The Arts to the rescue of Science

"Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify!" -- Henry David Thoreau

It is clear that Science alone will not win the battle against the current crusaders. In a recent Science Friday interview Chris Mooney (author of "The Republican war against science" Yale Class of 1999) made it very clear that the republican fundamentalists inside the beltway have great Rove tools to oppose any result that is against their core mission of power, greed and masked virtue. Mr. Mooney is a sharp inquisitive thinker hopefully his alma mater home of -hum- Skull and Bones will give us more alumni like him and less like others, here are some highlights:

1) Ignore then label, lie and repeat. Any results that are not what you want to hear call it fuzzy math, fuzzy science, bad science, old data and incomplete. Then make sure you cover all media outlets with the same talking points, do it several times a day. Then sit back and watch your myth ascend to the heavens. It helps if you own a newspaper or a TV Channel.

2) Science in court or "the jury is still out". You can always find a good looking fellow that thinks evolution is a hoax or that global warming is a commie plot. Start an Exploratory Congressional Panel and Give this bio-stitute witness a microphone and equal time. Make sure you say "opinions are divided on this issue" even if its 99.99% in favor and one nut job against. (As a small aside this is one of the things that I hate about Public Radio, at a time where all we should be hearing when we dial in is "Stop the War" and "Bring our troops home" NPR gives us embedded repots and views from both sides, WTF? How many NPR members support the war? Who pays for membership? Then again they do take money from Wal-Mart...)

3) Paralysis through analysis. When the evidence is irrefutable say "we don't want to rush into things, let's start a committee". Again, make sure you invite all the experts, ask open ended questions and recommend another panel to start a subcommittee in the most obscure thing you can find - a scientific straw man if you want... Make sure you give money to scientists to further their studies in these remote fields and ask them to report back quarterly. If this fails, start a small grants program, make it really hard to both access the funds and choose programs that will not succeed - then say "We tried really hard". If you really have to compromise as a last resort you can use the words "Pilot Study" and "lack of replicability".

So what will stop the crusaders?(*) Who can science ally with to launch a new renaissance? I propose that the arts have a crucial role to play. Here's a small example, a few years ago the Hubble Telescope was scheduled to burn on re-entry. Ushered by an incredible photo series of distant galaxies the public reacted against the telescope's decommissioning and forced NASA to rethink its strategy and consider a manned mission to save it.

Even though Hubble's destiny is still uncertain, my point remains: pretty photos sell better that long complicated astronomical concepts. I am sure that if we were to compare the readership of Stephen Hawking's latest book "A briefer history of time" and those who have seen a Hubble photo it would be 10,000 to 1. (on a similar note I remember reading about Ansel Adams and how his photography spearheaded the protection of Yosemite.)

I recently found a great lecture entitled "The ocean, the bird and the scholar" by Helen Vendler (Harvard, Class of 1960), she suggests we should forget about philosophy and history as the focus of a classical education and instead place the arts smack in the middle:

For every person who has read a Platonic dialogue, there are probably ten who have seen a Greek marble in a museum, or if not a Greek marble, at least a Roman copy, or if not a Roman copy, at least a photograph. Around the arts there exist, in orbit, the commentaries on art produced by scholars: musicology and music criticism, art history and art criticism, literary and linguistic studies. At the periphery we might set the other humanistic disciplines--philosophy, history, the study of religion.

I have always advocated for laying out the big picture first. Science will not do this, the Arts will. No need to explain astronomy, first show me a photo of Saturn, then tell me a nice story about Saturn (more on storytelling here) then maybe share some of the highlights of your data - but mostly I want the soundbyte and I want it to be simple enough for a 5 year old to understand.

Sure the ivory tower can continue to generate - and should continue to generate - hard science in peer reviewed journals but the translation into simple, intelligent, to the point one pagers is painfully missing. The extension component of academia is critical, here is where the arts can come to the rescue, by allowing academia to synthesize its message into critical artwork for change. Simplify, simplify.

(*) In June 1098 the crusaders waged a tremendous battle at Antioch fueled in part by the "miraculous" appearance of the Holy Lance. A simple object that boosted the troops morale. Do remember that on May 1st 2003 we also saw a miraculous banner that read "mission accomplished". Propaganda is not what I am talking about, I am more interested in the development of positive icons that can inspire and educate people such as the Ark of Hope.

Eavesdropping and guessing...

Surprise surprise the administration has tapped our telephones, screened our email, recorded our conversations and eavesdropped on our meetings. President Bush has openly admitted that he authorized the NSA (the good old No Such Agency) over 30 times to spy on the American citizens. Yes the rules of the game changed after two planes brought down two towers. Gone are the days when spying on the Democratic Party was reason enough for indictment and eventual dismissal. Senator Robert Byrd valiantly stood -almost comically - up on the floor of the senate and called the pro-patriot act right wingers to their senses encouraging them to read -what a concept- read and study hisotory to see what the founding fathers wanted when they founded the republic "My, my, my, how low we have sunk." well, it isn’t over yet, we have not hit bottom. Pardon while I go shopping for the holidays.

But, spying, does it really matter? Can you blame the administration for desperately trying to cover all bases? Do they really care about information? Or have they made up their mind already? The recent words of Kurt Vonnegut lay things out plain and simple: information is not important in Washington, science (information properly used to pinpoint reality) is not important in the decision making process. Vonnegut states that Washington is all guesswork; any information that validates a myth is welcome. The whole array of DC guess-workers - from lobbyist through senators and representatives- runs fueled on guesswork. Behold the arrival of a new class of bullshit professionals (see Harry G. Frankfurt On Bullshit for academic proof of this sad fact).

I would go even further and argue that science has never played a role in the decision making process of our current leaders. Greed, money, power, myth (religion if you want) and fear have paved the way to our current reality. Add to that a nation of TV obsessed overworked and apathetic citizens and you have the perfect storm of ignorance and arrogance. Who pays the tab? Well the poor of course.

To get out of this mess will take several generations. There is no easy way out - the outer world is a crude reflection of the inner world of each and every one of us. Even though I am not a religious person I found a ray of hope on a recent lecture the Dalai Lama gave to Rutgers University students on "Peace, War and Reconciliation":

This (reconciliation) is not a religious matter, but a science of the mind. It’s important to investigate academically. We need deeper awareness about the system of our emotions. I.e. Hatred: it has a tendency to obscure seeing the reality clearly. (...) External disarmament is preceded by internal disarmament. Look at your emotion. What emotions are beneficial and what are destructive. How these emotions interlock, and relate to each other. (...) World peace through inner peace is the pathway. Further study and analyze and experiment.

So there you have it: we have to start at the core, by changing ourselves, and then pray for better times to come. It is reassuring to see the leader of one of the largest religions in the world somewhat shafting religion as an institution and stating that science should be our central axis.

Harold Pinter speaks up.

On his way to the hospital for another round of chemotherapy Harold Pinter was able to record his acceptance speech for this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. You can find the BBC story here with a link to his full speech on video. I hope they leave it there for good. Or if you rather read his remarks click here.

There is a little bit of hope in his otherwise angry -rightfully so- remarks. Mr. Pinter states that in the United States "thousands, if not millions of people were sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions" and "As things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet.". So there is a tiny ray of hope - people are angry but not "yet" willing to coalesce - we are to busy shopping and covering our asses from crumbling below -or deeper- into poverty.

Yes indeed, we are not a coherent political force. Therein lies the tragedy of our day to day lives. As we approach the holidays it appears the media is more interested in covering the tragic shootout of bipolar airline passenger againsts remarks such as Mr. Pinters. On our end we get caught up in our daily lives trapped between trips to the grocery store and Sunday episodes of desperate housewives. While the Vice-President campaigns for Tom Delay (post-indictment) and the feds put out RFPs for Strategic City Stabilization Initiative (any good idea out there? anybody?) we are knee deep into the holiday shopping season, stampeding towards the cash register like trained monkeys. God Bless America.

Mr. Pinter leaves us with homework for the holidays:

He concluded by calling for an "unflinching, unswerving and fierce intellectual determination as citizens to define the real truth of our lives and our societies. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us: the dignity of man."

Happy holidays.

Focus sure, but focus on what?

Coming from a middle class background and a 2nd world country I was lucky enough to attend college back in Costa Rica and later graduate school in the US. I must admit that college was a mix of binging, procastination and ultimately somewhat enlightment. Graduate School was a much better test of character and interest and dare I say implementation.

When I met my wife April I was amazed at the fact that she could take pretty much any course she wanted when she went to Cornell for college - how cool could that be? I had a rigid coursework where the only electives were gym class. I met my nemesis in a string of calculus and chemistry courses at the core of my curricullum, this combined with the haze of youth was enough to delay me well into my twenties for graduation. But we had some fun times!

In a presentation I gave to students at UVM a few years ago I underlined the importance of understanding what the role of a university (and of a student) is. As a young student I was more concerned about reaching out to other people - however clumsily in many cases - than to read my textbooks. Then I realized that "all this reaching out but such little things to share". I am still amazed at the variety of interesting people that exist if only we had the time to share what we know or intuit, but I am even more amazed that after all the talking that is done so little is actually implemented. bla bla bla blaaaaaaaaaaa and then what?

Could it be that we live in the midst of an unspoken duality between what is happening and what we are doing? For example I rember back in the early 90's while outside Bush senior was sending troops to the Persian Gulf we were inside running eternal calculus drills in prepation for the final exam. During the break we would all go and tune into our radios to get the latest news while inside we were solving equations. There is a time for everything, but what is it time for now? right now? where is my attention right this second? and what am I doing to move that forward?

Its hard to feel connected with your current to do list when you have not focused on what you really want to do. Even making time for the question is elaborate enough - how do you sit down and ask yourself: what do I want to do with my life and how do I want to get there. Exchanging words and ideas is a fun exercise but at a certain point you run out of both, and then what?. That's when the studying becomes essential, once we identify that hunger for knowledge the university becomes your best friend. Will Durant puts it very elegantly in his book "What is Civilization":

“ . . . the great men of the past into your homes. Put their works or lives on your shelves as books, their architecture, sculpture, and painting on your walls as pictures; let them play their music for you. Attune your ears to Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy. Make room in your rooms for Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Euripides, Lucretius, Christ, Seneca, Montaigne, Marcus Aurelius, Heloise, Shakespeare, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Gibbon, Goethe, Shelley, Keats, Heine, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Spengler, Anatole France, Albert Schweitzer. Let these men be your comrades, your bedfellows; give them half an hour each day; slowly they will share in remaking you to perspective, tolerance, wisdom, and a more avid love of a deepened life.”

So what I am trying to do now is to read through this list:

Will Durant's 100 Best Books for an Education

Then go through this one:

The Harvard Classics

One should note that lists are always incomplete and will be shunned by critics, time or fate.

Stay tuned.

The new education paradigm

On October 6, 2005 I was listening to Switchboard on Vermont Public Radio. Bill Schubart was one of the panelists discussing "The Future of Vermont". At a certain point Mr. Schubart was asked if he could describe the ideal student that universities should be producing (or something like that). I found his answer very insightful and decided to transcribe it here for others to ponder:

" I think what I want more that anything out of the schools is a critical learner. A person who is curious, a person who understands the navigation of information, who doesn't necessarily know everything but knows where to look for it. They can tell appart between real experience and vicarious experience. They know how to engage in discussion of something complex and listen as well as talk. They can communicate in writing and in speech. These are the things that are so critical and the fact that we have 5 or 3 different careers in our lives can and will be accommodated later on.

But I think understanding how to convert data into information and then have your experience become wisdom, so you can then make the migration from data to information to wisdom is really the critical part of education and it doesn't necessarily fit into the current industrial mold".

What caught my attention was the sequence pointed out by Schubart data > information > wisdom. So I followed his advice and assumed that he was repeating a model that somebody out there in the world of information management has already elaborated. After a few google minutes I found this interesting site. All of a sudden the sequence was broadened to:

data > information > knowledge > wisdom

There is one thing missing in this puzzle, where does ACTION fit in? Who cares about all this if there is no change, no implementation? One could argue that embedded in any of these 4 core groups there are specific actions but I rather emphasize the ACTION part right before wisdom like this:

data > information > knowledge > ACTION > wisdom

Quoting Mary Beard: Action wit out study is fatal. Study without action is futile. So "Action Action" otherwise we'll all end up like Jeremy from the Yellow Submarine. There is really no need to know that much if we are not going to do that much with it.

Things to do in Costa Rica

"Azur, my next door neighbor is going to Costa Rica, do you have any advice?"

If I had a dollar for every time I get this question ;-) I guess you don't meet many costaricans in Vermont, or in the US for that matter. I actually have very few friends or acquaintances from Costa Rica in the US. The question is innocuous and in many cases along the lines of "nice weather today eh" so I don't take offense or anything - I guess if I met somebody from mars I would say "Oh! how funny we have a chocolate bar named after your planet; is it really red when you get there? .

Anyway, here it is:

BEST TIME TO GO

January through April - it rains from May through December.

BEST PLACES TO GO

Central Valley:

• Jade Museum
• Sarchi for arts and crafts
• The Butterly Farm (any of them)
• The Cafe Britt tour
• Gold Museum
• Central Market
• National Theater (San Jose)
• Poas, Turrialba or Irazu Volcano (Nearby Mountains) Go early to see crater
• Thermal Waters in Orosi, Cartago

Northern Pacific Coast -Guanacaste:

• Cabo Blanco Reserve: Monkeys, trails, primary forest, moderate hike
• Montezuma: Quaint hippy town with a great Waterfall, easy hike in
• Conchal Beach: Big secluded resort with a nice beach
• Santa Rosa National Park
• Palo Verde National Park
• Barra Honda National Park
• Volcano "Rincon de la Vieja" National Park - really nice and less traveled
• Monteverde - Cloud forest with amazing vistas

Central Pacific Coast:

• Manuel Antonio Park - beautiful, walk to last beach - enjoy hike to Punta Catedral
• AVOID Puntarenas and Jaco

South Pacific: Very far but an amazing trip - off the beaten path

• Corcovado National Park - the closest you'll get to the amazon
• Lapa Rios is a great hotel
• Dominical Beach - great spot but ask about noise level on party days - great massage place ask around. Lulo's waterfall is a great trip ….
• Sierpe - boat trip in the mangroves, great offshore fishing
• From Sierpe take boat to Drake bay and stay there for your entire vacation
• Hacienda Baru in Dominical - a great spot  

Caribbean:

• Avoid Limon, Cahuita and Puerto Viejo
• Do go to Manzanillo and Gandoca
• Tortuguero National Park - take boat trip up the canal - lush and green - or fly there
• Barra del Colorado - fly there or take a boat from Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui

General Tips:

• Make car reservations way in advance, ask for a 4 by 4 automatic. Triple check, then triple check again, then learn to drive a stick shift. Drive defensively.
• Bring small dollar bills - don't bother with traveler checks.
• Never leave your things unattended -don't leave anything in the car.
• Drink bottled water
• Don't eat anything from street vendors
• Internet cafe's area available everywhere
• Tips are included in all restaurants and cab fares (you can tip extra if very nice)
• Not a gourmet destination - food is ok but not great
• Travel early to avoid traffic
• Never travel to central valley on a Sunday night or a holiday (traffic nightmare)
• Try to fly into the Guanacaste Airport on the Pacific Coast - best option if traveling to Pacific
• Caribbean is ok but it rains and there is little variety for a short trip
• Great weekly English newspaper: Tico Times, a must buy and read.
• Bring a sweater or a denim jacket, bring Gore-Tex shell.
• Bring your own batteries and digital cards 
• When on trail watch out for snakes - really.
• Buy coffee in town not at the airport - Britt coffee, green label is the best.
  
  LINKS:
  
  http://www.ticotimes.net/
  http://www.photo.net/cr/ (MIT professor journal, good photos and anecdotes)
  http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1987/arias-bio.html (Nobel Laureate President)

Mandalas and Snow in Vermont

This week started with a 6 inch snow storm in Barre. I went to visit my friend TJ while April and Aurora had a "girl's only night" at our house with Patty and Halley.

On Monday I went to see some visiting budhist monks that build, and destroy, a Mandala of Health. I brought along a book of Andy Goldsworthy for them to see how there are other forms of ethereal art.

This same monday Aurora started day care - we call it school - she is 5 months old and 6 minutes away from April's job so she can breatfeed her, we are now all gradually adapting to her new enviroment. Times change and we must change with them, she needs to socialize and play with children her age. Amanda her teacher is very nice and caring, I am sure things will work out for the best.

Back in Barre, I had a good conversation with TJ over breakfast. As we were watching the snow falling over the maples and apples trees, both filled with color and apples, I pointed out that it was great to see how a season could manifest itself in the middle of another one. Winter is almost two months away and here we have a first taste. I take this as a sign of better times ahead for all of us. We live in uncertain times, between the war, the avian flu threat, the hurricanes and other niceties its hard to stay on track. However, we will always have monks, and books, and friends, and sunshine, and children and mozart, and trees to remind us that there is a better way. Its all about not loosing focus and understanding on which side we stand.

The Outline of Science, J. Arthur Thomson: Chapter 1

The romance of the heavens

I always need images to grasp complicated concepts, distances and speed at a cosmological scale typically don't mean much to me.

Gladly Thomson draws a simple diagram and shows that if the Sun was here --> • •<-- and the earth here, the nearest star (alpha centauri) would be one half mile away (25 trillions of miles = 4.35 light years).

Several interesting factoids are peppered throughout this chapter:

• The Earth is roughly 8,000 miles in diameter while the sun is over 800,000 miles.
• The distance betwen the sun and the earth is 96 million miles.
• Think a peppercorn next to a bowling ball - 110 bowling balls appart.

Traveling at the speed of light it would take us 8 minutes to reach the surface of the sun.

For the speed of light I have another trick: how can you visualize 196,000 miles per second? well think of your car. It takes roughly 10 years to put that mileage on, light travels that in one second. If you were to drive at 60 miles an hour continuously 24/7 it would take you 136 days to cover the distance that light covers in a second. So basically you could never drive to Alpha Centauri at 60 miles an hour. That would take you and astounding 51,156,000 years to get there. Now if you were to drive to the sun instead it would take you 183 years.

PS: One I recently learned is if we could shrink our solar system into the size of a U.S. quarter, the Milky Way galaxy would be the size of North America. (10.02.07)