Poetry Thursday

Here is a poetry site with a great idea-Poetry Thursday. You share a poem on your site and send them a link as a comment. A bit like a carnival. So I sent them a link for In the Fennel. You don't have to send in original poetry but can send in a poem that moves you. Just read their guidelines for using copyrighted material first.

This week's poetry Thursday link.

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In the Fennel (For Kit)

Sitting among the fennel
i wish i had you here to hold
but unstead i watch the umbels unfold
each tiny flower at the end of the spokes
fingering the yellow air
like light from the cone of myself
touching your hair
from afar.

Copyright 2006 © Paul Decelles

Comment: the light cone reference is from A Brief History of Time.

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Water Lily Blossom

Couldn't resist posting this flower already from my pond. I bought a waterlily in bud so could watch the bloom grow and as you can see, it just took a couple of days for the bloom to emerge and open.



Update! A shot from 2008 of blooms from the same plant.

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My Synthetic Pond

Been a bit preoccupied this week building a pond in my yard. I call it a synthetic pond because it really is after all a glorified aquarium without the full richness of a real pond. My pond is small, only about 4.5 foot by 6.0 foot and a maximum of 24" deep-enough depth for me to have water lilies. On Saturday, got the edging more or less done so yesterday was plant day. So I went down to the Water's Edge and spent about $100 on aquatic plants. I got some marginal plants including a pickerel "weed" and a dwarf lotus. I wanted one of the BIG lotus plants but they are are so big that one plant can fill my whole pond. Also I got a hardy water lilly and a couple of water hyacinth. Yes I know the latter will fill my pond in no time if I am not careful.

Of course I needed some terrestrial plants and the next stop was Sunset Garden, where I got some sedums, and another porcupine grass. This is a nice yellow green grass with yellow horizontal striping, so the effect is similar to the pattern on a porcupine quill. That and some mint from my other garden is pretty much it. Oh I did buy a nice shrubby Willow with cool blue green foliage to soften things up a bit.

Having water even just a small pond as mine makes a big difference. The reflections in late afternoon are just magical. Already, I have found a diving beetle and have dragonflies mating. Probably next week I will add some fish, no Koi my pond is too small but perhaps I will go to the local bait shop and get some feeder goldfish just for looks and get some mosquito fish from the wetlands. Oh and maybe an otter and a manatee to keep the water hyacinth under control.

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UFO's and Creationism

While avoiding doing any real work this morning, I ran across this article on unidentified flying objects(UFO's) on space.com. One thing that impressed me is how similar UFOology and creation science are to each other. Consider:

1. Both recycle outdated information. UFO believers often make reference to cases long debunked, and creation "scientists" often recycle long debunked claims such as no transitional fossils exist or that evolution can't happen because of the second law of thermodynamics.

2. Both are fertile grounds for con-men and hucksters. Just consider the raft of Roswell material or take a visit to the Raelian website for evidence. Note that the Raelian website's opening title is "Intelligent : Design - Message from the Designers", obviously capitalizing on intelligent design, the latest incarnation of creationism.

As for Creationist hucksterism, how about good old Dr. Dino whose exploits have been documented in numerous places such as this site devoted entirely to him or here at Talk.origins.

Intelligent design seems to be spawning it's own hucksters such as George Gilder of supply side economics fame. Of course the Intelligent Design hucksterism is a bit more sophisticated, but hucksterism it is and may be less obvious by some folks since it is politically motivated.

3. Both argue from ignorance- and I might add capitalize on the public's ignorance of science. For instance UFOologists use the classic argument from ignorance Here with respect to UFO claims the space.com article notes:

"...the claim that aliens must have careened out of control above the New Mexico desert simply because some classified government documents sport a bunch of blacked-out text. "How does the latter prove the former?

Sure, the missing verbiage is consistent with a government cover-up of an alien crash landing, Shostak said. "But it's also consistent with an infinitude of other scenarios, not all of them involving sloppy alien pilots..."

Creationists including the intelligent design people do the exact same thing...since there are things we can't currently explain about evolution, therefore evolution must be wrong. Why else do the ID advocates spend so much time arguing from ignorance unless it's to hide the third similar thing between Creationism and UFOology.

3. Both UFO's and Creation Science (Including ID) have an embarissing lack of empirical evidence. About UFO's the article notes:

"despite a torrent of sightings for more than a half-century, I can't think of a single, major science museum that has alien artifacts on display ... Contrast this paucity of physical evidence with what the American Indians could have shown you fifty years after Christopher Columbus first violated their sea-space. They could have shown you all sorts of stuff —including lots of smallpox-infested brethren —as proof that they were being 'visited,"

Creation Science, likewise has no positive evidence. Where are the human fossils along side dinosaurs. Of course we do have the Taylor trail footprints from Texas, which have been completely debunked. Why am I just a wee bit skeptical of images such as this one?

4. Both Ider's and UFOologists believe that there is proof . Scientists refuse to see it because they are biased or there is some sort of vast conspiracy to cover up the Truth. That is well documented in both the UFO and Creationist literature. Intelligent design recently has picked up much of the same rhetoric, claiming scientists are dogmatic secular fundamentalists and that's why they just don't see the Truth.

5. Finally both UFOology and Creationists including intelligent design invoke the promide of new paradigms. For instance from the space.com article:

"Physics is leading to new and potentially paradigm shifting understandings about the nature of our universe and its physical properties," Roe said. "These understandings may point the way towards an acceptance of the probability of interstellar travel and communication by spacefaring races."

Likewise, especially by the ID type Creationists evolutionary scientists are painted as being closed to new paradigms. In answering the question as to why intelligent design is controversial the IDEA website notes that:

"it challenges the reigning philosophical paradigm reigning over science, as well as the reigning theory of origins in biology, namely evolution. Additionally, it challenges the metaphysical beliefs of many practitioners of science. These changes lead to predictable "paradigm change resistance" that characterizes the discovery and promotion of new ideas in science"

These similarities may be accidental, and possibly there is something to the notion of Creationism, just like there might be something to the UFO phenomeon. There are after all many things about the universe we do not understand. That said, scientists want empirical evidence and neither creationists including ID and UFOologists have shown any. So while you are waiting for real scientific evidence, have fun visiting these entertaining Creationist and UFO sites. Me? I am going back to work.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/
Great fuzzy UFO pictures.

http://www.ufomaps.com/
New UFO sitings keep pouring in. I love the little smiley saucers.

http://www.mufon.com/
Whose mission is the scientific study of UFO's for the benefit of Humanity

http://ufo.cjscreations.com/
Links to other UFO sites

http://www.icr.org/
Creation Science?

http://www.sixdaycreation.com/
six days?

http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/
Where's the beef?

http://www.discovery.org/csc/
Now this seems like science...or is it merely politics.

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Mendel's Garden #2 Call for submissions!

The second edition of Mendel's Garden will be hosted over at Genetics and Health. More information is at the Garden's blog, or through the carnival site. Remember you don't have to be a genetics geek toi submit. Dr Lei at Genetics and Health is very interested in how genetics affects people's lives and I bet she would like some personal stories.

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Of Dogs and Human Genetics

This morning on NPR there was a great report on a rare genetic disorder called Batten Disease. The report detailed the collaboration between Tibetan Terrier breeders and researchers into the human form of the disease. Batten disease(OMIM 204200), at least the juvenile form is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. The incidence of human Batten's and related disorders is between 2 and 4 per 100,000 live births.






image from http://oaks.nvg.org/eg2ra14.html

Where do the Tibetan Terriers come in? It turns out this breed also shows a form of this disease and equally important for human researchers, the Tibetan Terrier breed club has the first DNA database for it's breed. Also American Kennel Club has been promoting research into dog genetics through its Canine Health Foundation. So human researchers have a an animal model for studying the disease not only at the individual level, but also for studying the disease at the population level, and perhaps through the activities of dog breeders, models for other human genetic disorders.

This is a wonderful case study illustrating how different lines of genetic research converge in unexpected ways. I believe this sort of collaboration is especially critical for rare genetic diseases that are less likely to attract research monies, simply because they are so rare.

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Fireflies

This Spring we have had lots of fireflies(Coleoptera:Lampyridae) in our yard and I enjoy watching them just after dusk. Last night we had some family from Texas who were thrilled to see them because they don't have fireflies in their area.

That was odd because catching fireflies in a jar is one of those things that defined childhood where I grew up. But I was thrilled at their reaction because it tells me that there is hope, perhaps only a modicum, that people today can still appreciate simple things in nature.

Today while taking a few minutes to prowl around for some links about fireflies. I found this link about a networked firefly system in jars by John Schimmel where LED's stand in for real fireflies. Jars can be placed around the house and people can tap on them to communicate a message to other jars which glow in response. Well you can't do this with real fireflies, but this sounds like a fun project that gets at another childhood moment, communicating with siblings late at night while supposedly being asleep, or sneaking a listen to my brothers ham radio communications, bleeding through on my little crystal radio, or listening to late night talk shows on the old Zenith that end up in my room.

I might just build this project for myself and give some firefly jars to the grandkids.

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