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:06 pm (UTC)*giggles* Oh, how sad (yet funny - '"ludicrously tragic", like when a clown dies' - sorry, cannot resist quoting the Simpsons).
'But it was on the internet!'
'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
MWHAHA. I would love to say this to someone just to see the reaction...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:12 pm (UTC)Send your friend over here where we can point weakly at her and laugh feebly ;-)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:40 pm (UTC)They do not distinguish between a publicity article from the British potato marketing board and a scholarly article from a leading agricultural researcher that has passed a stringent peer review.
Although, stringent peer review may actually be the collective mumblings of several first year grad students who can't understand most of the paper. In that case, the difference between the two is that the publicity article is probably better written ;).
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:58 pm (UTC)Yeah, the whole us vs them thing that some religious leaders rabbit on about is just baffling. They shave, eat shellfish and hold the Sabbath on the wrong day, so why do they cling tooth and nail to literal six day creations?
I hear you science types build labs out of Ikea shelving when you're not washing dishes ;-)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 12:42 pm (UTC)Hee. My children are Catholic and attend Catholic school. I have always tempered the teachings that sway towards "because God said so", "it's written in the bible" and "God created/did that" with a heavy dose of observation and logic. That's not to say that God isn't possible, or that the concept is illogical, but as I have yet to see any concrete proof of Him, my brain seeks alternative (and, yes, scientific) support for things. Faith can be a wonderful thing, and perhaps science will prove God's existence some day. But just because it's written in a book, doesn't make it so. I have a friend who tries to support her ideas by saying it's in the bible. My clearly uninformed comment that the bible was written by men, and has been further translated by men numerous times forever falls on deaf ears.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:00 pm (UTC)I'm all for faith, but offering up your virgin daughters to rapists is in the Bible, so I don't think it's a good idea to take the whole thing on face value ...
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:10 pm (UTC)Add art and personality on another pair of orthogonal axes, and that could work quite nicely as a set :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:37 pm (UTC)-> Most of the teachers I know do not accept Wikipedia as a resource. Some will suggest using it to find other sources - the ones listed at the bottom of the Wiki article, for example, can be a good starting-off point. I also know at least one teacher who has edited Wiki articles to contain the wrong information right before an essay was due/test date - changing it right back after the deadline (if it hadn't been corrected by someone else by then). Personally, I tell my students that reading the Wikipedia entry on their subject may help them understand the topic better so they may then do proper research. I even suggest they use *gasp* books and journals and not just the internet. :-)
-> Creationism in an evolution article? *eye roll* I teach biology - I will mention Creationism/Intelligent design in passing when I teach evolution next month... but only because it's in the syllabus. One of my colleagues either skips the evolution unit entirely, or assigns it as independent study.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 02:52 pm (UTC)And yes, there are some things about Wiki that can be good; it's certainly more involving than the Britannica website ... but, as you say, not as a final point of call!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:41 pm (UTC)Oh yes, me too.
Sometimes it seems like many people have the realization, "Oh, I can get through life without having to learn much at all! Excellent. That's much easier."
Sigh.
O/T
Date: 2009-01-23 11:29 pm (UTC)Has it always been on your icon (and I fail to notice it OhTheShameHowShallILiveWithMyselfNow) or is it a recent addition?
Re: O/T
From:Re: O/T
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:47 pm (UTC)Me, I think this moment is the ticket into true adulthood. The desire to know matched with a sound sense of humility before what all there is to know. I realise we live in a teenage culture.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:11 pm (UTC)*deep breath*
Sorry, lol, your post just brought to my mind two of the kinds of people who make me so ANGRY I become unable to even argue properly cos I'm too busy fuming: Creationists (especially those who want creationism to be taught as a viable alternative to evolution) and people who STILL, after all these years and YEARS, don't believe that global warming is real, or anything to do with us.
I worked in a chemical laboratory last year, and none of the scientists believed in global warming! They read the daily mail every day (not relevant, but meant that most of their opinions aggravated me) and one of them even said that global warming was "made up" by the government to get money out of us! I mean, WTF?? I mean, they're SCIENTISTS! They had a copy of New Scientist in the office showing all the arguments about global warming and backing them up or refuting them with scientific research and knowledge, and they read the article and dismissed it, just ignored it and carried on thinking that!
Sorry about the rant. I'm not ranting at you, obviously. I must go and try to lower my blood pressure :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 04:19 pm (UTC)And, seriously, the Global Warming Is A Conspiracy brigade are deluded in their belief that governments could ever coordinate an effective conspiracy (remember how everyone knew WMDs were a lie? Hmmmm)
*Sends you calming vibes!*
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:12 pm (UTC)http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/09/24/antarcticmelt_pla.html?category=earth&guid=20070924093000
no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:59 pm (UTC)i'm surprised that actual journalists use wiki as a resource or claim their "facts" must be correct simply b/c they read it on the internet. that's a little..mind-boggling.
i laughed that someone wanted to put creationism and evolution side-by-side in a SCIENCE article. for BALANCE nonetheless. wtf?
oo, how long is your hair? AND RED PARASOL1!! a good friend and i were just discussing parasols last night. we both want one even though we'd get to use it only 2 months out of the entire year. i was lamenting how i used to have 2 different parasols as a child, and now i have 0 :(
ps:- hoping you win that lottery ticket + book deal soon. fingers crossed.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 04:23 pm (UTC)'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
Howls with laughter....
Oh, and so with you on #1!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 04:51 pm (UTC)'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
ILU.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 04:52 pm (UTC)I maintain that this is because they are required to get degrees in journalism. :P
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 05:40 pm (UTC)If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 07:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 05:54 pm (UTC)When I was a young girl, I remember crying at the realisation that I would die without learning everything I could. this is why you're awesome. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 06:40 pm (UTC)It annoys the snot out of me, and it's going to be made right. With proper references to proper law books, when I find the buggers
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 07:31 pm (UTC)I like your mother...wanna trade?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 08:40 pm (UTC)powdered cocoa comes from chocolate liquor and that its separation was the first step in the chocolate-making process.
...I can't even think of a response other than 'what' because really, WHAT.