Avoiding responsibility

An awesome psychologist who has extensive experience with abusive people listed the four ways in which abusers avoid taking responsibility for their actions. These same excuses are also used by teens, and in light of my previous post, I list them here:

1. Denial (I didn't do it)
2. Distortion (it didn't happen that way)
3. Minimalization (it wasn't as bad as that)
4. Blame others (she made me angry, I'm stressed because of my teachers)

I also think of this list when accused sexual predators speak out in the media. I automatically find the corresponding item on this list (what you saw when you walked into the bathroom wasn't what you think you saw [item 2], I was just playing around with this really young boy [item 3]). I find that things become much more transparent this way.

Looking back at the years of subtle and not-so-subtle abuse I suffered from F1's father, I can place his reaction under one of those four excuses. Number three was the most common in court. "It wasn't as bad as she says it was, I just touched her on the cheek, I didn't bite her." "It was just a gentle nudge, not a kick." "It really wasn't such a big deal, she's exaggerating." I've also heard number four in some variety or the other "Judge, this is part of our culture, men in our country are the head of the household and need to take control to guide their family. If I didn't I wouldn't love my family." That one in particular, made me want to puke. BS if there ever was. Beating up on your family is a fabulous way to show them how much you care . Or how about: "She made me angry. If I wasn't so angry, I would never have touched her."

Over the years I have received several pleas to "just get along as friends." I've always responded that there can never be any form of reconciliation if he doesn't take responsibility for his actions. I've once received an email stating "I'm sorry for whatever it is you think I've done to you." Sorry, doesn't cut it.  Taking responsibility means something like: "I realize now that I have a habit of wanting to control everything you do or say, and that I do this by physical coercion among other methods. I now know this is wrong, and I'm taking steps to prevent this from occurring again." Not that such a statement would be enough, but it might be a start. However, from every communication I've gotten so far, he still doesn't seem to think he's done anything wrong.

I have a list of these excuses on the fridge, and every time F1 uses one of them, I point it out to him. I know he despises me psychoanalyzing him. The point I'm trying to make, however, is the following:
I've heard it all before, you're excuses are so predictable, so transparent. Take responsibility for your actions. If you don't, you can not make better choices.

Steve Jobs

iSad

Appropriate for Mother's Day

This link seemed appropriate for Mother's Day.

In recent paper in the journal "Science," a study claimed that there was gender-based differences in standard testing, in layman's terms: boys did better then girls. It's probably better not to get me started on the topic. My rant would last forever. I'm going to let the Feminist Chemists do the talking for me, they are much more articulate than me. They wrote a letter to the editor, which Science decided not to publish. I must say, I'm very disappointed in Science, I've always considered they wouldn't shy away from controversy. If they were bold enough to publish such a study, they should be bold enough to publish the response. I'd be interested to see the reviewer's comments too. I wonder if they sent it to a bunch a males for review.

Now the Feminist Chemists have published the letter themselves, and it can be found here (in case you missed out on the first link).

Added later:
I honor of Mother's Day, this story might seem relevant. I seem to remember when I was young that my mother didn't consider herself to be exactly a math genius. Although she always encouraged me, she probably was a result of an era in which girls just didn't do math. When she returned to college later in life, I had the opportunity to tutor her in math. Let it be known that my mother aced it! Easily. Way to go ma! Girls can do math just fine.

It's not too late yet!

To bid on your own personal genome. There is one bid right now for the low, low price of $68k, and you still have a few hours to place your bid. You can have your own genome sequenced and the proceeds got towards the X-prize foundation.
Click here if you want to place a bid.
Now if I could only find my checkbook to write out $70k, I would place a bid in a heartbeat.

Election night was good for me

Few could have imagined the impact it had on my productivity. Although I was a bit distracted by the tv, and wanting to check on election results, it did make me stay up late enough to finish the second draft of chapter 3. The counter will be updated appropriately. It turned out to be an additional 500 words, so I'll update the total number of words too, so as not to give myself an unfair advantage.

No celebration for me though, I have to move on immediately to the next one.

Also, of course, I have to eat my own words. More than a year ago, I claimed that if the US even had to ask whether they were ready for a black president, they weren't. Little did I realize that Barack Obama would fight the uphill battle, and aided by some bad choices by McCain, but most importantly (I think) by inspiring a new generation of voters, would win this battle. He fought a hard fight, and his win was well-deserved. I don't envy him his position to try and fix the damage of the last 8 years, and the enormous task to be everyone's president. He sure has poise, charisma, and the will the do just that. Time will tell.

How religion poisons everything

(Nod to Christopher Hitchens)

Now that my 15 minutes of fame are over, back to your regularly scheduled blogposts.

In today's Science an editorial (1) by Ismail Serageldin (director of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt) highlights (I don't know if this link will work for everyone, you might have to have a subscription if it doesn't work, try the link to the summary in the reference below) the strengths and weaknesses of science in Muslim countries. And is it ever clear that religion really does poison everything.

More than a trillion dollars in cash, a population of more than a billion people, but:

an increasingly intolerant social milieu that is driven by self-appointed guardians of religious correctness, who inject their narrow interpretation of religion into all public debates

is limiting investment in science, and more importantly scientific results.

Serageldin also states that:

We must be able to question convention and arbitrate our disputes by the rules of evidence. It is the content of scientific work that matters, not the persons who produced it, regardless of the color of their skin, the god they choose to worship, the ethnic group they were born into, or their gender.

Now, in a substantial part of the Muslim world a statement like this might be construed as apostacy, and Serageldin would be well-advised to watch his back.

How sad that intolerance is preventing so much brain capacity to go to waste. The world cannot afford to exclude scientists.

Reference:
(1) Serageldin, I. Science in Muslim countries. Science 321:745.

Surprise!

I went to the Godless Brunch on Sunday!! And I have a picture of myself with THE big guy. Yeehaw!

Say NO to violence against women

Please sign your name on the list of UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Say NO to violence against women. It's enough! No more hitting, beating, punching, kicking, shooting, rape, burning, yelling, you name it. No more violence. I just signed my name. Now go ahead and add yours.

With apologies to Queen

Shamelessly copied from Stranger Fruit. It was simply too good. Originally from MartinC. All about the "movie" Expelled here.

Bensteinian Rhapsody

Is this stuff real science?
Or is it just fantasy,
That belongs in a place like
Bob Jones University?
Just close your eyes,
Don’t think, just accept ID
I’m a game show host,
I don’t know biology,
But this sleazy bunch, told me so,
It could be lies, how would I know?
So long as the check clears, it doesn’t really matter to me,
To me.


Anyone? I just filmed a sham,
Put some lies into your head,
Libelled Darwin, coz’ he’s dead,
Honor, you know I once had some,
But now I’ve gone and blown it all away-
Anyone? ooooohhhhh
Was it mean to tell those lies?
You’d learn more science by watching Rocky Horror-
Anyone? Anyone? My reputations now in tatters-

Too late, my crime is done,
Dembski told me I did fine-
Behe’s squirming, (he’ll be fine),
Goodbye science lessons-you’ve got to go
Gonna leave your kids behind and hide the truth
Adolf, oooooh (a shame he wasn’t atheist)
I’ll just have to lie,
I’ll just pretend that he wasn’t Christian at all-

- guitar solo -

I’ve got a little animation of a cell,
When in haste, copy paste, yes indeed that was the plan, though-
Copyright infringement lawsuit noose is tightening on me-
Sternberg’s ethics, (they’re a shocker)
How ‘bout Crocker, (off her rocker)
And what to say of Guillermo ? Guillermo-oh-oh-oh
I’m without tenure, and nobody loves me-
He’s just a headcase, embarrassing his faculty-
Spare us the whines of this mediocrity-
Please I pray – on my soul, Will you make it so-
Guillermo! No-, we will not make it so - make it so-
Guillermo! No-, we will not make it so - make it so-
Guillermo! we will not make it so – make it so
Will not make it so- make it so
Will not make it so – make it so
No,no,no,no,no,no,no-
That Eugenie, she’s a meanie, but there’s much worse godless foe!
Beelzebub sent Dick Dawkins and his friend, PeeeeZeeee- PeeeeZeeee, PeeeeZeeeeeeee!

So you think you’ll teach children, maybe open their minds,
Study nature, alter stem cells for cures of all kinds -
Or maybe, stop Gods plan that’s HIV,
Well if I had my way, I’d close you all down out of fear!

Science it doesn’t matter,
Lets teach theology,
Just pray when cancer strikes you,
Just pray there'll come a cure from ID

I should have stuck to game shows…….

Science standards

In the good news department Florida's board of education passed the new science standards yesterday with minor changes. Instead of "evolution" the wording was changed to "the scientific theory of evolution." In my opinion that makes the wording even stronger, not a compromise. That emphasizes that we're not talking "just a theory" here. The vote was 4-3 , which shows how necessary the standards are.

What I thought was interesting is that during the discussions, there were those that wanted "Intelligent Design" taught as an alternative theory to that of evolution, and that the arguments were outright religious. People were note really trying to pass ID as another scientific theory, they simply stated their religious belief as the reason for their objection to the teaching of evolution. And they feel that religion has a place in every part of their lives, including science education. It's hard to believe.

Distracting

It is distracting to read this on the morning that I am supposed to prepare for my oral qualifying exams. Yes, I know, I should read my written exams instead of atheist blogs, but they are the oasis of reason in this world of religious extremism, so I need my daily fix of sanity.

The Friendly Atheist helps spread the tale of the woman who was not allowed to be the referee in the men's basketball game, because a woman can not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's believes. Un-effing-believable. Do they know it's the 21st century? I hope she sues the pants off of them. I'm not at all in favor of frivolous lawsuits, but this stupidity will only stop when the perpetrators are reached where it hurts them... in their bank accounts.

So much for my fix of sanity this morning.

Note added later: Apparently the woman in question has been thoroughly brainwashed by her old-fashioned institution. According to Fox News she has said that she is not angry at her school, and does not wish to take the matter any further. This is why change is so slow. Compliance to insanity does not improve changes of insanity going anywhere anytime soon.

Sustainable agriculture

No more written exams! Yeah!!! My last written qualifying exam lasted for 4 1/2 hours, and consisted of 4 questions. Three of them were easily answered using the posts I put up 2 days ago (blogging my study results actually proved useful). Nutrient deficiencies were featured prominently, as was postharvest longevity of flowers. Three of the questions were polished off in about half an hour. I spent, however, 4 (!) hours writing on the first question which came completely out of left field. I received a thick stack of printouts with the draft standards for sustainable agriculture, and had to write 4 papers on these. The standards propose to work towards completely organic production systems, which (among other things) would not allow use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and gradually eliminate synthetic chemicals from production systems. I had to write a paper in support of the standards on GMOs, one opposed, one in support of the standards on the elimination of synthetic chemical use, one opposed.

It wasn't easy for me to write these papers. I was forced to treat the issues as black-and-white, which clearly, they aren't. I was not asked to form and write on my own opinion. There are arguments pro and con these standards, and I had to simply separate the pros to put in the papers in support of the standards, and vice versa, put all the cons in the paper opposed to the standards. There was no argument involved, no battle of the mind, no final conclusion to be drawn. That bothered me. Of course, I do have an opinion, and at some point I thought my arguments in two of the papers (those were I argued against my own position) became rather silly.

[Credit: Purdue Agriculture Connections]

In my opinion it is naive to think that the standards will be feasible in large-scale agriculture with our current level of understanding, and our current knowledge on integrated pest management. There were darn good reasons to introduce chemicals, one of them being that without those, you're large-scale monocultures are bound to be destroyed occasionally by a pathogen or pest. This would come at a great price financially, socially, and politically. Although you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks we should apply as many pesticides and other chemicals as humanly possible, it's not too hard to find people who are of the opinion we shouldn't use any at all. However, it is not realistic to think that we can basically maintain current production levels while eliminating the use of all synthetic chemicals and pesticides; they do serve a valuable function in agriculture today.

Organic production can work fairly well on a small-medium scale, but with the level of technology available today, is not yet feasible on really large scale. That's not to say we cannot work towards that. We most certainly can, and we most certainly should, and hopefully at some point in the future we can reach this admirable goal, but we're not quite there yet. Unless we're willing to put the livelihood of producers at risk.

[Credit: Wikimedia commons]

For example, the use of synthetic fertilizers allows us to add, very specifically, the exact amount of nutrients that we need. No more, no less. Replace that with something like cow manure (see picture), and the composition varies from one batch to the next, and you have to apply the whole thing, which also applies nutrients you already have enough of. Let say we have used the scientific knowledge of today to sample the plants in our field, and analyzed the nutrient content of the crop, and determined that it is low in nitrogen, but it has plenty of phosphorus and potassium. These are the 3 macronutrients routinely supplied in synthetic fertilizers (which means they were chemically produced in a factory). Now, we can add synthetic fertilizer containing only nitrogen, and since we know how much is in the plants, we know how much there needs to be, we calculate how much we are likely to loose in the soil because of leaching (even after we make every effort at our disposal to minimize leaching), and we apply the amount of nitrogen we need. We apply it near the plant, so that the roots will have optimal access to the nitrogen we've supplied, and we're careful not to apply it too far from the plants so as not to waste it. Had we instead applied cow manure, we would have had to calculate how much to add to satisfy our nitrogen requirements, but we would also be adding phosphorous and potassium, which our crop already has enough off. We risk overdosing on those nutrients (at high levels, toxicity symptoms become apparent), we waste valuable nutrients, because we don't really need any more, and we unnecessarily contaminate the groundwater with excesses of phosphorous and potassium. Virtually every organic fertilizer has the same problems, having the potential to increase groundwater contamination, and not because the source is organic, does that become any less of a problem. Would you still consider that sustainable agriculture?

You may say, but in floriculture, surely we can do without all those synthetic hormones that you apply to regulate plant height and flowering, like you described here? Surely that is frivolous. The reality of the capitalistic ideas of supply and demand, and consumer satisfaction, dictates that plants of irregular heights, that are not flowering (or not flowering synchronously) at the time of display, will be less desirable than those that are perfectly sized for their container, with a beautiful, abundant display of flowers across the board. Uniformity of the crop cannot be taken for granted in today's floral industry.

[Credit: Dr. Bob's Gardening Tips]

For example, the requirements for size, plant height, number of flowers, and availability of plants for poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) around December are extreme. On December 24, a poinsettia plant may be worth $12, after the holiday season, it's worth $1. You can hardly imagine all the hoops growers have to jump through to satisfy these extreme demands from consumers. From selection of desirable cultivars, exact scheduling of their crop depending on the growth conditions and how vigorous the cultivar grows, regulating day/night conditions, making sure the temperature is exactly right to prevent growing too much or not enough, application of very carefully calculated and applied fertilizers according to the regulations, scouting and treating for pathogens and pests also according to all the EPA regulations, pinching at the exact right time to allow enough leaves to grow, monitoring growth and applying growth regulators if the plants grow too fast or too slow for the schedule, monitoring and adjusting of the alkalinity, pH, and EC of the growth medium, to packaging, shipment, and meeting deadlines and quality standards of the retailer. The retailer will not buy a crop of poinsettia's that does not conform to the strictest of standards. A plant that is 1 inch over the desired height is practically worthless. So, if you measure your plants throughout the growing process (which growers do), and you see that (some of) your plants are growing too fast, too tall. You get off your butt, follow all the safety requirements, get yourself some cycocel, B-nine, or Bonzi, and do what you need to do to save your investment. If some of your plants are too small, some too large, and others ok, your retailer will send you packing, because you have agreed to X number of plants of Y height all in full bloom on the second Monday in December, and you've delivered a hodge podge.

[Credit: University of Illinois extension]

The value of flowers, more than that of any other agricultural commodity, is extremely sensitive to the presence of a ubiquitous fungus like Botrytis cinerea. A few botrytis or powdery mildew spores on your roses (see picture), and your crop drops to the value of $0. Not spraying, is simply not an option. By the way, B. cinerea is very indiscriminate. It is not very particular about its source of nutrition, and it spreads very easily, all the nice little black dots are spores. Millions of them.

[Credit: Cornell University Cooperative Extension]

You've got to be a plant pathologist to say "that's just gorgeous!!" This is reaction not uncommon among my colleagues. A former colleague did not remove a branch from her pear tree for the longest time: "it has such beautiful fireblight symptoms!" I myself, am guilty of maintaining a pot of Magilla perilla, because it was such a fabulous example of downy mildew symptoms (luckily winter decided that I had no right to do so and killed it). All I have left of it are the slides I made and the pictures I took.

But I digress, this is bound to happen once I start talking plant path. I think I've made my point. There are valid reasons to use synthetic chemicals. In an ideal world we would grow all our crops organically. But sadly, contrary to Voltaire's insistence, this is not the best of all possible worlds, and for the immediate future, we're stuck using chemicals. As for the GMOs? That's another post entirely.

Support science! Sign the petition

The Florida State Board of Education is about to adopt new science standards. Within Florida a number of school boards have passed resolutions demanding that the standards be altered in such a fashion as to allow "alternative theories" to evolution to be taught. Brandon at the blog for Florida Citizens for Science has done a fabulous job keeping track of all the board resolutions in the state and Panda's Thumb has a map showing the school boards that have passed resolutions or are in the process of doing so. What is depressing is that only 1 (!) school board has actually passed a resolution in support of science. Cheers for Brevard County.

There is now a petition up at Florida Citizens for Science for anyone to sign, which will be sent to the State Board of Education. So head on over there and stand tall in support of science!

Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce

The American Academy of Religion held it's annual meeting in November. And some students from the Universities of Florida and Syracuse presented their research on the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.


It is about time that the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is taken more seriously. How else are we supposed to learn about the effect His Noodly Appendages have on our daily lives?

Dang, didn't work again

You see, prayer really isn't all that effective. Of course, this can be explained by the fact that the 250 people praying weren't *true* christians. They just didn't believe strongly enough. Or one of them was gay, which--needless to say-- is such a terrible sin that Georgia needs to go without rain for a while longer. Or.... you could go on and on, but when rain does come (let's say in a month or so), you can bet your ass that they will claim that their prayers are to be credited for this miracle. Sigh... back to writing qualifying exams about real science. Maybe it'll offset some of the ignorance and stupidity out there.

Don't tase me bro!

Three days after the incident at the University of Florida in which a student was tasered by university police at the end of a Question & Answer session with John Kerry, the web is buzzing with claims that Andrew Meyer is an attention seeker, in the habit of taping his own practical jokes.

It doesn't really matter how much of an attention seeker Andrew Meyer may or may not be. It's irrelevant to what happened. Yes, he was making a nuisance of himself by asking questions when the Q&A session had been closed. But he was tasered after he had already been wrestled to the ground and was held by 5 police officers. He had at least one handcuff on already. At am minimum that is bad police work, at worst that is excessive use of force. Andrew Meyer did not pose a threat to anyone. The fact that he tried to pull his arms away from those trying to restrain him doesn't tell me anything. That would be a normal physical reaction to being restrained against your will.

The focus is being shifted away from the incident and towards Meyer's personality (flaws). Even though the Q&A session was closed, Kerry had already said he would answer the questions. It is unfortunate the opportunity to hear the response was lost.

God is facing the death penalty

This story on MSNBC and Wikinews:
Nebraska State senator Ernie Chambers sued god last week. " God inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.” Senator Chambers seeks an injunction against god.

Senator Chambers filed the lawsuit in protest, because a judge forbade the use of the words "rape" and "victim" from a sexual assault trial. Whatever the reason, it's about time that god has to account for the death and destruction he has caused over the millenia. Attempts by Wired News reporter to contact God for comment were not successful.The only question of course is: which god did the reporter try to contact?