The Questioning Librarian

I recently finished David Goodstein's Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil . It made for a few more sleepless nights as a whole, to say the least. It was more technical than other pieces I've read on peak oil, with most of the book being devoted to the technical aspects of engines (more than I wanted to know) with the first and last parts of the book looking at first Hubbert's peak, then ending with alternative sources of energy. For those out of the loop, Hubbert's peak was developed by a geophysicist M. King Hubbert, working for Shell Oil, in the 1950's when it seemed that America's oil boom would never end, with frequent discoveries in Texas, etc. He correctly predicted peak oil for the continental U.S. (Alaska excluded), in which new discoveries peaked in the 1950's and peak production was reached in the early 1970's, declining perpetually afterward. His model has been used in countries and, more importantly, for the entire world. We know, of cour...

Well it seems that, once again, I don't have to search very hard to find something to write about. Take Chris Taylor, for instance, once a teacher in the great state of Texas who decided to spill his guts on Twitter, perhaps being overly-burdened by the fact that he never made these beliefs known while he was in the classroom. After proclaiming his desire to go back to teaching, he promises to "shove my beliefs down the throats of my stds." Just in case you were wondering, he means students, not STDs. I'm not concerned with some of the political statements that follow, about Israel re-annexing the Gaza Strip and the need for Canadians to listen to Beck and Limbaugh to become smarter (up for debate in their own right, but not my concern here; everyone is entitled to their own political opinion, no matter how uninformed and ignorant it may be). No, my concern is with his blatantly evolution-denying posts (well, in fairness, I'm concerned about most of them, but th...

I place a great value on education and real learning (not indoctrination); it is a process that has had a great impact upon my own life and the lives of many I know. There is a joy in the discovery and discussion of new ideas, facts and thoughts. It has, truly, the power to change lives, to liberate minds and to truly revolutionize the world...if only you let it! The process of education has, for me, been not only a life-changing, mind-liberating process, but it has been the process of helping to give me the tools that I need to get me through life; not mere information, but the tools of learning. These are the basic devices that any educated person needs; good reading skills, good writing skills, the ability to sort out useful information from nonsense in all its guises. Perhaps most important of all is the humbling realization of my college years; the fact of the matter is, the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Every fact illuminates three further areas in which ...

One of the newer features on the Answers in Genesis website purports to explain the phenomena of ice ages (or, in their view, the single ice age allowed by their reading of Scripture). Just like any good creationist argument, they see a gap in the understanding of modern science and rush to fill it in a perfect "God of the Gaps" moment. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/ee2/ice-age Pointing out that so-called "secular" science doesn't have a good mechanism to explain the "on-off" switch of repeated ice ages, the creationists throw the Bible as a wedge to get into the door, positing that the aftermath of the Flood is a good mechanism to explain the single ice age that they accept as having occurred. The Flood, as one might expect, put a lot of moisture into the air which allowed for the formation of great glaciers, and the tectonic shifts that accompanied the aftermath of the Flood served as the actual trigger for an ice age, which convenient...

I'm a glutton for punishment. I was at the library a while ago and, looking at the cart of books being sold, I found the Revised & Expanded Answers Book , with one of the authors none other than Mr. Ham. Immediately excited at the prospect of several hundred pages of his comedy stylings (and those of the odious Safarti) I purchased it for about fifty cents, which means I got a lot of intellectual contortions for my money. Quickly into the book, we hit on the real reason why creationists like Ham don't accept evolution; the alleged consequences of the theory. A nice illustration sums it up; with "Creation" at the foundation, we are shown a wholesome society with "God's Word", "Laws", "Marriage", "Standards" and "Meaning of Life" ascending from that. But when we have "Evolution" at the foundation (cue ominous music and lightning) we have listed "Man's Opinion", "Lawlessness", ...

Listening to NPR this morning while I was getting ready to leave, I was struck by the feature story that I was hearing over the airwaves, about the intersection of climate change and religion in Kiribati. In this little nation, where the overwhelming majority are deeply religious, many of the 33 islands are but six and a half feet above sea level while the most modest projections for sea level rise are around three feet according to IPCC estimates (which, according to the book I'm in the process of reading by Peter Ward, failed to take into account several factors which makes this estimate moot anyway; the actual rise in this century will be much higher, followed by endless centuries of rise). But even in this nation, surely a sign of the grim reality of climate change, as certain freshwater sources become increasingly saline and undrinkable, deniers exist. One interviewed man based his opposition on the Biblical Flood story of Noah in which, after the Ark landed on dry land, say...

I was emailed a link to this story from the far-right rubbish mill known as World Net Daily. A bastion of birthers, Obama-haters of all spread, evolution and climate-deniers, and just right-wing nutties in general, the column I was given a link to attacked Michelle Obama's Healthy-Eating Initiative, her attempt to encourage parents to make healthy choices in the foods that they feed their children. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=261065 Implied in the title is that, of course, the First Lady doesn't really care about children, her push for healthy eating is simply yet another "liberal do-gooder" attempt to control every aspect of all of our lives. It faults her for not tackling the, very real, problem of sex trafficking and sex slavery, instead using her position to "bully restaurants" into serving smaller portion sizes. What, and no similar outcry that former First Lady Laura Bush didn't speak out against sex slavery, instead ...

Happy Darwin Day, everyone! Today is the 202nd birthday of one of the greatest men in science, Mr. Charles Darwin (also, oddly enough, the birthday of Abraham Lincoln). It is hard to overstate the importance of Darwin in all of modern life; his theory changed the world, changed not just biology but endless other branches of science and led to the creation of countless other branches. Few others can claim to have changed the way we view the world like Darwin can, and for a person so modest and retiring as he this is especially something. Yet while the scientific community has overwhelmingly accepted Darwin and his great theory, outside of the bastions of scientific thought the majority in this country reject evolution and its implications, worried that somehow it is a threat to their religion, their morals or cherished notions of what humans are. These are unfounded fears. Evolution is no threat to God or religion and makes no claims about morals except perhaps to wonder at what point...

Before you jump all over me, I do not mean every  teacher; I'm singling out biology teachers on this one after a new survey reported on in the New York Times  showing that the one thing that many biology teachers avoid talking about is the most important subject in all of biology! Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?_r=1&hpw Only 28% of the surveyed teachers "follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution..." What's more, about 13% of those surveyed admitted to teaching creationism, a non-scientific religious viewpoint. This leaves around 60% who do neither, choosing to avoid controversy in a manner of ways. All I can say is that this, while not coming as a shock, is shameful nonetheless. Can you imagine a similar lapse in our education system? Imagine the outcry if physics were taught without a mention of gravity? Or if astronomy was taught with...

There are no words to express how I felt yesterday morning when I read of the passing of Brian Jacques over the weekend. He was, and remains, one of my favorite authors; his books consistently ranked among my favorites, a list that changed much over the years. Shock did not begin to describe how I felt, nor sorrow. How can you describe adequately the death of someone you never met, someone who nonetheless had such an impact on one's life that it was almost like losing a beloved member of the family? I was introduced to Brian Jacques' work when I was in sixth grade when my grandmother gave me a copy of Pearls of Lutra  for my birthday, thinking that it seemed like the kind of book I read. I don't recall enough of what I actually read to say whether it was true or not, but I remember how I thought she was mistaken, that I didn't read the sort of book where animals were main characters. If it was a mistake, it was one of the happiest mistakes of my life! Upon reading Lut...

In Mansfield, Texas, the school district won a grant to teach Arabic classes. Originally labeled as mandatory, the district has since backed down, dissembling that they are not, in fact, mandatory. Still, parent remain "concerned" that their children might be exposed to a language other than English. They fear that learning Arabic might somehow transform their children into Koran-reading Muslims; it's a marker of that fear that the district has made clear that teaching Arabic does not involve religious training. The upset parents said that they should have been told months ago about the grant, to what end I'm not quite sure. Bigotry is on parade here, the irrational fear of the "Other." America needs translators of Arabic, and also Mandarin Chinese, now more than it ever has, and such people are exactly what it does not have. If this country ceases to be great, it will be because of unfounded fears like this in Mansfield. We should not stop the important...

If you thought Ken Ham was harmless, think again. He is videotaped here teaching children how to "resist" the teaching of evolution in classrooms. The response to millions of years of earth history: "Were you there?" This is what passes for intelligent thought in the "Answers in Genesis" world. How about a few other things along that same line. Hey, kids, what do you do when your teacher talks about the Holocaust? "Were you there?" What about the height of Imperial Rome? "Were you there?" World War One? "Were you there?" The vaccinations of Jonas Salk? "Were you there?" Ok, children, thanks for your input. At issue here is how we know what we know. A person doesn't have to have literally been there to know an event happened. We piece the past together through evidence and sound reasoning whether in history, paleontology or physics. No one now alive was witness to the Spanish-American War, the electio...

It's no secret; I hate stupidity, and it doesn't matter whether it comes from the Left or the Right, whether it's religious or secular. I still hate it, and feel free to hold it up for public mockery. So it is with an article in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , noting that a number of religious authorities, including several clergymen, said that it was alright for locals to pray for a Steelers' victory in the Super Bowl. Completely disregarding the fact that they didn't win, am I the only person who finds this kind of talk simply ludicrous? Even if one believes that there is a God who answers prayer, I fail to see how such a Deity, who must surely be the most busy entity in existence, would care about a single game on one day that in reality is far less important than most people seem to think. This is a blatant sop by Western Pennsylvania religious figures to a public whose devotion to the Steelers approaches a quasi-religious level. While most may sim...

Good for this young man for standing up in the face of blind, willful ignorance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs5QdwSvhnM Unfortunately, wherever we find someone standing up for science and reason, in this case a sensible position on the environment and global warming in the church, there are plenty of those willing to push back for irrationality. Armed with straw man arguments, Tony Perkins takes aim at Johnathan Meritt for petitioning to have a greater acknowledgement about global warming within the faith. Signed by several prominent Southern Baptist leaders, the petition condemns the church as having been "too timid" on the issue. Perkins refuses to look seriously at the issue, throwing up the straw man that, concerned with population, environmentalism promotes abortion and homosexuality. Oh yes, I remember the last time I heard Al Gore or Bill McKibbon encourage their audiences to go have an abortion and become homosexuals; wasn't it just last week? They must ...

Not necessarily so. At least, it doesn't have to be that way. Science finds itself under attack on many fronts from fundamentalist religion, and in response to these attacks a number of scientists (and others) have become very vocal in response, attacking religion as an irrational, unsupported, ancient superstition from a time before science, a relic that is no longer necessary for modern society, one that is in fact harmful. Even before these scientists helped to launch the "New Atheist" movement, some believers seemed, and still seem today, positively afraid of science. They hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible, that every  word is literally  true, inspired by God (except the prophecies in Daniel or Revelation, which they interpret in various ways). Thus when it comes to certain facets of science, specifically biological evolution, paleontology, astronomy, chemistry and geology (among others), the response of this set of believers is to deny, deny, deny. But ...

It is hard to say where to begin when dismantling something this irrational, so I suppose I should follow the advice of the king in Through the Looking Glass to Alice, to start at the beginning and keep going until I've reached the end. A common misconception that ran through media stories about Stephen Hawking's latest book,  The Grand Design , was that Hawking claimed that there is no God. Nonsense. In the book, Hawking claimed that modern physics has no need  of the idea of God to explain the world as we know it. He never claims that there is explicitly no God; there is a difference between the two, and it is clear that neither of the authors of the letter took the time to read it and find out for themselves (nor is it obvious that they would have the intelligence to finish it or comprehend any of it). The second false assertion is that "We have evidence that God exists." No, we do not. Belief or non-belief in a God or any Deity remains a matter of personal faith...

I was recently made aware of a letter that was written to The Clarion News , the local newspaper of the town in which I attend college. The authors of said letter purport that the Bible is a better source of information about the world than "science" (their air quotes, not mine). They then go on to make a series of false, unsupported and outright wrong claims about what the Bible says versus what "science" said. They are also extremely generous in their interpretation of Scripture to support their own case and careful to pick out old positions in science to make it seem ridiculous. Shooting them down is child's play. I wish that I could link the entire article, but one has to subscribe to The Clarion News  in order to view it and, even were I a subscriber any readers could not view it even by selecting the link. I was provided with the transcript which I reproduce here. No copyright infringement intended; naturally I don't lay claim to owning any of this n...

Welcome to Apocalypse Theater, where you can load up on popcorn and soda as you view the end of the world and the destruction of all of evil mankind, or at least watch the very Apocalypse-minded go insane finding "signs and portents" pointing to the imminent return of the deity, the end of the Mayan calender, Planet X, etc, etc... Alright, down to the business at hand. This post was prompted by comments made by an unnamed family member this morning pointing to the ongoing revolution in Egypt, a relatively peaceful one I might add when you consider the American, French or Haitian Revolutions, as a sign of the "birth pangs" of the apocalypse. It is, this person believed, yet another sign that we are indeed the terminal generation living in the "End Times." This belief that we are the final generation, based on some creative readings of Biblical passages, seems like a tune that has gone on forever. I've heard it all of my life, and doubtless others ol...

At least that's what RightWingNews.com would have you think. The story, emailed to me as a link, purports that the famed Mongol conqueror is being "rehabilitated" as an environmental hero by the left, an assertion without evidence that is certainly not true. Full story here: http://rightwingnews.com/2011/01/genghis-khan-eco-warrior/ Of course, they selectively quote from the article to try and make it seem that the authors were acting to advocate rather than simply report. In short, the original piece notes that, in a study of climate fluctuations in human history, by far the largest fluctuation before the current era was a period of cooling following the conquests of Genghis Khan, cooling that can be directly related to his actions. Because of the estimated 40 million casualties caused by the Mongol's conquests, the earth cooled measurably as forests grew in abandoned fields. But, wait, before you say that no sane environmentalist would advocate killing million...