Rules still rule. I've gotten emails about the ones you're thinking about--keep them coming. In the meantime, here's another one I apply:

If you're serious about it (a change, a try, a goal) write it down. If you're really serious, even determined, say it out loud. To someone else.

In many cases when I've set a goal or suggested an action out loud and to someone else (sometimes a room full of else's) it's on pure impulse. Even as the words are falling out of my mouth I'm thinking, "I can't believe I'm CREATING a commitment to something that did not exist until I opened my mouth." Why can't I just keep it between me and other me...

and have the choice to NOT do it?

Because other me knows me better sometimes: I probably won't do it. And while a little more work is always required, I often like the results a whole lot better.

Here are some examples of when I can distinctly remember thinking as I was speaking, "what on earth am I saying this for? This was not prompted! No one is asking me to do this! I am creating this for myself!"

• So, are we going to run Baltimore (marathon)? Four months later, I did
• I'm going to start my own business. Six months later, I did
  
• I think we should convene a group to provide feedback on this model (the group was 50+ all across the country and the turnaround time was about two weeks--but it happened)
  
• Let's go camping for the weekend! (I like warm beds and hot showers but I actually enjoyed this a whole lot more than I ever thought I would, even though it was years ago now)

These are just a couple of light examples, but I know that people employ this method in a wide range of scenarios hoping to change a behavior, a practice, or a belief (e.g. eating patterns, exercising, a golf swing).

So even though saying it out loud and the steps thereafter involve a little bit of discomfort, as I've said before, discomfort often precedes positive change (though like a disclaimer in the ads, amount and time may vary).

Splurge-berry

Fresh, sweet, and blue blueberries. Lots of them.

You have to check this out! (tip from badastronomy)



Fantastic, yes! But which side is this video playing for - pro-science or pro-Intelligent Design?
It appears to me an equal opportunity satire in the tradition of JibJab. It has enough ID in it, that its probably not from the science camp, and it mentions enough creationism to be excluded from the Intelligent Design group (we won't even entertain the possibility of creationists here). But its mighty entertaining - especially with, philsopher, Dennett as a pimp(?). [In case you don't recognize the people, we have, ofcourse, Dawkins, PZ Myers. Darwin, Eugenie Scott, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, and the Machine].

Two men have have filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Hawaii to stop work at the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, located in Europe. They fear that the collider may produce something(s) that may result in the destruction of the Earth, or worse, the destruction of the entire universe. Apart from the nuttiness of these suggestions, my first reaction is: hmm...a particle accelerator that can destroy the entire universe must be very cool (I mean the universe is really really really big, and us, tiny humans, can cause the end of the universe consisting of over a hundred billion galaxies!). But what is going on with the lawsuit:

The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.

But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

And why have the lawsuit against a European collider in Hawaii?

Why should CERN, an organization of European nations based in Switzerland, even show up in a Hawaiian courtroom?

In an interview, Mr. Wagner said, “I don’t know if they’re going to show up.” CERN would have to voluntarily submit to the court’s jurisdiction, he said, adding that he and Mr. Sancho could have sued in France or Switzerland, but to save expenses they had added CERN to the docket here. He claimed that a restraining order on Fermilab and the Energy Department, which helps to supply and maintain the accelerator’s massive superconducting magnets, would shut down the project anyway.

James Gillies, head of communications at CERN, said the laboratory as of yet had no comment on the suit. “It’s hard to see how a district court in Hawaii has jurisdiction over an intergovernmental organization in Europe,” Mr. Gillies said.

Wait a minute. The entire Earth is at risk, and these guys are trying to save expenses!! On a more serious note, physicists do talk about a remote possibility of the production of tiny black holes (which have never been seen before), but still do not expect them to last long (again a process which never been observed):

The Large Hadron Collider is designed to fire up protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts before banging them together. Nothing, indeed, will happen in the CERN collider that does not happen 100,000 times a day from cosmic rays in the atmosphere, said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a particle theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

What is different, physicists admit, is that the fragments from cosmic rays will go shooting harmlessly through the Earth at nearly the speed of light, but anything created when the beams meet head-on in the collider will be born at rest relative to the laboratory and so will stick around and thus could create havoc.

The new worries are about black holes, which, according to some variants of string theory, could appear at the collider. That possibility, though a long shot, has been widely ballyhooed in many papers and popular articles in the last few years, but would they be dangerous?

According to a paper by the cosmologist Stephen Hawking in 1974, they would rapidly evaporate in a poof of radiation and elementary particles, and thus pose no threat. No one, though, has seen a black hole evaporate.

As a result, Mr. Wagner and Mr. Sancho contend in their complaint, black holes could really be stable, and a micro black hole created by the collider could grow, eventually swallowing the Earth.

But William Unruh, of the University of British Columbia, whose paper exploring the limits of Dr. Hawking’s radiation process was referenced on Mr. Wagner’s Web site, said they had missed his point. “Maybe physics really is so weird as to not have black holes evaporate,” he said. “But it would really, really have to be weird.”

Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist whose work helped fuel the speculation about black holes at the collider, pointed out in a paper last year that black holes would probably not be produced at the collider after all, although other effects of so-called quantum gravity might appear.

As part of the safety assessment report, Dr. Mangano and Steve Giddings of the University of California, Santa Barbara, have been working intensely for the last few months on a paper exploring all the possibilities of these fearsome black holes. They think there are no problems but are reluctant to talk about their findings until they have been peer reviewed, Dr. Mangano said.

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”

And here I actually side with the lawsuit - we know dragons are dangerous and can wreak havoc on the planet. Apart from all the silliness, the collider seems awesome and it should be able to address some fundamental questions of particle physics, and, among other things, may even find the elusive Higgs boson. Read the full story here. If you have time, also read this excellent Scientific American article on the Large Hadron Collider.

On a related note of doomsday, some members of a Russian doomsday cult have been living in a cave for the past five months. The members believe that the world is going to end in May of this year. Hmm...and what is the starting date for the Large Hadron Collider? Just a coincidence? :) In any case, seven members of the sect have come out of the cave recently and renewed efforts are underway to get the remaining members out. Read about their latest situation here.

Phew.

It's been a whirlwind of growing and singing, working and writing for work, cleaning and coloring. I've been especially busy with work-related things, which always spills over and onto pleasure-related things, like reading or writing (blog included) or stretching or silencing. You know, those things I do in the wee morning moments or the late afternoon ones, while little one sleeps.

There are a few things I forsake, but there are a few other things I protect. Daily. These are things I have found, mostly by mistake, to keep me calm and present. (As opposed to frenzied and sleepless). Oh, and they are things I do independently. There are many many other things/time/commitments that I protect related to the big man and the little one, but these are separate from that. They are, in no particular order:

1. Exercise. Running, yoga, walking--anything that gets my heart rate up and gets me moving
2. No television. Especially the news. I used to be a news junkie--it was on first thing when I woke up, all day if I was home, and blaring away while I fell asleep. Since having Ava, I never have the tv on (unless it's Sesame Street) and I'd much prefer Big Bird ("Bird-it" to Ava) than anything "on the hour" anymore
   
3. Prayer before I rise. Here's the prayer I recite, sometimes a dozen times a day, but always before I start my day. My dad shared it with me 11 years ago and it's a reminder that every day is a new start to be better
4. Breakfast, boring breakfast. Oatmeal with walnuts, a few craisins or blueberries, and a touch of brown sugar. YUM.
5. Coffee. I know the stuff out there about coffee and caffeine...but I only drink it for one (maybe two) reasons: when it's quiet and dark, I love the sound it makes as it fills up my cup and then how it feels when I hold it with both hands. I rarely finish it, sometimes only remembering to take a sip or two, but it signifies morning to me, and like the prayer, a new start.

::

As I mentioned last week, I've been thinking a lot about rules and even more about how to write about them. I think there is something to this idea, I just haven't come up with the right way to articulate or approach it. But I will. In the meantime, I'd love to hear about the rules that you apply, ones that you've invented over the years and still follow--even if they don't make sense anymore. I've been taking some inventory of my own, especially as I engage in the daily (enormous) task of deciding which rules are non-negotiable with Ava (like those that protect her from harm and others that involve politeness), and those that make no sense or have no purpose and probably need to just go away (like is not letting her stack her water on top of her milk a battle I really want to fight, even though she does it perfectly and has no interest in doing it when I don't react?).

I'll keep thinking and observing--but I'll leave you with one of my favorite rules that I invented almost five years ago, as I was getting ready to marry my husband, who is three years younger than me.

Here it is:

If your husband is younger than you and you take his name when you marry, his age comes with it.

Here it is applied:

I was 27 the morning I got married and by that afternoon, I was 24.

::

A Scrapin' Splurge:

I have been meaning to buy a tongue scraper for like five years now...and finally took the big $2.19 plunge. Now I just have to be better about flossing.

You can read more about the benefits of tongue scraping here.

Ok..I can see cats being honored (after all they are our masters). May be dogs too. Heck, I can even see sheep being elevated to a higher level. But donkeys??? Well, it appears that at least one Egyptian King, 3000 years ago, had a strong affinity for the animal:

When archaeologists excavated brick tombs outside a ceremonial site for an early king of Egypt, they expected to find the remains of high officials who had been sacrificed to accompany the king in his posthumous travels.

Instead, they found donkeys.

No other animals have ever been found at such sites. Even at the tombs of the kings themselves, the only animals buried alongside were ones full of symbolism like lions.

But at this funerary complex, overlooking the ancient town of Abydos on the Nile about 300 miles south of Cairo, the archaeologists discovered the skeletons of 10 donkeys that had been buried as if they were high-ranking human officials.

“They were very surprised to find no humans and no funerary goods, and instead to find 10 donkeys,” said Fiona Marshall, a professor of archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis.

May be the King thought that his high ranking officials were really asses! (the researchers don't really discuss this possibility...). Ok..so may be he respected the utility of these donkeys (and not his courtiers):

Donkeys probably made possible long-distance trade routes between the Egyptians and the Sumerians. A genetic study published in 2004 concluded that donkeys were domesticated in northeastern Africa 6,000 years ago or earlier, perhaps in response to a changing climate that dried a lush pre-Sahara into the Sahara. Donkeys were well suited for the task, requiring little water and able to subsist on meager vegetation. “It was the first transport off human backs,” Dr. Marshall said.

The bones of the Abydos donkeys, dating from around 3000 B.C., clearly showed wear from their burdens. At the major joints like shoulders and hips, the bone surfaces were roughened where the cartilage had worn down. Signs of arthritis were seen in areas where the heavy loads would have been carried.

“It’s the first definite evidence for their use as transport animals,” Dr. Marshall said.

But the animals were also in good health and apparently well taken care of, she said. There were no signs of feet or teeth problems. And the beasts were revered.

“This is a very high-status area where these donkeys were buried,” said Matthew D. Adams, a lecturer in Egyptian art and archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, a member of the team that excavated the graves and a co-author of the donkey article. “And they were buried just like courtiers that were associated with the king. That in itself is a statement on the importance of the donkey as a service animal at this time.”

Ok, I admit that I have been too biased against donkeys - but now I have a newfound respect for this useful but often misrepresented/misunderstood/miscast animal.

To change your perception, read the full story here. And if this doesn't convince you, please read about Monika, who recently retired after 19 years of carrying the character, Sancho Panza, in the Russian ballet, Don Quixote.

As part of Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion, Dr. George V. Coyne, the Director Emeritus of the Vatican Observatory, will give a lecture on The dance of the fertile universe: Did God do it? If you live in/near western Massachusetts, please join us at the lecture. As usual, we will also be recording the lecture and I will post the video when its available.
Here is the full announcement:

Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion Presents

The dance of the fertile universe: Did God do it?
by
George V. Coyne, S.J.

Friday, March 28, 2008
5:30p.m., Franklin Patterson Hall, Main Lecture Hall
Hampshire College

Abstract

Did we come about by chance or by necessity in the evolving universe? Did God make us? Can we conclude that there is Intelligent Design to the universe? To what extent can the natural sciences address these questions? As to chance or necessity the first thing to be said is that the problem is not formulated correctly. It is not just a question of chance or necessity because, first of all, it is both. Furthermore, there is a third element here that is very important. It is what we might call the 'fertility' of the universe. So the dance of the fertile universe is a ballet with three ballerinas: chance, necessity and fertility. What this means is that the universe is so fertile in offering the opportunity for the success of both chance and necessary processes that such a character of the universe must be included in the search for our origins in the universe. In this light I am going to try to present in broad strokes what I think is some of the best of our modern scientific understanding of the universe and then return to the questions above.

George V. Coyne, S.J. is a Jesuit Priest and an astronomer. He is Director Emeritus of the Vatican Observatory and Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Wayfarers in the Cosmos: The Human Quest for Meaning.

Upcoming lecture:

• Lawrence Krauss, Thursday, October 23, 2008

About the Hampshire College Science & Religion Lecture Series:
This is the second year of a three-year lecture series that aims to bring together philosophers, theologians, historians and scientists to discuss topics in science & religion. The themes for the lecture series are as follows:

2006-2007: Nature, Belief & the Supernatural
2007-2008: A History of Conflict & Cooperation
2008-2009: A Matter of Origins & the Meaning of Life

For more information on the Lecture Series, please visit http://scienceandreligion.hampshire.edu/

Contacts:
Salman Hameed
Assistant Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities
Hampshire College

Laura Sizer
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Hampshire College

This is hilarious! Here is a clip from the Colbert Report on H2O=Life exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. The expression on the curator's face in this clip is awesome (especially when Colbert is trying to convince her about Noah's flood shaping the Grand canyon).

If you follow any science blogs, you have probably heard about the expulsion of evolutionary biologist, P.Z. Myers from the special screening of Intelligent Design movie Expelled! (yes, yes, everyone has already noted the irony). And the fact that his guest, Richard Dawkins, managed to get in unnoticed. Heck, even the New York Times is tickled by it:

The movie the two scientists wanted to see was “Expelled,” whose online trailer asserts that people in academia who see evidence of supernatural intelligence in biological processes — an idea called “intelligent design” — have unfairly lost their jobs, been denied tenure or suffered other penalties as part of a scientific conspiracy to keep God out of the nation’s laboratories and classrooms.

Dr. Myers asserts that he was unfairly barred from the film, in which both he and Dr. Dawkins appear, and that Dr. Dawkins would have been, too, if people running the screening had realized who he was — a world leader in the field of evolutionary biology.

Read the full article here, and here is P.Z. Myers' take on this incident and the New York Times article.

But wait. Thanks to this electronic age, you can also see Dawkins and PZ Myers talking about the incident:


All of this is well and good. But what does it do to the larger issue of science & religion debate? From the segments I have seen of the film and what I have gathered from Ben Stein's interviews, there is not much of intellectual value in the movie. But the creators of the film would probably love some controversy. The coverage in national newspapers, even for something idiotic, will be welcoming. So its tricky to cover this issue.

On another related thread, Matthew Nisbet at Framing Science, is of the opinion that this PZ Myers Affair is really bad for science. He also refers to the following segment from the film:

Here is Nisbet on the clip:

If you haven't seen this clip yet, above is a preview of the central message on how "Big Science" views religion in the documentary Expelled. There's little work needed on the part of the producers, since the message is spelled out via the interviews provided by PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins.

Notice the very clear translation for audiences as to what supposedly establishment science believes:

A) Learning about science makes you an atheist, it "kills off" religious faith.

B) If we boost science literacy in society, it will lead to erosion of religion, as religion fades away, we will get more and more science, and less and less religion.

C) Religion is a fairy tale, similar to hobgoblins, a fantasy, and even evil.

The simplistic and unscientific claim that more knowledge leads to less religion might be the particular delusion of Dawkins, Myers, and many others, but it is by no means the official position of science, though they often implicitly claim to speak for science. Nor does it stand up to mounds of empirical evidence about the complex relationship between science literacy and public perceptions.

I think he is right about the problems associated with this position. In this particular instant, both scientists and creationists agree that evolutionary ideas necessarily lead to atheism - and this is a bad way to sell evolution (and this is an unscientific claims). However, Dawkins, Myers, and Atkins were mislead about the intentions of the film when they were interviewed. So they did not take the mantle of representing science themselves (at least in this instance). It is ok if they take this position on evolution - but I think other scientists who disagree with their interpretation should speak up about it. I have also been thinking about this problem for Muslim countries - as any link to atheism will lead to a rejection of evolution, without getting a fair hearing. For the time being, the emphasis should be on (methodological) naturalism - and leave atheism (philosophical naturalism) for open interpretation. But we should be prepared to say that philosophical naturalism is a matter of opinion/belief/interpretation, and not an empirical result. More on this later.

Articles on Arthur C Clarke are pouring in. Here is another from New York Times that specifically looks at the religious angle of his stories and how he viewed the future of humanity.

“Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral” were the instructions left by Arthur C. Clarke, who died on Wednesday at the age of 90. This may not have surprised anyone who knew that this science-fiction writer, fabulist, fantasist and deep-sea diver had long seen religion as a symptom of humanity’s “infancy,” something to be outgrown and overcome.

But his fervor is still jarring because when it comes to the scriptural texts of modern science fiction, and the astonishing generation of prophetic innovators who were his contemporaries — Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury — Mr. Clarke’s writings were the most biblical, the most prepared to amplify reason with mystical conviction, the most religious in the largest sense of religion: speculating about beginnings and endings, and how we get from one to the other.

Stanley Kubrick’s film of Mr. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” for example — a project developed with the author — is haunting not for its sci-fi imaginings of artificial intelligence and space-station engineering but for its evocation of humanity’s origins and its vision of a transcendent future embodied in a human fetus poised in space.

The article talks about several of his stories (such as The Nine Billions Names of God and Childhood's End) and then asks if his work is related to religion:

But acts of reason and scientific speculation are just the beginning of his imaginings. Reason alone is insufficient. Something else is required. For anyone who read Mr. Clarke in the 1960s and ’70s, when space exploration and scientific research had an extraordinary sheen, his science fiction made that enterprise even more thrilling by taking the longest and broadest view, in which the achievements of a few decades fit into a vision of epic proportions reaching millenniums into the future. It is no wonder that two generations of scientists were affected by his work.

For all his acclaimed forecasting ability, though, it is unclear whether Mr. Clarke knew precisely what he saw in that future. There is something cold in his vision, particularly when he imagines the evolutionary transformation of humanity. He leaves behind all the things that we recognize and know, and he doesn’t provide much guidance for how to live within the world we recognize and know. In that sense his work has little to do with religion.

Hmm... this seems to be focusing on a very narrow definition of religion. Many of Clarke's stories deal with competing narratives of origin stories, the role of religion/spirituality in the future or in an alien society with different norms, and with struggles of personal faith. In that sense, much of his work has to with religion. Heck, even his burial instructions give us a glimpse on how he wants us to live in the world we recognize and know. Fortunately, the article rescues itself with a better ending:

But overall religion is unavoidable. Mr. Clarke famously — and accurately — said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Perhaps any sufficiently sophisticated science fiction, at least in his case, is nearly indistinguishable from religion.

Read the full article here.

I try to keep my promises, I really do. (In "A little understanding" I wrote that "tomorrow I will write about rules..."). But "tomorrow", which is now yesterday, we lost our power for about 24 hours and as you can see, I didn't write about anything.

So I'm a little behind on those things that require electricity (work, laundry, vacuuming, showering)--but I'm way caught up on those things that don't (reading, drawing, singing, even sleeping).

The "rules" post is coming.

::

Splurge

Tonight's full moon.

You must have heard by now that Arthur C Clarke died early Wednesday. There is a good obituary in today's New York Times and you can read it here (also see this article about Clarke's imagination and his predictions for the future). Many of his stories dealt with the issues of science, religion and the meaning of life. One of my favorite short stories is The Star. I don't want to give anything away - but, appropriately, its theme is connected to this blog. It is really short, and very well written. If you have ten minutes, please read the full story. Here is the beginning, and then you can follow this link.

The Star
Arthur C. Clarke

It is three thousand light-years to the Vatican. Once, I believed that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God’s handwork. Now I have seen that handiwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. I stare at the crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall above the Mark VI Computer, and for the first time in my life I wonder if it is no more than an empty symbol.

I have told no one yet, but the truth cannot be concealed. The facts are there for all to read, recorded on the countless miles of magnetic tape and the thousands of photographs we are carrying back to Earth. Other scientists can interpret them as easily as I can, and I am not one who would condone that tampering with the truth which often gave my order a bad name in the olden days.

The crew were already sufficiently depressed: I wonder how they will take this ultimate irony. Few of them have any religious faith, yet they will not relish using this final weapon in their campaign against me—that private, good-natured, but fundamentally serious war which lasted all the way from Earth. It amused them to have a Jesuit as chief astrophysicist: Dr. Chandler, for instance, could never get over it. (Why are medical men such notorious atheists?) Sometimes he would meet me on the observation deck, where the lights are always low so that the stars shine with undiminished glory. He would come up to me in the gloom and stand staring out of the great oval port, while the heavens crawled slowly around us as the ship turned over and over with the residual spin we had never bothered to correct.

"Well, Father," he would say at last, "it goes on forever and forever, and perhaps Something made it. But how you can believe that Something has a special interest in us and our miserable little world—that just beats me." Then the argument would start, while the stars and nebulae would swing around us in silent, endless arcs beyond the flawlessly clear plastic of the observation port.

It was, I think, the apparent incongruity of my position that cause most amusement among the crew. In vain I pointed to my three papers in the Astrophysical Journal, my five in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. I would remind them that my order has long been famous for its scientific works. We may be few now, but ever since the eighteenth century we have made contributions to astronomy and geophysics out of all proportion to our numbers. Will my report on the Phoenix Nebula end our thousand years of history? It will end, I fear, much more than that.

Continue reading here.

A lot of my professional work involves helping people and organizations make decisions and then communicate them. I have found that people might not always like a decision, but they are more likely to respect it (maybe even support it) if the time is taken to help them understand why it was made and how.

Children are no different.

So I have taken great care to apply this principal with little one as well.

Don't confuse communication with negotiation, by the way. When it comes to matters of safety, civility, and humility, there is often little room for negotiating with little ones. And quite frankly, I think negotiation confuses them and complicates us. But there is lots of room for communication.

Here's an example of how communication is looking in our family (we're way more imperfect at it, by the way, than we are proficient, but we're working on it):

Scene: Me and little one in the car. I'm driving in always-busy traffic. She's strapped in her car seat, reading a book or looking out the window.

Little one: Mommy, hold you please? (which means, mommy, hold me please?)

Me (mommy): Little one, why can't I hold you right now?

Little one: It's dangerwous

Me: Why is it dangerous?

Little one: Because mommy's drivin

She keeps reading or maybe starts singing. I keep driving knowing there's absolutely nothing I'd rather be doing than holding her. It didn't take long for this conversation (which is a daily repeat) to emerge--just a time or two of explaining that I would love to hold her but that I'm driving and it would be very dangerous to do both.

It makes me think about all the ways I don't communicate like this with other people I love or care about. Starting from scratch with little one helps me to think about where I might take for granted the understanding of older ones.

::

Tomorrow I'm going to write about rules, which I've been giving a lot of thought to--their origin, their application, their purpose, their consequence, their relevance (or not). I find having it all straight in my head helps a great deal when you're creating conditions (and explanations) to support the development of a happy, healthy, and well-mannered little one.

::

Spackle n' Splurge

I've been hard boiling eggs for two straight days in anticipation of Thursday night's popcorn and PAAS. That's right...we'll fill up our water pails, roll up our sleeves, and discover all kinds of ways to color an egg (and everything around it).

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Ava celebrated her Irish lineage in head to toe green...

the pot of gold eluded us and we ate green eggs and ham in place of corned beef and cabbag-es
not a pint of Guinness nor a shot of whiskey passed through one of us
but we're lucky all three to have the other of us

O'splurge:

I'm going to bed immediately after I hit "publish post"--clean sheets, clean carpets, and cool, almost cold, air.

That is the best kind of splurge.

We've had many pleasant visits to our business over the last few weeks, people buying and picking up hives and supplies and asking lots of beekeeping related question. The phone is ringing off the hook, so if you get a busy signal call back, and if you leave a message, be patient as it may take a day or two for us to get back to everyone.
We continue to be so blessed by meeting more and more wonderful people because of our bee business. Frank Schumacher has travel the farthest, all the way from Germany. Well, I don't think he came over to the US just to see me, but certainly he drove down from Chicago. He's a beekeeper in Germany and we swapped great stories, photos and practices.
We have received many phone calls and E-mails from people who have been attending bee schools and reading materials on beekeeping. This is good. However, many people have been confused over what some bee schools teach and practice that are a bit complicated and confusing. Remember, everyone in beekeeping has an opinion. It doesn't mean it is right or wrong, it just means you must remember that what works for one beekeeper may not work at all for you. He keeps his bees in a beehouse and as soon as he gets back home he'll send me some photos and I'll share them with you.
We are creating web pages with our beekeeping lessons so that they can be more easily accessed and searched, but it is a slow process. And, my wife and I have decided that we will hold our first beekeeping school here on our honey bee farm in October. Students will not only have class instructional time, but time in the field for side by side beekeeping mentoring.
Our family and friends are working very hard to keep up with the hive orders. I will be making my second trip to Liberia, Africa in just 8 days, and will be gone from March 25 through April 5, so if you try to reach me, I will be unavailable. However, please place your confidence in speaking to my wife. She is very knowledgeable about beekeeping and can certainly answer your questions. She helps me work the bees, so she knows what she is talking about. In 2005 I led a group of adventurous people from our church into the war torn country of Liberia. Our church started an orphanage in Liberia, and while there, we walked the streets and villages and visited homes sharing the hope and love of Jesus to those who seemed to have lost all hope due to the plight of their country's enormous civil war that killed millions. Please pray for a safe and successful trip for us.
Another important work I must complete before I leave is to be sure all my hives that made it through the winter are well fed and have plenty of space for rapid spring build up. It is a challenge.
This winter, I spent much more time researching what a hive does in the winter, how they manage to survive cold weather and how the cluster behaves. I was very surprised in what I found out. Let me share with you what I have discovered and what conclusions I have drawn based on my research and how this will help you manage your overwintered colonies.
THE QUICK SUMMARY OF WHAT I DISCOVERED:
...that working bees when it is at least 30 degrees Fahrenheit can be successful if done very quickly, within a minute or two.
...that the cluster size is critical to colony survivability.
...that we cannot afford to winter our bees with bees that emerge in August. Bees that emerge in October and November are essential to maintain cluster longevity and endurance into February and March.
...that bees protecting January and February brood will not leave that brood in cold weather and feed on nearby honey. They will die before traveling a few frames over to the food source.
...that bees need pollen patties no later than Feb 1st.
...that it is very effective to place pollen patties and sugar water directly above the winter cluster.
PHOTOS & DETAILS OF WHAT I DISCOVERED DURING THE WINTER OF 2008.
Traditionally, beekeepers are told that as long as the hive has 80 pounds of honey, they'll make it through winters up north. And, that's about all beekeepers have done, left plenty of honey in the hive and maybe wrapped some roofing paper around the hive, and accept the fact that there is always a 20-50% expected loss.
To me, that's a bit lazy. To do so little, and settle for such losses is unacceptable to me. My bees are worth more than that to me, and I don't mean financially, but these are my bees that I have been entrusted to care for. Surely I can do better than this. That's why I put extra time in research and monitoring my hives this winter.
Beekeepers often lose hives that have plenty of honey and they usually guess as to why they died with plenty of food. They will say that maybe the Tracheal mites got 'em or maybe the queen died in the fall or maybe it was just too cold or too wet or they had Nosema. Certainly these are possibilities. However, many winter deadouts are caused from poor management...pilot error that could have easily been avoided.
I believe we should work our colonies as soon as we can. Pollen patties should be placed in our hives no later than February 1st. Pollen patties will stimulate the queen to start laying more, while providing the bees some nutrition. Even when it is cold outside, we can quickly open our hives on the warmest day in January with no wind and slide a pollen patty over the top of the winter cluster. See this photo of a winter cluster in one of my hives. This is the top of the cluster in the second deep hive body. Then, I simply slide in a pollen patty and let it sit on the top of the frames right above the cluster. I turn my inner cover up-side-down so that the wooden rail is down, allowing more of a gap between the frames and the inner cover to accommodate the spacing needed for the patty. I can do that in less than 30 seconds. In this photo I placed an empty deep hive body on top of the second deep, so that I can feed the bees more easily with sugar water in a jar. Then I put my top cover on top of the third deep box.
When placing the patty in the hive, LEAVE THE PAPER ON!! If you take it off, the patty will become too moist and can mold. The bees will remove the paper themselves. I know you don't like eating your cheeseburgers with the wrapping on, but the bees do!

CLUSTER SIZE is crucial for hive survivability and endurance into February and March. The colder it is the larger the cluster needs to be. That's why hives die in March. Naturally, the cluster is very small in March, and if there is a severe cold snap, a very small cluster cannot stay warm. This cluster is probably not going to make it. They are too small because the queen stopped laying early, probably in August or September and the bees simply died of old age reducing the number in the cluster. We must work our hives in the fall so that the queen continues to lay into October and November. Again, the easiest way to do this is to feed the hives pollen patties and 1:1 sugar water.
Then, people will ask, "But a larger cluster means they will consume more food and possibly starve". Again, what good is it to have a small cluster and 80 pounds of honey and the small cluster dies and the honey is not consumed at all? Take a large cluster of younger bees into winter and if they consume their 80 pounds of honey be February 1, it doesn't matter because you can beginning feeding them pollen patties and sugar water. They'll stay warm with plenty of food. Remember, the cluster generates the heat.
PROTECT THE BROOD OR MOVE OVER TO A FRAME FULL OF HONEY?
Here is a picture of a dead hive that was doing well in early February but died after a very cold snap in late February. They still had 50 pounds of honey three frames over. The queen started laying in late January or early February, as you can see the winter brood in the lower left hand corner of the frame, but the cluster was too small. As a result, the small cluster made one last ditch effort to keep the brood warm, yet were unable to move vertically over to the frames with honey. If they had, they would have become paralyzed by the cold and died away from the cluster and the brood would have died as well. They froze and starved with 50 pounds of honey five inches away. So typical. Had I moved the honey over next to the frame with brood on it, they would have made it fine. For example, this is what i did on on another hive. In this picture you can see how I placed a super of honey on top of the top deep hive body containing the winter cluster. You can click on the image for a larger image. Since heat rises, the top of the cluster was able to move up a bit into the super with honey temporarily to eat.
This is why beekeepers must work their hives in February. Frames of honey must be slightly scratched open and moved over next to the cluster. DO NOT disturb the cluster, but move the frames of honey either right beside the cluster or directly above it. I placed this pollen patty on Feb. 1 and in 23 days they had consumed half of the patty.

Another effective way to help the bees along is to give them sugar water, 1:1 ratio. This is a bit more tricky, because water will freeze during the winter. I found one method that works great for me. I place sugar water in a ziploc sandwich bag and poke three holes in the top of the bag with a needle or a pen. I don't want the water to drip out, but just make a very small pool on top of the bag. As the bees move onto the bag, more sugar water comes out. And above the cluster area, it will not freeze. In one month they emptied this bag. I know you'll ask what that strip is between the bag and pollen patty so I'll tell you. It was a larger piece of comb that had honey in it. I removed it from another super and just laid it on top. On the pollen patty you can see where they have eaten the pollen beneath the paper.
FEEDING BEES IN THE SPRING...
Once we begin feeding our bees pollen patties and sugar water, it is best to continue until natural pollen and nectar is available. If we stop feeding, then the queen would have laid lots of eggs, but there would be no sources of pollen and nectar to raise her young. You've fooled her in the worst way. She's a good momma. She will not have kids unless she knows the colony can feed them. If you tell her you'll do the providing until spring comes, then keep your commitment to her and her daughters. Once nature starts producing nectar and pollen you can discontinue feeding both sugar water and nectar on over wintered colonies. However, in newly installed packages you must continue feeding sugar water, 1:1 for as long as they still have comb to draw out. They turn sugar water into wax for the building of their comb. But on over wintered colonies, their comb is already built out from last year. This is why second year hives produce more honey. Incoming nectar can be stored, not converted to wax.
That's enough for today...In our next lesson I'll give you more tips on what to do with your over wintered hives as spring approaches.
A customer in Texas sent us photos of the hives he bought from us. They look great don't they! If you'd like to email us a photo of your hives in action, in your yard, we'd love to put them on our web site.
Please keep our contact information close at hand. If you have questions or would like to order hives, bees or beekeeping supplies, give us a call: 217-427-2678. If you'd like to order directly online, go to: www.honeybeesonline.com
Email us at: david@honeybeesonline.com
Remember, BEE-Have Yourself!

David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

It is really difficult to write seriously about any Creationism controversies. The notion of a 6000 (or 10,000 or 12,000 - depends on your flavor of creationism) year old Earth is so idiotic that sometimes I feel that we should just let them teach it in schools and let them deal with contradictions that arise in astronomy, physics, geology, archeology, ecology, anthropology, history - oh and of course, biology and all of its related fields. Lets see how many parents will go along with this whole-scale modified curriculum nonsense? The reason for this rant: there is a news story about creationism (the young earth version!!??) making inroads in British schools:

After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshipers were exhorted to wage "the culture war" in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"Evolution is a lie, and it's being taught in schools as fact, and it's leading our kids in the wrong direction," said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. "But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces."

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals embracing that message -- that the true history of the Earth is told in the Bible, not Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Darwin's defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe's schools. Bible-based theories and "religious dogma" threaten to undercut sound educational practices, it charged.

Schools are increasingly a focal point in this battle for hearts and minds.

A British branch of Answers in Genesis, which shares a website with its American counterpart, has managed to introduce its creationist point of view into science classes at a number of state-supported schools in Britain, said Monty White, the group's chief executive.

"We do go into the schools about 10 to 20 times a year and we do get the students to question what they're being taught about evolution," said White, who founded the British branch seven years ago. "And we leave them a box of books for the library."

Ah, how nice of them. And of course they are driven by scientific curiosity:

But the budding fervor is part of a growing embrace of evangelical worship throughout much of Europe. Evangelicals say their ranks are swelling because of revulsion with the hedonism and materialism of modern society. At the same time, attendance at traditional churches is declining.

"People are looking for spirituality," White said in an interview at his office in Leicester, 90 miles north of London. "I think they are fed up with not finding true happiness. They find having a bigger car doesn't make them happy. They get drunk and the next morning they have a hangover. They take drugs but the drugs wear off. But what they find with Christianity is lasting."

Yes, once you know that God fooled everybody by making the earth and the Sun look older, the society will be cured of all of the ills. Oh...except they will also have to deal with Harun Yahya to duke it out for the Truth:

The trend goes beyond evangelical Christianity. Sanderson said the British government is taking over funding of about 100 Islamic schools even though they teach the Koranic version of creationism. He said the government fears imposing evolution theory on the curriculum lest it be branded as anti-Islamic.

The Council of Europe spoke up last fall after Harun Yahya, a prominent Muslim creationist in Turkey, tried to place his lavishly produced 600-page book, "The Atlas of Creation," in public schools in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain.

Also add Italy and Germany to the list:

Brasseur said recent skirmishes in Italy and Germany illustrate the creationists' tactics. She said Italian schools were ordered to stop teaching evolution when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister, although the edict seems to have had little effect in practice. In Germany, she said, a state education minister briefly allowed creationism to be taught in biology class.

The rupture between theology and evolution in Europe is relatively recent. For many years people who held evangelical views also endorsed mainstream scientific theory, said Simon Barrow, co-director of Ekklesia, a British-based, Christian-oriented research group. He said the split was imported from the United States in the last decade.

"There is a lot of American influence, and there are a lot of moral and political and financial resources flowing from the United States to here," he said. "Now you have more extreme religious groups trying to get a foothold."

What a depressing story! To be completely depressed, read the full article here. (tip from richarddawkins.net)
To make you feel slightly better, here is Lewis Black on creationism:

Here is a long article by British philosopher John Gray, critiquing the New Atheists. Apart from taking on the usual suspects (Dakwins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett), he adds, Martin Amis, Michel Onfray, and even Phillip Pullman to the list. His main point is that the evangelical atheism of Dawkins etal has far more in common with monotheistic religions, such as Christianity and Islam, than this movement properly acknowledges:

Zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam. Just as much as these religions, it is a project of universal conversion. Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their view of things, and they are certain that one way of living - their own, suitably embellished - is right for everybody. To be sure, atheism need not be a missionary creed of this kind. It is entirely reasonable to have no religious beliefs, and yet be friendly to religion. It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human. Yet that is what evangelical atheists do when they demonise religion.

He later also took on the issue of liberalism:

Nowadays most atheists are avowed liberals. What they want - so they will tell you - is not an atheist regime, but a secular state in which religion has no role. They clearly believe that, in a state of this kind, religion will tend to decline. But America's secular constitution has not ensured a secular politics. Christian fundamentalism is more powerful in the US than in any other country, while it has very little influence in Britain, which has an established church. Contemporary critics of religion go much further than demanding disestablishment. It is clear that he wants to eliminate all traces of religion from public institutions. Awkwardly, many of the concepts he deploys - including the idea of religion itself - have been shaped by monotheism. Lying behind secular fundamentalism is a conception of history that derives from religion.

and on the notion of directional history and progress:

The problem with the secular narrative is not that it assumes progress is inevitable (in many versions, it does not). It is the belief that the sort of advance that has been achieved in science can be reproduced in ethics and politics. In fact, while scientific knowledge increases cumulatively, nothing of the kind happens in society. Slavery was abolished in much of the world during the 19th century, but it returned on a vast scale in nazism and communism, and still exists today. Torture was prohibited in international conventions after the second world war, only to be adopted as an instrument of policy by the world's pre-eminent liberal regime at the beginning of the 21st century. Wealth has increased, but it has been repeatedly destroyed in wars and revolutions. People live longer and kill one another in larger numbers. Knowledge grows, but human beings remain much the same.

Belief in progress is a relic of the Christian view of history as a universal narrative, and an intellectually rigorous atheism would start by questioning it. This is what Nietzsche did when he developed his critique of Christianity in the late 19th century, but almost none of today's secular missionaries have followed his example. One need not be a great fan of Nietzsche to wonder why this is so. The reason, no doubt, is that he did not assume any connection between atheism and liberal values - on the contrary, he viewed liberal values as an offspring of Christianity and condemned them partly for that reason. In contrast, evangelical atheists have positioned themselves as defenders of liberal freedoms - rarely inquiring where these freedoms have come from, and never allowing that religion may have had a part in creating them.

The article is long and it takes on too many issues to properly comment on them here succinctly (a shorter article with tighter editing would have been more effective). But its definitely worth reading, even if you don't agree with the premise. Here is the full article, The Atheist Delusion. (tip from 3quarksdaily)

Today I am getting ready for the carpet cleaner.

That means cleaning out closet floors and underneath the beds.

Here's what I've found so far (aside from lots and lots of dust):

• a single piece of paper dated 5/2/94 in which I contemplated high school graduation, the uncertainty of life ahead, and the anticipation of a senior trip with childhood friends (the sentiments are not all that different from those I've written as recently as two days ago)
  
• pictures of me and Pete that are more than 12 years old (12 years!) with hair that's since grown and some that's not; smiles that deepened with a marriage, a home away from home, and a little miracle from God
• half-knitted scarves and socks and mittens
• my phone from freshman year at college
• ties that I can remember seeing Pete in and thinking "Oh my gosh, he is sooooo well dressed"--and now think, "Oh my gosh, are we old enough to have lived through an era?...and exactly WHAT era was that?"

I'm afraid that I won't accomplish as much cleaning out as I had originally planned--but I sure am having lots of fun remembering the little things tucked away that are, afterall, life.

::

A great message from our Priest this morning, who reminded us as that even as the weight gets heavy, it is never so heavy that we can't endure. We are exactly where we are meant to be at this moment. God's plan for each of us promises peace, happiness, and discovery--but in His time, not ours.

::

I'm working on updates to my 2008 goals, thanks to a reminder from Jenny at LobotoME. I'll try to have my progress updated this week--and hopefully inspire you to gauge yours!

::

Easter Splurge:

Easter bread from my good friend Erin. She gave it to me after our run yesterday morning and by lunch time, it was gone. (I had a little help--visiting family and a certain little one).

Tempers flare and emotions run high when the issue of Templeton Foundation is brought up before scientists. Are they trying to mix religion with science? Are they buying science to confirm their view of religion? Or are they helping science by financing under-funded science? We had to ask some of these questions ourselves for the organization of Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion. Ultimately we decided not to apply for their funds. The sentiment amongst our speakers has been decidedly mix - with half sympathetic towards the foundation and the other half passionately against it.

Whatever the case, the Templeton Foundation yesterday awarded their $1.6 million prize to a cosmologist priest:

The $1.6 million 2008 Templeton Prize, the richest award made to an individual by a philanthropic organization, was given Wednesday to Michael Heller, 72, a Polish Roman Catholic priest, cosmologist, and philosopher who has spent his life asking, and perhaps more impressively, answering, questions like “Does the universe need to have a cause?”

The John Templeton Foundation, which awards grants to encourage scientific discovery on the “big questions” in science and philosophy, commended Professor Heller, who is from Poland, for his extensive writings that have “evoked new and important consideration of some of humankind’s most profound concepts.”

But he has a more sophisticated understanding than the folks advocating Intelligent Design:

Much of Professor Heller’s career has been dedicated to reconciling the known scientific world with the unknowable dimensions of God.

In doing so, he has argued against a “God of the gaps” strategy for relating science and religion, a view that uses God to explain what science cannot.

Professor Heller said he believes, for example, that the religious objection to teaching evolution “is one of the greatest misunderstandings” because it “introduces a contradiction or opposition between God and chance.”

And why science & religion:

In a telephone interview, Professor Heller explained his affinity for the two fields: “I always wanted to do the most important things, and what can be more important than science and religion? Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence.”

I cannot agree more - what can be more important than a blog on science & religion?? :)

The New Scientist blog has an interesting (and quite impartial) take on the Templeton Foundation:

The Templeton Foundation is a strange beast indeed. On the one hand, it is not officially committed to any particular religion, it does not support hack religious theories like intelligent design, it funds lots of fundamental theoretical physics that is not otherwise readily funded, and it doesn't explicitly interfere with or influence the scientific results of the various projects it funds.

On the other hand, the foundation's primary goal is to support science that in turn supports religion, to use science as a tool to promote a religious agenda. It's as if rather than fighting against science the way some religious factions - like creationists - do, they figure, we'll just buy science and use it for our own ends.

Consider this: when Sir John Templeton established the Templeton Prize in 1972 he stipulated that the monetary value should always be higher than that of the Nobel Prize -his way of saying that theology is more important than any other intellectual enterprise. Still, Sir John always seemed to be more of an eccentric billionaire than a dangerous force.

But I'm glad that this year's Templeton Prize winner, Michael Heller, provides one of the positive examples for the Foundation:

When I talked with Heller, my concerns were eased. Heller comes across as a contemplative, kind and brilliant man with an impressive intellectual range, flitting easily between talk of complex philosophical ideas and sophisticated mathematical physics. (I was intrigued that his current work is focused on ridding physics of the big bang singularity - despite the fact that many Catholics have latched on to the idea of the singularity as the space left for God and his creative power.)

He is the kind of physicist who is so awestruck by the mathematical order of the universe that he sees God lurking in equations. For him, science and religion are difficult to separate. And after talking with him I could understand why - Heller grew up in a family environment in which intellectualism and religion were deeply intertwined and in a political environment in which both were persecuted by the Communist regime in Poland. The point is, the Templeton Foundation's efforts to buy scientists might be dangerous. But Michael Heller certainly isn't.

Read the New Scientist story here, and the NYT story here.

By the way here is an exchange between Michael Shermer and Harold Kroto over the Templeton Foundation at beyond belief 2.0 (you need to see the ending of Kroto's talk and the beginning of Q&A to appreciate this exchange).

It is typical (though to a lesser extent now) for my mind to be in a million different places even though my body is in one place. That way of 'thinking' has probably short-changed me in a number of ways, the most obvious being clarity.

I've written about how I've been trying to just think about nothing for at least 10 minutes a day and I must say, clarity's crystal has not only emerged, but I've also become way more efficient at prepping for it. It used to take ten minutes (or more) before I could get to nothing. Now, it takes 10 seconds.

So yesterday, when I wasn't thinking about anything in particular, I thought about this:

After having Ava, I was well aware of the 'physical changes' pregnancy and childbirth produced. How could I not be WELL aware of them? And while I was also aware of every breath she took, every glance she stole, every sound she shrieked or sighed, that my life was better, my purpose more obvious, I never recognized this awareness for the spiritual, emotional, and internal growth that it is. Not really.

I spent countless hours trying to undo the physical changes (in progress)--but can't say that I've spent as much time trying to enrich, or grow, the internal ones. Maybe I'm too hard on myself...but regardless, there is a latent gift within the obvious gift of children: with the slightest bit of willingness (even if it is subconscious) they put you on the path to betterment. They ARE the path to betterment. When you finally see it as such, you're way further along than you think. And we have them, those little miracles, to thank.

***

Ava always sees things as though it is for the first time. She sees at a hundred different angles without the slightest shift of her body. So yesterday on a walk, I tried to do the same. I saw the buds on the trees and the birds playing tag. Saw the same power line and for the first time recognized the criss cross it made in the sky. But clarity isn't all advantage.

I also saw this:

• Our gutters, which were clogged with leaves
• Black grime on our siding where white used to be
• Left over leaves wedged under our doormat
• Bits of wrapper and trash thawing in the earth
• Streaky windows
• Unwieldy weeds

Do I need to go on?

So be warned, clarity doesn't always mean clean. :)

Splurgin:

Still doing so well in the spending and savings arena. But little ones grow and you have to keep up! So, I acted on PURE impulse (gasp) and bought her this (on sale and with an additional discount)--so it totaled what a pair of shorts and shirt at Target would have run ($18):

It appears that genetic biologists are now sinners. The Vatican has updated its list of mortal sins - and it has added 7 more for the age of globalisation:

After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalisation. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “securalised world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.

The Catholic Church divides sins into venial, or less serious, sins and mortal sins, which threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession and penitence.

To see if you are on the list, here are the new mortal sins:

• Environmental pollution
• Genetic manipulation
• Accumulating excessive wealth
• Inflicting poverty
• Drug trafficking and consumption
• Morally debatable experiments
• Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

Alright, alright, I'll buy a hybrid next time. But being in the academia, I'm in no danger whatsoever of accumulating excessive wealth. Bill Gates, on the other hand, may be in trouble. But it appears that the boundary between science & religion is being squashed here and the magestaria are now indeed overlapping. So will this really deter any biologist or any scientists? I think the missing component is a list of associated punishments. Here is a list published in the Times article for the original seven mortal sins (I actually don't know the accuracy of the punishment list):

The original offences and their punishments
Pride Broken on the wheel
Envy Put in freezing water
Gluttony Forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes
Lust Smothered in fire and brimstone
Anger Dismembered alive
Greed Put in cauldrons of boiling oil
SlothThrown in snake pits

(what, no waterboarding??)
Hmm...but the new deadly sins only threaten the soul and eternal damnation. Well, I guess, most biologists will be fine with this deal.

This is another aggressive step of the current Pope dealing with a scientific issue. While its true that this may not effect scientists, it does give some indication of the Papal mood. Lets just hope that the Pope doesn't come out with an endorsement of Intelligent Design any time soon.

Read the full story here and here (BBC).

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, Hieronymus Bosch 1504 (Prado Museum, Madrid).

In November, when daylight savings started, I wrote about what I would do with my extra hour; since losing an hour makes it difficult to add anything new, here's what I'm going to do instead...

Normally, I am a morning runner. I get up and out the door while the stars are still out. But tonight in honor of extra long light, I'm going to meet up with my friend E and enjoy a run at day's other end. I like this idea so much, it just might become tradition.

::

Splurging:

With my favorite religious holiday, Easter, right around the corner, we've been splurging in little extras around the house that have more to do with giving than taking...

like giving thanks every night before we eat dinner.


It is a great way to slow down a bit after a busy day and look around the table or inside your heart for all the things about life you love.

And one more dinner scene:

George Saliba's lecture at Hampshire College went very well, and I will post the video as soon as its available (most likely by the end of the month). Over dinner conversation, one thing really stood out for me and I thought I'll post it here. He was of the opinion that since European Renaissance was defined (and articulated) by humanists and not by scientists, it painted a skewed picture of scientific development of that era. From the literature perspective, Homer is as enjoyable today as he was in the 14th century, and as it was the case amongst the pre-Socratic Greeks. However, sciences don't work that way. As a scientist, you don't really care about some document if it was written a thousand years back. New instruments, observations, and models far superseded scientific texts written by the Greeko-Roman scientists over a thousand years ago. Thus there was a fundamental difference in how humanists were looking at the Greek culture and what scientists were doing. For example, European astronomers, up until the 15th/16th century, were looking for latest developments wherever they could find - and that was mostly in the Islamic lands. Of course, this demand diminished after the 16th century with the thorough maturation of science in Europe.

Humanists of the Renaissance period, in fact, often criticized scientists for adulterating Classical knowledge with Arabic/Islamic influences. Thus, the standard narrative of the Renaissance paints an erroneous picture that the Islamic interlude was merely a vessel for preserving and then passing out ancient Greeko-Roman science to the Europeans. Instead, there is no such thing as preserved Greek science. It had been thoroughly transformed during the intervening centuries and it was the new science that was of any use, not some preserved version of it. This may be common knowledge, but I think this distinction between humanists and scientists is really interesting.

It was included in his lecture, but here is a planetary model of Ibn-al-Shatir from 14th century. It is mathematically equivalent to the one used by Copernicus, nearly 200 years later. Of course, Shatir's model is still geocentric, but it eliminated the pesky problem of the equant. The genius of Copernicus did the rest as he took the gigantic step of removing the Earth from the center. Was Copernicus aware of Shatir's model or is it a coincidence that he used a very similar system? Ah...its not clear, but thats where (intellectual) fights break out. For Saliba's take on it, you can wait for the lecture video, or you can read his Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance.