. . . I've been told that I write novels for email messages. Perhaps this is the way to go. I'll try to make each entry, or Gemstone, a "precious" one. On mediocre days, all I might be able to produce is a "semi-precious" entry. In any case, an entry might be a "neat" Gemstone--something that is uniquely mine.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Let Children Learn Evolution

I have always enjoyed Bill Nye the Science Guy. I've shown his videos in my classroom and the kids have always liked watching and learning from them. My own kids love to watch his videos. He's been around for a long time now and I hope he continues his mission of teaching science to the youth in our world.

Here, in this video, Dr. Nye makes a statement against teaching Creationism to kids instead of letting them learn true science....Evolution. It is much easier to make sense of the universe they live in when they do.

Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children


Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka "The Science Guy," if grownups want to "deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them."
Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. I mean, we're the world's most advanced technological—I mean, you could say Japan—but generally, the United States is where most of the innovations still happens. People still move to the United States. And that's largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in that, it holds everybody back, really. 
Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place. 
As my old professor, Carl Sagan, said, "When you're in love you want to tell the world." So, once in a while I get people that really—or that claim—they don't believe in evolution. And my response generally is "Well, why not? Really, why not?" Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don't believe in evolution. I mean, here are these ancient dinosaur bones or fossils, here is radioactivity, here are distant stars that are just like our star but they're at a different point in their lifecycle. The idea of deep time, of this billions of years, explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your world view just becomes crazy, just untenable, itself inconsistent. 
And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems. 
It's just really hard a thing, it's really a hard thing. You know, in another couple of centuries that world view, I'm sure, will be, it just won't exist. There's no evidence for it.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Pansies

Thought
Thought, I love thought.
But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas
I despise that self-important game.
Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness,
Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness,
Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read,
Thought is pondering over experience, and coming to conclusion.
Thought is not a trick, or an exercise, or a set of dodges,
Thought is a man in his wholeness, wholly attending.

-- DH Lawrence

"The name pansy comes from the word 'pensee,' which means 'thought', and was so named because the flower resembles a human face-- in August it nods forward as if deep in thought. It was believed that pansies could make your lover think of you."

I just got a new tattoo, here in August, of pansies. I'm turning 45 this month and have a lot of thoughts to muddle through. I loved that pansies, one of my all-time favorite flowers meant "thought" and "reflection." With the creative artistic skills of my new tattoo artist, Max, we created a beautiful bouquet to mark this milestone in my life.


Being from the iPhone, this is a reverse photo. It is actually on my left shoulder.