science and religion

there was a comprehensive conference in california recently called "beyond belief" which brought together people to discuss... science and religion... and how they fit together, or not. if you do a quick youtube search, you'll find many video clips of various presenters.

my personal opinion is that spirituality is a good thing, and unique for each individual, but *religion* is not always a good thing in that most ask their followers to abide by certain rules and belief systems, teaching that all other religions are bad and wrong. this black and white picture has caused many many a war to be fought and lives to be lost. this is only one problem i have with "religion" but i will not write any further about my opinions now, and instead give an excerpt from an article i enjoyed about the conference!

"Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, warned that ..the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief,.. or when a Nobelist in chemistry, Sir Harold Kroto, called for the John Templeton Foundation to give its next $1.5 million prize for ..progress in spiritual discoveries.. to an atheist .. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist whose book ..The God Delusion.. is a national best-seller.

Or perhaps the turning point occurred at a more solemn moment, when Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and an adviser to the Bush administration on space exploration, hushed the audience with heartbreaking photographs of newborns misshapen by birth defects .. testimony, he suggested, that blind nature, not an intelligent overseer, is in control.

Somewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.

Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., called, half in jest, for the establishment of an alternative church, with Dr. Tyson, whose powerful celebration of scientific discovery had the force and cadence of a good sermon, as its first minister.

She was not entirely kidding. ..We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,.. Dr. Porco said. ..Let..s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome .. and even comforting .. than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know...

She displayed a picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft of Saturn and its glowing rings eclipsing the Sun, revealing in the shadow a barely noticeable speck called Earth."

read more ... a free-for-all on science and religion

out of iraq and out of office

at least there's one good politician in ohio, dennis kucinich. i've been a fan of his for several years now. he thinks the only way to get the US out of iraq.... is to cut off funding for the administration's actions!! makes sense. the best way i've found to kill old habits is to run out of money to support them! he describes his plan here on the huffington post.

i also think that dubya and dicky are not fit to run this country, and worse, have indeed committed crimes worthy of impeachment. BUT, we cannot impeach bush alone, it has to be both. here are 14 possible articles of impeachment! (yes, thats right... 14!!!!)

piled higher and deeper (phd)

i love the phd comics comic strip. the artist and former grad student has been touring around the US recently giving lectures and connecting with his grad student fans. he came to austin last summer and i'm quite amused by the anecdotes he took away!! haha!!

grad school is not all work and torture... just mostly! :)

gesundheit!

language is an interesting thing. we use it everyday to communicate yet so rarely think about what we are actually saying. immersion in another culture has allowed me to appreciate how i use the english language by stripping the german language down to the necessities i need to achieve my goal! as the native english speaker, i'm often asked "how do you say {something} in english?" and most of the time i'm readily able to respond... but i've found myself gradually forgetting words that i know i know... common things or concepts that are familiar to any english speaker... and i just forget them... which feels strange!

when i first entered grad school and dove into the vast astronomical literature to become familiar with well-known papers cited hundreds of times, i found myself cringing at the dryness of scientific language. the same intimidating words used repetitively became somehow ambiguous when used by every author whose papers i read. apparently all galaxies were afflicted with star forming diseases identified by a multitude of "star formation diagnostics." why could astronomers not be more descriptive so i could actually understand what they were trying to say?? i decided i would not participate in this monotonous ritual and proceeded to write my first proposal - for a graduate fellowship from NASA - with embellished language. i boldly gave the first draft to my advisor for comments. later that day he said "you have a very nice and descriptive writing style." i smiled. "we're going to beat that right out of you!" oh no, i cringed.... what??

i have since come to appreciate that efficiency of scientific writing. after reading buhzillions of papers on generally the same topics, it's nice to know exactly what an author is telling me without having to filter thru new language. i want the new scientific result immediately, now that i know the verbose build up leading up to it. the flowery stuff is relegated to text books and review articles... thats why they're there! a frustrating lesson for a young grad student but a valuable one nonetheless.

which brings me to the point of this post.... my daily language. i've decided to make it a point to say "gesundheit" to people after they sneeze instead of the familiar "bless you." i hadnt stopped to consider the origin of "bless you" in a while and decided that i find it much more pleasant to wish someone good health than to proliferate the notion that an imaginary devil can somehow be blessed out of them. that's all.

album openers

i was thinking about this and thought i'd get some feedback. what are your top 5 album opening songs?? i think mine are:


"human behavior" bjork (debut)
"hurricane" bob dylan (desire)
"mojo pin" jeff buckley (grace)
"change my life" spoon (love ways EP)
"at least that's what you said" wilco (a ghost is born)

i would also vote for "the late greats" off the wilco album as one of the best closing songs ever. i would love to add a neko case album to this list as well, but she tends to have fantastic #2 and #3 songs, not really great openers.

of course, this is subject to revisions.....