Pssst...it's snowing on Mars...pass it on.

Martians are just so NICE!  They obviously want us to "Have a nice Day"

Darned nice of them to think of us considering they have that whole "nonexsistance thing" going on.  What a bummer, and they do something thoughtful like this...

...It just sort of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  I mean, when you look at that how can you even THINK that it happened by RANDOM CHANCE?!?  Obviously, it was DESIGNED...designed by a giant five-year old with a Martian Magna-Doodle.

(Hat Tip: Jason Bock)

So now Oprah has been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism .

Here’s the Wikipedia page for hypothyroidism.

I feel bad for her, I really do.  I know what this condition does to a person, and I know how it feels to have it go undiagnosed.  Depression, fatigue, a sense of impending mental break-down or dissipation.  I remember with horror the inability to focus thoughts, inability to discipline oneself.

I understand how much willpower it takes to drag your body out of bed and meet the demands of the day, force yourself against the screaming drag of your own body to force yourself to exercise…only to gain weight.

No amount of make-up can hide the bad skin, no amount of careful self-maintenance can get rid of the blue bags under the eyes, the dullness of the hair.

“You look tired” gets to be like a mantra chanted by everyone you meet.  Sometimes with sympathy or concern, more often with a bit of the gloat behind it.  What they really mean is “You’ve really let yourself go”.

Going to the doctor to find out what’s wrong, you’re told the only prescription you need is more self-discipline and will-power.

Even the Oprah show, which made its name singing the praise of persevering in the face of insurmountable problems manages to slap you in the face, when Dr. Phil says “You’re not fat because of your thyroid.  That’s just an excuse.”

I actually went to the website and left a comment.   I said it was irresponsible for Dr. Phil to say something like that.  I went back later to see if there had been any response to my comment, and I couldn’t find it anywhere.  I assumed it had been deleted.

 I had gone for years with an undiagnosed thyroid problem because of just such a response from a Doctor, who refused to administer a simple blood test, despite the fact that I have a family history of low thyroid, and all the symptoms.  And I DO mean all of them.  The CNP who eventually ran the test said that I was in s life-threatening situation, and not just because of the suicidal thoughts.

But this doctor just gave me the smug look, and the condescending encouragement to do more push-ups…push up from the table.  He actually SAID that.

Normally, I would have stormed out of his office and went to find a doctor who would run the test.  Unfortunately, depression and fatigue caused me to simply shut down in shame and never mention it again…until my friend Sue kicked my ass and told me that she didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I’d better figure it out soon, because she didn’t like who I had become, and she wanted her friend back.

I’m sorry for Oprah that she has to go through this.  But I’m glad that finally, she might address this really important subject, and empower women with knowledge and encouragement to speak up for themselves and demand to be tested if they suspect they have a thyroid problem.

Thyroid disorders require constant maintenance.  I recently went in for my annual test, and found that I might have to have my dosage upped again.  Not a big surprise.  I’ve gained weight, and I’m tired and cranky when normally I would be chipper and happy.    I’ve been unable to focus at my usual level in normal times, and become downright useless in times of stress.  Things that were once easy, have become difficult.  I’m confused, forgetful, and sad.

But I’m going to get a second test done, and it’s likely that a simple dosage adjustment will fix the problem.  It’s such a simple solution.  All you need is the knowledge of what your condition is, and the support of knowledgeable people to help you treat it appropriately.

Cato Institute Boggles.

Denialism.com has commentary.

Ayn Rand turns over in her grave.

Leo Strauss also turns over and says "You're surprise?  Anyway, doesn't matter, the noble lie is what is important.  If the masses believe it, it will make them happy and easy to control."

George Bernard Shaw snuggles down in the covers and says "Ah, give everybody guns, it'll sort itself out."

Here's an article talking about a legal arraingement in France some 600 years ago that was used to formalize a family relationship between people who were either related or unrelated, making them a household.  It could also have involved same sex romantic couples.

Of couse, anyone who hates the idea of same-sex romantic relationships having any legal standing will either claim the research has been faked, or simply dimiss it as French.

Personally, I don't find it surprising.  We know for a fact that other cultures had social/political/civil structures that accomidated such relationships.  And to be sure, there are non-sexual reasons why people who are not married might want or need to form a household...especially in such time when society had fewer built-in stabalizing forces such as we have now.

God did it. (link to Pharyngula)

God reached in and futzed around with this researcher's randomized binary code so that the results came out looking much like the results we would expect from "Darwinism".  He will stop at nothing to get them to disbelieve in Intelligent Design.

Wait 'til the punch-line though.  When these scientists get to hell and God says "Ha!  Psych!  it was me all along!  Fooled you!  Boy I really had you going there!  Enjoy your Brimstone.  Don't forget to tip your tormenting demon."

That God.  What a card.

CDC facts about the HPV vaccine.

Here, you can explore the Epidemiology of the various strains of the HPV virus.   Note that strains #s 16 and 18 are the most common strains found in new-borns.  The HPV vaccine covers those strains.  Yet the religious right still opposes the use of the vaccine under the argument that contracting HPV is a “Lifestyle choice”  While a person might make that judgment on the mother, it seems a rather harsh one to make on her innocent infant. (never mind that 1 in 4 women will be raped in their lifetime, and 22% of these will be raped under the age of 12…lifestyle choice?  Who “chooses” to have a spouse cheat (26 – 50% depending on if you buy the conservative estimate or the liberal one) on them and bring an STD home?  

It is estimated that 50% of the sexually active population is infected with HPV at some time in their lives.  It is estimated that 90% of all cervical cancer is caused by HPV, which is the second leading cause of death in women world-wide.  HPV is also implicated in a number of other urogenital cancers which affect men and women…as well as genital warts.

Transmission possibilities include: sexual transmission (most likely) transmission from mother to infant, between children who have been the victims of sexual abuse, and non-sexual contact with infected urogenital secretions ( no confirmed cases, but the possibility exists unlike with some other viruses)

Still, control of this virus on a epidemiological level is portrayed as inconsequential to public health, and the equivalent of heart disease, despite is ubiquity and links to several types of cancer…and despite the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing not only contraction of the virus, but  also in reducing the risks of lesions in already infected women.

Cost is another argument, but estimates on the opposing side merely pit the cost of mandatory vaccination against a single life (the absolute highest I’ve heard in cost per life saved is $1M.  I’ve also heard the cost estimated as low as $81,000 per life saved).  Since estimates of value of lives saved to society are frequently in the multiple millions, it seems fair enough.

After all, Religious Conservatives celebrated the Supreme Court decision that would save an estimated 3,000 unborn recently.  Yet an expected 3,700 women not dying of cervical cancer in the country is considered negligible., and not worthwhile.

They don’t talk about the money saved in pre-cancerous lesions that needn’t be treated, in transmissions that don’t occur.   Plus, those figures fail to mention if they took into account incidences of other potentially fatal and/or life-shortening urogenital cancers which have been linked to HPV (some of them affect men as well).

Add to this the number of different strains of HPV, and the dangers of allowing them to spread unchecked through the population, recombining to create new strains with greater ability for transmission, infection, and a greater possibility of affecting long-term health (risks which would be lowered by control of the virus); and you make a pretty good case for mandatory vaccinations.

Maybe it’s not a slam-dunk, but aspersions about “life-style choice”, and assertions about lowering the resistance of young girls to having sex seems more than a little trivial.

I DID find a JAMA article about mandatory HPV vaccinations .  It recommends against mandatory vaccinations.  Why? Because backlash from the anti-vaccine crowd could politically endanger the mandatory status of already mandatory vaccines.

 Cowards. “Oh, the anti-science people will get us if there’s anything remotely disappointing about the policy.  Run away Run away.”

One of their other arguments is that they haven’t seen suggestions as to who would pay for it.  Although legislation usually covers that…and it really isn’t the purview of the doctors.  Finally, they say that public funding of the vaccine would likely lower the amount of money spent in other areas.  That is an interesting question, and it would be interesting if we could see how public funding of the vaccine for poor people might actually lower the cost of treating conditions caused by HPV.

I notice that all of the objections raised in the JAMA article were political in nature, and not medical nor even went into any depth to really look at the epidemiological effect of mass vaccination.

The JAMA article is in response to the ACIP recommendations for girls 9-12 years of age .

[UPDATE:  I found a reason why the fundies might now rally behind the HPV vaccine.  Apparently, there was a study that showed that it is possible that having the virus might inhibilt the implantation of zygotes into the uterus.  In other words...HPV could cause "abortions".  They won't do it to save women, or babies that are born (since it's a "lifestyle choice") but maybe they will do it to save teh unborn babies]

Yet more proof that the Discovery Institute is "in error where the truth is concerned".

The Panda’s Thumb points out that eugenics principles were not only around before Darwin, but that eugenics principles are detailed in religious texts, and also that some creationist anti-Darwinists throughout history have embraced eugenics.

And yet, somehow Darwin is to blame for eugenics?

Here’s the thing.  Eugenics and eugenicists existed BEFORE Darwin.  Many of them misused theology to support their ideas and even misused the Bible to support their ideas.

Along comes Darwin and his observations and theory… and SURPRISE!  A bunch of illogical, self-serving ideologues, who already proved themselves capable of misappropriating information to support their immoral ideas MISAPPROPRIATED INFORMATION TO SUPPORT THEIR IMMORAL IDEAS.

Tinkle came along after Darwin, reject Darwin soundly and roundly, yet continued to advocate eugenics, as the Panda’s Thumb points out, right up to the eve of the moon landing.

Huh.  Then along comes the Discovery Institute, and claims that those ideas originated with Darwin, when they very clearly pre-date him and anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of history and a functioning brain could bother to figure it out.

But they don’t want to.  Why?  Could it be because they are a bunch of illogical self-serving ideologues who misuse information to support their immoral ideas?

[Update: Denialism.com has a wonderful post about the lying ways of "Pro-family" groups as well.]

Neil at 4simpsons provides a link to a blog claiming that a new classification of the fossil remains of  “Lucy” is another nail in the coffin of evolution .  Apparently, “Lucy” has been moved to another branch on the Hominid family tree.  Interesting also how the creationists claim that “Lucy” disproves evolution because she has physiological traits in common with a chimp.  She also still has many traits in common with a modern human, but that is ignored.  At the same time, they claim that a “lack of transitional fossils” disproves the theory of evolution and natural selection.

 Let’s see, a fossil that has some traits in common with one set of creatures on the earth, and some traits in common with another set of creatures on the earth, though now believed to not be a direct ancestor of either one of them somehow disproves the theory that they have a common ancestor and the differences are due to changes over time in the genetic code that lead to different species with a common ancestor?

Kirk Cameron demands to see a croc-o-duck before he believes that evolution happens, but then these people insist that a “chimp-o-human” is somehow proof of the opposite?  The discovery of a third cousin somehow proves that you and your first cousin don’t share grandparents?

Evolution and natural selection necessitates the existence of branches in the evolutionary line.  Yet, somehow, the discovery of branches is supposed to disprove the theory?

Creationist “logic”:   “The theory says that B follows A.  Therefore, if A is true, then B cannot be true.  If A is false, the B cannot be true”.

 Whaaaaa?

There is no way to win against such…I was going to say illogic, but somehow, that doesn’t cut it...

Both Neil, and the blogger he points to claim that the “mainstream media” would never cover something like this.

Untrue.  The mainstream press covers this sort of thing all the time.  When new evidence is discovered that changes our understanding of the world, it is most certainly covered.  This, for instance .  Or this.

And CNN will almost certainly be all over it in their race to catch FOX in a contest to see who can out-pander the other for the viewership of the somnolent masses.

My mom and I were just talking this morning about the peat-bog fires that are a common event up where my mom and dad live in Northern Minnesota.  There's been one peat bog fire that has been burning, under the surface, for as far back as I can remember being aware of such things.  It's generally seen as an unfortunate fact of life...

...but now I wonder...are those sub-surface peat-bog fires the sort of thing that could result in Pyrolysis?  I have no way of knowing for sure if the peat bog fires are proceeding without the benefit of oxygen...but I suspect it's quite likely, as they burn under a layer of soil.

And if so, they are apparently a potentially useful method of carbon sequestration.

That would be just cool.  I wonder who I would ask to find out about such a thing?  At least there would be SOME benefit to having fires that nobody can put out burning under "ground" for years and years and years...and which are otherwise a dangerous, potentially expensive, hazardous nuisance.

Oh, and by the way, really DO follow that link and read the article.  There is a suggestion that systematic controlled pyrolysis could be one possible remedy for some of our environmental problems...disposing of waste, enriching the soil, producing alternative fuel and sequestering carbon all in one fell swoop.

The catch, of course, is that carbon sequestration must become more economically desirable.

Lehmann said that as the value of carbon dioxide increases on carbon markets, "we calculate that biochar sequestration in conjunction with bioenergy from pyrolysis becomes economically attractive when the value of avoided carbon dioxide emissions reaches $37 per ton." Currently, the Chicago Climate Exchange is trading carbon dioxide at $4 a ton; it is projected that that the price will rise to $25-$85 a ton in the coming years. (quote from article, follow link for more)

(Hat Tip:  A Blog Around the Clock)

Flashbacks to that one Batman movie.

Effect Measure has an article on Melemine, and the convention of adding the substance to food to boost the appearance of a high protein content.

But now there is talk of the Melamine not being that big of a deal, that there is a second chemical that reacts with a metabolite of the Melamine that has caused the crystals to form in the kidneys of the animals that have been affected.

This leaves a person wondering about the identity and source of the second chemical.

I get the feeling I should be worried about this, but for some reason my brain sticks on that scene in the Batman movie where the reporters are all wan and washed out and greasy and they are reading off the list of things to avoid mixing.  Something like: “Do not combine Shampoo with mouthwash and toothpaste”.

It DOES bother me that we’ve been eating plastic thinking that it is protein all this time.  If a US food producer did this to us, it would be called fraud.  China has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Also, note to you “anti-regulation” people out there…this is what happens when a government doesn’t regulate industry.

Oh yeah, and I'm ALSO put in mind of the sneaky and diabolical cleverness of "Famine" in the Book The Nice and Accurate Prophacies of Agnas Nutter, Witch By Neil Gaiman...where Famine is all chuffed with himself because he has anorexics starving themselves to death in the middle of plenty by binging on non-nutritious foodstuffs.  Melamine shows up in food tests as protein, but it has no nutritional value.

PZ Myers thoroughly debunks Stephan Milloy's crazy stories about how butter-fingered environmentalists are going to go bankrupt paying to clean up all those Compact Flourescent Lights they break.  And, as he drives by, he takes a swipe at Stephans hypocracy in saying that the negligable amount of mercury in the CFL bulbs is dangerous while pooh-poohing mercury from power plants.

Denialism also has a nice treatment for the layman.

The verdict is:  CFL are still a good idea.  Find out where you can recycle them, and find out how to clean them up safely and cheaply when they break.  In other words USE YOUR BRAIN.  Sheesh.

Here's the link to the EPA page

Here's a link to the Earth 911 recycling page.  Just click on the item you'd like to recycle, and you will be taken to a page where you enter your zip code, and they will point you to a facility near you where you can learn how to dispose of common household items properly.

It took a mid-western suburban housewife 20 MINUTES to find and put together this information, and Steven Milloy couldn't figure it out?  Junk science indeed.

For those who wondered why we are here, in the decade of the double aughts, and you don't have your personal flying machine yet...WAIT NO LONGER.

Tony - This one's for YOU baby!

argh.  shortbread cookies, with a chocolate layer on top.  I am powerless before them.

They are my Jadarite.

(Hat Tip:  A Blog Around the Clock)

ERV points out that "framing" is inadequate with some audiences and in some situations, such as dealing with the Discovery Institute on
"their" turf.  This is because they cheat.

If Framing is a screw driver, you can't be sucessful with it in situations that call for a hammer.

You don't engage in a "framing" debate at a Discovery Institute event where the only purpose of having a counter argument is to bring in big names to add legitamacy to the event.  No matter how well you "frame" your argument, it's not going to have much effect when you have fifteen  minutes and the Discovery Institute has a couple of days.  As ERV pointed out, a Q&A that only allows students to ask screened questions is also not helpful.

In a closed system, this would be a disaster.  However, getting those facts out to any media coverage on the event would be a good start.

That's framing.

The Discovery Institute "frames" this event as a debate.  We need to get the word out that it is a sham.  Use analogies to sporting events.  The Discovery Institute is holding a track meet, invites world class atheletes, and then only allows them to run if they agree to run while wearing fat suits.  This is so their people can "win" and say they beat world-class athletes.

When the world-class athletes turn down the invitation, the Discovery Institute can say "they're afraid" when it is the Discovery Institute that is afraid of fair competition.

John Q public is going to say "Huh.  I don't blame them.  I wouldn't go to a track meet and run in a fat suit either."

Right now, if you get into an evolution debate with a rank-and-file creationist, they spew every single Discovery Institute talking point down to the punctuation.  But when you say "Oh, the Discovery Institute" they say "who's that?"

Now, when they hear something from the Discovery Institute, they are going to say "Oh.  Those are the guys who can't handle fair competition with their ideas. " and go in search of other information.

They still might be creationists, but at least their sense of fairness won't let them use DI talking points whereas before they were unaware of even where that information was coming from.

My  apologies to those not interested in framing.

PZ Myers has reacted to a Washington Post Op/ed by Nisbet and Mooney.

Far be it from me to disagree with Prof. Myers, but on this one, I DO.  Not his principles, but his interpretation of the framing agenda.  As one of the potential targets of "framing", I gotta say, it would be helpful for me.  You know who argues with non-scientist anti-science types most often?  Non-scientist pro-science types, that's who.  I would really welcome some good tools that would help me accurately argue with people who I encounter on a dialy basis who think they "know enough" to be consumers of science, and make decisions in ignorance that they don't even realize is ignorance.  I would like a faster, better way of getting to the meat of scientific matters.

Prof. Myers seems to view it as an attempt to silence or gag atheist scientists, or sugar-coat science.

I don’t see it that way at all.  I see it as asking the science community as a whole to order their priorities, and emphasize those priorities in their explanations of their work to the general public.

Let’s say you’ve got a house with a gecko infestation.  I choose gekkos because they are inherently funny, and I am trying to lighten the mood.  Yes, it is a ridiculous analogy.  Just roll with it.  In this case, I suppose geckos are analogous to the fact that while pursuing scientific knowledge, you will encounter challenges to any faith you might happen to hold, and there may be aspects to that faith that you will abandon as a result of those challenges.

You want to sell your house, and you want to present it to the largest portion of buyers.  You know that the geckos are going to be a critical point in the sales strategy.  Some people think geckos are cute, but wouldn’t want them in the house, some people will see the inherent benefits of having a houseful of geckos (no bugs, for one) so you would be best served to “frame” your presentation of the house by emphasizing the non-gecko attributes.  It has a large kitchen, it has numerous conveniently placed bathrooms…look at that lovely skylight, and then mention the geckos at a convenient time, after the people have had a chance to get ALL the information.  You can’t deny that the house has geckos, but maybe that fact doesn’t have to be at the fore-front of the discussion.

Now pretend your neighbor wants to sell his house, and his house is gecko free because he is unscrupulous about using whatever means are necessary to have a gecko-free house.  Poison, cats, bludgeoning them with clubs, etc.

He puts up a big sign that says “I want to sell you a house.  My neighbor just wants to sell you a big load of geckos.”

So what do you do?  You could put up a big sign and say “I want to sell you a house.  My neighbor is an evil bastard who likes to slaughter innocent animals.”  That is true, and it might convince some people to hear you out.  It’s a little mean, but it’s not like the neighbor didn’t deserve it.  Problem is, you’re going to attract a bunch of people who are interested in the fight and name-calling, and people who just want to buy a house are going to keep driving.  Calling a spade a spade can be refreshing and feel good, but if your primary goal is to sell your house, it might not be the best approach.

What about “Yep!  We’ve got Geckos!  And How!”

Well, it’s honest, and you’re going to get a LOT of interest in your house from Herptaphiles…but maybe you want a bigger set of perspective buyers.

What about a sign that says “spacious kitchen, ample bathrooms, gorgeous skylight, many recent improvements that my neighbor doesn’t have because he spent all his money on the latest gecko-killing gadgets”.

Get the people in the house, show them what you’ve got.  Let them look around.  Let them shop your neighbor’s house, too.  Let them see the geckos, but for Pete’s sake get them in the door.

Sure, some percentage of them will leave with a crawling case of the heebie-jeebies and beat a path to the neighbor’s house and embrace his anti-lizard agenda…but YOU will have a LOT more perspective buyers to choose from.  You may even change some minds about whether or not it is possible to live comfortably with geckos.

From Conrad Zero I get a link to this article in the Washington Post.

A world-class violinist playing on a priceless violin, posing as a street musician, and his value is only recognized by a few people...a handful who have dabbled at being violinists, and one who recognizes the musician.

People who rushed past, perhaps flipping spare change, perhaps trying to shout over the annoying noise of this bothersom begger...what would they have done if they had realized that they were getting a free front seat at a performance that they would never get another chance at again?

What do people simply throw out as useless, meaningless, even stupid...just because they don't have a reason to really look at it's value?

How much of our "junk science" is the public policy equivilant of a virtuoso with a nearly priceless instrument being ignored by commuters too busy to bother knowing what they are missing?

[UPDATE:  Michelle gives us a link in the comments to a blog entry that expands on the "framing" aspect of the WaPo story.  She says that in order for the audience to respond to a classical musician in a street musician setting, he needs to develop skills for presenting to that audience appropriately for the kind of audience they are, and in the situation they are in rather than actually expecting them to respond to a performance just because it is good and worthy of their attention.

This is EXACTLY what I've been trying to say.  Thank you, Michelle.

Quote from the blog entry:

A busker is someone who can turn any place into a stage. Obviously, Joshua Bell needs an actual stage. As a busker one needs to interact with those around, break walls of personal space, and lure people into a collective and spontaneous group experience on the street, in the moment, with you. A bad busking act is when the performer doesn’t make an effort to connect with the audience. Like musicians who play for themselves, not acknowledging the audience, just burying their heads in their instruments.

Ben at Eclectic’s Anonymous has a piece up commenting on the current “framing” debate going on in the science blogger community.

I don’t really know much about the original paper that introduced the concept of framing into the scientific debate…because you have to pay to read it.  So reading the commentary on it is a little like trying to follow a conversation by just listening to one side of it.

But I will try.

Near as I can tell, Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet put out a paper saying “Maybe we should try to figure out what it is that the public doesn’t understand about key areas of science that have become political footballs, and instead of giving them more facts and figures to digest we should give them a better means of digesting the facts and figures that they have.”

Framing is nothing new to people who are in marketing, or in politics, or Human Resources…or domestic abusers and those who try to rescue their victims (more on this later).

“Framing” seems like such a bad thing to some people because it is, at its heart, manipulative.  Some of us prefer to be allowed to make up our own minds about things, and when we smell “framing”, we think that someone is resorting to such tactics because their material can’t stand on its own.

But as Ben points out, it has gotten to the point where there is so much information that impacts us every day, that we cannot be expected to know it all.  Add to this that there is active MISINFORMATION being spread, and on top of that, there are competing “frames” that have been being refined and come so readily to hand for the anti-science crowd, that the inability of the common man to understand everything he should amounts to more than laziness or disinterest or even something that can be called ignorance.

Framing helps get a message of how evolution REALLY works across without having to begin at the level of Eukaryotic cell structure to teach a middle-aged Sunday School teacher with three kids of her own who all need to get to their orthodontist’s appointments on time.

The anti-science forces don’t balk at “framing”.  That is how they manage to get their 80% of the population to doubt evolution.  They don’t have to prove that God has his angels on a protein assembly line working over-time to roll out the this year’s upgraded model of the Avian Flu virus.  All they have to do is yell “Monkey’s uncle!” or “gaps in the fossil record” or “scientists disagree”…and they shed enough doubt to get their audience to do their work for them.

Framing the forces of “evolution” as “just random chance” has been VERY successful…but I wonder what would happen if scientists managed to shift the emphasis in the debate from “Random mutation” to “the relentlessly ordering force of Natural Selection”.  The idea that we could just spontaneously emerge from some primordial ooze is, of course, ridiculous.  Many people reject the idea of “evolution” just because of that frame.  I talk to otherwise intelligent people who wave their hands and say “well, I don’t know what happened, but I can’t believe we’re the result of random chance”.

Right now, many people see the choice as being between “our air was created for us to breath.  Why else would it be so perfect for us?” or “We just randomly happened to spontaneously pop into existence ready to breath the air.”

I don’t think that most people would come to this dichotomy on their own.  They see this as the choice to make because it has been framed so by the anti-science types…and there are few people out there who are interested in seriously providing another frame…because it seems so “stupid” to have to say “maybe only things that could use the air survived to replicate, and maybe those that were able to use the air most successfully survived and replicated more successfully.”

The main problem with this from the scientist’s point of view is that it is simplistic and imprecise.   But to be more complex and more precise is to lose the soccer mom with the orthodontically challenged offspring.  And she votes and goes to church and talks on the phone to all of her church friends (who also vote) on the phone about how stupid it is that they have to spend tax money on science books that teach their kids that they come from monkeys, rather than fix the potholes at the intersection down the street.

Reframing can be used to remove these stumbling blocks to understanding.  While it is not, in-and-of-itself and answer, it can be one step toward an answer.

Reframing that one thing will not be enough.  You will have to have a frame to answer every frame of the anti-science forces, and they will always come up with new ones.  More promotion and funding for science education, more emphasis on science education, more strident and strenuous defense of science in the public sphere and more generalized science literacy is the ultimate goal.  Wouldn’t it be great if people could just understand and know what they need to in order to be good consumers of science information on their own?

But you aren’t going to get that unless you first convince people that they have a reason to want it and value it.  Marketing.  Promotion.  Branding.

It seems so dishonest, doesn’t it?  Manipulative.  Abusive.  Distasteful.

Yes and no.

Think about a situation of domestic abuse.  The bad partner in the abuse creates a view of reality.  A “frame” if you will.  They spend a lot of time and energy to create a world where their partner is alienated from friends and family (eliminating competing frames), they make it difficult or even impossible for their partner to maintain a job or reliable habits.  They create a “frame” for reality where they are the most powerful person in the partner’s world.  They are the person that the partner fears, and yet also looks to for protection.  They set up a “choice” where the abused partner “chooses” between two outcomes…both originally selected by the abusive partner, and presented as the only alternatives in a closed system.

In that “frame” there is a choice between “order” (the imposed order of the abusive partner) and “chaos” (the results of disobedience in rejecting order).

Enter the domestic violence worker.  The helper’s job is to break down the frame.  She can’t so it by depicting the abuser as a monster, because that is part of the frame.  The monster abuser isn’t responsible for their behavior, because in the “frame” the abused “chooses” the monster through disobedience, rather than the “protector” form of the abuser. 

She has to do it by offering a different frame, and inviting the abused partner to explore it.  Rather than attacking one side of the frame, only to have the abused partner defend the flip side (the side the abused person sees as the only alternative), the helper presents a frame that allows for other choices.

You might call the Domestic Violence Worker’s frame “reality”.  You might wonder why she has to present this frame at all.  You might think it’s a waste of time for her to have to present it to someone who won’t accept it.

But in her absence, the abusive partner can continue to frame the situation, not making it impossible for the abused partner to escape, but making it less likely.

To get the abused person to leave the abusive person,  you might realize that they need a job and a car and a house or apartment to live in, but getting them all those things is not only putting the cart before the horse, but ultimately useless if they do not have a new frame through which to view their relationship to those things, as well as the rest of the world.  If they continue to accept their role within the old frame, nothing you do can change their outcome…no matter what other things you add to the mix.  While a job, car and a place to live SHOULD give them independence…they will never achieve it without first accepting and embracing a new frame.  Gaining the tools of independence without actually gaining that independence will just cause them to have new tools to use as the abuser dictates.

If you continue to allow the opposition to frame the argument as being one between God’s order and chaos, for instance, or between environmental safety and economic stability, or public health and personal freedom or whatever…it will not matter how much information you give them, they will still continue to view things with the same process and outcome.  They will use the new information as dictated by the old frame.

I found this blog at A Blog Around the Clock.  I think I like it.

Denialism.

So far, this is my favorite post: (it has pictures)

Meet Steven Milloy

Fox News. Really likes him.

He runs Junkscience.com

He doesn’t seem to think that second-hand smoke is a very big deal. (and Philip Morris likes him)

He doesn’t seem to believe in anthropogenic forcers for Global Climate Change. (and ExxonMobile likes him)

He says there’s “uncertainty” about macroevolution, and there’s no reliable evidence that ingesting lead is bad for waterfowl. (and the Cato Institute likes him)

He also seems to think that DDT and Asbestos got bad raps.