From our Department of False Balance
[Via CEJournal]
My friend Hillary Rosner sent me this curiosity. Make sure to scan the entire cover.
Just in case anyone is wondering, I only read the articles…
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So is Discover magazine going to feature half-naked women? This is one mixed up world.
by BlatantNews.com
UPDATE: Texas revisionist McLeroy on ABC
[Via Bad Astronomy]
[This is an update to my previous post, Texas conservatives screw history, so you should read that first to get your blood to a rapid boil before reading this.]
The Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy — creationist, antireality promoter, and stander-upper to experts — was interviewed on ABC TV’s Nightline program. Give this a listen, just in case you were thinking of cutting him a break… for whatever reasons I cannot fathom.
Yes, how magnanimous of the rich white men to allow women the vote, or to give the blacks equal rights!
[If the video doesn't load for you, go to the Nightline web page and click on Thursday's listing of Texas Textbook controversy, which should be up for a few more days.]
I have been active on Twitter today mocking the new textbook standards, and a handful of people have taken me to task thinking I was mocking all Texans. That’s ridiculous; I am clearly ridiculing the ten people on the Board who rammed this revisionist nonsense through… though you may feel free to expand that to the people who support them.
And to the commenters on my original post and elsewhere defending McCarthy because there were in fact communists in America: shame on you. Seriously, shame on you. What McCarthy did — and yes, it was a witch hunt — was directly opposed to all the ideals of this nation: free speech, liberty, presumed innocence until proven guilty, and many more. He was only able to ferret out a handful of so-called communists, but even if he had been 100% successful in his efforts what he did was an abomination for anyone in this country, let alone a seated Senator in the United States Congress. He engendered fear and suspicion, a paranoia and chilling climate from which it took years to recover. He betrayed precisely what he claimed to be trying to protect, and will stand as an object lesson for future generations on what happens when our system fails so utterly.
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I spent almost my entire childhood in Texas. In High School, we had a debate one time on the proposition that McCarthy was a demagogue. I was the leader of the negative.
It was a fun exercise because I actually believed in the affirmative – that he was a demagogue – so I had to come up with some way to make a substantial argument. Actually, it was quite easy once I thought about it. I was introduced to the techniques lawyers/debaters continually use to try and win when the facts are not on their side.
I argued definitions. I defined what a demagogue was – someone using lies and misrepresentations to the people in order to gain political power – and then stated that if he thought he was telling the truth, well, he could not be a demagogue.
Since the affirmative side had not really prepared, believing they had an easy question, my side won handily. They could not prove that McCarthy knew he was lying and thus he, by my definition, could not be a demagogue.
It was a real eye-opening experience for me – to realize that by using all sorts of tricks you could get people to believe what was not true.
So Texas schools were once able to educate its students. I expect teachers will find a way around these attempts to distort facts.
What I am really ticked about is what the members of the BOE are doing. Not using facts but lawyerly tricks. McCarthy was right simply because there were a few communist spies in the US? Using a nonsense correlation does not justify McCarthy’s wholesale demagoguery of hundreds of people.
I’ve always focused on one pair out of these hundred, because they were two scientists who were tremendously important in the Manhattan Project but were essentially left without meaningful employment because of McCarthy and the anti-Communists.
Robert Oppenheimer andhis brother, Frank, are perfect examples of how the Communist witch hunt required the public humiliation of those they deemed anti-American, even incredible scientific talents. Probably the most famous physicist to come out of the Manhattan Project lost his security clearance, preventing him from working on the topics he had spent years researching. It was a very strong demonstration of what would happen to a scientist who entered the political realm. And the lesson of his brother was that one of the more important figures of the 20th Century, just years after being involved in cutting edge work on the atomic bomb, could have his life altered so that he only find a job teaching in High School. Without any proof of any wrongdoing. Because of McCarthy and his ilk.
McCarthy is a symbol of how America goes off-track sometimes, willing to forgo its basic principles – innocent until proven guilty, freedom of speech, etc. Since it seems that we are in the throes of another such period – warrantless wire-tapping, torture, etc. – it is not surprising that the same people who justify our current abuses want to justify McCarthy’s.
[Crossposted at SpreadingScience]
VIDEO: Great Demo on Leadership and Tipping Points
[Via Global Guerrillas]
Make sure you turn on the audio for the commentary.
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Here we can see the S-shaped curve of change adoption happen in real time.
The X-axis is time and the yellow curve is the cumulative number of people adopting the change. The crowd dynamics almost exactly hit this curve. Assume a total crowd at the end of about 50 people.
We start with an innovator standing alone. Then another one joins and the two dance alone for almost 30 seconds. They are then followed by a third, for about 20 seconds.
The tipping point on the curve, the point of maximal adoption of change, occurs at 15-20%. So for a group of 50, we would expect to see a very rapid rate of adoption occurring when 7-10 people become involved.
And that is exactly what is seen. within 10 seconds after the 7th person has joined, the group more than triples in size, rapidly reaching its peak numbers.
It takes over a minute for the group to grow from 1 to 3. Within another 30 seconds, there are too many to count without freezing the video.
Exactly the same dynamics takes place when any sort of novel change hits a community; often not started by a half-naked dancer but by someone trying out something different.
And, just as the narrator explained about how important the second and third followers are, so to is it with other types of change. It is these early adopters who mediate change for the whole community, transforming a lone nut into a leader.
Without the second and third joiners, the whole movement would not have materialized. we often spend too much time on the leaders, the innovators, and not enough on those that create the tipping points – the mediators between the disruptive antics of the lone ‘nuts’ and the actions of the majority.
by exfordy
QUOTES: Speeding up a Dog’s Brain
[Via Global Guerrillas]
Mr. Abdulmutallab (the xmas flight bomber) was identified, contacted, recruited, and trained all within six weeks, according to…. Garry Reid, deputy assistant secretary of Defense.
This is an example of super-empowerment as applied to traditional blood and guts terrorism.
Connecting this type of speed to traditional terrorism is akin to “speeding up a dog’s brain.” No matter how much faster you make a dog’s brain, it’s still just a dog’s brain. It makes the same decisions, only faster. Additional speed doesn’t make it any smarter.
However, if you upgrade the method of warfare these recruits use to 21st Century standards, everything changes.
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Thank goodness for that. But, as Robb suggests, it an entirely different matter if the dog gets smarter. One way to add resilience to our system is to decentralize it. Industrial Age approaches leveraged so much of their potency by centralizing processes. BUt this makes them vulnerable to single point attacks.
This makes terrorism much easier as a small investment can have a large payoff.
Decentralizing power needs or transportation requirements in 21st Century approaches may not only have advantages when it comes to such things as climate change. They could also hamper the spread of terrorism.
I spent most of this morning updating my blogroll on the right side. It was interesting to see where I have added a lot of new blogs – mainly in the science and work groups. My work with the Sustainable Path Foundation has also resulted in some new blogs being added.
Anyway, I sure do check out a lot of blogs. Most in the science get checked out once a day, while most in the Sustainable Path and Work groups get checked a couple of times a week. A few others get looked at daily when I have free time and almost all get scanned at least once a week.
Now to get some work done.
SpreadingScience
Sustainable Path Foundation Idea Club
