Manifesto
at 2:01 pm on Saturday, 7 November 2009
As a highly-trained but waning curmudgeon I have been trying to come up with a way to use some of my remaining energy and time in a meaningful way. Right now I have a plan to concentrate on three things. Two of them involve the world as it is, and one involves thinking about the world as we perceive it.
The overall environment within which these subjects revolve is science – particularly the need for our country to become more science-literate. So our areas of activity, for now, will be focused on this larger theme. Here they are, simply put.
1) the need for us to understand at least enough science to know that the climate is, in fact, warming at an alarming rate; much of the change is correlated to the percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere; there is still something we can do about it. [All this is scientific fact supported by overwhelming actual data.] What to do about it involves politics, economics, sociology etc. and I am not trained in those disciplines, so I will try to avoid getting embroiled in them unless pushed from behind. I hope to provide information and critical skills to help you make rational and informed opinions/decisions.
2) the need for us to understand at least enough science to know that evolution is a fact, supported by overwhelming actual data. The US is one of the most backward countries in the world in the teaching (at the earliest and all other levels) of the science of evolution. I will try to do what is in my power to further the dissemination of information about evolution through media and facilities at my command — such as the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. (The NMMNHS does not sponsor nor endorse this blog — I just happen to be a docent there.), and the internet.
3) the failure of most educational institutions to teach critical reading and critical thinking. and the need for more of us, particularly our newswriters and the folks who supposedly govern us, to learn to think critically and to tell us what we need to know to be good citizens — in logical, clear, and accurate language. Humans have evolved as thinking animals. Hence the sapiens in Homo sapiens. The kind of thinking we do naturally is a powerful tool and “common sense” has brought us a long way. But critical thinking – disciplined and organized thinking, does not come naturally. It has to be taught, and it has to be practiced on a regular basis. So a large part of this blog will be demonstrating critical thinking or be about critical thinking.
I will try to avoid formal technical papers as much as I can (they are usually protected by very expensive subscriptions anyway) and limit myself to posting abstracts, items from the internet, and from the public press, since we want to talk about information available to the non-scientific literate reader.
This blog is intended to serve s a “drop-box” for articles that seem to me to contribute something to the discussion. I use this blog as a place to store articles that I want to share with my friends, colleagues, and guests at the museum, as well as anybody else who is interested. I do not reprint any articles here, but present links to articles that I think have value. I welcome any one else with some knowledge and interest in these subjects to provide access to articles that they value as well. It would also be easy to add more subjects such as astronomy, waste management, sustainable energy, conservation, geology, and on and on according to the interests of the group. And I eagerly suggest that yu leave comments on any articles you read. One of the objects of this blog, more than hinted at by the name of this blog, is to stimulate interesting discussion of the subjects treated.
Like everything else in the Known Universe, everything here is subject to revision without prior notice.
And today, on May 15, 2010, this blog has been online for 7 months. I have read over 20 articles every day, and tried to republish at least a few every day. For a long time I fought over 20 spams/day, but I seem to have solved that.
Trouble is, nobody is reading it. I have more articles than hits. I have tried to get listed with blog directories to no avail. I have advertised in the newsletter of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, talked to the people there in charge of education and docent training, etc. and personally invited several to post articles or comments. Nothing from anybody except three people who have been friends of mine for many years. No posts, no comments, no references to interesting articles from outside my circle of close friends. So I am forced to admit that, as a blog, this experiment has failed.
What to do? I am going to cut way back on my exploration for new sources for articles. A very high percentage of my time these days is spent mining for new sources and good ones are getting harder and harder to find. I will continue to follow all the good resources I have discovered. I am going to discontinue the nuclear topic entirely, not because it is not important or not topical, but because such a high percentage of material is so politically loaded to represent a particular view that it is not really very helpful information for actually understanding the scientific information, much less the social or political. It is nearly impossible to find a safe trail between the adamantly for and the even more adamantly against. There is precious little unbiased scientific information about nuclear power and nuclear waste except in formal documents that are not really readable by the literate layman, which is my declared (but missing) audience.
So. I will continue at a smaller scale, and not with the idea of educating anyone but myself.
Jimalakirti (nee Jim Peavler who can be reached at jmp@peavler.org)