My Goat is Gotten

Seems there's been some ill-considered comments by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, supposedly one of the Republican party's rising stars, about the age of the earth.  Via Alex Knapp at Forbes:

Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who many political observers think has a strong shot to be a 2016 Presidential candidate, just finished a lengthy interview with GQ that you can read here. One thing that struck my interest here, as someone who often reports on science, was Rubio’s answer when he was asked the question, “How old do you think the Earth is.”

In response, Rubio told GQ that, “I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.”
 

Matthew Francis at Galileo's Pendulum weighs in on the age of the earth and Rubio:

I also get that in today’s Republican Party, there is a conflict between secular conservatism—which cares little for theological debates, in favor of and a powerful Christian fundamentalist element that won’t throw support behind anyone who doesn’t take a literalist view of Genesis. You’re trying to have it both ways.

However, the age of Earth is not a matter of opinion, so there is no “middle ground” for discussion. Whether there’s a dispute among theologians or not is, frankly, irrelevant. The age of Earth (4.54 billion years, which you find if you type “age of earth” into Google search) is not a controversial issue, and hasn’t been for many years in the scientific community.
 

And (going back to Alex Knapp) here's why what Rubio says and thinks matters:

This doesn’t mean that our representatives to the Congress and to the Senate should be scientific experts. But if they hold ideas about the world around us that are fundamentally at odds with scientific evidence, then that will ultimately infringe on their ability to make reasoned judgments about a host of issues where the economy touches technology. And that could end up harming the economy as a whole.
 

In other words, Rubio (to use but one example) is saying:

1. I believe X is true, as so pronounced by my faith. 

2. The premise Y--although universally accepted within the scientific community--is at odds with my belief in X.

3.  Therefore, since X must be true, that means that Y is false.

When I see scientific denialism, my goat is gotten. Nothing drives me nuts more than simply denying facts that conflict with one's paradigms. My

Go. See. Lincoln.

Here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 4 year old human being) I sometimes give advice but never give orders.

Well, I'm breaking that rule now:  You MUST go see the film Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg.

Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as Lincoln was absolutely perfect.  Unlike other actors and other roles, not once did I ever think, "That guy's an actor and this is a movie."  Rather I felt--as did the bride--that I was really seeing the 16th president in action through some miracle of time travel or magic of film making.

The movie focuses on Lincoln's efforts to secure passage in the U.S. House of Representatives (the Senate had previously approved) the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.  If the House passed it by a 2/3 majority, the amendment would go to the states for ratification, where passage was expected.

The House was bitterly divided on the amendment; Lincoln's skills as a president were sorely tested as tried to secure sufficient votes for passage.

Oh, and here's the text of the proposed amendment: 

Section 1.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

 

Section 2.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
 

So, the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery in the United States.  Today, nearly 150 years later, it seems self-evident, yet the decision at the time was momentous.

There were those Congressmen that were on the right side of history and those who were on the wrong side of history.  I see exact parallels to today, where restrictions on women's rights and on the rights of gays are similarly being debated, and again we have those who are on the right side of history and those who history will record as being on the wrong side.


Harper Weekly was an influential magazine in 1865.  Some history-minded person (bless them!) has recreated every issue of the original periodical.  The 11 Feb 1865 issue, here, has the original list of how each member of the Congress voted on the issue of the 13th Amendment.

You must click on the thumbnail image at the upper left to enlarge the page.  And you should do that--actually take the time to glance through the names of those who voted for the amendment and those who voted Nay.  The latter group deserves the everlasting censure of history.

Why am I passionate about this?  Simply put, I have black and mixed race people in my family.  They are no different than you or me, and I cannot see how anyone can look at them and see something less than I see.

A New Concept in Running Gloves

 

[photo by Gary]

 



Yesterday here in southern PA a cold front swept through after midnight, bringing cold rain and some wet snow.  Higher elevations got more snow; here at my home, elevation 633', the snow was confined to grassy areas and fields.

I elected to empty my wood stove before my run, and since it was wet, could scatter the ashes on a flower bed without any fear of fire.  So I carried out the bucket of hot ashes, wearing the leather gloves pictured above, and proceeded to dump them. 

I left the flower bed immediately for my run, and a quarter of a mile later realized that I was still wearing the leather gloves.  At this point I had little desire to return to the house just to change gloves, and--being the scientist that I fancy myself to be--opted to conduct a glove experiment.

I was out for an hour and the gloves performed their main task of keeping my hands warm.  Very well, in fact.  I managed to avoid most of the rain, thus the gloves only got wet on their cloth backsides.  I also picked up, flattened, and carried home 3 beer cans to recycle; this endeavor got the palm side of the fingers a bit damp but the wetness did not soak through.

Bottom line: they worked OK in a pinch--in fact, better than I expected--but I'll stick to gloves made of synthetic materials.  Leather works to keep cows dry but it loses something in the process.

I should also comment on the gloves themselves: the main wear and tear on these gloves is the care and feeding of my woodstove.  The fingers tend to wear through from the abrasion of handling pieces of wood, so I effect temporary repairs using duct tape.

Reminds me of a great scene from Lonesome Dove, where the crew is making fun of Deets' (Danny Glover) outfit, a hodgepodge of patches and repairs.  Gus (Robert Duvall) observes some thing like: "Deets isn't one to give up on a garment just because it has a little wear."

 

Ultrarunning Dreams

If you thought I was alluding to my hopes and aspirations in the realm of Ultrarunning, you are mistaken.

For last night, after some 30 years in the sport, I had my first dream about Ultrarunning.  Well, the first dream I remembered after I awakened.

I was running an Ultra in the fall, as the leaves were down but it was still fairly mild, no snow.  My overall color impression was browns and grays.  I was running downhill on a decent trail, trying vainly to keep up with a runner about 50 yards ahead.  Suddenly he made a turn and was lost to sight.

I, too, came up to the turn, which was strangely unmarked, and kept on running.  The other runner was now gone.  After a short distance, I came up to another trail junction, this one a bit trickier, which was also unmarked.  I thought to myself, "Man, this race has some shi**y course markings!"

I was trying to assess the correct way to go when a bunch of runners appeared coming from the other direction.  I knew--in this dream--that the course was an out-n-back, but for some reason I did not know the distance.  So I turned up the way that the other runners were coming from.  As I passed the string, lo and behold I see our son running in the middle of that mini-pack.

I wave, he waves, and we go on our separate ways.  I knew that I had been running slowly (my normal speed these days!), but the fact that encountering of the pack of runners on their way back happened so early in my run indicated that my speed was glacial and I may as well drop.

That was the conclusion of this stupid dream, so I never found out the distance, results, etc.

Here's hoping for a more satisfying dream next time.

 

Mandate for Change?

Via Balloon Juice a couple days ago, we see an interesting observation:

In 2004, Bush beat Kerry 50.7% to 48.3%. In this year’s election, Obama beat Romney 50.8% to 47.5% (these numbers may change to numbers that are slightly more favorable to Obama as more votes are counted). Yet Bush had a mandate and Obama does not.

 

 

I get pretty sick and tired of double standards and hypocrisy and that kind of stuff.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if President Obama acted like he had a mandate and went full-court-press nuts for the next 4 years trying to do all the right thing(s) as though he had nothing to lose?  (e.g., taking on climate change, protecting social programs, universal health care, women's rights, gay rights, demilitarizing the U.S., etc....)

 

Wait, he doesn't have anything to lose.  What are they gonna do, vote him out?

 

 

Asteroid Mission...and Ultrarunning

I guess I'm a space junky.  Things astronomy make me perk up and take notice.

Thus it was that in my regular perusal of the Rude Pundit blog some days ago, I found this gem.  As I always do, I hasten to point out that reading the Rude Pundit is a secret vice, as he is foul-mouthed and uses crude sexual comments to make his points.

But you know, I almost always agree with those points.  So here we go, from the Rude Pundit's post of 16 Nov 2012, complete with the original rudeness intact:

Electing Obama Might Save Us From Asteroid Collision Doom:
So here's an issue that didn't get much play during the endless election cycle: Which candidate would save the earth from the dust and fire-filled doom of an asteroid collision? Science writer Ian O'Neill, a name that couldn't be more Irish if it whacked you in the nuts with a shilelagh, thinks that the United States chose the path of doom-aversion by re-electing Barack Obama.

See, one little-discussed project that President Obama supports is a manned flight to an asteroid. Yes, yes, just like in Armaggedon, but probably with significantly less Liv Tyler. O'Neill thinks that Republicans would have just concentrated on going to the moon again, like, you know, Newt Gingrich talked about. The asteroid mission won't happen until 2025, at least. But Obama is backing it because no one wants to get a face full of asteroid rock....
 

Oh, by the way, former conservative demigod, now regular ol' House member Paul Ryan voted against NASA's funding the last two times it came up. And his great and grand budget cut the agency even further, despite paying lip service to outrage over Obama's move away from doing a moon landing rerun and the end of the space shuttle program.

It turns out we didn't just dodge a bullet by sending the GOP tools back to the woodshed, but we might end up dodging an earth-destroying space rock.
 

The promised link to Ultrarunning?  Just that talking about asteroids and spacey stuff reminds me that it's high time for a night run.  At this time of year, on a good night the air is crystal clear and frosty, the roads or trails are still, and you'd swear you could reach out and touch the stars.

There's goodness in doing something nobody else does.  The recharging effect of being alone with the stars is incalculable.  But you just can't explain the magic and mystery of a night run to anyone who doesn't do it.  So it's our secret. 

 

Cats in Art: Puss in Boots (1 of 2)--Dore

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

[Image credit Wikimedia Commons.]

Illustrations for Puss in Boots, 1883 edition, Gustave Dore, held in a private collection.

The engraver Gustave Dore provided the illustrations for Charles Perrault's 17th century swashbuckling cat story.  Zuffi tells us:

Naturally, Perrault's tale has tickled the fancy of many illustrators: even the great Gustave Dore, tireless creator of images to accompany tests such as the Bible or the Divine Comedy, could not resist the fascination of one of the world's most famous cats.
 

Puss in Boots embodies the notion of a suave, yet naughty cat effortlessly outwitting the clumsy humans.

Perrault and Dore certainly nailed it.

NOTE: Next week will feature a second Dore image.

Bigfoot...and Ultrarunning

 

[Image credit here]

 

 

From the article accompanying the photo above:

 

I loved reading breathless tales of encounters with the Yeti, Loch Ness Monster, Jersey Devil, Bigfoot, and other cryptids as a child, but those stories have never been supported by anything more substantial than an out-of-focus snapshot or embellished campfire story. And in the case of North America’s legendary nonhuman ape, the picture historians and sociologists have pieced together is that Bigfoot and other shaggy humanoids are cultural inventions that we have repeatedly conjured so that there’s always something wild and mysterious in the woods.

Case closed--no Bigfoot.  I get why we "need" Bigfoot, I guess, as a mystery of the backcountry.

Bummer.