There shall be none!
Eonsish after the fact, I'm here and happy to be posting. I’m Jesse and will give a brief précis of Pamy’s topic (this happened almost a full two months ago), my topic (from this past weekend), and every topic thereafter. Scout’s honor I will. It seems we lost a step or two in the second half of this semester, for whatever reason. Nevertheless, we’re back on track and amassing—hopefully between these two posts and after a meeting in a week—a formidable little corpus of banter and recoil. I’ll try to incorporate comments from e-mails in the exchange leading up to our meetings and keep a rough outline of topics we cover when we get together. I divulge my name so that readers know to whom they can vent frustration or send corrections. Obviously, what I write has to be filtered through a slop of cognition that focuses as much on oatmeal cookies as any of these so-called “issues” we’re engaging at the Cache Club. So, I’ll try to reconstruct clarifications or further exegeses the presenter may have given and follow up with essence quips and questions.
Buddha, ya'll: “Enlightenment is not the answer, it’s the question.”
And now, a blessing that comments may be liberated from tongues, so as to enrich ongoing dialogue; and that they may be more in conjunction with what your Id is whispering at you, so as to get the authorities on to our tail and shutting our outfit down. Niyabinghi!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Cats? Ew. Sick.
The actual cat massacre chapter from Robert Darnton’s The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History gave us a good look at the power given to people who decide what stories will be told.
The beauty of cultural history is its desire to reconstruct the cultural climate within which historical narrative is set. The chapter we read illustrates the circumstances of journeymen printers in 18th century France. It is significant to understand their situation because it fills in the contextual holes that a review of the French Revolution can leave. It by no means suggests that the French Revolution was caused by ruffian printers on Rue Saint-Severin. Its scope is much more limited than that, but with large implications. Instead, it attempts to recreate the workaday circumstances that the printers lived with and show an episode illustrative of their ability to manipulate symbols and humiliate their boss, to live life and experience the occasional triumph. A hundred years before Marx was writing and generations before the Industrial Revolution would sweep across Europe, it is significant to read about the glory of a printer in the early 18th century France. The reader may feel surprised to find out that it wasn’t all about plotting to overthrow the monarchy and gain rights, but more about being tricksters or besting their masters. Other accounts in cultural history from the time period show that the journeymen would often control much of the pace of the work and were not the disparate batch of robots that some historians would lead us to believe.
Such is the problem with historical writing generally. In trying to “make sense of the past,” historians almost always go too far and present a convincing case that allows a person to apply the story into their own lives. While it is beneficial and necessary to apply stories from the past into one’s life, it must be done with care. If an author has made the past’s socio-political landscape any more decipherable than the present’s, a red flag should go up. It would be ignorant of anybody to assume there were ever “simpler times,” thus necessitating every reader to bear in mind what lies at the heart of every historical battle: an argument not of existence, but of emphasis.
So.
There seems to be a correlation between the fields of science and humanist research insofar as pioneering projects are able to probe only a proscribed amount of what its scope surveys, thus creating more arenas for future research, and the political jockeying that getting research published entails. The question becomes what manner of institutional or cultural constraints could be used to create more of a home-boy congeniality between different researchers?
Noting the evolution of social corps (“groups,” not classes) disparity (from journeyman vs. master to consumer vs. the exploited) and its juxtaposition with the impressive body of information that we have amassed in the modern world, the paradox brought up a question of the Virtuous Move Forward, the VMF. Is it a race of creating a virtuous world and hoping that the injustices that are being enacted upon people doesn’t create too large of a hate complex to the point that folks want to blow folks up?
Getting deliciously apocalyptic, Joe highlighted the journeymen’s use of symbols to vent tensions felt toward their masters as “writing on the wall.” As was stated before, this incident didn’t cause the French Revolution, though it displayed cultural quirks that were at work in the time period and explained a great deal of how these things could have happened. He mused on his own indifferent feelings when he sees folks at home or abroad burning American effigies and carrying on. Is there some sort of writing on the wall that we would do well to take notice of? Has the age of capitalism and nationalism given the developed world a furtive dose of sleeping pills that will presage its demise? Does it scare us at all to see instances of rather barbaric mid-modern Europeans moving with the social dexterity that they do? Does it scare us to see how folks with seemingly futile capacities for defiance experience their moments on top?
Giant parentheses! (This set of questions is probably more inimical to Americans with a big A than the ones we discussed during Pamy’s previous presentation, though the answers are certainly further from potential reconciliation. I vonder vhat zis means…)
Shameful as it is to see no trace of distinctly female representation in this collection of stories, we must wonder just how silenced the feminine role was in this time. Could the people of the time even possessed the channel capacity to engage in gender issues?
Reverting back to sexual violation, we agreed that sex should be something that both parties want to engage in together (what would Freud have to say about this move?). That is to say that if a person doesn’t want it, the situation should end right there. So how do you get the passive characters, the ones that are so responsible for the others’ sexual comportment, to be able to express themselves and light fires? Seems a little bit weird in our eyes, I suppose.
The beauty of cultural history is its desire to reconstruct the cultural climate within which historical narrative is set. The chapter we read illustrates the circumstances of journeymen printers in 18th century France. It is significant to understand their situation because it fills in the contextual holes that a review of the French Revolution can leave. It by no means suggests that the French Revolution was caused by ruffian printers on Rue Saint-Severin. Its scope is much more limited than that, but with large implications. Instead, it attempts to recreate the workaday circumstances that the printers lived with and show an episode illustrative of their ability to manipulate symbols and humiliate their boss, to live life and experience the occasional triumph. A hundred years before Marx was writing and generations before the Industrial Revolution would sweep across Europe, it is significant to read about the glory of a printer in the early 18th century France. The reader may feel surprised to find out that it wasn’t all about plotting to overthrow the monarchy and gain rights, but more about being tricksters or besting their masters. Other accounts in cultural history from the time period show that the journeymen would often control much of the pace of the work and were not the disparate batch of robots that some historians would lead us to believe.
Such is the problem with historical writing generally. In trying to “make sense of the past,” historians almost always go too far and present a convincing case that allows a person to apply the story into their own lives. While it is beneficial and necessary to apply stories from the past into one’s life, it must be done with care. If an author has made the past’s socio-political landscape any more decipherable than the present’s, a red flag should go up. It would be ignorant of anybody to assume there were ever “simpler times,” thus necessitating every reader to bear in mind what lies at the heart of every historical battle: an argument not of existence, but of emphasis.
So.
There seems to be a correlation between the fields of science and humanist research insofar as pioneering projects are able to probe only a proscribed amount of what its scope surveys, thus creating more arenas for future research, and the political jockeying that getting research published entails. The question becomes what manner of institutional or cultural constraints could be used to create more of a home-boy congeniality between different researchers?
Noting the evolution of social corps (“groups,” not classes) disparity (from journeyman vs. master to consumer vs. the exploited) and its juxtaposition with the impressive body of information that we have amassed in the modern world, the paradox brought up a question of the Virtuous Move Forward, the VMF. Is it a race of creating a virtuous world and hoping that the injustices that are being enacted upon people doesn’t create too large of a hate complex to the point that folks want to blow folks up?
Getting deliciously apocalyptic, Joe highlighted the journeymen’s use of symbols to vent tensions felt toward their masters as “writing on the wall.” As was stated before, this incident didn’t cause the French Revolution, though it displayed cultural quirks that were at work in the time period and explained a great deal of how these things could have happened. He mused on his own indifferent feelings when he sees folks at home or abroad burning American effigies and carrying on. Is there some sort of writing on the wall that we would do well to take notice of? Has the age of capitalism and nationalism given the developed world a furtive dose of sleeping pills that will presage its demise? Does it scare us at all to see instances of rather barbaric mid-modern Europeans moving with the social dexterity that they do? Does it scare us to see how folks with seemingly futile capacities for defiance experience their moments on top?
Giant parentheses! (This set of questions is probably more inimical to Americans with a big A than the ones we discussed during Pamy’s previous presentation, though the answers are certainly further from potential reconciliation. I vonder vhat zis means…)
Shameful as it is to see no trace of distinctly female representation in this collection of stories, we must wonder just how silenced the feminine role was in this time. Could the people of the time even possessed the channel capacity to engage in gender issues?
Reverting back to sexual violation, we agreed that sex should be something that both parties want to engage in together (what would Freud have to say about this move?). That is to say that if a person doesn’t want it, the situation should end right there. So how do you get the passive characters, the ones that are so responsible for the others’ sexual comportment, to be able to express themselves and light fires? Seems a little bit weird in our eyes, I suppose.
Gender Issues: A Most Shameful Euphemism
From Octoberish:
For permission to chat with Pamy:
http://www.jacksonkatz.com/pub_interview.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?_r=3&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all
And for supplemental—and lively—discussion, we thank Missy:
The crux of Katz: we can deal with “women’s issues” (i.e. rape, domestic violence, etc.) by making them men’s issues. In his succinct words: “name the problem as men’s attitudes and behaviors in patriarchal culture,” so that we can move beyond “just cleaning up after the fact.” Forward thinking and paradigm shiftacular (thanks, Pamy, we expect no less from you) as this is, we began by working backwards—I blame patriarchy—by discussing semantic devices and the consequent creation of a Great White Male Anonymity, popularly known in my head as GWMA. Classy as its acronymystical moniker is, GWMA’s employment of the passive voice to discuss “women being raped” and crafting of curricula to inform women that to wear a short skirt is “asking for it,” among other things, has shifted much culpability for sexual violence onto females and given GWMA free reign at aggressing sexually and suppressing instrumental reform. We felt it necessary to briefly muse over the origins of femaleness; apparently there’s no better way to clean up than find where the bomb went off.
The crux of us: what had relegated women time and again to passive and objectified roles? A turn to the Standard Social Science Model helped us feel confidently lost. Joseph provided insight, explaining how it is that reinforcement schedules and environmental contingencies combine to create a powerful set of reactions within a person. When mastered, these principles can control behavior. In a word on this line of reasoning, the most powerful source of behavior control is our environment. Though some of us have the question; what if [feminine nurturing] [female tenderness] [passivity of the girl] is an instinct and, if so, what role does cognition play and what is its interface with the environmental factors? Couched in the abstruse? Yes, it is. Fortunately, a function of the honesty that this interdisciplinary club demands, Pamy’s subsequent story muddied the waters and illustrated that we have a long way to go before we solve the world’s problems. She told of a woman who suffered a miscarriage and, when her three year-old daughter found out there wouldn’t be a baby anymore and started crying, she asked her daughter why she was so upset. The daughter asked if it was her own fault that the baby had died. We all took a breath at that and kind of moved on, most likely because none of us feel confident in understanding how to begin understanding the dynamics of this situation, let alone spell it all out. Shame on us.
A comment popped out about seeing less machismo in our generation. The hope is that we’re not as chauvinistic as the characters we see on older television programs. The following situation is a common motif, common to many elder-younger interactions.
The story goes that a cross-generational gathering comes about and a conversation between folks with common socio-economic or religious background arises, usually between folks who don’t know each other all too well and need to rely on a set of cultural values that had already been established in previous meetings of similar groups (oh, bless this transparent mess). An older gentleman might say something to catch the attention of the younger members of the group, who are usually slow to speak up for any number of reasons (desire to establish rapport, desire to avert upsetting the man providing some sort of financial nourishment, etc.). Instead, looks are shot to the ground and oblique language is employed in order to cope with what is happening.
This scene does more than just quantify the amount of male chauvinism that we find in our societies, it raises topics of linguistic pragmatics, seniority scripts, faith that unwanted pasts are indeed being shed, and even intracultural us/them mentality.
Boom. We started talking about the actual paradigm shift from blaming the women to blaming the men. Accepting now the need for action and potential remedies as proscribed by Katz and co., we became interested in the shock factor that comes. Often an older generation would be jerked too greatly by a complete polarization of values (as this regard for tradition continues to evoke transparency, bwaa ha ha).
To rationalize our position to the ghosts that be, we discussed how rape isn’t about sex. It sits on a different line along with involvement in pornography and masturbation. These activities utilize the convention of stimulation-orgasm-habit to teach folks that sex is about power and domination, not love and selflessness. Such a contradiction is harrowing, though very accessible to cultures of self-service and relativist spin. Perhaps the key to accepting Katz’s ideas in their fullest deals with viewing sex as a medium through which people can display respect for peoples’ agency of choice. Certainly a good creed to place in a utopia’s constitution, this conclusion may be accurate, though it must be supported by coping methods for the interim.
Joe suggested some kind of an inchoate research model regarding social contingency introduction. The method would give reforming perpetrators (or those who simply harbor attitudes) choices rather than questionnaires. The hope would be that looking for answers to questions like “why did you hit her?” that run deeper than “I was mad” might reveal what the perpetrators are seeking and provide them with socially acceptable alternatives for them to take control of and work towards.
Love, ya’ll. Here’s some more ideas that may or may not have come up and may or may not be possible to integrate into the conversation:
“No, no, no don’t read the us/them here. He’s inclusive.”
“Relapse is inevitable. Polarization will occur.”
“Take it too far and you’ll turn people off.”
“Paradigm shift is to A=B=C life, just so you can later remove the lines.”
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Web 2.0, how the Internet is changing, and changing our lives.
Welcome to topic two of the Cache Club.
The topic for this week is "web 2.0".
To start out, watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPVWtYMpTEk
After watching the video, there is this great article. The first little bit is definitely worth reading, it is about how the internet began, and what people expected from it. However, if you feel pressured for time, midway through the fourth page is the part on what to expect in 2015, this is the essential part of the article.
The article is found at - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?pg=1&topic=tech&topic_set=
Keep in mind that this article was written in 2005. And according to the idea that it is doubling every year or so, remember to double or even quadruple (hard to believe with how big many of these numbers are) all the numbers in the article.
If you want more evidence, look at the amount of blogs there are online, amount of Wiki's in Wikipedia, the amount of profiles on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, dating sites, Photobucket, Flickr, you name it, people like you and me can edit it, and become a part of it.
That's really all the information I'm going to give you. I encourage you to look over how integrated YOU are into the internet.
Joe will be emailing everyone in a few days (weeks?) to set up when the responses should be turned in, and when we will be meeting to discuss everything.
Thank you,
Adam
The topic for this week is "web 2.0".
To start out, watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPVWtYMpTEk
After watching the video, there is this great article. The first little bit is definitely worth reading, it is about how the internet began, and what people expected from it. However, if you feel pressured for time, midway through the fourth page is the part on what to expect in 2015, this is the essential part of the article.
The article is found at - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?pg=1&topic=tech&topic_set=
Keep in mind that this article was written in 2005. And according to the idea that it is doubling every year or so, remember to double or even quadruple (hard to believe with how big many of these numbers are) all the numbers in the article.
If you want more evidence, look at the amount of blogs there are online, amount of Wiki's in Wikipedia, the amount of profiles on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, dating sites, Photobucket, Flickr, you name it, people like you and me can edit it, and become a part of it.
That's really all the information I'm going to give you. I encourage you to look over how integrated YOU are into the internet.
Joe will be emailing everyone in a few days (weeks?) to set up when the responses should be turned in, and when we will be meeting to discuss everything.
Thank you,
Adam
First weeks topic - Aquatic Apes
This was a topic presented by Clay on Aquatic Apes. It can be found here -
http://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes.html
Not everyone typed up their email responses and mailed them in, however, I have compiled some of the responses that we got to this topic.
Joe -
I thought Elaine Morgan made some really interesting points in the theory's favor and I didn't come across any good explanations for them when I googled the topic and tried to find a rebuttal (e.g. biped, naked body, operant control of breathing pre-requisite for speaking, etc.). I, however, didn't look very hard.
These are some questions that I had after I watched the clip...
1. Sounds good. I'd like to know more (okay that's not a question)
2. Have we found any fossils of aquatic apes to support the theory?
3. Why doesn't the hair on our bodies count when they refer to us as having naked bodies?
4. There was one thing that Elaine Morgan said that made me cautious to accept what she was presenting as unbiased and objective (okay this isn't a question either). "Every animal that has become naked has been conditioned by water...except for the naked Somalian mall rat which never puts its nose above ground." The reason this makes me cautious is because in its context it appears to be an argument for an absolute (i.e. every). She knows it's not but says it anyways. Even though she states the exception, she does it as an aside without giving it more attention than what is required to state it. The one fact she gave about the animal (it doesn't stick its nose above the ground) seems to be used as an explanation for the exception to her rule. I'm not sure I understand why that fact is relevant and why it is an explanation. I'd like to know more.
I did google aquatic apes and read one opposing argument to the theory after I watched the clip (don't ask me for the link because I closed the tab before I realized it might be a good idea to post it. It's one of the first hits if you google aquatic apes). The author of the article I read briefly mentioned my concerns but didn't seem to be too preoccupied with what was vexing me (probably because he understands enough about the topic to understand why my concerns are trivial). The main argument against the theory in his article was that it is not a parsimonious explanation. If aquatic apes lost land animal traits and acquired water animal traits when they entered the water, why didn't they re-acquire land animal traits and lose the water animal traits when they reentered the land? We are left with the same question, "why are we different than other land apes?" Put differently, the author argued that the argument doesn't explain anything because in its explanation an explanation still needs to be made in order to answer the questions being asked in the initial inquiry. We are left with a more complicated theory and have less evidence to prove it.
Anyways, that is my (and an anonymous internet author's) initial reaction to this clip. I look forward to eating mini brownies and discussing this more tomorrow. Please feel free to hit reply all and add your own two cents. The more we can cover before we meet tomorrow, the deeper we can get by the end of the process.
Amy -
As I mentioned in an email to Joe, I have a character flaw that is best exposed when I am presented with new "scientific" information. Basically, when anyone says anything to me about any of the hard sciences, I am completely convinced, at least until someone else comes along with new "scientific" information. May I illustrate with a brief story?
Once in college, I was invited to the home of a friend with whom I had spent a semester abroad in London and her new husband in their Salt Lake City home. They were both from a small backward town in southern Utah which had provided both of them with a heavy dose of charm and excellent senses of humor. The husband, who was especially quirky and really into hunting in the most delightful way possible, had mentioned on several occasions a video he proclaimed would change my life and convince me that human beings had never landed on the moon. That evening was the moment of truth. I watched the 35 minute video and was so completely convinced that I still, eight years later, have a hard time thinking it really happened, even when my beliefs border on humiliating. I convince easy.
This is to say I wholeheartedly accept the aquatic ape theory and look forward to hearing about your more incisive discussion on the topic. While chagrined to miss the discussion, and the mini brownies, I feel assured I would have absolutely nothing to contribute. My brain don't work like that.
John -
http://www.ted.com/talks/
Not everyone typed up their email responses and mailed them in, however, I have compiled some of the responses that we got to this topic.
Joe -
I thought Elaine Morgan made some really interesting points in the theory's favor and I didn't come across any good explanations for them when I googled the topic and tried to find a rebuttal (e.g. biped, naked body, operant control of breathing pre-requisite for speaking, etc.). I, however, didn't look very hard.
These are some questions that I had after I watched the clip...
1. Sounds good. I'd like to know more (okay that's not a question)
2. Have we found any fossils of aquatic apes to support the theory?
3. Why doesn't the hair on our bodies count when they refer to us as having naked bodies?
4. There was one thing that Elaine Morgan said that made me cautious to accept what she was presenting as unbiased and objective (okay this isn't a question either). "Every animal that has become naked has been conditioned by water...except for the naked Somalian mall rat which never puts its nose above ground." The reason this makes me cautious is because in its context it appears to be an argument for an absolute (i.e. every). She knows it's not but says it anyways. Even though she states the exception, she does it as an aside without giving it more attention than what is required to state it. The one fact she gave about the animal (it doesn't stick its nose above the ground) seems to be used as an explanation for the exception to her rule. I'm not sure I understand why that fact is relevant and why it is an explanation. I'd like to know more.
I did google aquatic apes and read one opposing argument to the theory after I watched the clip (don't ask me for the link because I closed the tab before I realized it might be a good idea to post it. It's one of the first hits if you google aquatic apes). The author of the article I read briefly mentioned my concerns but didn't seem to be too preoccupied with what was vexing me (probably because he understands enough about the topic to understand why my concerns are trivial). The main argument against the theory in his article was that it is not a parsimonious explanation. If aquatic apes lost land animal traits and acquired water animal traits when they entered the water, why didn't they re-acquire land animal traits and lose the water animal traits when they reentered the land? We are left with the same question, "why are we different than other land apes?" Put differently, the author argued that the argument doesn't explain anything because in its explanation an explanation still needs to be made in order to answer the questions being asked in the initial inquiry. We are left with a more complicated theory and have less evidence to prove it.
Anyways, that is my (and an anonymous internet author's) initial reaction to this clip. I look forward to eating mini brownies and discussing this more tomorrow. Please feel free to hit reply all and add your own two cents. The more we can cover before we meet tomorrow, the deeper we can get by the end of the process.
Amy -
As I mentioned in an email to Joe, I have a character flaw that is best exposed when I am presented with new "scientific" information. Basically, when anyone says anything to me about any of the hard sciences, I am completely convinced, at least until someone else comes along with new "scientific" information. May I illustrate with a brief story?
Once in college, I was invited to the home of a friend with whom I had spent a semester abroad in London and her new husband in their Salt Lake City home. They were both from a small backward town in southern Utah which had provided both of them with a heavy dose of charm and excellent senses of humor. The husband, who was especially quirky and really into hunting in the most delightful way possible, had mentioned on several occasions a video he proclaimed would change my life and convince me that human beings had never landed on the moon. That evening was the moment of truth. I watched the 35 minute video and was so completely convinced that I still, eight years later, have a hard time thinking it really happened, even when my beliefs border on humiliating. I convince easy.
This is to say I wholeheartedly accept the aquatic ape theory and look forward to hearing about your more incisive discussion on the topic. While chagrined to miss the discussion, and the mini brownies, I feel assured I would have absolutely nothing to contribute. My brain don't work like that.
John -
Ms. Morgan makes a charming and energetic spokesperson for the Aquatic Apes Theory. Which probably accounts for why she can get away with calling it a “theory” in the first place. If I remember what science I was able to absorb from my limited public school education, the idea should be called a “hypothesis” until it can be tested and reproduced many times and many ways by many people.
And that’s the thing that caught my public relations person’s eye the most about Ms. Morgan’s lecture. She was able to simultaneously dismiss the standard interpretation of Darwin while substituting an interpretation of her own using precisely the kind of reasoning she said dooms her nemesis theory to the dustbin. She could just as well work for a tobacco company. Or fossil fuels.
For example: The standard interpretation of Darwin is wrong because all of the common explanations (i.e. apes had to stand up to see over the grass when they moved to the plains) are just circumstantial ideas dreamed up by scientists to justify their hypotheses. They don’t stand up under scrutiny (i.e. didn’t the plains evolve AFTER the apes stood up?). Then to support her counter-hypothesis, she offers a series of the same kinds of explanations (i.e. all apes stand up when they wade in water) without following through with the scrutiny (i.e. if they’re ‘aquatic’ apes, shouldn’t they be swimming like fish, not wading like hippos, which have, um… four legs?)
This debate tells more about the nature of science than about Darwin’s specific ideas. Despite the eloquent exploration of the gap between science and religion in the fine film “Nacho Libre,” the two branches of thought are far closer to each other than either the scientists or religionists would care to admit.
Consider these memorable quotes from Ms. Morgan’s lecture:
“Everything I’ve been telling you for the past 20 years, forget about it. Go back to square one.”
“What do scientists do when a paradigm fails? They carry on as if nothing ever happened… If they don’t have a paradigm, how can they ask questions?”
“History is strewn with occasions where they got it wrong.” And you “can’t solve it by holding a head count and say more of the heads say yes than no.” (Wait a minute – isn’t that the current explanation for the “reality” or anthropomorphic climate change – that more scientists believe it than don’t?)
Read Michael Pollan’s latest book, “In Defense of Food” for a wonderful account of how “nutrition science” rapidly evolved into “nutritionism” – an “ism” as religion-like as Catholicism or any “ism.” The central tenet of Nutritionism is that Dietary Fat is the Devil. Now, despite the fact that the fat theory is being disproved – and America’s reaction to it blamed for soaring rates of obesity-related ailments – the quickest way to get yourself ostracized from the Nutrition Science community is to question the established dogma.
And that’s the real point for any of you who might fancy entering the world of Science. Ms. Morgan’s best advice was if you believe (in a counter-conventional hypothesis,) “keep it to yourself or it will get in the way.” Ask any scientist who continues to look at cold fusion and they’ll tell you the same thing (even though those palladium rods keep periodically spitting out pesky bursts of heat that the high priests of physics can’t explain.
As for me, I’m just a PR guy. I’ll settle for Ms. Morgan’s conclusion that I’m getting fat because I want to be a fish.
Brady -
when it comes to varying theories of evolution, I would emphasize the word "theory", a category under which even the most seemingly infallible theory of relativity has been placed. And I guess this is the challenge because although the evidence is stacked high in favor of the general theory of evolution, i.e. whether E. Morgan's theory is certain or not, we have yet to piece together a number of "missing links" scattered widely throughout our constructed evolutionary tree. My question is, how does this debate help us to better understand tissue engineering? How does it better our understanding of the environment? Although, some of these questions may seem pertinent only to humans, we have to wonder why Elaine Morgan and her theory worthy of debate has been left relatively undisputed.. is it perhaps that most of the people who study these subjects end up going into medicine? I would think that would have something to do with it.
That's all the responses that I have, feel free to comment on the video here on the blog though!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Cache Club of Interdisciplinary Studies
Welcome everyone,
This is the official blog for the Cache Club of Interdisciplinary Studies.
This will be a place where everyone who is part of the club can post topics that we are discussing for the month, as well as post their responses to the topics, and post the discussion questions that they would like to cover when we meet on Tuesday nights.
So enjoy, post questions, and learn from different people's points of view, and expand all your horizons!
This is the official blog for the Cache Club of Interdisciplinary Studies.
This will be a place where everyone who is part of the club can post topics that we are discussing for the month, as well as post their responses to the topics, and post the discussion questions that they would like to cover when we meet on Tuesday nights.
So enjoy, post questions, and learn from different people's points of view, and expand all your horizons!
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