Here are some of the best things I've ever read:
Forget the food pyramid, just go suck an icicle.
And don't worry about 9/11, Lee Harvey Oswald or Jimmy Hoffa. There are bigger conspiracies keeping us from bigger truths: The truth about "protons".
(Spoiler: If you google that author's name, you can find bulletin boards featuring the quote "Protons are really just balls of electrons".)
If someone tried to Facebook friend them with the routing number to a Nigerian bank account, they'd know it was bull, but if it's just for something dumb like homework, well, I mean, who would lie about something so dumb and boring? If it's on the 'net, and it's about chemistry, it's got to be true, or why would it be there?
So let's share the best crap out there in our field.
Whisky Tango Foxtrot?
ReplyDeleteThe links remind me of a lecture I went to once at a technical college. The invited guest told us about the difference between "living material," which is becoming less common in the universe as we head toward entropy, and "dead material," which is becoming more common. Somehow, at a level I didn't understand, there is apparently a difference between an oxygen atom that is part of, say, a squirrel, and one that is just in a raindrop.
ReplyDeleteWe social science and humanities folks get all kinds of fun stuff too, of course: ancient astronauts, Atlantis, pyramid power, ghosts, Holocaust "revisionism," a Bronze Age Palestinian zombie, crop circles, the "discovery" of Noah's Ark, and the Bermuda Triangle. I haven't seen that whole list in class discussions and term papers in my classes, but most of it. And then there is creationism, which even creeps into our fields as well, not just biology and astronomy.
This was probably an issue 20 years ago too. I recall seeing "documentaries" about some of those issues back in the day. But with the internet, it is easier than ever to get into a niche "knowledge" group bubble and obsess over something, producing text that students doing research will stumble upon and use. It used to be that if the college library didn't have a subscription to UFOlogist, then students would know about it only if their crazy uncle happened to have a few issues in his bathroom reading rack.
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ReplyDelete'Bat old friend, I think they're starting to get to you. This post doesn't make much sense.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, today in my Intro-Astronomy-for-non-majors class I will show the first two minutes of the film, "A Private Universe," in which they ask 23 just-graduated-students, alumni, and faculty at a Harvard commencement the causes of the seasons and the monthly phases of the Moon. Nearly all of them get it wrong, and proclaim it in the supremely confident tone that goes with just having graduated from a selective university. I also plan to foster a discussion with this:
The video A Private Universe, at the Harvard commencement, shows that we carry a strong internal model of how the world works—and if it’s wrong, it can be difficult to correct it.
“It’s not ignorance does so much damage; it’s knowing so darned much that ain’t so.” – Josh Billings (often misattributed to Mark Twain or Will Rogers)
Here are some common misconceptions in astronomy:
– It is a myth that Earth has seasons because it’s closer to the Sun during summer.
– It is a myth that the Moon’s phases are caused by Earth’s shadow.
– It is a myth that accidents and crime are worse during Full Moon—even though many smart, reliable people such as doctors, nurses, and police officers believe this.
– It is a myth that astrology makes predictions that are more reliable than random chance. In fact, in any fair, objective test, astrology just plain does not work.
– There is no validity to prophecies of Nostradamus, or the prediction (that the Mayans didn’t make) that the world will end on December 21 or 22, 2012. I am willing to bet everything I own on this: I will be partying and laughing on December 23.
– It is a myth that Mars will ever look “as big as the Moon.” This is an Internet hoax: the unaided eye can see the planets (except for Uranus and Neptune), but they look like bright stars, unless one uses a telescope.
– It is a myth that a planetarium is the same as an observatory. A planetarium is a special theater that shows what the sky looks like. An observatory is a housing for a telescope.
– It is a myth that astronauts on the Moon could see the Great Wall of China. (They couldn’t.) It is also a myth that the Great Wall of China is the most visible human-made object from orbit. (Farms and city lights are.)
– It is a myth that objects float weightless in spacecraft because “there is no gravity” in space. If this were true, the spacecraft wouldn’t orbit Earth in the first place.
– It is a myth that any high-energy physics experiment could create a black hole that could swallow Earth. If one could, natural high-energy cosmic rays would have done this long ago.
– It is a myth that there is any reliable, physical evidence that alien life is visiting Earth, or that there were ever “ancient astronauts,” or that any human was ever abducted by a flying saucer, or that the so-called “lost” continents of Atlantis or Lemuria ever existed, or that crop circles are extraterrestrial activity. (Don’t get me wrong: life in space may exist, but I don't think we've found it, yet.)
– It is highly implausible the U.S. (or any other) government or military has a crashed flying saucer that it’s hiding from the public.
I know, this always starts a veritable shitstorm of protest. Good.
It never fails to amaze me how many well-educated people fall for so many of these.
"– It is a myth that Earth has seasons because it’s closer to the Sun during summer.
ReplyDelete– It is a myth that the Moon’s phases are caused by Earth’s shadow."
I knew the first one, but I'm ashamed to say that I was confused about the second one.
At least I can use the excuse that I'm still a student. :B
I knew it had to do with SOMETHING'S shadow, or at least, light not falling on something. Partial credit plz? GIMME GIMME GIME
Well for the popular ones, there's always "The toilet flushes the other way in the southern hemisphere." But I think "Protons are balls of electrons" and "snow melt has a structure more like blood" take it to a whole new level.
ReplyDeleteI read in a handbook they give elementary school teachers that "Butter melts at a lower temperature than salt because butter is a covalent compound." Ben, what's the formula for butter? I can't find it in the CRC.
I had a student one year insist on citing a blog that said that the biology in X-Men was bunk because they got their powers from the X gene which supposedly was passed down from the father, BUT . . . everyone knows you get the X from your mother and the Y from your father.
ReplyDeleteNo amount of prodding, begging, or F-grading on my part made him go look up how genes and chromosomes work in ACTUAL biology.
While discussing terraforming in a planetary geology class a very aggitated student announced "you can't go to Mars. The Bible says the rapture will only happen on Earth and if you are on Mars you wont be saved!"
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side... I've only had one of those, but unfortunately many liberal students absolutely refuse to engage texts on Native American landuse because it contradicts "that everyone knows" Native Americans lived in harmony with nature.
I also had a student cite a website that ernestly began with "everyone should know about the Holocaust. Even those people not from this planet." You would not believe the trouble I had with this student because they maintained that this was of course, a true statement.
@Schmitty: Oh, go look it up. It's because of the Sun angle, so you could say that the Moon's shadow is involved. Earth's shadow has nothing to do with it, that's a lunar eclipse.
ReplyDelete@Snarky: Be sure to tell him explicitly to look up how actual biology works. Give him one more of the best references, to get him started. Chances are quite good that none of this will occur to him: you'll have to get him started. But then, as Plutarch observed, "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted." Good luck!
@Natalie: Ask Student 1 for the chapter and verse that says that.
@Wombat: Imagine my surprise and disappointment when, on my first observing run in Australia, I tested that little chestnut, and found that it isn't always true! Although in principle it should work, and does for cyclones, few toilets are constructed carefully enough to show it.
Frod: Well, yes, pointing out that the rapture is an idea with its roots in 19th century england not 1st century Palestine was really what I wanted to do. Unfortunately my mind was filled with images of Jesus driving an interplanetary bus that would only be making one stop in the solar system.
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ReplyDeleteHere in California, we get lenticular clouds (oh, go look it up). They form over the mountains. One day, as I'm riding my bicycle into work, I see one. I get into the office, and the phone is ringing off the hook. It's some lady who's screaming that there's a flying saucer over the mountains. I take a look out the window, and ask her if it's still there. She screams, "IT FOLLOWED ME!!!"
ReplyDeleteI always try to let these people down gently. People can get very angry when you suggest that what they saw was the planet Venus. I've goten hundreds of UFO reports over the years, and over 90% of them were from people who were quite sane and sincerely believed they saw something extraordinary. Furthermore, nearly all the time, they did. I have yet, however, to make a definite identification of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. If I could, it wouldn't be UFO anymore: UFO means unidentified flying object, and this would be definitely identified as an alien spacecraft, which of course many people assume, and only assume.
Yes, people do observe many wonderful phenomena in the sky. But why is it not enough just to observe that the garden is beautiful, without having to claim there are fairies in it?
(Winged fairies, not the other kind, against whom I have nothing.)
@New England Natalie: Didn't C. S. Lewis think of that, in "Out of the Silent Planet"?
ReplyDeleteFrod is God.
ReplyDeleteIf it is any comfort, I am a humanities person, the type one might expect to be vulnerable to much of this, but I don't think there is a single thing on the list I have believed since, maybe, junior high, and that was more the UFO stuff, not basic local astronomy.
The only exception is possibly the black hole one. The press I saw didn't give much good information and I didn't know what to think.
I have never heard of the "Mars appearing as big as the moon" one. I am trying to imagine what kind of a model of the solar system someone would have to have in their head to believe this. Nothing like Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe would predict this happening.
By the way, I have heard that under ideal conditions Uranus can sometimes be seen with the naked eye. I know we hate it when students do this, but according to Wikipedia, Uranus can have a magnitude of 5.32 to 5.95, which is within the visible range, isn't it?
as a historian there are too many to count. It doesn't help that a certain cable "news" channel hosts a psychotic who claims to teach history which promoting the most bizarre conspiracy theories.
ReplyDeleteBut the one I keep running across lately is "Black Confederates." No, large numbers of black men did NOT fight for the Confederacy. A few light-skinned men of mixed race who were already free "passed" and fought for the CSA, but the idea that black slaves fought in gray is a recent invention of neo-confederates.
I teach human evolution. Frankly, I don’t have any clue where to start on this one. Here is a good place: Men and women have exactly the same number of ribs, even though the good book says that God removed one of Adam’s to make Eve. I got this in class once. The student followed up with "are you absolutely sure, Dr. Glabella?"
ReplyDeleteA cool education study just came out on “digital natives,” testing their ability to critically evaluate internet stories and information with an article on the elusive “Pacific Northwest tree octopus” (oh yes, I shit you not). As the lead researcher points out, “they may tell you they don’t believe everything they read on the Internet, but they do.”
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/education/2011/02/tree-octopus-exposes-internet-illiteracy/
Some of your best work, Frod! Rock on!
ReplyDelete@AdjunctSlave: Thanks, but according to London graffiti, that's Eric Clapton. When I play guitar in front of an audience of screaming fans, they're screaming for a reason.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that a person with good eyesight can see Uranus, in a dark sky under optimal conditions, but only just barely. I can't anymore, even with my eyeglasses.
The digital natives never seem to get any more sophisticated about the sources of their information.
ReplyDeleteThree years ago, students in a colleague's class did a little Wikipedia experiment that is still producing fun results. They went to an existing entry about the invention of a somewhat obscure beauty product and inserted the name of one of the students into the entry, claiming him to be the inventor.
Now when I want to illustrate to my students why Wikipedia, Infoplease, Ask.com and such are not reliable sources of information (because they will argue all day long that these sites are reliable), I just flip through all those sites, showing them the bogus information about the invention of this product, which is still in the original entry, and is now all over the 'net, on sites that they are accustomed to believe are "reliable." Very effective little demo.
I love the crashed saucer stories; more and more UFO groups in other countries are claiming that their governments have one*. At first the US was the only one to be secretly holding one; then the USSR (claims were made after 1991 of crashes in the 1970s), then China (they have two or three wrecks in a hidden underground base since the 1980s.) I've heard claims that a UFO crashed in northern Mexico, was picked up by the Mexican Army, then those troops were later found dead after transporting the object on a truck. The US was then allowed to take the object using special equipment (guys in hazmat suits and a special trailer.) So we've had fifty years of these stories, and the only person willing to be named (Bob Lazar) as working on these craft in the US turned out to be a fraud.
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* We've had more than one claim of a crashed UFO: besides the Roswell, New Mexico story three craft were supposed to have crashed at Aztec, New Mexico in the late 1940s; one in Pennsylvania in the 1960s (that one had more than one witness.) The Aztec story is pretty dubious, Roswell has been officially denied, and the PA. case may or may not be a crashed satellite.
I'm actually a little well known in my terribly dull subfield, and 2 years ago several of my students added a ton of false info in my Wikipedia entry.
ReplyDeleteAbout half of it was cleansed, but to this day there are details about my childhood, a book I never wrote, a fellowship to a foreign country, and a controversial appearance on a nationwide radio show that were all simply jokes.
I have been asked about these details by people who don't know me very well, and they never believe that I didn't actually add them myself.
@Frodrick: Oh, believe me, I TRIED. I said, "Library." I said, "Biology textbook." I said, "here's how you find a biology textbook in the library." He stared at me blankly and turned in the final draft without a single change to that section of the paper.
ReplyDeleteMyths of my discipline:
ReplyDeleteFaulkner/Twain/canonical dude wrote racist/sexist/anti-gay books and therefore we shouldn't read them.
Never start a sentence in a formal academic paper with "I."
Cliff Notes are a great substitute for reading the book.
In his research paper, a student once who kept claiming that the lawyers who prosecuted criminals (aka district attorneys...though he never used the term) were the same people who defended accused criminals (he meant public defenders, not private attorneys). I kept trying to get him to research how the court system worked (you know, do actual research for his research paper) but he refused because He'd "seen it [himself]!" (I presume he meant in court).
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a case of a "digital naive," but just an example that our students are very gullible, often refuse to use the tools we provide for them to learn how things work (libraries, textbooks, the wisdom of the ages, the benefit of our experience, etc.), and often doubt our willingness to teach them (or at least help them teach themselves).
Also, I have tried very hard to figure out how this student could think a DA and PD were the same. My only hypothesis: he had been in civil court (ergo, no "crime" was committed per se) and witnessed a lawyer "switching sides" to serve first a plaintiff and then a defendant (or some such). His refusal to provide proof that he understood the legal system led to a mediocre grade. There is no freakin' way Big City had a combo DA/PD office; I checked. Hos confident insistence made me feel nuts. Am I?
You're not nuts, but who knows where he got his "information." A college student once excitedly told me he'd been summoned for jury duty and wanted to know if he'd get to see all the lawyers "in their robes and wigs."
ReplyDeleteHey, I loved "Witness for the Prosecution," too, kiddo, but we're a little less formal here in California, even in court.
Not something a student WROTE, but a very-clearly and unabashedly female mother/student told me she missed the midterm bc of prostate problems. I just smiled & then assigned a reading the next week about prostate health. She stayed after class to say: "Prof Ack, you SURE only men have a protrate [sic] bc I coulda sworn that's what my doctor said was wrong with me."
ReplyDeleteBeing told to rewrite your story is not censorship.
ReplyDelete@szoszolo
ReplyDeleteSomebody thinks we're a British Commonwealth country....or he watched "A Few Good Men" and totally forgot that was a military courtmartial.