In another time’s forgotten space
Your eyes looked out from your mother’s face
Wildflower in the sand and stone
May the four winds blow you safely home
Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it through just one more day
Whatever way your pleasure tends
If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind
“In history, in a movie, in a book, you can always tell who the heroes are: they’re the ones rushing into the burning building, giving crucial testimony in the courtroom, refusing to step to the back of the bus. They’re the ones who act the way you hope you would, if the moment came to you.
But the movies and the history books never tell you how they felt, those heroes, if they were angry or uncertain or afraid, if they had to think a long time before they did the right thing, if they even knew what the right thing was, or just made a headlong guess, just leaped and hoped they landed instead of falling. They never tell you what it’s like to stand on the brink, wishing you were somewhere–or someone–else, wishing the choice had never come your way and you could just go back to your safe, ordinary, everyday life.
Because you know what else the books never say? Nobody, hero or not, really wants to rush into a fire. Because fire burns.”
Buddha Boy
Kathe Koje
If I could forget to breathe, forget to breathe entirely
It’s happened down through history
And surely I could lose my head
Some night I could drink too much, and take it off and just forget
I will learn all languages, I will speak in every tongue
From highnesses to savages, to all beneath the sun
Someday I will paint the sky
I will build a ladder, make a roller, that can reach that high
And nothing that I do will pass
Everything I will, and make, and feel, and dream, and know—will last
I will rid the world of sorrow and stop all wars and pain
I will tell you of tomorrow as I rule the wind and rain
I can do it all it’s true
But only when I’ve done all that will I turn away from you
Only when I’ve done all that will I turn away from you
Still another in the series of “what an outrage” articles over E. O. Wilson’s statements in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks back, wherein he simply tried to make the point that you do not necessarily need advanced mathematical understanding in order to make valuable contributions in biology. The purpose of this point was to encourage young people not to ditch possible biology careers just because they’re intimidated by certain aspects of math. One ecology blogger is on his third or fourth post on this topic alone, replete with some really hostile reader comments toward Wilson, complete with profanity. Comments pointing out obvious factual errors in said blogger’s interpretation of what Wilson said, such as say, the title of Wilson’s WSJ piece, which does not carry the same meaning as said blogger’s imagined title, are deleted however. I’m not even going to link to that stuff; it’s idiotic. Here’s a well-expressed viewpoint not tinged by such overt hostility toward the man.
You’ll find that most of these articles have the obligatory “Wilson’s a great scientist for sure, but…” in them somewhere. And also some examples in evolution and ecology where some high level math has indeed been important in advancing the science (but not those in which it has not been). Yeah that’s an unbiased perspective, I’m overwhelmingly convinced by that kind of argument. If you really have some chutzpah, as in the first link above, you can even use Darwin himself, the very poster child demonstrating how an extremely significant biological finding can occur in the absence of any advanced math at all!!
And why do all of these people even care so much about what Edward Wilson says in a newspaper piece in the first place? Don’t they have better things to do with their time? And since I do, that’s all I’m saying on it, which is already way too much.
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenters’ wives
I don’t know how it all got started
I don’t know what they do with their lives
Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue
So begins the title of a new post that Warren Pearce has up at the blog titled “Making Science Public”, in which he briefly lays out his view on different types of climate change skepticism existing out there, arguing that they are not a collective monolith, and also making some points about labeling people who hold certain viewpoints.
To the memory and beauty of Dave Carter’s words and music
_________________________________________________________
I was born in a fork-tongued story
Raised up by merchants and drug store liars
Now I walk on the paths of glory
One foot in ice, one in fire
I see the mountain, the mountain comes to me
I see the mountain
And that is all I see
Some poor prophet comes, some find solace
Some lay him down in a junkyard bay
Some will chase us and some will call us
Gone, gone, gone in a day
Gone to the mountain, the mountain comes to me
I see the mountain
And that is all I see
Miller take me and miller grind me
Scatter my bones on the wild green tide
Maybe some roving bird will find me
Over the water we’ll ride
Over the mountain, the mountain comes to me
I see the mountain
And that is all I see
Some build temples, some find altars
Some come in tall hats and robes spun fine
Some in rags, some in gemstone halters
And some push the pegs back in line
But I see the mountain, the mountain comes to me
I see the mountain
And that is all I see
The Mountain, Dave Carter
Dave and Tracy Grammer’s version (with Feynman story and origins of the song)
Tracy and Jim Hill’s version
Angelo Pappagallo demonstrates the chord progression
I guess I’d better get back up
Get up off the ground again
I guess I’m really not that tough
Up is farther than it’s ever been
It’s not just that my pride’s been hurt
Not just that my heart’s been bruised
I fell down on my big ideas
It’s gotten me a bit confused
Oh yes you are a true bad boy
Your conscience is a constant threat
Time for a new idea, one to discard regret
Prime time to forgive, prime time to forget
What was that that I just said?
What was that that I just said?
What was that that I just said?
What was that?, John Gorka
I’ve had my doubts about why I’ve bothered to spend time here discussing the serious problems in dendroclimatology, including getting into the specifics of the review of my PNAS manuscript. Why should I bother? I do wish at this point that I’d re-submitted it elsewhere sooner, and time spent writing articles here could have gone toward that end, but that’s not the main point here. The main point is this: there’s no convenient place for scientists to easily and openly discuss problems in science, and especially, problems in the review process in science. This is a big problem in my view.
