Eye of the Storm

Yesterday (Monday, 12/29), I sent Wiley the last quarter of my latest book, Digital Photography for Seniors for Dummies (really). I just finished my second book in 6 months; my third book in 2 years. (I finished Windows Vista Solutions just before going to a New Year’s Eve party.)

Given that I completed Digital Cameras & Photography for Dummies in less than 6 weeks, this latest book, on a related topic, was an easier task. In fact, 3 weeks ago, I imagined I might finish a week ahead of schedule – which was already moved up a week. But, a 3 week cold wrecked my sleep, and I had a class to teach, so, I had to be content with finishing on the deadline, not before.

But finish isn’t the word. Hurricane watchers know that the eerie calm isn’t the end of the storm, but the eye. Indeed, the trailing edge of a hurricane is fiercer than the leading edge, albeit shorter. (Anyone over 30 knows the second half of anything is shorter than the first half.) The part of the storm yet to come is Author Review, in which I reread every word I’ve written along with all the questions, corrections, and comments inserted by the copy editor, the technical editor, and the development editor. (It is a rainbow of Word revision marks.) It is a time to suppress ego and to avoid argument, to seek a better way to explain things. Reviewing a chapter might take one hour or four. I’m expecting to spend 40 hours on the task, which will include recreating every single figure because I was slow to understand the original figure requirements. (Seems the previous project taught me bad habits.)

As I await the first wave of Author Review, I’ve rearranged some furniture (singularly pleasing), vacuumed, and, even written a blog entry. It may be another week or two before the next. In the meantime, Happy New Calendar! peace, mjh

www.mjhinton.com/author/

A Modest Proposal

Watching a biologist clutch a Monarch butterfly and rub the fuzz off part of its wing and, then, wrap a tag around the leading edge of its wing, all the while, assuring the viewer that it mattered not to the butterfly, I have a theory: Biologist believe they are superior to the animals they study. Further, said superiority justifies any method of data acquisition. And, without a doubt, an individual animal has no right to an undisrupted life.

In order to test my theory, I need to monitor biologists as they go about their daily activities. (You can’t assume they’ll tell you the truth just because you ask.) I propose using large nets to capture random biologists. Those who struggle will be sedated. My team will take standard measurements, tattoo, tag, and collar these biologists before releasing them to resume their day. Don’t worry: They won’t even notice what we’ve done to them.

I’m working on an umbrella theory that scientists are merely human. Therefore, one day, I’d like to broaden the study to include non-scientists. (Any who die in the process will be processed as food.) I think I might find funding from arms merchants, drug dealers, and advertisers. There will be no shortage of willing grad students.

peace,
mjh

PS: I believe scientists have the same obligation as religionists: to rise above the worst aspects of humanity. Find less disruptive ways to observe your subjects. A sledgehammer is not a pencil.

NASA – Biggest Full Moon of the Year

[updated 12/11/08]

 

On Dec. 12th, the Moon becomes full a scant 4 hours after reaching perigee, making it 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons we’ve seen earlier in 2008. …

This is both the brightest and (in the northern hemisphere) the highest-riding full Moon of the year. If you go outside around midnight it will be close to overhead and act like a cosmic floodlamp making the landscape absolutely brilliant, especially if there’s snow. Full moons are always high during winter and, indeed, the solstice is right around the corner on Dec. 21st.

NASA – Biggest Full Moon of the Year

Thursday, 12/11, the moon will be nearly as big, rising before sunset.

12/11: Sunset: 4:54pm
Moonrise: 3:51pm

12/12: Sunset: 4:54pm
Moonrise: 4:56pm

Times are from www.sunrisesunset.com. The closer you are to the west side of the Sandias, the later the moon rises.

The ID Faithful Speak!

This week, Eric C. Toolson, UNM Biology Professor, wrote about the

Dover, Pennsylvania, legal decision against teaching ID in public schools. His column spawned a counter-attack printed in today’s

Albquerque Journal. mjh

ABQjournal: ID UNMasked for What It Is� Religion

By Eric C. Toolson, UNM Biology Professor

Judge Jones may have been taken aback by what he heard in his court, but none of this

comes as any surprise to scientists who have attempted to counter scientifically absurd claims and the continual efforts to force schools

to teach fundamentalist Christianity as science. Deliberate misrepresentation of scientific concepts and distortion of scientific

evidence are the stock in trade of ID promoters. Jones’ opinion merely exposes their tactics to public view.

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

No Hard Evidence

Supports Darwin

As a grad student 35 years ago, I was astounded to find out that there is no real evidence for Darwinism at all�

not in the fossils, not in the wild and not in the lab. All my teachers had told me that evolution had occurred, but I suddenly realized

that none of them had given me a shred of real evidence.

Afterward, I found that most people, including most scientists, think

evolution occurred not because of evidence, but simply because someone else told them it had occurred. …

D. RUSSELL HUMPHREYS,

PH.D.
Albuquerque

Nobody appreciates hyperbole more than I do (a self-proving statement), but “NO

real evidence … AT ALL,” not a “SHRED of REAL evidence.” Puh-lease! Skillful exaggeration is part of debate, but don’t lie to win.

One can only imagine what a disappointment Humphreys was to his teachers. However, Humphreys’ conclusion is important. As

students, we have all accepted many things from our teachers as a given. But good students ask questions without assuming they already

know more than the teacher. It’s a delicate dance.

Perhaps we should move this debate over to cold mathematics. What is the PROOF

that 2 + 2 = 4? Isn’t geometry full of so-called “theorems” and “proofs” — can we really trust any of them? How do you know what pi is

and how would you prove it? Trusting your teacher doesn’t count! If you can’t prove it, does it not exist? Is pi a lie?

It

wasn’t until I studied Calculus that so much that had to be accepted ‘on faith’ was finally proven. But Calculus wasn’t

discovered/invented until a few hundred years ago — was all of math before that just “faith” and no more valid than the Gospels?

Perhaps we haven’t discovered the evolutionary equivalent of Calculus yet (though I think Watson & Crick probably did).

[11/28/08: letter deleted at writer’s request]

Religious zealots see the world

through religious eyes: everything is their religion or someone else’s (false) religion. You project what you already know. Insert the

“hammer and nail” aphorism here.

Why is life without a designer so intimidating to [so many]? Don’t be afraid — it’s the same

world without a god. You are still accountable to yourself, your family, your friends, your teachers, and your society. Are you really

only good out of fear of punishment or promise of reward?

Open Eyes, Check Out All Theories

As a Christian, I

find it hard to believe there are people who really recoil at the possibility that there might be a being so indescribable and powerful,

who could have created all that the eye can see and then some. …

Let us not be so dogmatic. We should encourage exploration and

study of all scientific theory, whether you agree with the outcome or not.

HOWARD DEWITT
Alamogordo

class="mine">I don’t recoil at the possibility that there might be a being so indescribable and powerful. I’m a big fan of

possibilities and certain we fail to perceive more than we do perceive. But not every possibility is a probability and even fewer are

realities. There is no god. As an atheist, I find it hard to believe people recoil at that fact.

Evolution Lacks

Photo, Fossil Proof

We are told there is no evidence for design. Test it yourself. Write down every speck of evidence that you

find for a wristwatch being designed or that the book you are reading did not randomly come together. When you have done this, compare

your data to the incredible workings of the human body with its coded DNA, you will see vast evidence for design emerge. …

PHILIP ROBINSON
Albuquerque

Now, this one is really interesting. Does it matter that I don’t own

a watch?

The watch is a product of human intelligence and culture. Human intelligence might be argued to be millions of years old;

certainly hundreds of thousands of years. Culture has existed at least 50,000 years. How long have there been watches? Non-astronomical,

mechanical time pieces may be thousands of years old, but I’m betting wrist watches aren’t 200 years old (too lazy to google it).

Who designed the watch? A human being. IF you allow that human beings are a product of evolution, then evolution had a hand in the

designing of the watch, as well as Philip the Doubter and Mark the Believer. We are inside the black box we seek to describe. Our very

intelligence is either the product of evolution or fiat — it constrains what we are capable of conceiving and discussing (language is

also a product of this process). But, we’ve had this argument before (mjh�s blog — Wherein Mark disproves the existence of god).

Now the earth is at least 4

billion years old — if IDers don’t believe that, what time frame would they allow us to use? If they happen to say whatever number of

years Evangelical Christians believe, then that whole claim that the “designer” isn’t just the narrowly-defined Christian god really is

a smokescreen.

But let’s say that Adam and Eve sprang from Zeus’ forehead 10,000 years ago. It took 9,800 years to design a

watch. Why weren’t Adam and Eve created wearing watches? Or given gold watches on expulsion? Yours really is a vengeful god.

Anyhow, let’s say that self-replicating organisms didn’t come from afar via a comet or god’s fallen eyelash; let’s say it all

starts right here. Now, I do NOT believe that after 4 billion years, a watch would appear directly out of natural selection (indirectly,

it did), anymore than I believe an infinite number of monkeys will produce a duplicate of an entire play. Why not? Because Life doesn’t

need a watch anymore than monkeys need literature. Life produces what life needs. Billions of years allows for a lot of very subtle or

abrupt changes, most of which won’t leave a trace (unless it’s in the DNA).

Once we have what we need, humans produce what we

want, including pornography and religion, with many noxious bi-products like pollution and zealots. Oh — and watches. mjh

PS: See www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/category/nada/id/ for all my coverage of this

topic, a sub-topic of www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/category/nada/ (NADA = New

American Dark Ages).

mjh’s Weblog Entry – 11/24/2002: "hello, world!

It was 6 years ago today that I started using blogging software on my own account. The software was called Greymatter and it still runs years later:

mjh’s Weblog Entry – 11/24/2002: "hello, world!

After Greymatter, I switched to MoveableType and, then, settled with WordPress.

I think I posted my first web pages in 1993, although I don’t believe I have a copy of those. The wonderful Internet Archive Wayback Machine has my AOL pages starting in 1998. Good thing, too, since AOL just discontinued that service and I can’t find other backups.

My public writing goes back at least as far as the letter I wrote my high school newspaper protesting the showing of the Three Stooges at lunch time in the auditorium. I objected to their adolescent violence. The editor added this headline: Lovers of Decency Unite! That was probably 1971.

peace,
mjh

PS: Coincidentally — if you believe in coincidence – today, the 2nd quarter of my third book, Digital Photography For Seniors For Dummies, is due to Wiley and this is the first day my second book is available on Amazon: Digital Photography For Dummies. There is no doubt that blogging has helped me as a writer — and has put me in touch with readers. (Although, I am supposed to be working on my book as I write this.)

Amen

Some blacks forgot sting of discrimination – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com 

No, the black experience and the gay experience are not equivalent. Gay people were not the victims of mass kidnap or mass enslavement.

No war was required to strike the shackles from their limbs.

But that’s not the same as saying blacks and gays have nothing in common. On the contrary, gay people, like black people, know what it’s like to be left out, lied about, scapegoated, discriminated against, held up, beat down, denied a job, a loan or a life. And, too, they know how it feels to sit there and watch other people vote upon your very humanity, just as if those other people had a right. So beg pardon, but black people should know better. I feel the same when Jews are racist, or gays anti-Semitic. Those who bear scars from intolerance should be the last to practice it.

Sadly, we are sometimes the first. That tells you something about how seductive a thing intolerance is, how difficult it can be to resist the serpent whisper that says it’s OK to ridicule and marginalize those people over there because they look funny, or talk funny, worship funny or love funny. So in the end, we struggle with the same imperative as from ages ago: to overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. But if last week’s vote taught us nothing else, it taught us that persistence plus faith equals change.

And we shall overcome.

Some blacks forgot sting of discrimination – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com