A Wednesday : butterflies, insults, witch hunts, adenosine triphosphate.
Things we learned, discussed, read, did, and argued about
Migration patterns of butterflies
Monarch butterflies migrate up to 2500 miles every year. The U.S. and Canada for breeding, then a road trip to central Mexico for hibernation. Two thousand, five hundred miles. Every year. Sometimes I feel like they could be a good spirit animal representative for our family. We like to be in motion.
I happened to be reading a short piece for our breakfast worship conversation about them, and our 11-year old confidently provided additional information that I wasn’t aware of, nor did the text provide. He had just finished learning about them in a class earlier this week, and it is at moments like these that I am filled with wonder and gratitude for ways in which batons are passed and students become teachers and learning begats learning and…the joy of being surrounded by those who are excited and curious at the wonder all around.
So, butterflies. I know more about the migration habits of butterflies now.
Year of the ____
It eludes the current state of my memory to recall how we came to be talking about Chinese zodiac animals, but somehow we did, and somehow, led by our 11-year old son, we broke down the characteristics for each of the 12 animals and white boarded a column with each family member by year, animal, and associated character traits. Fascinating, and a good lead-in to later discussions of causality and connection - in other words, the role of coincidence in life, and how quick many can leap to say “ah-ha, look that connection, that’s gotta mean something!” Sometimes something means something. And sometimes it doesn’t.
I am Year of the Dragon, which means I am, according to our son and a website, “…bright, self-assured, romantic, arrogant, impatient.”
On second thought, wow. Spot on. :)
Insults of the Presidents
We took a quick skim of Harry S Truman’s Presidency and the types of insults people slung around back then, and went on to compare and contrast with 70 years later. No contest. Like profanity, a good insult should be used sparingly, used well, used relevantly, and used creatively.
President 45 is long known for his disparaging, aggressive ad hominem attacks on anyone questioning him or not offering their full loyalty and support, but what often gets lost is not the fact that he caffeinates his fragile ego with put downs of others, but that he does so so poorly and in such a boring, telegraphed, uncreative manner. I strongly suspect he doesn’t keep any volumes of Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde by his bedside; two maestros of the memorable insult.
Fallacious thinking: misinterpreted anomaly hunting / witch hunts & Monty Python clips
We discussed the towering giant of faulty thinking processes; the area where disparate errant and willfully ignorant thought processes hit their stride, converge, and snowball into a towering intellectual monument to humanity’s ability to put the brakes on reason, logic, and functional thinking. This giant, of course, is known to us as conspiracy theory thinking.
We spoke of how easy it is to go down this path, and how for me personally it’s a very attractive one I could easily salivate over. I’m pretty good at looking for patterns, recognizing commonalities and (see above) anomalies that stand out in different situations. I understand the allure of treating outliers, accidents, and coincidence as pieces of vast conspiracies that are blinding everyone else, and therefore I am the only one truly, really seeing what is happening…because I’m the one who’s put together all these pieces.
Dr. Steven Novella provides an effective and short case study about anomaly hunting in a section of the book The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. He uses the Sandy Hook shooting from 2012, and examines the ways in which a still-kicking around conspiracy has been built up, much of it in the name of “…I’m just asking questions.” I like how he points out that “…good journalists don’t have to investigate every absurd theory that someone cooks up. Plausibility counts.” (p. 217).
We then segued into a short history of the Salem Witch hunts and trials and examined the ways in which the phrase “witch trial” has been co-opted and casually thrown around in recent years by anyone upset about an (often legitimate) investigation. Novella lists six criteria for what an actual witch hunt is:
The Six Parts of a Witch Hunt
(I’ve paraphrased from Novella, pp. 221-22; he pulls from the 1487 guide Malleus Maleficarum)
Basically, if you’re accused, then you’re guilty
Coincidence counts and normal rules of evidence and evidence-gathering are set aside
Spectral evidence is fine - this refers to dreams, visions, or simply something in the mind of a “witness” that has no possibility of external validation
Torture or other methods of coercion in investigating are fine
Encourage “witnesses” or others to make accusations public, and give points for giving others up
The accusations themselves become the weapon, and a way to target marginalized groups or individuals
Selected books, ages 2 & 5
The Other Side of Town by Jon Agee (2012)
Biology
ATP is involved in energy production, right? she asked.
You mean,
I said, my brain whirring - and let me be frank - I am about to puff my chest a little,
-adenosine triphosphate?
Umm, yeah, she said, shaking her head in place of an eye roll. Can you help me with this Biology paper?
Yeah. I said. And I tried to. I tried to help. But honestly, the high point of anything Biology-related today was me digging deep and fast into the crevasses of my memory and remembering what ATP was. From that point forward, I was no help.
She eventually figured things out. There were a number of questions she needed to answer and diagrams she needed to fill out about Krebs cycles and differing roles of oxygen and carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, and stuff about mesophyll and reactants and chloroplasts,
and this is how much help I was: zero. Actually, my help might be conveyed as a negative number, as I actually spent time with her trying to collaboratively work through it. In other words, not only not helping, but actually slowing down her process and therefore actively not helping. The end result was like a lot of group projects: one person ended up doing the actual work and figuring things out. And it wasn’t me.
With every passing day, she is increasingly aware of my intellectual mortality and the Achilles’ heels of my knowledge and ability to quickly synthesize certain disciplines more effectively than others.
Working with her today - or rather, floundering and realizing I was actually slowing her down - was a good reminder to me of how grateful I am for people who are really, really good at explaining concepts and ideas in their scope of knowledge. Thank you, good Biology teachers everywhere.