Food For Thought

Got this from Sparkpeople.com on my birthday. Gave me perspective.

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.

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.

Meet Me in St. Louis

''Meet me in St. Louis, Louis,
Meet me at the Fair
Don't tell me the lights are shining
Anyplace but there
We will dance the 'Hoochie-Koochie'
I will be your 'Tootsie-Wootsie'
If you will meet me in St. Louis, Louis,
Meet me at the Fair.''

- First chorus of the 1904 popular song ''Meet Me in St. Louis,'' celebrating the St. Louis World's Fair of the same year.

Ok. So I don't know what the "hoochie-koochie" was, but I definitely don't want to dance it and become someone's "tootsie-wootsie" but I did want to visit St. Louis, especially the Gateway Arch. We planned an evening flight back home so that we'd have time to get downtown, go up in the Arch, and make it to the airport in time for our flight.


Now for some reason, I thought the Arch was built in time for the World's Fair, which I discovered to be in 1904 and was officially called the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Who knew, right? Well thanks to Google, yet again, I found out all kinds of information, the most important is that it wasn't built until 1965. It had originally been planned after the design won an open art competition in 1947 but because of financial backing issues was not built right away. The winners of the design of the Arch were architect Eero Saaurinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel.

View from the north end

I found out that the Arch was all part of an idea to renew an economic downturn by bringing people to the downtown riverfront area of St. Louis. Those old 1947 designs were still in play and somehow the funding was found (with the National Park Service involved this time), and it became part of a whole concept of the "Jefferson National Expansion Memorial" that also holds the Museum of Westward Expansion and the old Jefferson County Court House on the park grounds. According to the National Park Service website linked here:

"The Arch reflects St. Louis' role in the Westward Expansion of the United States during the 19th century. The park is a memorial to Thomas Jefferson's role in opening the west, to the pioneers who helped shape its history, and to Dred Scott who sued for his freedom in the old courthouse."

Which leads me to another question....Who was Dred Scott? (Wikipedia to the rescue!) Two trials of his case, in 1847 and 1850 were held in the old courthouse in which Scott sued in court for the right to be a free man in the state of Missouri. It went to the Supreme Court because nobody could figure out if Scott even had the right to sue, having no rights as a white man does. In the Supreme Court ruling in his case, they determined that people of African descent brought into the U.S. and held as slaves (or their descendants) were not protected by the Constitution and were not U.S. citizens. Scott was considered a free man in other states but when he moved to Missouri he wasn't. His case retains historical significance as one of the worst decisions ever made by the Supreme Court. In fact, some argue that it was this case that began a pathway toward the Civil War. In any case, it was credited with launching Abraham Lincoln's political career and ultimate election.

Looking straight up

The Arch is 630 feet high and 630 feet wide from leg to leg. It is the tallest memorial in the United States and the tallest stainless steel monument in the world. The base of each leg is an equilateral triangle with each side 54 feet long at the bottom and narrowing to 17 feet at the top. (The legs are wider at the bottom).The Arch is hollow to accommodate a tram that takes riders up to an observation deck at the top. It consists of a train of 8 egg-shaped cars that seat 5 people and takes about 4 minutes to get up (3 minutes to get down). They open up to the top observation deck where we were able to look down on St. Louis and the Mississippi River. Absolutely amazing! 

View from the top down to the Old Courthouse

According to poet Calvin Trillin from Kansas City, Missouri, when being compared to poet T.S. Eliot, a St. Louis native:

"Some have questioned whether St. Louis really was the Gateway to the West....I'm from Kansas City where people think of St. Louis not as the Gateway to the West but as the Exit from the East."

That's another way of looking at it I guess. In any case, I can check the Gateway Arch off of my Bucket List now!

Me with the arch in the background

The Largest Cave in the Lakes Area

After a day out in the sun and heat and on the water (we rented a pontoon boat and tube for the afternoon yesterday), we decided to stay out of it all and explore Jacob's Cave in Versailles. Jacob's Cave is the largest cave in the Lake of the Ozarks area, 1/2 mile long, 70 feet down, and completely accessible for people with disabilities and baby strollers. It was the first commercialized cave in the area, opening in 1932 to tourists. At that time, people walked on wooden planks and used kerosene lanterns to explore.

A beautiful "room" at the end of the 1/2 mile trail

According to the Jacob's Cave home page (linked above):

"Jacob's Cave is famous for its depth illusion, reflective pools, ceiling sponge work, prehistoric bones (mastodon), bear, and peccary), and the world's largest geode. On the mile-long tour you will see every type of cave formation imaginable, from millions of "soda straws" and massive stalactites and columns, to delicate helictites. Evidence of six ice ages and three earthquakes can be seen in the cave. The temperature remains a constant 53 degrees inside the cave."

Cave "pearls" which actually do form around a tiny bit of sand

If you are interested in the cave formation and geology, visit this link: Jacob's Cave Geology. Of course I found it totally interesting and was glad to have something to read about the cave--much more impressed than information NOT available from the first cave we visited. Basically, the rock the cave was formed in is from the Silurian period 430 million years ago. The Silurian Sea was full of coral reefs and marine wildlife which created the dolomite rock that the cave was dissolved into. About 45 million years ago the area uplifted, forming the caves in the Ozark Plateau. Three earthquakes occurred in the area at 45 and 17 million years ago with the most recent being the New Madrid event in 1811-1812 at 8.1-8.3 magnitude on the Richter Scale. This event is written in every geology text because it is highly unusual to have such large earthquakes in the middle of a continent. The New Madrid earthquake was so strong that it forced the Mississippi River to run backwards for 6 days before changing its course when it started flowing toward the ocean again.

A column that has been fractured by the New Madrid earthquake

Jacob's cave was discovered by Jacob Craycraft, a miner in 1875. He may have gotten a map to the cave drawn by Spainards and found in the local library by Jacob. As Jacob was prospecting for new minerals he came across an animal hole along a fracture line and began digging, exposing a larger entrance that led him through the same 1/2 mile that makes up the cave tour. He autographed a stalactite with lead pencil, which still can be seen in the calcite. The cave has been known by man for 120 years and available to the public for 45 years. Click here for more History facts about Jacob's Cave.

Many soda straws decorated the cave ceiling