Maybe it is because we upgraded to more channels that I have noticed a lot of busting as of late. Of course, there's Mythbusters (which is rendered almost unwatchable by the college-aged sidekicks) and for some reason Ghostbusters is popping up a lot. While I missed my favorite scientist scene of all time, YouTube allows me hear it again and again. And I briefly entertained the notion of having a ghost containment box installed in my office, with a waiting smoking ghost trap occasionally propped on my desk. Alas, the plans online seem either too complicated or inadequate (e.g., no blinking lights). But how great it would it be to roll one of these babies near somebody who is running over their time at a conference presentation, or running over my tolerance during a department meeting. Sigh.
As the seasonal celebration of miracles, notably the Jesus/Santa combo, my textbook co-author and I foolishly discover how frantically we must work to meet our February 1 deadline. While I harbor reservations about doing so, the Nature of Science chapter has been elevated to Chapter 2. I have to make heavy edits because when it was Chapter 8, phrases starting with: "as we have already described…" made sense and now they would elicit scorn. Despite the tedium of such vigilance, this does afford me a return to some myth busting of my own with "the scientific method" as my favorite target. And in a new chapter on Experimenting, I was struggling to describe why "hypothesis" is such a contentious term. For some reason, I equated the adage that it's an "educated guess" with the myth that Eskimoes have a hundred words for snow. I discovered that a woman who led the charge to unpack this particular myth was an anthropology professor from Cleveland. Best of all was this list of snow words proposed by somebody who must annoy his spouse/partner and amuse his peers. Here's an excerpt:
As the seasonal celebration of miracles, notably the Jesus/Santa combo, my textbook co-author and I foolishly discover how frantically we must work to meet our February 1 deadline. While I harbor reservations about doing so, the Nature of Science chapter has been elevated to Chapter 2. I have to make heavy edits because when it was Chapter 8, phrases starting with: "as we have already described…" made sense and now they would elicit scorn. Despite the tedium of such vigilance, this does afford me a return to some myth busting of my own with "the scientific method" as my favorite target. And in a new chapter on Experimenting, I was struggling to describe why "hypothesis" is such a contentious term. For some reason, I equated the adage that it's an "educated guess" with the myth that Eskimoes have a hundred words for snow. I discovered that a woman who led the charge to unpack this particular myth was an anthropology professor from Cleveland. Best of all was this list of snow words proposed by somebody who must annoy his spouse/partner and amuse his peers. Here's an excerpt:
ashtla expected snow that's wagered on (depth, size of flakes)
huantla special snow rolled into "snow reefers" and smoked by wild Eskimo youth
tla-na-na snow mixed with the sound of old rock and roll from a portable radio
depptla a small snowball, preserved in Lucite, that had been handled by Johnny Depp
We move forward in our lives, homes and courses, navigating between beliefs and evidence. Evidence can be turned onto beliefs, busting them to bits like a beer glass dropped on a stairwell. Miracles and myths would appear to be almost defenseless against the boot-kicks of empiricism. Nevertheless, we find ourselves clinging to beliefs and hopes in order to keep us moving along. Knowing that death is final and cannot be avoided by being good and doing onto others in a like manner, we deliberately advance into the dark and the cold in an effort to lead others to the warmth, light and comfort that comes from knowledge. Plans for a new course are infused with promise and possibility — and we believe in in the myth that ignorance is the enemy and wisdom will make the world a better place. We bust our humps preparing and worrying about the prospects for everyone this semester. Believers and skeptics lay awake the night before class, wishing for a miracle but preparing nonetheless (nice pants, neat syllabus, novel introduction) to make this course the one that changes the world.
