Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Come on, man.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / For A Good Time On The ‘Tubes (Self Aggrandizement Alert)

For A Good Time On The ‘Tubes (Self Aggrandizement Alert)

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Just a quick heads up for fans of smart (I hope) talk.  In just about an hour, at 5 p.m. EDT (10 GMT, 2 PDT) I’ll be trading views with science writer Jennifer Ouellete (AKA Jen-Luc Piquante), proprietor among much else of Cocktail Party Physics, which gig gives me the excuse for this pic:

The conversation will take place over at my more or less regular monthly gig on Virtually Speaking Science.  Listen live or later here. Alternatively, come join the virtually live audience in Second Life.  Podcasts of VSS, including the work of my co-host, Alan Boyle, can also be downloaded at the iTunes store.  Lots of back issues there — of particular current interest, you might check out my conversations with climate scientist Michael Mann; science studies scholar Naomi Oreskes, and science journalist and “framing” advocate Chris Mooney.

Jennifer and I will be leaping off from the impulse that led her to write her most recent book, The Calculus Diaries. That’s her account of being an admitted math-phobe coming to grips with the beauty and practical value of what is truly one of the handful of greatest human inventions ever.  As I blurbed for her — calculus allows one to think rigorously about change in time and space; it just doesn’t get bigger than that, really.

We’ll go from the book to the latest kerfluffle about what kinds of math should be taught in school (see the algebra controversy sparked by this piece. For a good reply, see this.)  More broadly we’ll use the question of how to present the actual importance of thinking mathematically in everyday circumstances to think out loud a bit about an issue that is bugging me more and more these days.  To put it in personal terms — I’ve been doing science writing/film making for public audiences for just about 30 years now.  Looking at the convention of one of our major political parties in which that party declares its denial of anthropogenic climate change, evidence based medicine, investments in science education and research and so on and on and on (without even going into the anti-evolution lunacy, nor the pseudo-science with which it justifies government regulation of ladyparts and … you get the picture) — looking at all that and more, it’s depressingly easy to conclude that my career has been a net negative.

Yes, I know, correlation is not cause, which is why some of us still believe that milk drinking does not  lead to heroin addiction. But really, for all that we live in something of a golden age of popular science writing and communication other media, it is past time, in my ever-so-humble opinion, to think about what, if anything, we should be doing to reach a mass audience we clearly have not fully attracted, much less persuaded.

Finally, Jennifer is near the end of a book that has proved much more challenging to write than she blithly thought going in.  I’m just starting a book I’m convinced I have got under control. (Thus every folly begins, in innocent confidence…) So we’re going to talk just a bit of shop:  how every book project trips you up, and what you can do about that terrible moment when you are finally, utterly, deeply certain that you computer is going to reach through the display and throttle you; just put you out of your and everyone else’s misery.

Should be fun.  Check it out when and as you have a notion.

PS:  As a DEW — Sunday, September 9, 8 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. MT, I’ll be talking one of my old books, Measure for Measure: A Musical History of Science with the incomparable Desiree Schell on Skeptically Speaking. I’ve been on the show once before as a guest of Marie-Claire Shanahan, and it was a lot of fun.  Desiree is a fabulous interviewer, so I’m looking forward to this one too. But it’s relevant to the post above, if only because the book that both nearly killed me and most taught me to write was Measure…in which I succumbed to what I have decided is the dreaded second book syndrome.  More to come…

Image: Edgar Degas, L’absinthe, 1876

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  3. 3.

    scav

    Hoping for another Self Aggrandizement Alert before the Measure for Measure — is it a podcast? Hope so. That’s the one I have to most keep my brain alert while reading, so will appreciate other takes on it.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    @scav: Definitely will remind folks. Yes — Like VSS, Skeptically Speaking (which is centered on science, not on the atheist world) goes out both live (over the air in some places, I believe, and not just on the ‘net) and as a podcast.

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    @Dave: No, it’s six hundred words on a calculus podcast. Get it right.

    When it comes to math education, it’s a pity that the argument is over the one true right way to teach it. It seems possible that there might be more than one way to learn it, and different people do better with different techniques.

    I wish I’d had a computer when I was a kid. The only way I ever understand math is writing a program that solves the problem. You need a good understanding of the algorithm before you can make the computer do it for you. I would have aced every math class I ever took, which is very, very far from what actually happened.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    Above my paygrade, but will give it a try.

    Amusing re the correlation between milk and heroin use. Never give up the good fight.

  7. 7.

    jl

    @Dave:

    No, six hundred words of TL promoting some appearances. This blog is supposed to pay for itself, you know.

    On teaching algebra, Andrew Hacker is a mess, and Levey has a more informed view I think.

    Re Hacker, I don’t know of poets need algebra, but philosophers? Hacker’s discussion of using the Consumer Price Index shows, at least to me, he does not have the slightest idea of what is important for people to understand when doing ‘practical mathematics’. Seems like Hacker is in some benighted math world where just teaching people how to use a formula and calculate a numerical result provides an adequate conceptual understanding, or how to apply math for useful practical information. Hacker wrote an ignorant misleading and useless piece on math education.

    Just from what Hacker wrote, he does not understand enough about either the math or the economics, of price indices to give any non harmful opinions about how they should be taught, let alone teaching people what they need to know about them for practical application.

    I will note down that name, Andrew Hacker in case I come across it in the endless math education battles I have to deal with, usually waged by profs and administrators who will often proudly proclaim that ‘real math’ is ‘beyond them’, when some actual work has to get done, get others to do the pencil and paper stuff, and then fight losing but very wasteful battles when the random notions in their heads do not pan out, and then try to tell other people how math should be taught when they waste other people’s time in committees (NOTE: professional bitterness and whine alert).

  9. 9.

    SenyorDave

    OT, but this is rich:

    http://news.yahoo.com/ann-romney-woos-hispanic-voters-luncheon-181637003–abc-news-politics.html

    Ann Romney’s take: Hispanics need to get over their biases, and voote Republican. The fact that the party is overtly ant-latino should be ignored. She sounds like a GWB clone, born with a silver spoon in her mouth (or as Ann Richards said, a silver foot in her mouth). But she understands the little people. I actually think she’s worse than her husband.

    Obama should bring up the taxes every time he can, should be one of the main focuses of his ad campaign.

    Compare Ann Romney to Michelle Obama.

  12. 12.

    Zifnab

    We’ll go from the book to the latest kerfluffle about what kinds of math should be taught in school (see the algebra controversy sparked by this piece. For a good reply, see this.)

    Ugh. That article made me die a little inside. It was like reading a toddler try to explain that you don’t need to use the toilet so long as we’ve all got diapers.

    What really got me was the author’s insistence that we just teach up to long-division. As though kids don’t have trouble with long-division. :-p Idiocracy was written by a prophet.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I read Measure for Measure a year or two ago. Such beautiful writing on a fascinating array of topics and the way they intersect (various sciences, music, other arts, machines). I’ll make a note for September 9, but Tom, please, if you can remember, please send out another reminder on or closer to the date.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    Whenever I hear somebody say we should drop Algebra (or Chemistry, etc.) from school because kids can survive without it, I always read that to mean that the author hated that subject when he was in school. The idea you can do without some fundamental by focusing more on practical subjects is a mirage. Maybe you’ll be able to pass a test on the practical stuff at the end of the year, but you’ll never understand it or remember it for any longer without a solid grounding in the boring fundamentals. And once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, you get the applications practically for free.

  16. 16.

    lamh35

    OT, but Condeleeza Rice just got “Katie Couric-ed” by Norah O’Donnell in an interview.

    Condi Rice Can’t Name A Specific Obama Foreign Policy Failure

    Today on CBS’s morning show, former Bush administration Secretary of State and top Mitt Romney surrogate Condoleezza Rice could not offer any specific foreign policy failures made by President Obama. Romney’s allies, led by Rice and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), are expected to attack Obama on national security grounds tonight in at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

    But when asked to offer specifics this morning on CBS, all Rice could come up with was some vague attack on Obama’s Syria policy, which, host Norah O’Donnell noted, the president himself might agree with…

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    @scav:

    Hoping for another Self Aggrandizement Alert before the Measure for Measure—is it a podcast? Hope so. That’s the one I have to most keep my brain alert while reading, so will appreciate other takes on it.

    Skeptically Speaking is a great podcast, available as a download on iTunes or at its own site here.

    A recent episode on the recent book, The Violinist’s Thumb was especially good.

    This week, it’s part two of our two week focus on evolution and genetics. Science writer Sam Kean, author of the New York Times bestseller The Disappearing Spoon, returns to the show to talk about his new book The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code.

    Very much looking forward to hearing TL on the show.

    BTW, the Violinist, in the title is Niccolò Paganini, who may have owed some of his musical dexterity to Marfan syndrome.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    @scav:

    Hoping for another Self Aggrandizement Alert before the Measure for Measure—is it a podcast? Hope so. That’s the one I have to most keep my brain alert while reading, so will appreciate other takes on it.

    Skeptically Speaking is a great podcast, available as a download on iTunes or at its own site here.

    A recent episode on the recent book, The Violinist’s Thumb was especially good.

    This week, it’s part two of our two week focus on evolution and genetics. Science writer Sam Kean, author of the New York Times bestseller The Disappearing Spoon, returns to the show to talk about his new book The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code.

    Very much looking forward to hearing TL on the show.

    BTW, the Violinist, in the title is Niccolò Paganini, who may have owed some of his musical dexterity to Marfan syndrome.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @scav:

    Hoping for another Self Aggrandizement Alert before the Measure for Measure—is it a podcast? Hope so. That’s the one I have to most keep my brain alert while reading, so will appreciate other takes on it.

    Skeptically Speaking is a great podcast, available as a download on iTunes or at its own site here.

    A recent episode on the recent book, The Violinist’s Thumb was especially good.

    This week, it’s part two of our two week focus on evolution and genetics. Science writer Sam Kean, author of the New York Times bestseller The Disappearing Spoon, returns to the show to talk about his new book The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code.

    Very much looking forward to hearing TL on the show.

    BTW, the Violinist, in the title is Niccolò Paganini, who may have owed some of his musical dexterity to Marfan syndrome.

  28. 28.

    scav

    @Brachiator: Thanks Thanks Thanks !!! and and and FFFYYYWWWPPP and in the interim (it ate my first thanks) I’ve been playing at the far less dodgy Skeptically Speaking site and have my evenings entertainment lined up. So again, Thanks Thanks Thanks !!! and and and FFFYYYWWWPPP

  29. 29.

    Dan

    I hate the whole “Fix education” mess of the second article. It doesn’t address the first article which is the need for algebra. I teach chemistry and physics in high school and would love for the students to be amazing with math. And I recognize that some of the way we teach math contributes to the students not be able to apply math in real world situations. As long as we have tests to prepare for, math will always be taught this way. So it isn’t education that needs to be fixed but the people who want us to teach to a test.

  30. 30.

    Dan

    BTW, we have always tested poorly in math but that has lots of other factors other than teaching. Things like social safety networks, how homogeneous the population is, etc.

  34. 34.

    rea

    @jl: I don’t know of poets need algebra, but philosophers?

    As for philosophers, over the entrance to Plato’s Academy hung a sign, “Let no one ignorant of Geometry enter here.”

  35. 35.

    MikeJ

    @rea: The very first philosophy class I ever took was symbolic logic, which is really just a math class with things like:
    [(p⊃q)•(q⊃r)] ⊃(p⊃r)

    You really can’t do philosophy without knowing your modus tollens from your modus ponens.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @MikeJ:

    You really can’t do philosophy without knowing your modus tollens from your modus ponens.

    You really can’t do any kind of clear thinking without at least an informal understanding basic logic. And this points out the flawed underlying assumption behind the desire to end teaching subject X: that all we learn is the explicit subject. In practice, we learn a whole set of related ideas that extend well beyond the explicit subject matter, like basic logic and symbolic thinking.

  37. 37.

    mai naem

    @lamh35: Condi ain’t no Sarah Palin but, jeezus, I think the beeyotch has spent all her money and is looking for some more wingnut welfare so she can go buy herself some more Jimmy Choos. Which brings me to,Norah should have asked him where where all these Republican .1 percent can get the best deals on their Jimmy Choos. I mean, people are drowning in NOLA, so it’s time for Condi to go shopping for Jimmy Choos. Bonus question from Norah should have been “So, how’s your husband doing? What’s he up to?”

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    it’s depressingly easy to conclude that my career has been a net negative.

    Tom. I obviously have had a different career path than you (as has everyone of us than each other) but it seems these days that a life’s work can have little meaning in our culture anymore unless it has made you rich or at least famous.
    Science, we don’t need no science, hell we don’t need no book lurnnon at all. We got preachers to tell us all we need to know out of the only book. /wingnut.
    For example take the first comment. Please. /youngman

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I once was working a non-profit where one of the board members said “you have to agree with me because my logic is flawless”. A volunteer at the non profit (who also is a wizard Unix Sysadmin, specializing in email systems) pointed out to her that while her logic might be flawless, her premises could very well be disagreed with and that meant that her logic was irrelevant to agreeing or disagreeing with her.

  41. 41.

    Linnaeus

    @Roger Moore:

    Whenever I hear somebody say we should drop Algebra (or Chemistry, etc.) from school because kids can survive without it…

    Speaking as a historian, welcome to my world.

  42. 42.

    Ann Rynd

    OT: I hope Degas paid that poor woman for posing for him. I heard he wasn’t very nice to his models. Poor girl.

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Roger Moore: There are many things one can survive without. One kidney, several feet of intestine, etc. That doesn’t mean one should just rip those bits out.

  44. 44.

    RSA

    @Roger Moore:

    Whenever I hear somebody say we should drop Algebra (or Chemistry, etc.) from school because kids can survive without it, I always read that to mean that the author hated that subject when he was in school.

    And then when you give a simple example of elementary algebra to show that it’s actually kinda hard to survive without it (“How many candy bars can I afford if I have a five dollar bill?”), they’ll typically say, “But that’s just arithmetic.” And then, as you say, it becomes obvious that they’re advocating that we get rid of something that they just don’t understand.

  45. 45.

    Porlock Junior

    You know who else couldn’t get into art school because he flunked the math part of the entrance exam?
    Yeah, the same, no kidding.

    (I assume everyone knows by now that it was art school he applied for, not house-painter school.)

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