The Truth About This Rocket Scientist

Kathy at the Junk Drawer did an interesting thing a week or so back. She listed out some truths that one might not expect about a humor writer that were true about her. I thought this was a great idea. So much so, I'm stealing it, at least once.

Starting with here. So, here are five things about this Rocket Scientist that you might not have expected.

1. I'm not a math whiz. I don't do calculations in my head or plot out trajectories by hand. I can do math. It doesn't scare me or confuse me, but arithmetic, trig and calculus aren't my favorite things. What I like about math are word problems. I love word problems, love taking the real world and translating it into math or vise versa. But, get me to balance a checkbook or average out reliability rates? Yikes! That's what computers are for.

2. I didn't build rockets or planes or bombs for entertainment growing up. You'd be amazed how many people I know in this business received bombs (like fertilizer bombs) or who built rockets and model this or that growing up. Many are legomaniacs. I didn't do any of that. I didn't really play with dolls either. I read novels and made up stories or wrote poetry and played make believe in my own mind. Yes, naturally I was sooooo popular.

3. I'm not notably good with tools. Don't get me wrong. I know how to use saws and hammers and nails. I helped build/decorate a number of houses. I'm fairly mechanically adept, for a layperson. However, I don't fix cars or computers or appliances. I don't take things apart and put them back together for entertainment value. Could I? Maybe, but it doesn't interest me.

4. I believe in magic. Oh, I like science and facts and real world wonder. I just don't see why that precludes magic. I have children. I think that's magic. I love flights of fancy and dreaming and fantasy. I think looking for what's "impossible" is why we have as much science as we have. But that's just my opinion.

5. The last thing I ever expected to be was an engineer. I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. In fact, that's all I ever wanted to be. If you'd told me in high school I was going to be an engineer, I might not have ever stopped laughing. As you can see, the joke was on me. Scholarships called to me, and, once in engineering, I was just too stubborn to get out. I've enjoyed it, naturally, and I'm glad I took the path I took...mostly. But it was a path I never expected to take.

And now you know.

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Honesty Should Be the Best Policy

The answers I received to yesterday's questions didn't surprise me sadly, all the more reason to be unhappy about them.

I was tickled, of course, that Beth Beck stopped by, which was gratifying and unexpected. But I was hoping I was wrong about the prevalence of dishonesty, laying low, keeping a low profile, not rocking the boat. Why?

In the real world, where physics and chemistry and biology rule reality, the head in the sand techniques, looking the other way, lies and self-deception get people killed, whether the lie is that you haven't had too many drinks to get behind the wheel, vaccines cause autism and should be avoided, or that unexplained, uncontrolled and recurrent damage isn't a safety of flight issue.

But those are just the lies that will kill you (or someone else) quick. There are other lies like words can't hurt people. There's the hatred we hide behind our right to have our own opinions, the professed belief that poor people can never amount to anything, that minorities can never be anybody, that what you are determined who you could become. Each of those lies can discourage a child from pursuing his/her potential - to all of our detriment. And, as sad as it when an outside group promotes that notion, it's even sadder when the minority itself does so.

Lies such as the ones that said real estate prices could only go up, or that taking out three mortgages well beyond one's salary was workable have devastated families across the nation - some losing homes, some losing retirement funds and some losing jobs. Lies about the future of oil and the innocence of carbon may cost people around the world.

Lies can buy people short term gain, but, in the long run, they always lose, they always cause pain (if not more). Lies cost lives and money, reputation and trust. We've gotten blase about honesty, we've maligned it and told ourselves it has to be sacrificed in order to be successful. And, even if we aren't lying personally, we sit quietly by and let the lie live. And that's the just part of the same deception.

I disagree. And I will continue to do so because our future needs honesty more than it needs almost anything else. We won't be able to solve the problems we've caused today without addressing them honestly. Hatred, fear and paranoia are harder to incite (as well as the violence that readily follows) among people who don't deceive themselves.

In the end, it was the Mother who summed it up perfectly: "If no one speaks up, things never change. Kudos to those who at least TRY."

Even if I'm wrong, I want to live honestly. That is part of what I want to give to the future. And, if we, as a nation, can't go down this path, we will be our own destruction.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
-Mahatma Gandhi

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Thieving Thursday: Do Your Own Homework

I wrote a comment on a left-leaning blog, First Door on the Left, noting a rather interesting exercise done by the New York Times today regarding the President's speech on healthcare reform last night.

Now, ignoring the subject of the speech or politics in general for a moment - because most of you know how I feel on these subjects any way - but I wanted to stress the significance of the diversity of responses to the speech. All of them seemed to claim they knew what the President was "really" saying, and yet the diversity and diametrically opposed nature of much of what was used to describe his intents were, well, shocking.

My comment ended with: "This article, in my opinion, emphasizes why relying on any opinion giver to give you an objective read on a topic is all but impossible. And why, if you want to make an informed decision, you’re going to have to go to the sources and think for your freaking self."

And that's what I want to talk about.

People can believe and think as they want, but it takes a certain amount of nerve to think you have a better grasp on what someone means or thinks or intends than the speaker himself or herself. Actually, it takes a bit of nerve to give the implication of anything - scientific results, guilt in a criminal case, gossip, etc. without making clear the distinction between the facts in the case and one's opinion. But people do that. What bothers me is that other people will - without listening to the original - take that interpretation of whatever with more trust than the original.

Politics is just one of many venues where this is common, but it happens in many places. People get on a blog and complain that so and so got off in a criminal case. OK, maybe someone did, but I'd be careful about taking that assertion at face value without knowing the facts of the case, and I would remember that the jury got the facts in this case not filtered by the media or anything else. Sometimes, I've agreed with the angry blogger or whatever, but only after I've checked the facts myself (such as the case with OJ Simpson). Many times, I see that much of the cited evidence was spurious or ambiguous or that a heinous crime was crying out for someone to blame. Now, I might have a gut reaction to something, think something was true, might even express my opinion, but I do know there's always a chance that a difference exists between what I thought was true and reality.

It happens in science all the time. Some media mogul (or, at least as often, someone with an agenda) puts a slant on scientific results oftentime completely counter to the actual lessons learned from the research. However, if the scientists who created this research complain or object, they are ignored, dismissed or belittled. Now, I tend to give science credence for several reasons, not the least of which is that I'm one of them and believe most of us take our scientific ethics pretty freaking seriously. But, even if I didn't, I also know that scientists are required to show their work and that, if I have questions, concerns or don't agree, I can check it out myself.

But we can do the same. We can find out information on criminal cases or opinions by qualified experts. We can listen to the actual speeches people make or read the text of the actual reports or bills. And, using that information, we can make up our own minds, decide for our own selves what we believe and what we don't, what is the truth and what is speculative. We can do our own thinking instead of having someone do it for us.

And we can figure out whose opinions we should stop trusting.

I know for a fact, I'm much more likely to take an opinion seriously if they include links to the source. It's one reason I still use Wikipedia routinely. It's one reason why snopes is the first place I check if someone forwards some "shocking" something to me via email. In both cases, I've followed the source material, followed the links and done my own reading (and, usually, they are both in excellent sync with the sources). And, if I find an article or story that's short on sources (or objective sources), I know to take those postings with a grain of salt.

Remember, when trying to learn the truth in any situation, get sources as far up the chain as you can is the best way to obtain corrupted data. And, when evaluating, garbage in, garbage out.

When someone lies to you, shame on them. When you cough up lies, well, you haven't done your homework. And that's your fault.

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Taking the Plunge: The Big B

Alright, no more teasing.

I'm going to talk about one of the quintessential "sacred" documents out there that many people put complete and implicit faith in. Let me preface what I'm saying with a few caveats. First, this is how I see it. If I make sweeping remarks, it's because that's what I think. I'm not apologizing for it, just saying I know the difference between my opinion and fact, and this is the latter. In case you were wondering.

Also, I'm using the Bible as an example, but I suspect this would apply to any text that claims to be divinely inspired - but this is the one I know the most about. So, it's nothing personal.

Thirdly, and I'll be exploring this in one of the forthcoming posts, I don't see why it matters what the source of something is. If it speaks to you, if it makes you think and gives you inspiration, you are welcome to all the happiness and guidance it gives you - just do us the courtesy of not confusing your devotion to a scripture as an obligation in the rest of us to give it the same credence. By all means, choose the path that speaks to you - and give us the opportunity to do the same.

Now, on to the topic. The Bible, as I mentioned, is often quoted as unassailable truth, the exact word of God. That's a lovely notion, of course, but, unless you read ancient Greek, there's no way you can be reading the exact word of God even if he spoke directly to those who authored it. In fact, I think it's unlikely that the Greek texts that most forms of the Bible are based on reflect the original language God spoke to anyone, you know, since most of the Bible authors were supposedly not Greek. I'm sure my pal, Roy, can provide some excellent insight on this topic.

But, let's suppose. Let's suppose we lived back in ancient times, in whatever time the Bible was written (though I very much think neither Testament is a product of a single period of time) and that the author was listening directly to the word of God. The question is, how would that make what the recipients write down the thoughts of God?

See, I can't speak for everyone, but, in my experience, saying exactly what I mean, with all its nuances and undertones, all its shades and distinctions, is virtually impossible. And, even when I think I've made a fair approximation of what I intended, my experience on what my listener absorbs is, well, usually hell and gone from what I thought I said. And this is just simple stuff. If I want to describe, say, quantum physics to say, elementary school kids, it becomes even harder. Why?

Two reasons. The first is that there are limitations to any language. All of them have limitations - just try describing a sunset to someone who was born blind. And this leads nicely to the second reason: a listener can only grasp a notion from his frame of reference. If I describe a sunset to someone who has lost his sight, he may be able to envision what I describe. But to someone who has never seen colors, he might instead end up envisioning a bouquet of flowers or the music of a symphony - something his mind has a frame of reference for.

I suspect describing the mysteries of the universe to primitive man (or, in fact, modern man) makes describing quantum physics to schoolchildren seem easy.

But people not only are limited by their ability to comprehend what they hear, they are a product of the world they live in. If, for instance, in one's world, women are passed about like property, daughters are bartered for prestige or wealth, one is likely to assume that any stories related would inhabit the same world order. One is generally prone to carry forward one's own prejudices, one's own limitations, into what one passes along, not necessarily intentionally. It is part of one's own frame of reference.

But there's another aspect that I think is worth noting. People who write down what they believe is the word of God tend to have a vested interest in getting others to believe it. I mean, if they didn't, why bother to write it down? If one was happy and comfortable alone in one's beliefs, why tell anyone? I suspect it is not it's not a coincidence that most scriptures include a passage or two that notes that ONLY this path leads to Heaven (or whatever facsimile they promote). For me personally, I bear it in mind when I read something like this. I don't blame them - I'm sure they believed that their beliefs would "save" others but I think it's fair to note religion has often been a path to wealth and power. If I find a passage that seems to stress conversion instead of merit, I get skeptical.

Tomorrow, the Constitution as another example.

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