A Free Man

Just a wee break in the 90’s flashbacks this week, stay tuned for more…

It rained yesterday - Australian drought my ass. It rained on A Free Man and Boy Party Day, which meant that we were house bound for the bulk of the day. Boy Z has risen to toddlerhood proper and I just want to say that I now have sympathy for all you stay-at-home-parents. The boy is an insubordinate destructicon (he gets it from his Mother). Here’s hoping that this mythological Australian summer kicks in soon or I may go back to working five days a week.

My sanity was preserved by  the arrival of two overseas packages yesterda. First, in the morning mail, was a box of Georgia schwag from Just Jessie containing more paraphenalia to make Boy Z the best dressed Little Dawg in the Southern Hemisphere. Even better, though, was DVDs of the first four games of the year - back when we still thought we were good. Watching the Bulldogs run all over Georgia Southern kept Boy Z quiet for a good two minutes.

With the afternoon post, my sanity was at a breaking point - the terrorist was on the verge of winning.  Then my hardworking postman rang the bell again, this time with a box full of Obama paraphernalia kindly shipped my way by Alice of 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera - her campaign leftovers. It was a veritable treasure trove of all things Obama, including some t-shirts, stickers, buttons, posters (one of which is my favorite campaign image) and even Democratic mints. There was a notable shortage of Obama gear in Oz, so Alice’s package was a great treat for a fervent supporter of the president-elect. Plus, the stickers and pins distracted Boy Z for a fair few minutes. Although, I suspect that I’ll be finding Obama-Biden stickers stuck about the place for a few days.

My most heartfelt thanks to both Jessie and Alice!

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In lieu of an accompanying track, I’d like to point you to the Aquarium Drunkard who has a whole album of a show played by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in 1969. Two of my favorite artists of all time - magical. Check it out here.

Popularity: 80% [?]

Three reasons I voted for President Barack Obama:

“This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time — to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth — that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can.”

Here’s his Election night speech as an MP3 file. In case you want to hear it again…

 

 Barack Obama's Election Night Speech - November 4, 2008 [16:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 42% [?]

“IF there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”*

I’ve been pretty hard on the American Dream lately, have made statements about it being a myth or a fantasy or available only beyond America’s shores. But as Barack Obama started his speech last night, as the first black president of the United States took the stage, I realized that I was wrong. The election results last night exorcised the demons of slavery and racial discrimination from the America soul. It gave me hope that my homeland is making a transition after eight years of disastrous foreign and domestic policy and is on its way to being a country to which I could imagine returning one day.

But…

But, I am extremely disheartened about some of the results last night. The Alaska senate race is laughable as it seems a convicted criminal has been elected to represent them in the United States Senate. Is there any way that we could convince Alaska to secede.  This stands in stark contrast to a senate election in Missouri in 2000 in which Missouri repudiated the wing nut John Ashcroft in favor of a dead man.

What I am most unhappy about, however, are four ballot measures. Three of them, in Arizona, California and (predictably) Florida, banned gay marriage in those states. The worst, however, was in Arkansas where the voters opted to ban adoption by gay couples. I had hoped that we were past this kind of hatred as a nation. I had hoped that the election of a black man to the highest office in the land meant that we were rejecting prejudice and discrimination. But it seems that it is still acceptable to discriminate against homosexuality. It is still acceptable to hate gays and refuse them the rights that are available that happened to be born with a certain combination of alleles.

Well, shame on us. When are we going to grow up? When are we going to stop saying, “Ewww, homos! I don’t like them.” What difference does it make to heterosexual marriage if we extend the same opportunity to homosexuals? When are we going to stay out of our neighbors relationships and bedrooms? When are we going to stop legislating hatred?

Call me a negative nelly, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Every silver lining has a big old gray cloud surrounding it.

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* This got my attention, but my favorite part of Obama’s speech and the part that brought tears to my eyes, was this:

“I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation’s next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”

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John Mellencamps’s gritty version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” was featured on a compilation called “Song of America” available from eMusic.

 

 John Mellencamp - "This Land Is Your Land" [4:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 46% [?]

Michelle Obama took a lot of heat for this statement, but today I agree with her 100%:

“For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

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Joanna Smith’s sublime version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”** was featured on a compilation called “Song of America” available from eMusic. Check out more of Smith’s music at her MySpace page.

 

 Joanna Smith - "Battle Hymn of the Republic" [5:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 43% [?]

Noon - November 5 - Adelaide

Stowed safely away from high maintenance students. Let’s get down to business. Fox, always the stalwart of responsible journalism, has it Obama 81 - McCain 39. Clearly in the tank. NYT has Obama ahead in Florida 53 - 47. My former home of Columbia County voted 66 - 34 for McCain. I’m surprised Obama got the 34.

12:11 p.m.: MSNBC calls Georgia for Obama without the votes from Atlanta or Savannah. NBC is in the tank for McCain.

12:28 p.m.: The only live stream I can get at Uni is MSNBC, which means I have to listen to Olbermann and Matthews and Scarborough stroke themselves for the rest of the day. Working to sort this out. Early returns from Michigan and Missouri look bad. Virginia looks bad. Why do the “real Americans” count faster than commies?

12:33: Oooooh. Fox News Radio! Now this is good. Fox (in the tank for Obama) has Obama with 180 electoral votes. And they just reminded me that there was a riot in Grant Park during the 1968 Democrat convention. Watch out for rioting Obamaniacs, Chicago.

12:42: OK, commies, here’s the deal. Obama needs Florida, Virginia, North Carolina or Ohio. Here’s the numbers as CNN has them:

Florida: Obama 52 - 48

Ohio: Obama 57 - 42

Virginia: McCain 51 -48

NC: Obama 52 - 48

So, it’s pretty good. Remember, real Americans count faster.

12:49 p.m.: Fox News radio jocks are depressed. Suicide watch. They’ve just called Ohio for Obama and called it “over”. Inexplicably they want to play The Stones’ “Tumbling Dice”

Women think Im tasty, but theyre always tryin to waste me
And make me burn the candle right down,
But baby, baby, I dont need no jewels in my crown.

Why?

1:01 p.m: Fox News Radio is already planning for the coming Marxist regime. President Obama will tax them to death. Fair and balanced.

I’m happy to report that Florida’s Volusia County, where A Free Man cast his absentee ballot, went for Obama 56 -44. MSNBC has New Mexico going for Obama. 200 - 865 Obama. I’m betting that we have a new president within the hour. Florida looks poised to redeem itself.

1:10: Not so fast. 62 - 39 to ban gay marriage, Florida? Really? Are we still doing that? Grow up.

1:27: The New York Times is, ironically, the most conservative about calling these states. They have it at Obama 117, McCain 18. Just for kick, let’s see how the drunken college student vote is going. These are university counties in red states:

Clarke County, Georgia (Go Dawgs!): Obama 58 - 40
Alachua County, Florida (Gators Suck): Obama 62 - 37
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama (Roll Tide): McCain 55 -44
Lee County, Alabama (War Eagle): McCain 55 - 44
Knox County, Tennessee (Vols): McCain 60 - 39

So, I guess the Gators aren’t all bad. But the young ‘un vote in the South maybe not a factor.

1:51: Big news. Despite being down 42 - 56 at the latest count, John McCain is the president…

…of Utah.

2:14: More of the student/pothead vote that may, in fact, matter:

Boone County, Missouri (Mizzou!): 62 - 37 Obama
Forsyth County, NC (Demon Deacons): 55 - 45 Obama
Albemarle County, Virginia (Cavs): 59 -39 Obama

2:28 p.m.: Fox has called Virginia for Obama (so in the tank). That may be premature, but I think the cable news folks are being a bit coy about Florida. I’m calling Florida for Obama. Let’s get Cali in and this is done.

2:31 p.m.: That’s it. MSNBC calls it. CNN calls it. Fox explodes. I’ve got to say, I’m a little teary eyed from the Southern Hemisphere. God bless America.

Popularity: 38% [?]

8:11 a.m. Wednesday - Adelaide

Because I’m 15 1/2 hours in the future I already know who won the U.S. election. But to avoid ruining your election night teevee watching, I’ll keep quiet. But you might want to spend some time in the barrrrrrr tonight.

I thought I might try my hand at some live blogging today, since I spend my work day in front of a computer anyway and chances are I’m not going to get much done as I obsess over the returns.

8:20 a.m.: Turnout is key to an Obama win and most news agencies are predicting record voter turnout. I’m particularly interested in three states, largely because I used to live in them: Florida, Georgia and Missouri.  The Melbourne Herald Sun tells me that problems were “minor” in Florida. Why don’t we just wait and see about that, they haven’t started counting yet.

8:45 a.m.: Fox has a voter fraud hotline! I wouldn’t encourage vandalism, but if one were to send an e-mail to voterfraud@foxnews.com and claim that Rudy Giuliani physically prevented them from voting, for example, it would be mildly amusing. If 1,000,000 people did it, I’m pretty sure Rupert Murdoch would explode. I’ve added some election night music below - Ani DiFranco and Jake Shimabukuro.

9:12 a.m.: Surprise, surprise - MSNBC streams to our socialist isle in the southern hemisphere. Anyone want to bet that Matthews and Olbermann come to blows by the end of the night? Oh, god, they’re talking about exit polls. Do you people never learn? Stupid liberal media.

9:38 a.m.: Chris Matthews is a tosser. Rambling about South Africa, patriotism, a new dawn. Shut up and give me some early results. Indiana’s closed, so is New Hampshire. Can’t wait for NPR’s coverage at 10:30. I wish Chuck Todd would shave.

10:01 a.m.: First numbers in, woo hoo! McCain ahead in Kentucky and Obama in Indiana with 0.034% of the vote in.  Bob Barr currently has 0 votes.

10:22 a.m.: Oooh, exit polls from Slate:

Ohio: Obama +8
New Mexico: Obama +9
Virginia: Obama +9
Pennsylvania: Obama +15
Missouri: Obama +7
Florida: Obama +4

Remember 2004 and President Kerry…

10:30a.m.: Thank GOD for NPR. No more yammering morons. Obama is surprisingly close in KY with 10% in, mostly from the “real Kentucky”.  But Michelle just told me that NPR’s calling it for McCain and Vermont for Obama. McCain leading 8 - 3.

10:49 a.m.: First results from Florida. John McCain is president of Lake County. Haven’t you people learned anything in the last eight years? Don’t force me to extend Florida Hate Week!

11:02 a.m.: Stupid work. Stupid meeting. I’ll be back in a bit. Lafayette Co. in FL voted 80% McCain. But then, it is the scrotum of Florida. By the time this meeting is over, I’m expecting Florida to shape the hell up and I’m watching you too, Georgia!

11:54 a.m.: Australian bosses clearly don’t understand the U.S. election is far more important than a rambling meeting about mice. CNN (in the tank) has Obama up 77 - 34. NPR has called Pennslyvania and has Obama 101 - 34. Could be a short night if the liberal communist media has its way.

11:57 a.m.: Headed to my University office where I will shut the door and turn out the lights to keep out pesky students.

 

 Ani DiFranco - "This Land Is Your Land" [3:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Jake Shimabukuro - "Stars and Stripes Forever" [2:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 38% [?]

My Dad and I don’t agree on much politically. I’m a hard core socialist and my Dad, as a libertarian, is about as far away from me politically as you can get without coming back the other way. But despite being wrong on most things, he thinks things through thoroughly and is always civil in his opinions, unlike your underwhelming correspondent. My Dad sent me an e-mail today asking my opinion about Sarah Palin after the debate. I don’t think that he’ll mind that in the spirit of guest posts that I’ve been into here on A Free Man, I thought I would publish his mail and my response. First, my Dad’s thoughts in italics:

Looking for your unbiased and honest opinion if you saw any of the VP debate. Since I don’t have a dog in the fight and can’t vote anyway*, I can be objective. I am objective to the point that I dislike both McCain and Obama, so I’m happy I can’t vote - I’d have to go with none of the above on the ballot.

The media has been ripping Palin so much, I thought I would take the time to see her in action. I don’t quite understand why the media beats her up for inexperience but gives Obama a pass, but I guess that is their agenda.

So anyway, I watched the first part of the debate, and she won me over quickly. Down to earth, folksy and positive responses to the questions. Biden, on the other hand, like all lifetime “experienced” politicians, sidesteps the question and goes into ripping the competition. This is what I am used to - Democrat or Republican, doesn’t matter. Palin did not go too far down that road. I would like to think that she could set a trend for the future, but that is probably too much to hope for. And probably if she hangs around, she’ll end up like them.But it was a nice few minutes.
So anyway, I thought, well maybe it was just me. So at tennis today I dared to bring up politics - not usually a good mix,. Most of my comrades are Obama guys so I expected to hear pretty negative things. But amazingly, they to a man, were very much impressed by her and how she handled herself.

So, if you got a chance to see it, what did you think?

Well Dad, since you read my blog I suspect that you already know that my opinion of Sarah Palin is not a very good one. I did watch the debate, which was shown nearly live on Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV, the PBS equivalent. First of all, I think Joe Biden was fantastic in the last hour and that is unfortunately getting lost in the chattering about Palin. He was smart, quick witted and importantly acted as the terrier that I had hoped he would. He went after Palin a couple of times on absolute falsehoods spouted by her and the McCain campaign. In his finest moment, he challenged the whole Maverick® label that Palin and McCain have draped themselves in. After the sixth time she said “maverick” Biden, clearly peeved, went on a sharp riff, challenging the Republican candidates’ maverickness.

As for Palin, she definitely exceeded expectations and in her defense, presented herself much better than she had of late in interviews.  I’ll admit that I, like a lot of other people, watched in part to see the Palin Express completely come off the rails. But she formed complete sentences, had some coherent thoughts and above all, and as you pointed out, Dad, was thoroughly charming. She didn’t convince me that she knows what she’s talking about, particularly, because she flat-out refused to address the questions posed and stuck to her talking points.

But this is my problem with Sarah Palin: she’s all charm. As you say yourself, she’s down to earth and folksy. A lot of people perceive a connection with her.  She’s someone a lot of people would probably like to have a beer with. That’s great, but I don’t want to have a beer with my president, or vice-president. I don’t want my president to be someone I can relate to. I don’t want my president to be just like me. I want my president to be much smarter than me, I want my president to be much more competent than me, I want my president to be much better than me. I don’t think I could run the United States and I don’t think Sarah Palin could run the United States. We’ve had eight years of being led by a “regular guy”, a “folksy” speaker, a guy that people wanted to have a beer with. Dad, are we better off than we were eight years ago? I don’t think I could run the United States and I don’t think Sarah Palin could run the United States.

That’s my objective opinion. What do you guys think? Let’s hear your (civilized) opinions about Sarah Palin post-debate.

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* My Dad retains his Canadian citizenship despite living in the U.S. for over thirty years. Smart guy.

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The John Butler Trio’s “Sunrise Over Sea” is available from .

 

 John Butler Trio - "Betterman": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 65% [?]

Always closest to the flame
Ever closer to the blade
I am poison crazy lush
Built these hands to lift me up
We are servants to our formulaic ways

I am not an economist. John McCain and I share a stated lack of understanding about the economy. Hell, I’m not even that good with managing money. So, I’m really the last person in the world who should be writing about the current American economic crisis. But I’ve really gotten sucked in to this latest Bush mediated catastrophe, particularly into how it came to be. I’m not sure how the country is going to get out of it, but I’m pretty sure that letting new president Hank Paulson bully his way into unlimited power is not the best way out. Here’s hoping, for the sake of my friends and family still living in the People’s Republic of America, that our Congress finds a pair.

The reason that I feel qualified to declaim today is that you don’t really have to be an economist to figure out what happened in the States last week. You don’t even have to be particularly bright. President George Bush summed it up perfectly back in July when he exhibited a bit of uncharacteristic honesty and even more uncharacteristic accuracy saying, “Wall Street got drunk.” This is the first and hopefully last time you will see these words on my site: George Bush was right. “Wall Street” - the investment bankers, traders, speculators, Captains of Industry, Masters of the Universe  and their greedy ilk - were on a binge that they thought would never end. I imagine that there’s a few of us that can relate to that feeling, a party that we hope can go on forever, regardless of consequences, ignorant of the fact that we’re just drunken assholes staggering around in the cruel light of dawn.

In a way, the Wall Street revelers aren’t completely at fault. Someone continued to serve them as they staggered up to the bar, puking up dodgy mortgages and mumbling about liquidity. Someone was there providing the booze to keep the illusory party going. Someone failed to follow the unwritten rule that every good bartender knows - there’s a point at which some drinkers need to be cut off, for their own safety and the safety of others. The bigger failure in this crisis is the bartender’s.

The man behind the bar in this case was the federal government. After the last economic crisis similar to the scale of the one we’re in today, the one so great that we call it Great and study it in history, the Roosevelt Administration and Congress put a number of checks on the banking industry, a number of regulations to prevent a collapse such as the one in 1931. A lot of people didn’t like these regulations, considered them Socialism. But our well regulated financial system kept us in a state of prosperity for nearly 40 years. During these four decades, the hardcore capitalists where whining like petulant children about the undue hardship placed upon them by the government. Somewhere in the mid 70’s, our elected officials started to listening to these guys. And slowly, FDR’s legacy started to be chipped away. The crumbling started under the Carter administration, under pressure during the gas crisis in his administration. Reagan came in like a bulldozer, crushing banking regulations in his wake. Under a recession, Bush I was limited in his deregulation, but the last two presidents - Clinton and Bush - basically eliminated any controls that the Federal Government had over investment banks. Although the G.O.P. is in charge of this meltdown, it’s been a real bipartisan effort to get us here. All of these leaders had the misfortune of listening to the capitalist lie that the markets would regulate themselves, that everything would be OK if the government just got out of the way.

Now, if that sounds like madness to you then you are one of the sane people. Anyone with a modicum of insight knows that “The Market” is only interested in one thing - “The Market”.  Capitalism is at its very core, a purely selfish economic philosophy. It is all about a few folks that have a lot making a lot more  and everyone else, everyone in their way, be damned. It is about greed. The current problem revolves around mortgages. The credit market, not satisfied with its customer base and free of any restrictions decided to branch out and find some new suckers. Led by a few brave innovators, they began to offer credit to people who probably shouldn’t have them. Competition drives capitalism and soon the innovators were followed by all manner of lending agencies and the requirement for huge loans pretty much thrown out the window. After a while, surprise, some of these people couldn’t pay back their loans and the lenders suffered a real shortage of capital. Capitalism without capital equals a problem, panic ensued and here we are today with the Paulson administration ready to bail the lenders our of the drunk tank. What has failed in the U.S. this time, and in most of our previous economic crises, is capitalism itself. “The Market” failed to regulate itself. The government, stripped of its power, was ineffective to stop the few from screwing the rest of us. Ironically, and somewhat satisfyingly, the only apparent cure is socialism.

There is one group of people in this giant mess who are absolutely not at fault, despite what you may hear on Fox News and talk radio. The Cavutos, O’Reillys and Hannitys of the world are trying to place the blame on people who were offered and accepted these dodgy mortgages. These people took on mortgages and then watched their lives fall apart as the “variable rates” varied skyward and they could no longer afford the repayments. The right-wing jerkoffs would have you believe that these people intentionally went in to take advantage of their drunken mortgage lenders. That there was a conspiracy among “the poor” and “minorities” to bring down the American economy. This is clearly ridiculous; who would go in to buy a house with the knowledge that they would not be able to afford it and that the bank would come and take that away? Are there that many sadists about?

I know this to be true from personal experience. When still living in Oxford (yes, Britain has had the same problems and is suffering as well), Dr. O’C and I talked to a mortgage consultant about how much money we could potentially borrow if we were to buy a house. She quoted us an insane amount of money, several times more than our combined income. When we expressed surprise and mild concern, she turned on the hard sell and threw a lot of words at us - variable rates, interest only, incentivised risk - that we didn’t really understand. Now, Dr. O’C’s dream is to own her own house and I know that both of us were tempted to take this woman at her word and jump in to the financial deep end. I think that Dr. O’C and I are reasonably bright people, but we were nearly wooed by this brokers big talk of dreams fulfilled and money almost literally growing on trees. In the end, thankfully, we decided to wait. Thank goodness for that. I know for a fact that we would be one of the people on which the Retread Right is trying to, as a distraction, pin the blame.

I don’t know how this is going to turn out. I don’t know which presidential candidate would do a better job of sorting it out. Actually, I’m pretty sure that Obama would do a better job as he seems to have a better grip on what has gone wrong. McCain just seems to be reacting.  I don’t know if it’s going to get worse of if President Paulson’s bailout will sort it out. But I do know who is and who is not at fault. We can blame this on Wall Street greed, an incapacitated Government and Capitalism. Not at fault are people who were unwittingly sucked in to the whole mess and who now, apparently, are the only ones who aren’t going to be bailed out.

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I should point out that I don’t really care that much for Bush - they were kind of grunge posers - but this song just fit perfectly. But “Razorblade Suitcase” from .

 

 Bush - "Greedy Fly" [4:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 53% [?]

Some of you probably know that one of my jobs right now is teaching Biotechnology at one of Adelaide’s universities. I’m currently working on my next lecture, which is supposed to cover Comparative Genomics and Human Origins - evolution. By working on my lecture, of course, I mean working on a blog post about working on my lecture. This is not meant to be a controversial post. It is not a post about evolution vs. creationism, I’ve been there and done that and have the scars to prove it. Nor is this a post  about Sarah Palin and her fundamentalist beliefs, that all got a bit controversial. Nope, this post was inspired by my predilection to procrastination and stumbling on this post from Genomicron about evolution and creationism in the classroom. My interest piqued and justified by the vaguely topical nature of the post led me to this special issue of Integrative & Comparative Biology which in turn sucked up the bulk of my afternoon.

Before we get too far into this, let’s get some things straight. Science and religion, as Linda Kondrick points out in her ICB paper, are ways of knowing, ways of interpreting human experience, ways of defining ‘truth’. However, the two disciplines rely on entirely different logical approaches. Religion is deductive, beginning with a “known” - a sacred text or divine revelation - to explain what we see around us. Science is inductive, beginning with observations of the human experience and building a model to explain those observations. I’m not making a judgment on which approach is better, but I’m guessing most of you know where my allegiances lie.

Evolution at its most basic is descent with modification, the theory that the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution is not “just a theory” but a critical principle of biology. As Lovely and Kondrick eloquently put it in their ICB paper, it “is the backbone, the beautiful and efficient explanation for why organisms today are different from organisms in the past and why there is such an amazing diversity of fascinating biological organisms with awe inspiring lifestyles and body plans.” Evolution is basically the same kind of theory as gravity.

Creationism and intelligent design are effectively and legally identical. According to the creationist Discovery Institute, ID is the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” The courts have recently ruled that ID is essentially the offspring of “creation science”, which was outlawed from American public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. Effectively, they are the same theory - that an Intelligent Designer (a Christian God) is responsible for the variation that we see in life. As Barbara Forrest reports in her ICB paper, despite claims by proponents that “ID is not based on religion”  they freely admit that their ”natural constituency” is Christians. Despite couching ID in pseudo-scientific language and making a cursory attempt to include some scientific data (generally taken out of context), ID is at its heart dependent on a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Science educators are increasingly finding it difficult to effectively teach evolution. The challenge that is presented to scientists and to science educators is that we are not effectively teaching and communication the principle of evolution to students and the lay public. As I wrote in my previous post, a shocking percentage of the American public doubt that evolution has occurred at all. Lest you think its an American problem, a 2006 Ipsos MORI survey in the UK found that only 48% of Britons thought that evolution best explained their origin and the variation of life that they see around them. High school and university educators increasingly report problems when it comes to covering evolution in their courses. Lovely & Kondrick write of a “wedge effect” among college students who come into a semester long Biology course undecided about evolution. At the end of the course, about half of the students shifted to a scientific viewpoint but the other half shifted towards a creationist viewpoint. So, despite being presented with overwhelming evidence supporting the principle of evolution, students are as likely to choose the invalid creationist viewpoint, even moreso when dealing with questions of human ancestry.

Clearly we are failing as educators when it comes to teaching evolution and we’re failing as scientists in communicating about evolution to the lay community. We can not assume that because we know that something is true and not a matter for debate that everyone believes that something is true and not a matter for debate. Forrest correctly points out that as scientists, parents and citizens it is our duty to counteract ID whenever and wherever possible. Our expertise is valuable whether it be in working with teachers, testifying to school board or local councils or wherever the opportunity arises. Scientists who are also educators bear a bigger obligation. The consensus of the ICB papers was that our current teaching methods, particularly in terms of evolution are dated and ineffective. Craig Nelson proposed the most sweeping changes, stating his belief that “traditional ways of teaching are inferior” and proposes the alternative approach of combining extensive use of interactive engagement and a focus on critical thinking in science to help students compare their initial misconceptions with scientific conceptions. Nelson supports a peer driven approach, with lots of student interaction and replacing “recipe” practicals with “inquiry labs”. This all sounds a bit chaotic to me, particularly if you’re unfortunate enough to be a high school teacher, but his point is well made and Nelson offers extensive resources to make changes toward “interactive learning”.

Kevin Padian proposes similar sweeping curriculum changes in his ICB paper. Padian feels that the biggest problem we face is with the textbooks available. For general biology in both high school and college, the most popular texts do not dedicate much space to evolution as a whole and even less to macroevolution. These texts often use non-controversial language such as “many paleontologists think that birds are close relatives of dinosaurs.” The fact is that virtually every biologist has known for at least a decade that birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic period. The use of “many paleontologists” and “think” introduces artificial uncertainty. Padian also proposes a change in the way that evolution is graphically presented and suggests a move to “evograms” (see below and click to enlarge) that show fossil, morphological and molecular evidence in a single illustration.

I’m not likely to make a major shift in teaching style between now and my next lecture nor find a perfect new textbook, but one suggestion that Nelson and others make can be incorporated immediately. Many of us take the approach of ignoring creationism and the controversy and conflict between science and religion when teaching evolution. Fair enough, astronomers don’t have to address astrology, chemists don’t have to address alchemy. But a couple of the ICB authors have proposed addressing science, religion and the controversy head on. Now, this is ground that needs to be trodden upon lightly. If we’re derisive or supercilious about religion then we do more harm than good. We reinforce religious students preconceptions of arrogant, godless scientists. Equally important, however, is not giving any credence to creationism as a valid alternative to evolution. It is not and should not be treated as one. Michael Reiss, writing in Studies in Science Education errs too much in the direction of giving creationism undue credibility.

So when teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have (hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching) and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion. The word ‘genuine’ doesn’t mean that creationism or intelligent design deserve equal time. However, in certain classes, depending on the comfort of the teacher in dealing with such issues and the make up of the student body, it can be appropriate to deal with the issue.

I think that Reiss’ proposals go too far, as too much discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of creationism would just help to drive that metaphorical wedge. Nelson proposes teaching that rather than the false dichotomy of atheistic evolution versus religious creationism that there is a broad interfaith consensus that acceptance of evolution is compatible with faith. Kondrick proposes taking this discussion even further by exploring the historical philosophical divide between religion and science going back to a compromise brokered by Thomas Aquinas in 1252. Aquinas devised a system for resolving the disparities between the two by showing them to be philosophically complementary.

Now, Thomism may be a bit of a stretch for your average hormone riddled teenager. But the most positive feedback that I’ve gotten from my students this term is when we came of the rails a bit in a lecture about medical genomics. We started talking, in a bit more casual way, about the ethics surrounding the topic. That deviation from the standard lecture and foray into philosophizing got the students really interested, really engaged. I haven’t tested that material yet, but I’d be willing to bet that they do better on it than on anything else. Maybe breaking up a dry lecture on molecular evolution and the origin of the human species with a discussion about science and religion and the nature of truth would wake up those laggards in the back row.

Or maybe the best way to teach evolution is for me to stop fannying about and write the lecture.

Web Resources:

Understanding Evolution

Panda’s Thumb

The Butler Letter

PBS Evolution

ICB: Evolutionism vs Creationism in the Classroom

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Just a warning in advance, I am in a bad mood today. Not in any kind of mood to mince words…

Strange Scottish Girl, who has a snazzy new site by the way, asked me the other day for a political post. I’ve not written one in a while, largely because the whole Sarah Palin nomination/ Republican circus has just depressed me. I’m depressed at the cynicism of the McCain campaign thinking that disaffected Clinton voters will flock to Palin just because of the number of X chromosomes that she bears. I’m depressed that the Republicans are falling back on extreme social conservativism to engorge their base. Again. I’m depressed that the oldest presidential candidate in history has selected a viciously pro-life, creationist, anti-science, book banning neo-fascist to be a malignant melanoma away from the reins of my homeland.

Mostly I’m depressed that it seems to be working. The most recent Real Clear Politics aggregate polls have McCain up three points on Obama, the first time he’s led since he became the presumptive Republican nominee back in the Spring. This isn’t because of McCain’s slightly histrionic and more than slightly disingenuous speech last week, it’s because of Palin.

I don’t even want to post about Palin, I just can’t drum up the words. She represents everything that I think is wrong with the Republican Party and American politics as it stands today. I was really pretty optimistic about things because it looked like things were changing - even the G.O.P. had weeded out the wing nuts and nominated a socially moderate candidate, but then Palin.

But this isn’t about Sarah Palin, it’s about book banning. Sarah Palin likes the idea of banning books by most accounts. Sarah Palin asked the librarian in the town she ran how she would feel if Palin asked her to remove some books from the local library. The librarian said she would never do anything of the sort. The librarian was “asked to resign” a few days later. The McCain campaign has tried to quiet this story by saying that Palin’s request was speculative and that the librarian wasn’t fired because she said no to Palin, but for other reasons. Whatever.

I know book banners and I know what they look like and sound like. I grew up in a small town on the steaming pine flats of north Florida. This particular town was famous for two things. One, Ted Bundy killed his last victim there. Two, they banned Chaucer from the schools. When I was a Freshman in High School, my county school board banned a humanities text book that contained excerpts from Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” and Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”. That’s right, 5^th century B.C. Greek drama and 13^th century English frame tales were too dirty for our developing minds. A local preacher’s wife was helping her daughter with her homework one day and came across the mere mention of the existence of sex in Lysistrata and the “The Miller’s Tale” – a farcical story in verse that includes medieval fart jokes – and went all histrionic. She got her husband on to the case, who used his own little bully pulpit to get a rise out of his Southern Baptist congregation. As these things do in small towns, in a matter of weeks there was fury from the community about their precious innocents being forced to read such smut. Smut that 99% of them hadn’t bothered to read. Smut that the vast majority of them couldn’t pronounce, never mind spell.

The irony, of course, is that in the late 80’s most of these delicate flowers were having more sex than Aristophanes could ever conceive of and the jokes I heard in the halls of my school would have caused Chaucer to blush. But logic and reality tend to be irrelevant when a community is stricken with a righteous fury and the school board, with a cowardly unanimous vote, caved under the pressure and banned both the humanities book and the original text.

At the time, I didn’t know Greek comedy from situation comedy and  I didn’t know that Chaucer was the father of English literature and laid the path for seven centuries of words to come. I was 15 and had bigger issues to deal with and I just didn’t really care about the ban.  I was young and still labored under the illusion that elected officials knew best and had my best interests at heart. I’ve always been a little bit ashamed that I wasn’t angry at the time, that I didn’t get angry until I went away to college and read “Lysistrata” and “The Canterbury Tales”. It was at that point that I realized what had been done to me by the preachers and the school board.

I have no problem with anyone’s religious beliefs, none whatsoever. Largely because what  anyone else believes is absolutely none of my business. If you don’t want to watch a movie or read a book or listen to a song because it flies in the face of your religious beliefs, that’s fine. If you don’t want your child to read a book or listen to a song because it flies in the face of your religious beliefs, that’s fine, though you probably ultimately do your child a disservice. Nonetheless, none of my business. But the Christianists that banned Chaucer and Aristophanes went a step too far, they didn’t want anyone to read, watch or listen to something that offended their faith. This is where I have a problem. This is where your religion offends me. This is where your beliefs tread on not only my beliefs, but my freedom to practice them. This is where it becomes my business.

I learned that in my first year of a private Christian college in South Carolina. I learned that I should be angry about what had been done in my hometown. I learned about book banning. It didn’t just happen in that small town in north Florida. It had happened throughout history when zealots with a modicum of power and more than their fair share of influence convinced an ill informed population that a book threatened their morality. And I got angry. And I wrote an essay for a literature class about book banning and book banners. My professor encouraged me to send that essay to my local newspaper and they published it as a guest editorial.

My small salvo in the war against book banning got me my first job as a writer. The surprisingly progressive publisher of our local paper gave me a summer job as an intern reporter. I spent two summers reporting on the local politicians . It was during those two summers that I became a liberal, that I began to question authority, that I learned the dirty truth about small town politics. During those two summers I got to know Sarah Palin. I got to know small minded people that are so convinced that their personal morality is right that they are willing to force it on everyone else by any means necessary. I learned that if people wouldn’t listen and change, the Sarah Palins of the world will litigate their world view. There are lots of Sarah Palins on school boards and county commissions and, yes, in mayors offices in small towns around the country, particularly in the South. I know her, I’ve worked for her and I’ve worked against her and I have had enough of her.

Now most of the time, these people don’t get far in politics. But every now and again one of them is clever enough, glib enough or charismatic enough to climn the political ladder. Sometimes they get elected to the State legislature, sometimes they might be elected to the House of Representatives. Occasionally one of them becomes governor or even a Senator. Increasingly, these small-minded proto fascists are making a dent on the national stage. Recently they’ve made their way on to the U.S. Supreme Court and into the White House itself.

I had high hopes that this year was going to be different. But then came Sarah Palin, with her snide, sarcastic speech and her fundamentalist agenda and I realized that it was just the same old shit from the G.O.P. So, I don’t want to hear from Sarah Palin. I don’t want to be polite about this election anymore. I don’t want to try and balance the two parties and try to be fair. I’m angry and I’m tired of these people and I want them to go away. I want their mandate taken away.   I want them beaten and beaten soundly. Am I a member of the “Angry Left”? You’re damn right I am.

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