I just wanted to quickly point out a really excellent essay that does a killer job deconstructing and exploring the (sometimes stealthy) role that "privilege" has in creating disparities between folks. The essay, titled "Sacrificing Privilege" and hosted at Skepchick, is a clear and well-written exploration of how a "privileged" status, defined on the basis of race, gender, or what-have-you, can serve as the basis of a pervasive and potentially "invisible" culture of bias.
This is an extremely important message that we in the sciences (and especially the Earth Sciences) NEED to understand if we ever want to get away from the "(White) Boys' Club" that defines so many fields. As discussed here in a previous post, Geology has a real problem with regards to gender; understanding and working to eliminate the (often hidden) cultural biases that make it hard for women and minorities to find a home in the sciences is the only way that we'll ever get better. So everyone read the essay linked above! It's long, but well worth the time!
Showing posts with label Geology Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geology Community. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Embiggening Earth Redux
A few years back, at the Dawn of this Blog, I posted a little piece about the ridiculously pseudoscientific idea of the "Expanding Earth". Apparently there are crazy people with no understanding of science or rationality who think, for a variety of insane reasons, that Plate Tectonics is yet another example of a Big Science Conspiracy that seeks to bury the truth: namely, that the Earth is getting bigger through time, and that everything we know about geology, chemistry, physics, biology, etc, is all a BIG LIE!!!!!!!! It's pretty weird stuff, and some of the comments on the above linked post were so nutty that folks with peanut allergies shouldn't read them.
Anyway, to the vast corpus of evidence in support of plate tectonics (i.e., predictability/explicative power of sedimentary basins, mountain belts, and a whole lot of tectonic features, apparent polar wander, geophysically observed subducted crust, sea-floor spreading, etc, etc, etc) we can NOW add a DIRECT MEASURE of the changes in the Earth's radius. The rate of change, according to this JPL/NASA study, is ~0.1 mm/year, which is within instrument error and not statistically significant. In other words...the Earth ain't embiggening.
It's a pretty nifty example of detailed geodetic measurements, gravity measurements, and complex data processing that provides a pretty robust direct measure of everything we already knew about the Earth. The paper, which goes into all the nitty-gritty goodness of complicated geo-math, was published in Geophysical Research Letters, and can be found here.
Of course, as we all know, their ain't no gettin' through to the True Believers, and they will no doubt see this as more evidence for the vast science conspiracy that seeks to thwart their brilliance and hid the importance of their unified field theories of everything. Oh well.
Anyway, to the vast corpus of evidence in support of plate tectonics (i.e., predictability/explicative power of sedimentary basins, mountain belts, and a whole lot of tectonic features, apparent polar wander, geophysically observed subducted crust, sea-floor spreading, etc, etc, etc) we can NOW add a DIRECT MEASURE of the changes in the Earth's radius. The rate of change, according to this JPL/NASA study, is ~0.1 mm/year, which is within instrument error and not statistically significant. In other words...the Earth ain't embiggening.
It's a pretty nifty example of detailed geodetic measurements, gravity measurements, and complex data processing that provides a pretty robust direct measure of everything we already knew about the Earth. The paper, which goes into all the nitty-gritty goodness of complicated geo-math, was published in Geophysical Research Letters, and can be found here.
Of course, as we all know, their ain't no gettin' through to the True Believers, and they will no doubt see this as more evidence for the vast science conspiracy that seeks to thwart their brilliance and hid the importance of their unified field theories of everything. Oh well.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Geology and Beer
Despite what those wine-swilling elitist bastards would have you think, the REAL drink of geologists everywhere is BEER. I have a favorite half-remembered quote from some Victorian mountaineer/geologists who said, to the effect, "Beer never tastes so good as after a hard day of field work". Of course, my apocryphal quote speaks Truth: beer, in the field, after a day of measuring section, or mapping, or tromping up and down hill and valley lugging samples, is something to bring a smile to even the most grizzled of geologists.
Anyway, folks might have seen this before, but it bears repeating. Why Geologists Love Beer is an article from Wired, based around beer-drinking culture and the most recent AGU Meeting in San Fransisco. There's even a little video to watch, but be warned: it'll make you thirsty.
Anyway, folks might have seen this before, but it bears repeating. Why Geologists Love Beer is an article from Wired, based around beer-drinking culture and the most recent AGU Meeting in San Fransisco. There's even a little video to watch, but be warned: it'll make you thirsty.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Standardizing Sequence Stratigraphy - Are We Still Talking About This?
I'm sure everyone, at some point in their career, develops a bit of a stereotypical view of certain kinds of geologists. You know what I mean; you had a geophysics prof once who was ridiculously quiet and nerdy, or you took a class from a structural geologist who was a white-hot ball of rage. And now, everytime you meet a geophysicist or a structural geologists, you've always got this little niggling suspision that they are they're going to act the exact same way. Part of this might be reinforced by the literature, too; take a look at papers about the Heart Mountain Thrust, and tell me that structural folks don't seem a little...on edge.
I suspect that people might develop a similarly unflattering view of stratigraphers. Specifically, they might decide that we are a bunch of contrarians who can't seem to agree on anything. I mean, we tend to argue about the same things (like eustasy) over and over and over again, with little apparent progress. And frankly, I blame sequence stratigraphy. Ever since AAPG Memoir 26, the sed/strat literature has been rife with arguments, nomenclature, arguments about nomenclature, and discussion on the nomenclature of arguments.
Anyway, just in case anyone was getting worried that things might be quieting down, Octavian Catuneanu and twenty-five others recently published an article titled: "Towards the standardization of sequence stratigraphy" in the journal Earth-Science Reviews! Thank Goodness! Things were getting to quiet around here!
This paper seems to be the summation, in a peer-reviewed venue, of a running gun-battle that Catuneanu et al. have been having with Ashton Embry and others. This terminological war has been documented on the USC Sequence Strat website here, and makes for some entertaining and enlightening (for a variety of reasons, not all scientific) reading, though I suspect beer would help to get you through it all.
Fundamentally, the argument of Catuneanu et al. (2009) is this: sequence stratigraphy has become a very important part of modern sed/strat life. As such, there should be some sort of accepted, formalized rules regarding its deployment and use, thereby allowing us to more effectively communicate our chronostratigraphic work to one another. Importantly, Catuneanu et al. (2009) advocate the formalization of a seq strat framework "sufficiently flexible [to] accommodate the range of likely expressions" of sequence straigraphically important units and bounding surfaces (Catuneanu et al., 2009, p. 1).
A lofty goal, and maybe even an important one. It is true that there exists considerable confusion in the seq. strat literature about what constitutes a "Sequence", and how best to define AND interpret it. However, I have some questions regarding Catuneanu et al.'s approach.
Catuneanu et al. (2009) recognize two facets of the sequence stratigraphic paradigmm, which they identify as "model-independant" verus "model-dependant" aspects. I think the nomenclature here is a little confusing, however. What Catuneanu et al. (2009) mean (I think) by model-independant and -dependant is in regards to INDIVIDUAL uses of sequence stratigraphy. In otherwords, model-independant aspects of the sequence stratigraphic paradigm are those things that everyone agrees on. Model-dependant aspects vary between different practioners. I've reproduced Catuneanu et al's Figure 10 (from Page 8) below, where this dichotomy is illistrated:
Take a gander at that figure, paying particular attention to the "basic concepts" section of the Model-Independant box. I think this is where we are going to get ourselves into trouble; this is the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench, of so many stratigraphic discussions. What is it, you ask?
Baselevel.
Briefly, baselevel is a theoretical, undulating surface that defines relative aggradation or degradation across an earth-surface profile.
OR it is the graded profile of a river.
OR it is sea level.
Brian has an excellent summary of Wheeler's baselevel concept , which you should all go read if you havn't already (the fact I'm linking to it sort of gives away my bias as to what I think baselevel is). Anyway, the baselevel concept is probably one of the most contentious issues in stratigraphy (probably needlessly, but there you go...), and the way it is discussed by Catuneanu et al. (2009) is frankly a little schitzophrenic.
The salient point of the argument about baselevel boils down to the fundamental question of whether baselevel controls sedimentation or erosion by modelating equilibrium surfaces, or whether baselevel is the result of modulations in equilibrium forces dictated by the changing conditions of sediment supply and transport energy. Simplicitically, these can be defined as "geomorphic baselevel" for the former, and "stratigraphic baselevel" for the latter.
Catuneanu et al (2009) start of promisingly enough, citing Wheeler, Barrell, and Cross and Lessinger papers, and discussing the way baselevel plays an important role in the chronostratigraphic paradigm. But in the same sections, they discuss baselevel in terms of sea level fluctuations, and how baselevel for some river systems should be replaced with the graded river concept, effectively conflating geomorphic baselevel with stratigraphic baselevel without neccessusarily distinguishing the two.
The discussion is not purely academic, either. The baselevel concept has a fundamental role in underpinning correlation strategies, and very different ways of looking at strata come from the different ways people use the concept of baselevel. Especially in the nonmarine realm, there are fundamentally important ramifications for interpeting stratigraphy or modeling forcing functions in the rock record that rest soley on how baselevel is used. It's a big deal, folks!
And the fact that Catuneanu et al. (2009) place "baselevel" in the "everybody agrees on it" bin in Figure 10 (above), makes me question whether the time is ripe for a standardized sequence stratigraphy. There still are basic questions about the "How" and "Why" strata are preserved that have yet to be answered, and the answers will have very important implications for the way we do chronostratigraphy. Baselevel stands out, because it is such a contentious issue already, but there are other fundamentals of stratigraphy that still need to be resolved before we start talking about standardization. We have a lot of arguing ahead of us. Which is good! Really it is!
Just be patient with us, is all I ask.
WORKS CITED:
Catuneanu, O., et al., 2009, Towards the standardization of sequence stratigraphy: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 92, p. 1-33.
I suspect that people might develop a similarly unflattering view of stratigraphers. Specifically, they might decide that we are a bunch of contrarians who can't seem to agree on anything. I mean, we tend to argue about the same things (like eustasy) over and over and over again, with little apparent progress. And frankly, I blame sequence stratigraphy. Ever since AAPG Memoir 26, the sed/strat literature has been rife with arguments, nomenclature, arguments about nomenclature, and discussion on the nomenclature of arguments.
Anyway, just in case anyone was getting worried that things might be quieting down, Octavian Catuneanu and twenty-five others recently published an article titled: "Towards the standardization of sequence stratigraphy" in the journal Earth-Science Reviews! Thank Goodness! Things were getting to quiet around here!
This paper seems to be the summation, in a peer-reviewed venue, of a running gun-battle that Catuneanu et al. have been having with Ashton Embry and others. This terminological war has been documented on the USC Sequence Strat website here, and makes for some entertaining and enlightening (for a variety of reasons, not all scientific) reading, though I suspect beer would help to get you through it all.
Fundamentally, the argument of Catuneanu et al. (2009) is this: sequence stratigraphy has become a very important part of modern sed/strat life. As such, there should be some sort of accepted, formalized rules regarding its deployment and use, thereby allowing us to more effectively communicate our chronostratigraphic work to one another. Importantly, Catuneanu et al. (2009) advocate the formalization of a seq strat framework "sufficiently flexible [to] accommodate the range of likely expressions" of sequence straigraphically important units and bounding surfaces (Catuneanu et al., 2009, p. 1).
A lofty goal, and maybe even an important one. It is true that there exists considerable confusion in the seq. strat literature about what constitutes a "Sequence", and how best to define AND interpret it. However, I have some questions regarding Catuneanu et al.'s approach.
Catuneanu et al. (2009) recognize two facets of the sequence stratigraphic paradigmm, which they identify as "model-independant" verus "model-dependant" aspects. I think the nomenclature here is a little confusing, however. What Catuneanu et al. (2009) mean (I think) by model-independant and -dependant is in regards to INDIVIDUAL uses of sequence stratigraphy. In otherwords, model-independant aspects of the sequence stratigraphic paradigm are those things that everyone agrees on. Model-dependant aspects vary between different practioners. I've reproduced Catuneanu et al's Figure 10 (from Page 8) below, where this dichotomy is illistrated:
Take a gander at that figure, paying particular attention to the "basic concepts" section of the Model-Independant box. I think this is where we are going to get ourselves into trouble; this is the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench, of so many stratigraphic discussions. What is it, you ask?
Baselevel.
Briefly, baselevel is a theoretical, undulating surface that defines relative aggradation or degradation across an earth-surface profile.
OR it is the graded profile of a river.
OR it is sea level.
Brian has an excellent summary of Wheeler's baselevel concept , which you should all go read if you havn't already (the fact I'm linking to it sort of gives away my bias as to what I think baselevel is). Anyway, the baselevel concept is probably one of the most contentious issues in stratigraphy (probably needlessly, but there you go...), and the way it is discussed by Catuneanu et al. (2009) is frankly a little schitzophrenic.
The salient point of the argument about baselevel boils down to the fundamental question of whether baselevel controls sedimentation or erosion by modelating equilibrium surfaces, or whether baselevel is the result of modulations in equilibrium forces dictated by the changing conditions of sediment supply and transport energy. Simplicitically, these can be defined as "geomorphic baselevel" for the former, and "stratigraphic baselevel" for the latter.
Catuneanu et al (2009) start of promisingly enough, citing Wheeler, Barrell, and Cross and Lessinger papers, and discussing the way baselevel plays an important role in the chronostratigraphic paradigm. But in the same sections, they discuss baselevel in terms of sea level fluctuations, and how baselevel for some river systems should be replaced with the graded river concept, effectively conflating geomorphic baselevel with stratigraphic baselevel without neccessusarily distinguishing the two.
The discussion is not purely academic, either. The baselevel concept has a fundamental role in underpinning correlation strategies, and very different ways of looking at strata come from the different ways people use the concept of baselevel. Especially in the nonmarine realm, there are fundamentally important ramifications for interpeting stratigraphy or modeling forcing functions in the rock record that rest soley on how baselevel is used. It's a big deal, folks!
And the fact that Catuneanu et al. (2009) place "baselevel" in the "everybody agrees on it" bin in Figure 10 (above), makes me question whether the time is ripe for a standardized sequence stratigraphy. There still are basic questions about the "How" and "Why" strata are preserved that have yet to be answered, and the answers will have very important implications for the way we do chronostratigraphy. Baselevel stands out, because it is such a contentious issue already, but there are other fundamentals of stratigraphy that still need to be resolved before we start talking about standardization. We have a lot of arguing ahead of us. Which is good! Really it is!
Just be patient with us, is all I ask.
WORKS CITED:
Catuneanu, O., et al., 2009, Towards the standardization of sequence stratigraphy: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 92, p. 1-33.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Earth Science Literacy
So the first Draft of the Earth Science Literacy Document is up and available for comments (right...HERE). This is an NSF-supported effort meant to explicitly spell-out the state of our knowledge of the Earth in a way that everyday, non-specialist citizens can understand. Effectively, it's a list of the Things Folks Should Know About the Earth, and is meant to go along with all the Ocean, Climate, and Atmosphere Literacy work that was recently undertaken.
Anyway, the document identifies 8 Big Ideas in the Earth Sciences, which I've summarized below. These ideas are supplemented by a series of Supporting Concepts that flesh out the overarching concept. The 8 Big Ideas (paraphrased) are:
1) Earth is 4.6 Ga, and the rock record contains its history.
2) Earth is a complexly interacting system
3) Earth is a continuously changing planet
4) Earth is the Water Planet
5) Life evolves in concert with the evolving Earth, and similarly modifies and effects the Earth in turn.
6) Humans depend on Earth for Resources
7) Earth Science helps us understand and mitigate natural disasters
8) Humans are a significant agent of change on the Earth
It's a pretty nice list, in my opinion, and would make a great hand-out in an undergrad intro class. I also like how the foundational concepts of Plate Tectonics and Evolution are distributed throughout the supporting points, driving home the unifying power of both of these fundamental concepts.
The only (vague) comment that I have would be that I'd like to see maybe a little more about radioactive decay and radiometric dating. Maybe not as a BIG IDEA, but as another supporting point (somewhere, maybe under #1?).
Importantly, this is only a draft, and if you've got any concerns or issues or burning bits of illumination to add, we have until Oct 31 to make comments, so get to it!
I'd also be more than happy to hear what you guys think about it too, of course.
EDIT: Here are some links to chew on! The Ocean Literacy Network, and their Ocean Literacy Statement; The Atmospheric Science Literacy Framework and their Statement; and the Climate Program Network, and their statement! Whew! That's a lot of statements!
Anyway, the document identifies 8 Big Ideas in the Earth Sciences, which I've summarized below. These ideas are supplemented by a series of Supporting Concepts that flesh out the overarching concept. The 8 Big Ideas (paraphrased) are:
1) Earth is 4.6 Ga, and the rock record contains its history.
2) Earth is a complexly interacting system
3) Earth is a continuously changing planet
4) Earth is the Water Planet
5) Life evolves in concert with the evolving Earth, and similarly modifies and effects the Earth in turn.
6) Humans depend on Earth for Resources
7) Earth Science helps us understand and mitigate natural disasters
8) Humans are a significant agent of change on the Earth
It's a pretty nice list, in my opinion, and would make a great hand-out in an undergrad intro class. I also like how the foundational concepts of Plate Tectonics and Evolution are distributed throughout the supporting points, driving home the unifying power of both of these fundamental concepts.
The only (vague) comment that I have would be that I'd like to see maybe a little more about radioactive decay and radiometric dating. Maybe not as a BIG IDEA, but as another supporting point (somewhere, maybe under #1?).
Importantly, this is only a draft, and if you've got any concerns or issues or burning bits of illumination to add, we have until Oct 31 to make comments, so get to it!
I'd also be more than happy to hear what you guys think about it too, of course.
EDIT: Here are some links to chew on! The Ocean Literacy Network, and their Ocean Literacy Statement; The Atmospheric Science Literacy Framework and their Statement; and the Climate Program Network, and their statement! Whew! That's a lot of statements!
Community Sedimentary Model for Carbonate Systems
I'm sure everyone has already read up on the CSDMS from the most recent "Sedimentary Record", but I thought I'd post a link to their website right here. It has some fairly slick pdfs of the talks, posters, and Working Group Summaries, which make for some pretty nice bleeding-edge "State of the Strata" resources for Carbonate naifs (like myself). Though it's not up yet, the Group says they hope to have a PDF copy of the resultant white paper up soon, so stay tuned!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Expanding Earth and the Conspiracy of Science
As far as wonky pseudo-science goes, the expanding earth nonsense really stands out as a noteworthy endeavor. The high priest of an em-biggening (to borrow from the Simpsons) Earth is one Neal Adams, former comic book illustrator and the man that designed the Nasenex Bee from those commercials (for which he must be punished). I first heard about ol’ Neal from a podcast called “The Skeptic’s Guide to the Galaxy” (which hails from a little corner of the internet known as http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ ), where they actually interview the guy; apoplexy ensued, I can assure you.
Anyway, Neal “the Bee” Adams believes that the Earth is getting bigger through time. He’s convinced that subduction doesn’t actually exist, that oceanic crust is spontaneously generated at spreading ridges, and all sorts of fun stuff. Below, you’ll find an animation from Adams explaining his idea. Be forewarned, however, that the narration is strongly reminiscent of Kirk Cameron’s hyper-smug, aggressively ignorant young earth creationism spiels; those with heart conditions or anger management issues may wish to abstain.
It’s all pretty silly stuff; my favorite line is the “knee-jerk theory of Pangaea”; I hear that was Naomi Oreskes’ original title for “The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science” (a great read, by the way).
Though it would be easy (and entertaining, too; it would probably make a good drinking game) to pick apart all the inaccuracies with our “facts”, that’s not what we’re going to do here. Rather, what interests me is the WHY question: WHY do Adams, and others, believe what they believe?
First and foremost, as you must have gleaned from watching the ceaseless (10 minutes!!! Really!?! C’mon!) video above, the Expanding Earth theory is much more than an attack on the Earth Sciences. According to the theory, the earth must have been much smaller back in dinosaur days; to those of us who are shackled by our “reality-based” worldview (quote from the current Bush administration), this would seem to imply that the earth must have been much more dense in old times, right? Au contraire, gentle readers; Neil says the earth was MUCH lighter then (as reported from the podcast; I’ll link to it if I can find it in the archives). In fact it was the lessened gravity that allowed the Dinosaurs to walk around, since they would have been too heavy to survive otherwise. So how does the earth expand? Matter is being created and added through some “quantum” process. Duh.
So it’s not like Adams thinks we’ve mapped a few thrusts wrong, or incorrectly interpreted ophiolites. In fact, Geology is just one little wrong-bit on the vast, incorrect corpus of science itself. The Expanding Earth theory is a fundamental rejection of not just one or two sciences, but the ENTIRE body of science, its methodologies, its theories and interpretations, and its practitioners.
Why? Why is there such antagonism towards the sciences? The narration in the video pleadingly states that the universe must be simpler than we “experts” would have it. Such good old arguing from ignorance is a well-worn tactic from a variety of pseudo-science folks, of course, and sadly difficult to remedy. Facts have little strength when arrayed against someone who “knows” that they are meaningless.
None of this is new, of course; anybody who has gone to the mat with some bible-thumping young-earthers has heard all this before. What is new, at least to me, is the EXPLICIT statement of a scientific conspiracy meant to hide the truth, and promulgate our Wegenerian worldview at the expense of the TRUTH. My feeling is that most Creationists view us as sadly misguided individuals, blinded by our atheistic hubris into believing what we say about evolution.
But the expanding earth crowd calls us out on our duplicity; they state that we KNOW the earth is expanding, and are nefariously trying to hide it from the public. Man, if this is true, why the hell did I spend all of December and January furiously writing grants? Shouldn’t I have just called up my local Illuminati and had then send over a couple of sacks of cash (all the while cackling madly, mind you).
To my eye, this is anti-intellectualism of a different color. The creationists define the world into a humanistic, rationalistic view versus their divinely inspired book, forming their attacks on us in terms of heretical (sciences) versus canonical (them) language. Neil Adams’ approach is a distinctly Gnostic anti-intellectualism, wherein his intuitive understanding that the world simply can’t work the way we say it does gives him all the authority he needs to effectively throw out everything we know.
This is a disturbing trend. The creationists are, in many ways, beyond our reach. Their reaction to us is understandable, in the context that a world view requiring special creation at 4004 BCE is fundamentally incompatible with Canyon Diablo radiometric dating, natural selection, and deep time. More disturbing to me is the conspiratorial view of sciences, the rejection of reality in favor of a self-made delusion formed from a visceral dislike of scientists. Expanding earthers, holistic medicine types, vaccine-opponents, climate change deniers; all of these groups are symptoms of a broader disease at the heart of our society. This Gnostic anti-intellectual movement is more insidious and probably more pervasive in our culture than we realize. Additionally, I would argue that it is caused by our collective failure to have engaged the public in any meaningful way. It’s this disseminated distrust of scientists that has allowed the Discovery Institute to come into existence. It’s this that has allowed such a divisive group of creationists nut-jobs, each with their own pet story of creation, to present a unified front. The creationists and their rhetoric aren’t the only enemies we face in the struggle for the brains of America, and we might want to start thinking more about how we can make research more transparent and understandable for the regular folks out there if we ever want to move science funding and scientific work back into a valued component of our culture.
Anyway, Neal “the Bee” Adams believes that the Earth is getting bigger through time. He’s convinced that subduction doesn’t actually exist, that oceanic crust is spontaneously generated at spreading ridges, and all sorts of fun stuff. Below, you’ll find an animation from Adams explaining his idea. Be forewarned, however, that the narration is strongly reminiscent of Kirk Cameron’s hyper-smug, aggressively ignorant young earth creationism spiels; those with heart conditions or anger management issues may wish to abstain.
It’s all pretty silly stuff; my favorite line is the “knee-jerk theory of Pangaea”; I hear that was Naomi Oreskes’ original title for “The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science” (a great read, by the way).
Though it would be easy (and entertaining, too; it would probably make a good drinking game) to pick apart all the inaccuracies with our “facts”, that’s not what we’re going to do here. Rather, what interests me is the WHY question: WHY do Adams, and others, believe what they believe?
First and foremost, as you must have gleaned from watching the ceaseless (10 minutes!!! Really!?! C’mon!) video above, the Expanding Earth theory is much more than an attack on the Earth Sciences. According to the theory, the earth must have been much smaller back in dinosaur days; to those of us who are shackled by our “reality-based” worldview (quote from the current Bush administration), this would seem to imply that the earth must have been much more dense in old times, right? Au contraire, gentle readers; Neil says the earth was MUCH lighter then (as reported from the podcast; I’ll link to it if I can find it in the archives). In fact it was the lessened gravity that allowed the Dinosaurs to walk around, since they would have been too heavy to survive otherwise. So how does the earth expand? Matter is being created and added through some “quantum” process. Duh.
So it’s not like Adams thinks we’ve mapped a few thrusts wrong, or incorrectly interpreted ophiolites. In fact, Geology is just one little wrong-bit on the vast, incorrect corpus of science itself. The Expanding Earth theory is a fundamental rejection of not just one or two sciences, but the ENTIRE body of science, its methodologies, its theories and interpretations, and its practitioners.
Why? Why is there such antagonism towards the sciences? The narration in the video pleadingly states that the universe must be simpler than we “experts” would have it. Such good old arguing from ignorance is a well-worn tactic from a variety of pseudo-science folks, of course, and sadly difficult to remedy. Facts have little strength when arrayed against someone who “knows” that they are meaningless.
None of this is new, of course; anybody who has gone to the mat with some bible-thumping young-earthers has heard all this before. What is new, at least to me, is the EXPLICIT statement of a scientific conspiracy meant to hide the truth, and promulgate our Wegenerian worldview at the expense of the TRUTH. My feeling is that most Creationists view us as sadly misguided individuals, blinded by our atheistic hubris into believing what we say about evolution.
But the expanding earth crowd calls us out on our duplicity; they state that we KNOW the earth is expanding, and are nefariously trying to hide it from the public. Man, if this is true, why the hell did I spend all of December and January furiously writing grants? Shouldn’t I have just called up my local Illuminati and had then send over a couple of sacks of cash (all the while cackling madly, mind you).
To my eye, this is anti-intellectualism of a different color. The creationists define the world into a humanistic, rationalistic view versus their divinely inspired book, forming their attacks on us in terms of heretical (sciences) versus canonical (them) language. Neil Adams’ approach is a distinctly Gnostic anti-intellectualism, wherein his intuitive understanding that the world simply can’t work the way we say it does gives him all the authority he needs to effectively throw out everything we know.
This is a disturbing trend. The creationists are, in many ways, beyond our reach. Their reaction to us is understandable, in the context that a world view requiring special creation at 4004 BCE is fundamentally incompatible with Canyon Diablo radiometric dating, natural selection, and deep time. More disturbing to me is the conspiratorial view of sciences, the rejection of reality in favor of a self-made delusion formed from a visceral dislike of scientists. Expanding earthers, holistic medicine types, vaccine-opponents, climate change deniers; all of these groups are symptoms of a broader disease at the heart of our society. This Gnostic anti-intellectual movement is more insidious and probably more pervasive in our culture than we realize. Additionally, I would argue that it is caused by our collective failure to have engaged the public in any meaningful way. It’s this disseminated distrust of scientists that has allowed the Discovery Institute to come into existence. It’s this that has allowed such a divisive group of creationists nut-jobs, each with their own pet story of creation, to present a unified front. The creationists and their rhetoric aren’t the only enemies we face in the struggle for the brains of America, and we might want to start thinking more about how we can make research more transparent and understandable for the regular folks out there if we ever want to move science funding and scientific work back into a valued component of our culture.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Departmental Accreditation
I’m sure we’ve all been getting demands from various societies (GSA, AAPG, SEPM, et. al) to partake in a survey meant to address the issue of department accreditation. The preamble cites decreased enrollment in geosciences programs, departments threatened with merging and closure, and low hiring in the academic realm as reasons for developing a national accreditation for geology departments. Additionally, the generally low impact the geosciences have had on policy, decreased public awareness, and little pre-college earth science education seem to be concerns.
This accreditation scheme is summarized by five models (mostly ranging from impotent to draconian in severity), which we can peruse at http://www.geosociety.org/flyers/GSA_AccredSurveyModelGrid.pdf .
I’m not certain what I think of this idea yet. What do other folks think? Is a national system of accreditation the way to go? It might force departments to take a more active interest in the broader community, but then again it might stretch stressed departments to the breaking point. Any thoughts?
This accreditation scheme is summarized by five models (mostly ranging from impotent to draconian in severity), which we can peruse at http://www.geosociety.org/flyers/GSA_AccredSurveyModelGrid.pdf .
I’m not certain what I think of this idea yet. What do other folks think? Is a national system of accreditation the way to go? It might force departments to take a more active interest in the broader community, but then again it might stretch stressed departments to the breaking point. Any thoughts?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Gender parity in the Geosciences
I recently received my free, complimentary issue of Nature Geoscience (Vol. 1, No. 2), the new earth-science flavored journal from Nature. I’ve always enjoyed reading through journals like Nature and Science (at the library, since they’re a little on the ridiculously expensive side), since they often have a large number of articles and editorials about scientific culture, in addition to their science content. Anyway, they seem to be keeping with that trend in this specialty journal, where there was an interesting article on gender disparity within the Geosciences (“Gender Imbalance in US Geoscience Academia” by Holmes, O’Connell, Frey, and Ongley, pg. 79-82.)
I think everyone in the geosciences is aware of the VERY low diversity (both racial and gender) in our field. In fact, according to the paper (and works cited therein), the Earth Sciences have the LOWEST ethnic and racial diversity of all science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. As for gender disparity, we are only better than the physics and engineering communities, and considerably worse than the chemistry and biology folks. The authors of this article are interested in why this disparity has persisted, and how members of the geosciences view the causes and consequences of this problem.
I’ve scanned and posted Fig. 1 from Holmes et al. (2008; pg. 79) below. The authors point out that the retention of women in a PhD program is the same as the retention of men in programs (so more women aren’t being driven out mid-grad school), which apparently is not the case for other fields.
The disturbing statistics, however, are seen in the numbers for academic employment (the blue portion of the graph). Only 14% of tenured faculty are women, and ONLY 8%(!!!!) are full professors. These are pretty startling numbers; I think most of us knew it was bad, but didn’t know it was THAT bad. So how do Earth Scientists explain this imbalance? The authors polled a group of 40 women and 39 men, at various levels of their academic career (from dewy young students to hoary old profs), and found three broad themes that the respondents fell into:
1) Structural Issues related to academia (for instance, family leave policies)
2) The “Pipeline” (a historical contingency related to low numbers of women PhD’s from the 70’s)
3) Intrinsic female attributes (including, apparently, comments from respondents that included views such as “women lack self-confidence or the toughness necessary to succeed in academia”
The answers given showed a strong correlation to the responder’s gender (surprise, surprise). Before I give it away, I’ll give you a minute to make your own prediction.
Done? Okay, below is Fig. 2 (pg. 81) from Holmes et al. (2008), scanned by me.
As shown above, men and women felt equally that there were structural issues within the academic world that made it more difficult for women to enter academics, while fewer women thought that the pipeline issue was of real importance. The third issue, which I shall re-term “womeny-ness”, was identified as an issue by ten men and only one woman. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess (warning: Ad Hominem attack comin’ on-line) that these respondents thought women were too touchy-feely for the work; they probably also think Mexicans are lazy and Poles are stupid. On a serious note, maybe the disparity in issue three explains why people identified issue one (structural issues) as important.
Apparently, the responders’ quotes on issue three included such gems as “females in general prefer to teach”; “females lack self-confidence”; “females in general have a low interest in the subject matter”; and my favorite “females don’t like field work”.
Also problematic is how the solution to the disparity problem is viewed. Apparently, a majority of men think that we just have to sit back and wait for the problem to sort itself out, which sounds a lot like my strategy for cleaning my office. I don’t know what the answer is (although I’m sure lots of folks have given this very problem some serious thought), but I’m pretty sure the solution isn’t going to include a “do nothing and wait” option.
The fact of the matter is, we need to take a very serious look at the problems of racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in our field. First and foremost, it ain’t the 1880’s anymore. Women can vote, lynching is illegal, and we can’t send kids into the lead mines to work anymore; we should fix this problem because it needs to be fixed.
Secondly, no matter what we think of ourselves and our intellectual chops, science is a communal endeavor. The more people playing the game, the more stuff gets done. From a purely scientific standpoint, we all KNOW that having people with lots of different backgrounds and experiences lets us attack our geological problems with more success. We need to come together as a scientific community and seriously address where we have failed to allow a broader range of individuals to get into the Earth Sciences.
I think everyone in the geosciences is aware of the VERY low diversity (both racial and gender) in our field. In fact, according to the paper (and works cited therein), the Earth Sciences have the LOWEST ethnic and racial diversity of all science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. As for gender disparity, we are only better than the physics and engineering communities, and considerably worse than the chemistry and biology folks. The authors of this article are interested in why this disparity has persisted, and how members of the geosciences view the causes and consequences of this problem.
I’ve scanned and posted Fig. 1 from Holmes et al. (2008; pg. 79) below. The authors point out that the retention of women in a PhD program is the same as the retention of men in programs (so more women aren’t being driven out mid-grad school), which apparently is not the case for other fields.
The disturbing statistics, however, are seen in the numbers for academic employment (the blue portion of the graph). Only 14% of tenured faculty are women, and ONLY 8%(!!!!) are full professors. These are pretty startling numbers; I think most of us knew it was bad, but didn’t know it was THAT bad. So how do Earth Scientists explain this imbalance? The authors polled a group of 40 women and 39 men, at various levels of their academic career (from dewy young students to hoary old profs), and found three broad themes that the respondents fell into:
1) Structural Issues related to academia (for instance, family leave policies)
2) The “Pipeline” (a historical contingency related to low numbers of women PhD’s from the 70’s)
3) Intrinsic female attributes (including, apparently, comments from respondents that included views such as “women lack self-confidence or the toughness necessary to succeed in academia”
The answers given showed a strong correlation to the responder’s gender (surprise, surprise). Before I give it away, I’ll give you a minute to make your own prediction.
Done? Okay, below is Fig. 2 (pg. 81) from Holmes et al. (2008), scanned by me.
As shown above, men and women felt equally that there were structural issues within the academic world that made it more difficult for women to enter academics, while fewer women thought that the pipeline issue was of real importance. The third issue, which I shall re-term “womeny-ness”, was identified as an issue by ten men and only one woman. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess (warning: Ad Hominem attack comin’ on-line) that these respondents thought women were too touchy-feely for the work; they probably also think Mexicans are lazy and Poles are stupid. On a serious note, maybe the disparity in issue three explains why people identified issue one (structural issues) as important.
Apparently, the responders’ quotes on issue three included such gems as “females in general prefer to teach”; “females lack self-confidence”; “females in general have a low interest in the subject matter”; and my favorite “females don’t like field work”.
Also problematic is how the solution to the disparity problem is viewed. Apparently, a majority of men think that we just have to sit back and wait for the problem to sort itself out, which sounds a lot like my strategy for cleaning my office. I don’t know what the answer is (although I’m sure lots of folks have given this very problem some serious thought), but I’m pretty sure the solution isn’t going to include a “do nothing and wait” option.
The fact of the matter is, we need to take a very serious look at the problems of racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in our field. First and foremost, it ain’t the 1880’s anymore. Women can vote, lynching is illegal, and we can’t send kids into the lead mines to work anymore; we should fix this problem because it needs to be fixed.
Secondly, no matter what we think of ourselves and our intellectual chops, science is a communal endeavor. The more people playing the game, the more stuff gets done. From a purely scientific standpoint, we all KNOW that having people with lots of different backgrounds and experiences lets us attack our geological problems with more success. We need to come together as a scientific community and seriously address where we have failed to allow a broader range of individuals to get into the Earth Sciences.
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