Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

I’ve had this post sitting around for a while as a draft and finally have a few minutes to develop it into a full post.  So, here goes…

Periodically you hear about how scientifically illiterate Americans are.  A recent Harris Poll found the following:

• Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
• Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
• Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water.
• Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly. (correct answers at the bottom)

So, we have scientific literacy problems in the US.  This was confirmed as I was flying into Hartford, CT over my winter break.  As we began our descent to land in Hartford, a kid across the aisle from me, probably 10 years old, began to whine about how his ears were not popping.  Now, the kid was whining the whole flight to begin with (and there may have been an organic problem with the kid, not just poor behavior; he was a bit dysmorphic), but what happened next shocked me.

The parents, rather than give the kid some gum or have him yawn or swallow something (all known to help ears pop) pushed the button for help from the flight attendants.  The flight attendant, a young woman, showed up and asked what the problem was.  The parents requested some cups to put over the kids ears.  I almost said, “Are you retarded?  How is that going to help?” but I held back and just watched.

The flight attendant returned with two styrofoam cups and proceeded to explain to the parents that she had put damp tissues in the cups to help his ears pop.  Apparently the damp tissues would help balance the pressure in his ears through some magical means of water evaporation in an enclosed space (a.k.a. “I’m totally making this shit up as I go.”).  The kid was whining quite loudly at this point, but put the cups over his ears.  He did quiet down a bit, probably due to the placebo effect (someone was doing something for him, so it must help in some way!).  His ears didn’t clear right away, but they did before we landed.  Even so, the kid kept complaining.  After we landed, they took the cups off and thanked the flight attendant on the way out.

I’m pretty sure what I watched was a very unfortunate incident of confirmation bias.  There were very high odds that the kid’s ears would pop if he did nothing, just because ears will do that.  But because the parents did “something” (despite that something being utterly retarded and useless), that “something” (styrofoam cups filled with damp tissues over the ears), they will now believe that this is a solution to pop ears.  I’m still shaking my head as I write this.

So, here’s the question: Should I have said something to the parents and the flight attendant?  Or was I right to let them continue in their bias confirming ignorance?

*correct answers:

• 365 days; ergo, the length of a year (technically 365.25 days)
• yeah, um, no humans when there were dinosaurs (unless you include extent bird species, which is a bit misleading)
• correct answer is 70%, but the researchers would accept anything between 65% and 75%

I haven’t posted news articles in a while, but these two struck me as noteworthy.

First, turns out the regulations of European countries during good economic times seem to have sheltered them from the current economic storm.  Huh… I’m sure the greedy capitalist assholes who got us into this mess aren’t very happy about this fact and would probably prefer not to have it known that Europe is actually doing okay right now.  Maybe more socialistic economies do work better than more capitalistic economies…

Second, just because you haven’t heard many major stories about it recently, it doesn’t mean the Catholic sex abuse scandal has gone away.  Largely responsible for the huge decline in Catholic affiliations in New England over the last 20 years, the abuse of parishioners by priests is continuing and the magnitude of the abuse is becoming more apparent.  Just take a look at the information on this site. Be religious.  Nothing wrong with that.  But being religious should never, ever provide cover for sexual abuse.

Karl Marx called the primary purpose of human existence “species-being.”  What he meant by that is that humans only realize their purpose in life by feeling attached to the products they produce.  Of course, Marx was writing in light of capitalism and argued that capitalism alienates workers from their products (particularly proletarians).  Regardless of your view towards Marx, I think he was right to raise the issue of what it really means to be human and what will actualize us as individuals, a society, and a species – i.e., a species-goal.

As I was teaching The Manifesto of the Communist Party in my sociological theory class, it struck me that we as a society and as a species don’t have any real goals.  I know there are some groups who do (e.g., Mormons want to convert everyone to Mormonism and make it to their version of heaven).  But let’s assume for the moment that Jesus is not going to return and that the world is not going to end in some cataclysmic apocalypse.  Let’s also assume that there is no “heaven” or “hell” or divinity or anything supernatural, just the natural world.  This means that, barring a nuclear or environmental catastrophe, humans are simply going to continue to exist for the foreseeable future.

In light of that assumption, do we, as a species, have any collective, long-term goals?  And what about as a society?  Do Americans have any long-term goals? With a new, charismatic president in power, are Americans inspired to accomplish anything greater than ourselves?  Or are we simply trying to recover from the economic collapse (a.k.a. Bush’s Legacy)?

I’m sure many individuals have long-term goals, like, say, financial security or to finish graduate school or to have a child.  But those goals seem somewhat artificial in light of the fact that we are social beings, a social species, and a collectivity, even though we don’t usually act like one.  So, I have to wonder: Who is setting the agenda for humanity?  Is anyone?  Or are we simply stumbling forward, blindly, putting out fires (both literally and metaphorically) and reacting to nature as it acts upon us?  Are we actively trying to accomplish something?

To date, the only person I know to have suggested a species-goal is Stephen Hawking, who suggested that we find a way to leave planet earth (not all of us, but at least some settlers) and find a way to colonize another planet to ensure the survival of our species (pending the inevitable destruction of our planet via the expansion of our sun as it runs out of hydrogen or the impact of a large asteroid).  Assuming the naturalistic worldview I laid out above, what would you suggest as a species-goal and why?  The eradication of poverty?  Gender equality?  Human immortality through medical advances?  Off-world colonization?

Debi just returned to Florida from a weekend visit to Utah for a baby shower.  She very much enjoyed the trip and the shower and loved seeing everyone.

Lucky her, she returned when I was about half way through redoing our spare bathroom.  We redid our master bathroom over our winter break.  The spare bathroom has been on our to-do list ever since we bought the house.  The previous owner did about the most superficial cosmetic make-over ever.  She removed the old medicine cabinet, but couldn’t find one to fit the hole that was left as a result, so she put a mirror in the hole and left it that way.  She also painted over a spot that had water damage from a leaky roof (which is probably what led to the roof being replaced a few years ago).  So, a large chunk of one wall had paint that had bubbled up from the water damage.  Saturday, I tore the crappy mirror out, reframed the hole in the wall to fit a modern medicine cabinet, and scraped off all the crappy paint.  I then patched everything up on Monday and put a first coat of paint on Tuesday.  We painted for a couple of hours last night after she got back (“Welcome home. Now paint!”)  She’s finishing most of the painting today.  Hopefully this evening I can put the bathroom back together.  Once that’s done, all that will be left is some caulking and touch up work.  Hooray – we’ll have fixed that bathroom.  Only four more rooms to go… :(   (We’re only going to do one more before the baby comes; too much other stuff going on.)

On a completely unrelated note, while doing a Google vanity search (i.e., I was searching for me) after reading this Slashdot story I came across a book being published with my name on it. As an academic sociologist, publishing a book is important for tenure and promotion criteria, but I actually didn’t publish THIS book. Here’s what I can gather… I am the primary author of a Wikibook and it looks like some unknown publisher – Seven Treasures Publications – has taken my work (and the work of a number of other people who have contributed to the book), put it in print, and is now making money off of it. I was never contacted about this, but the book is being marketed as though I am the primary author. I guess, in a sense, I am, but I never gave permission for anyone to sell it on Amazon.com or publish it in print. Now I’m not sure what I should do.  I’m not sure if this is legal given the GNU Free Documentation License of Wikibooks.  But I’m also concerned that someone is making money off my reputation as a scholar.  Thoughts?

I received an email from Michael Paulson, a religion reporter for The Boston Globe, yesterday asking me if I had time to talk about a new study coming out today.  The study is the latest wave of the American Religious Identification Survey.  Having worked with the principal investigators – Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar – on the original design of the survey and some of the analysis once the data was collected, I can say that I’m quite familiar with the survey.  So, I agreed to chat with him last night.  He called and we talked for about 20 minutes.  He mainly wanted to know whether I thought the survey was accurate and well-done (it is) and what I thought was most interesting about it.  I mentioned the significant losses of Catholics to non-religion in New England as the most interesting finding.  He was very nice and quite knowledgeable.

Anyway, I ended up in The Boston Globe today.  I’ve been interviewed by three reporters in the last week – one an independent journalist and one for my school’s newspaper (on unrelated topics).  But The Boston Globe!!  That’s pretty cool!

For additional coverage, see USA Today’s site.  The videos are pretty groovy too.