Friday, September 28, 2007
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Drinking & Reading Society will be at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 11 at the Laurel Tavern. I don't know what you are reading, but I am reading Of Moths & Men by Judith Hooper and After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou.
Monday, September 24, 2007
A little knowledge
Our books for this month richly illustrate the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to public policy, the media and science. The topics are hot – evolution and global warming. The stakes are high and therefore the arguments get more and more simplistic as each side tries to woo the ignorant, the learning challenged or the merely uninterested public to its side.
So we get the polar bear as the poster child of global warming on the one hand versus the “what’s wrong with playing golf on Christmas?” argument. E.C. Pielou is a believer in the dangers of global warming. Let’s state that up front; she leaves it for the end. But her book does point out that a. constant climate change is normal and cyclical, and b. there’s a continental glacier in your future if nature holds its course. We are well into the next glacial cycle, according to Pielou’s math – which it’s hard to doubt. If you like global warming, or merely own a lot of stock in oil and coal companies, it’s easy to say that your favored industries are the only thing holding the ice at bay.
However, none of us is likely to be around by the time our favorite prairie or woodland turn to tundra. Global warming is operating at a pace at last 10x faster than historic climatic variation – possibly much faster, so even humans are unlikely to be able to adapt to the changes without serious financial loss. Never mind the environmental losses. Historically, hotter means drier and that, along with the northward invasion of really annoying plants and insects, is likely to be the most disruptive affect of the change, rather than bigger hurricanes or rising seas, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live in North America.
I haven’t gotten far into Of Moths and Men yet, although “little knowledge” people call this a refutation of Darwinism. In fact, it starts out with the best précis of the early scientific course of evolutionary theory that I have yet seen. How many false starts and wrong notions, even by Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, et al. How close we came to abandoning evolution by the start of the 20th Century.
And a story well told. I don’t think I have yet read a book on evolution and found the words louche and bijoux in the same paragraph.
So we get the polar bear as the poster child of global warming on the one hand versus the “what’s wrong with playing golf on Christmas?” argument. E.C. Pielou is a believer in the dangers of global warming. Let’s state that up front; she leaves it for the end. But her book does point out that a. constant climate change is normal and cyclical, and b. there’s a continental glacier in your future if nature holds its course. We are well into the next glacial cycle, according to Pielou’s math – which it’s hard to doubt. If you like global warming, or merely own a lot of stock in oil and coal companies, it’s easy to say that your favored industries are the only thing holding the ice at bay.
However, none of us is likely to be around by the time our favorite prairie or woodland turn to tundra. Global warming is operating at a pace at last 10x faster than historic climatic variation – possibly much faster, so even humans are unlikely to be able to adapt to the changes without serious financial loss. Never mind the environmental losses. Historically, hotter means drier and that, along with the northward invasion of really annoying plants and insects, is likely to be the most disruptive affect of the change, rather than bigger hurricanes or rising seas, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live in North America.
I haven’t gotten far into Of Moths and Men yet, although “little knowledge” people call this a refutation of Darwinism. In fact, it starts out with the best précis of the early scientific course of evolutionary theory that I have yet seen. How many false starts and wrong notions, even by Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, et al. How close we came to abandoning evolution by the start of the 20th Century.
And a story well told. I don’t think I have yet read a book on evolution and found the words louche and bijoux in the same paragraph.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Would you like ice in your drink?
Dan writes: Either date (Oct. 10 or 11) works for me, would prefer the 10th. I'm a little overdone on evolution at this point so would prefer Pielow with the Siberian book reserved for this winter. Doug says any date and any book.
I have just started reading After the Ice Age, The Return of Life to the Glaciated North America by E.C. Pielou, and can report that it's fascinating, but also a little heavy. Lots of graphs of temperature variants over time and a nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- you know, the 105,000 year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit mediated by the 41,000 year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and both mediated by the 21,000 year precession of the equinoxes, which charts the movement of the exquinox as it moves forward through the months. All that and that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. That she blames on continential drift and the relative position of the continents. So, until something big drifts back south, we'll keep having glaciers. And soon, according to Pielou. If the current glacial cycle were a year from glacial peak to glacial peak, we are already in late September and the next glacial winter is coming as sure as Christmas!
I have just started reading After the Ice Age, The Return of Life to the Glaciated North America by E.C. Pielou, and can report that it's fascinating, but also a little heavy. Lots of graphs of temperature variants over time and a nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- you know, the 105,000 year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit mediated by the 41,000 year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and both mediated by the 21,000 year precession of the equinoxes, which charts the movement of the exquinox as it moves forward through the months. All that and that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. That she blames on continential drift and the relative position of the continents. So, until something big drifts back south, we'll keep having glaciers. And soon, according to Pielou. If the current glacial cycle were a year from glacial peak to glacial peak, we are already in late September and the next glacial winter is coming as sure as Christmas!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Fish; it's what's for dinner
This guy was flying around the yard yesterday afternoon. We thought raccoons got the fish in our pond while we were gone a couple of weeks back, but now a new suspect has appeared.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Two Books with Cold Titles
The climate may be warming, but the weather is chilling. Here are two alternatives to consider for October reads.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America
by E. C. Pielou
Anyone who blithely thinks that the global warming analysis is completed and that we know all the answers needs to read this book and realize just how dynamic climate patterns can be over as little a period as the past 20,000 years. But reading it requires that the reader put away his science as politics mentality and listen thoughtfully to an amazing story.
Gives a wonderful insight into the history of global climate change even though that is not the focus of the book. You will come away understanding the history of species and climate change in North America, and understanding how this information is distorted by current climate change opportunists who want you to believe this is some kind of new phenomenon. This book was written long before climate change was a political issue which is refreshing as it deals in the subject in a purely academic fashion.
This is a great in-depth excursion on a well-travelled topic. The species and disappearance of North American megafauna, glacial cycles and the role of physics in their appearance, the controversy over the 1st peoples of North America are just examples of some of the topics discussed. Focuses primarily on Canadian ecologies for the simple reason that the last ice age didn't penetrate much farther south except at higher elevations. While basic info can be gleaned from any number of websites, to mine the knowledge of someone who is both learned and a lucid writer besides is a fascinating priviledge.
Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival
by George Kennan
This book is the fascinating travel journal of George Kennan (1845-1924) who was employed by the Russo-American Telegraph company to explore Eastern Siberia in 1865. Leaving from San Francisco in July 1865 Mr. Kennan and three other men set out for Petropavlovski in Kamchatka. From there they began a march to the northwest, meeting the Sea of Okhotsk and then detouring West for a while until heading north, exploring Eastern Siberia as far as the Berings strait, to Anadyrsk. They navigated rivers, saw the Aurua Borealis in February 1867. In the end the exploration did not lead to the laying of telegraph cable, but nevertheless this account should rank with Twain's `Innocents Abroad' as one of the great pieces of American travel literature of the 19th century.
Kennan has a dry sarcastic whit, like Twain, and he writes on many things, from wildlife to flaura, to the people and the country. Most amazing is to consider the great distances covered by such few people. There are many interesting stories and insights into the hard life of Russians in the far east. There are also descriptions of the many native peoples, including Koraks, Kamchatdals, Chookchees, Yookaghirs, Chooances, Yakoots and Gakouts, to the depth of describing rituals, marriages and the languages.
The greatest, almost unforgivable, oversight in this book, one that is almost crippling, is lack of even one map in an account that begs to have many maps given that it is both a travel narrative and one that mentions many obscure places and tribes that no longer exist in the same form today. The reader is left to imagine the position of the Samanka or Penzhina rivers, the villages of Genul, Okoota or Anadyrsk, or the most obscure villages in north Siberia, such as Geezhega or Shestakova.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America
by E. C. Pielou
Anyone who blithely thinks that the global warming analysis is completed and that we know all the answers needs to read this book and realize just how dynamic climate patterns can be over as little a period as the past 20,000 years. But reading it requires that the reader put away his science as politics mentality and listen thoughtfully to an amazing story.
Gives a wonderful insight into the history of global climate change even though that is not the focus of the book. You will come away understanding the history of species and climate change in North America, and understanding how this information is distorted by current climate change opportunists who want you to believe this is some kind of new phenomenon. This book was written long before climate change was a political issue which is refreshing as it deals in the subject in a purely academic fashion.
This is a great in-depth excursion on a well-travelled topic. The species and disappearance of North American megafauna, glacial cycles and the role of physics in their appearance, the controversy over the 1st peoples of North America are just examples of some of the topics discussed. Focuses primarily on Canadian ecologies for the simple reason that the last ice age didn't penetrate much farther south except at higher elevations. While basic info can be gleaned from any number of websites, to mine the knowledge of someone who is both learned and a lucid writer besides is a fascinating priviledge.
Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival
by George Kennan
This book is the fascinating travel journal of George Kennan (1845-1924) who was employed by the Russo-American Telegraph company to explore Eastern Siberia in 1865. Leaving from San Francisco in July 1865 Mr. Kennan and three other men set out for Petropavlovski in Kamchatka. From there they began a march to the northwest, meeting the Sea of Okhotsk and then detouring West for a while until heading north, exploring Eastern Siberia as far as the Berings strait, to Anadyrsk. They navigated rivers, saw the Aurua Borealis in February 1867. In the end the exploration did not lead to the laying of telegraph cable, but nevertheless this account should rank with Twain's `Innocents Abroad' as one of the great pieces of American travel literature of the 19th century.
Kennan has a dry sarcastic whit, like Twain, and he writes on many things, from wildlife to flaura, to the people and the country. Most amazing is to consider the great distances covered by such few people. There are many interesting stories and insights into the hard life of Russians in the far east. There are also descriptions of the many native peoples, including Koraks, Kamchatdals, Chookchees, Yookaghirs, Chooances, Yakoots and Gakouts, to the depth of describing rituals, marriages and the languages.
The greatest, almost unforgivable, oversight in this book, one that is almost crippling, is lack of even one map in an account that begs to have many maps given that it is both a travel narrative and one that mentions many obscure places and tribes that no longer exist in the same form today. The reader is left to imagine the position of the Samanka or Penzhina rivers, the villages of Genul, Okoota or Anadyrsk, or the most obscure villages in north Siberia, such as Geezhega or Shestakova.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Cheap books
Harry is eager to let everyone know that he got Of Moths and Men from the library with no difficulty. It is also available for $1.98 from Daedalus and for 75 cents from half.com. I think he wants us to read the book!
My favorite is abebooks.com because they have everything and kind of act as a clearinghouse for other sellers. Not necessarily the cheapest though.
We ran into Frank Sandner and Caroline Beckett in Door County this weekend. We were waiting at the paddle shop to pick up our new kayaks and Frank was peddling past. They were working an author visit & book signing by Mary Bergin, the Capital Times writer who also publishes a lot of Wisconsin travel books and guides. Sidetracked in Wisconsin is the book and it details lots of odd places and things to do. It turned out the boat shop didn't have the boat I ordered, even though they had been assuring me all summer that they did, so now I have to wait to get something from the factory in S. Carolina.
My favorite is abebooks.com because they have everything and kind of act as a clearinghouse for other sellers. Not necessarily the cheapest though.
We ran into Frank Sandner and Caroline Beckett in Door County this weekend. We were waiting at the paddle shop to pick up our new kayaks and Frank was peddling past. They were working an author visit & book signing by Mary Bergin, the Capital Times writer who also publishes a lot of Wisconsin travel books and guides. Sidetracked in Wisconsin is the book and it details lots of odd places and things to do. It turned out the boat shop didn't have the boat I ordered, even though they had been assuring me all summer that they did, so now I have to wait to get something from the factory in S. Carolina.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Harry's suggestion
Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth by Judith Hooper
Hooper offers an engaging account of H.B.D. Kettlewell's famous field experiments on the peppered moth, which were widely known as "Darwin's missing evidence," proof of natural selection in action until 1998, that is, when biologist Michael Majerus showed Kettlewell's findings to be falsified and wrong. Hooper peers into the lives of Kettlewell and his mentor and eventual adversary, the imperious and brilliant E.B. Ford, revealing the human factors that don't get written into the research papers "recriminations, intrigue, jealousy, back-stabbing and shattered dreams."
Ford, a Darwinian zealot hell-bent on proving natural selection, serves as a foil for the broader questions raised here about dogmatism in science. Natural selection had the dubious distinction of being as widely accepted as it was short on evidence, and the moth experiments were greeted as a pivotal victory; indeed, despite evidence to the contrary, many scientists today still embrace Kettlewell's findings, in part because denying them opens the door to "the bogeyman of creationism." As Hooper writes, the peppered moths provided "a damned good story, a narrative so satisfying, so seductive, that no one can bear to let it go. But a story alone is no substitute for truth." Hooper's lively history also traces the extinction of old-school natural history, embodied by Kettlewell, who was very much left behind with the synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics, and who died a suicide.
Hooper offers an engaging account of H.B.D. Kettlewell's famous field experiments on the peppered moth, which were widely known as "Darwin's missing evidence," proof of natural selection in action until 1998, that is, when biologist Michael Majerus showed Kettlewell's findings to be falsified and wrong. Hooper peers into the lives of Kettlewell and his mentor and eventual adversary, the imperious and brilliant E.B. Ford, revealing the human factors that don't get written into the research papers "recriminations, intrigue, jealousy, back-stabbing and shattered dreams."
Ford, a Darwinian zealot hell-bent on proving natural selection, serves as a foil for the broader questions raised here about dogmatism in science. Natural selection had the dubious distinction of being as widely accepted as it was short on evidence, and the moth experiments were greeted as a pivotal victory; indeed, despite evidence to the contrary, many scientists today still embrace Kettlewell's findings, in part because denying them opens the door to "the bogeyman of creationism." As Hooper writes, the peppered moths provided "a damned good story, a narrative so satisfying, so seductive, that no one can bear to let it go. But a story alone is no substitute for truth." Hooper's lively history also traces the extinction of old-school natural history, embodied by Kettlewell, who was very much left behind with the synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics, and who died a suicide.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Hard Times
Annals of the September 5 meeting.
Was it just me or was our waitress not cut out for the profession? No eye contact, no contact at all. Maybe she hoped we'd get really hungry and order lots of food. Which we did, so I guess that was a good strategy.
First the news for those who missed the meeting. Doug's foundation is poured and didn't flood during the rain. Everyone is invited to drive by and see the geothermal system being installed, although there's not much to see right now. Dave's cottage in Todos Santos is still standing after the storm. Actually the storm just brushed Cabo san Lucas and didn't come farther north. Dan's cabin passed inspection!! And better yet, the lake still has water 'cause it's spring-fed, whereas all the seep-fed lakes are turning into marshes all over the north because all the rain hit the south and totally missed the north. The only consolation is there aren't any mosquitos up north.
The Worst Hard Time was a big hit although none of us can figure out how anyone lived through the experience. Just tougher in those days, I guess. Doug grew up in OK and remembers a duster in the '50s on grandpa's farm. Just back from a reunion of sorts in Stillwater, he was amazed to find the main hall named Murry Hall after the racist governor of Hard Time times and his dorm Bennet, after the populist agronomist. He was in school only 30 years after the dust bowl events and had no idea at the time who those people were.
Next Book Next Meeting
What say you all to Wednesday, Oct. 3?
I will post a list of suggested books soon.
Was it just me or was our waitress not cut out for the profession? No eye contact, no contact at all. Maybe she hoped we'd get really hungry and order lots of food. Which we did, so I guess that was a good strategy.
First the news for those who missed the meeting. Doug's foundation is poured and didn't flood during the rain. Everyone is invited to drive by and see the geothermal system being installed, although there's not much to see right now. Dave's cottage in Todos Santos is still standing after the storm. Actually the storm just brushed Cabo san Lucas and didn't come farther north. Dan's cabin passed inspection!! And better yet, the lake still has water 'cause it's spring-fed, whereas all the seep-fed lakes are turning into marshes all over the north because all the rain hit the south and totally missed the north. The only consolation is there aren't any mosquitos up north.
The Worst Hard Time was a big hit although none of us can figure out how anyone lived through the experience. Just tougher in those days, I guess. Doug grew up in OK and remembers a duster in the '50s on grandpa's farm. Just back from a reunion of sorts in Stillwater, he was amazed to find the main hall named Murry Hall after the racist governor of Hard Time times and his dorm Bennet, after the populist agronomist. He was in school only 30 years after the dust bowl events and had no idea at the time who those people were.
Next Book Next Meeting
What say you all to Wednesday, Oct. 3?
I will post a list of suggested books soon.
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