A Science-Related Public Circus of Our Own

The US Chamber of Commerce wants a Scopes monkey trial for climate change. This brings up a point: Occam's razor can be dangerously enticing, especially for laypeople judging science.

. . . a cross examination is a lousy way to determine science, because all scientific conclusions are tentative and limited in various ways; there are always holes waiting to be picked at. But the other reason is that a trial situation is a great opportunity for people to confuse the public with what our former colleague Julian Sanchez termed a one-way hash argument.

The gist of this is that it can [be] easy to make a simple, intuitive presentation of an argument that is simply wrong. In contrast, reality is often complex and counterintuitive, and providing all the details needed to understand it can be arduous.

Such a trial can only lead to further misinformation and confusion. The issue is not that skepticism—a foundation of science—is a bad thing, but instead that scientific conclusions are rarely black and white, and courtroom arguments tend to be painted that way.

Modular English

I should have encountered Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" at some point in my literary education.

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing, is that it is easy. It is easier—even quicker, once you have the habit—to say In my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think.

Sixty-three years later, the piece remains remarkably relevant; in fact, the situation now may be worse than in Orwell's time. MBAs today are like soldiers armed with assembly-line English—they are highly-trained buzzword specialists. I don't think any amount of journalistic jeering can change this.

An Introspective 16-Year Old, Was I

Despite the content of the last few posts, I guarantee you this is not a tech blog. That said, I've been looking over my old blog again (pardon the disrepair—banner ads tend to creep in like cobwebs), and so it's Blast From the Past Day. The following is from May 17, 2005:

I look at other people's lives--or what other people say about their own lives--and they're all so much more complicated than mine. It seems that everybody has more problems than I do. On the same token, however, they have more things to be happy about. Other people's lives are more interesting. If someone wrote a biography about me I'd probably rather read one with more drama, because there'd be none in mine; it seems that in the distribution of drama some people got it all and people like me didn't.

I feel like the reason is that I never really got into the things I do. I'm kind of passive; everything just kind of goes by for me. All around me I see people who are driven hard with farsighted goals while I kind of coast along (somewhat) halfheartedly. It's apparent in the things I do. In track or cross country, I just manage to get by while others constantly push themselves to break records or win competitions. In orchestra, I've been playing for almost 9 years now, but I never really got into it. I see people who live for music and would die for music. I'm constantly alongside people who are more involved than I am.

I never attached myself to any expectations. That's the thing. The second you form strong expectations for something you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. Maybe things will go the way you want them to, but if they don't, you'll feel much worse for it. Failure is easier when you just don't care all that much. So I look around and see the troubled members of my generation, emotionally unstable, lacking motivation, psychologically scattered; they had a dream of what was to happen, and they wanted that dream, they wanted it badly, so badly that when it never came true and became impossible they broke down to pieces.

Having a dream is always a good thing, though--the problem arises with overly strong desire to reach it. Having no dreams can be a problem in itself. This is where I come in. If I stop typing right now and think if I have any clear, strong dreams for my longer-term future, I come up with nothing. Of course, I would like to be successful in one way or another, but that kind of goal is too nebulous. I don't have plans. This is a problem. The question arises all the time, especially in this stage of life: "What do you want to do (with your life)?" "Do you want to be a ________?" "What major will you pursue in college?" My answer is truthfully: I don't know. There's a problem with (this may be a violation of modesty) being good at and enjoying a number of things in life: then the path of life is less clear. If I went into science or math (which I probably will do anyway), I'll feel like I'm wasting my literary, music, or art skills. The other way around too.

I'd like to say that 4 years, 3 months, and so many life experiences later, this all has changed—but it hasn't. For some reason or another I'm continuing to coast through what is arguably the most decisive time in my life. Different people, different places, but I'm taking the same approach.

What I'm not sure of is how exactly I felt about that passivity at the time I described it. I can't remember if I thought it was preferable—the post reads more like a detailed observation than anything. Maybe I have changed, because today I won't hesitate to say that the dramatic life is better, low points and all. I'm working on it. I just need to counter my own nature to make it happen.

No, It's Not Dead, But I Wish It Were

Ars Technica's Jeremy Reimer on the persistent use of Microsoft Word in incongruous contexts:

Like many conventions of society (such as mutual gift-giving) we keep doing things in a certain way simply out of habit, long after the original need (a barter-based economy) has vanished. [...]

Why do we do this? Because everyone uses Word, so we have to. And why does everyone use Word? Because everyone uses Word. It starts to make sense if you just hit your head on the wall enough times.

I've witnessed this phenomenon, especially in business school classes: people reflexively use Word for even the simplest of plain-text note-taking. Type up a .doc (or better yet, .docx) and attach it to your e-mail. They practically teach this in school.

That said, my real problem with Microsoft Word—with Office, in fact—is that it is the absolute worst piece of software that I am forced to use on the Mac. It is truly a painful experience. It is not unreasonable, I think, to believe that your document window or controls should not simply disappear before your eyes as you are working; or to want a shred of consistency in text manipulation between the program and the OS (or within the program itself). Don't blame the Mac—I can't think of another current application as broken as the Office apps.

Worst of all, for all this sacrifice, Mac Office doesn't even guarantee 100% compatibility with Windows Office. I've spent hours cleaning up its mistakes. Even so, it's better than the alternative; I work with Office users, and can't deal with the possibility of further deterioration from repeated conversions.

Edit: And it goes on and on...