When Science Disappoints

2014-12-18 documentary img02I recently had the audacity to comment upon a YouTube video in which footage of a famous prehistoric animal had supposedly been captured. I didn’t expect much from the footage, and I soon realized that I did indeed recognize the discreditable source of the video. To many people in the scientific world – specifically the area of that world which deals closely with animals and their prehistoric counterparts – this video footage was known to be part of a fictionalized “documentary” put on by the Discovery Channel for their famed and much-loved Shark Week in August of last year. In the film, which ran about two hours, a team of scientists supposedly discovers footage of a Megalodon from a seafloor camera that they are monitoring. Continue reading

Leaving the Party

2014-12-11 fraternities img01I don’t go on Facebook much these days, but every so often I pop on to check for one thing or another and happen to see the first few posts on my feed.  Right before Thanksgiving, a number of those posts were from current or former UVA students expressing their outrage at the situation described in the recent Rolling Stone article on a rape. Continue reading

Where Have All the Recipes Gone, Long Time Passing?

2014-11-27 thanksgiving img01My particular friend Miss Lane and I have shared many, many conversations during our friendship, which has weathered perfect storms and endured more than half the length of our lives. The deepest confidence exists between us. Yet, there is one secret she will never, ever impart to me: namely, the chocolate chip cookie recipe passed down to her from her ancestresses. Continue reading

Playing the Game

2014-11-13 grad school img01On the first day of school in kindergarten, I sat a table and looked a bunch of kids I didn’t know. I was a little bit nervous, as probably any child is in this situation. But then I saw her: the most beautiful girl my five-year-old eyes had ever seen. Emboldened, I walked up to her and said: “You’re very pretty. Will you be my friend?” Continue reading

Two Languages, Two Conversations

2014-10-9 Language img01

I recently began to pursue graduate education at a large and famous law school, an environment far removed from the close-knit community of my undergraduate college. Differences of all sorts abound between the two schools. Song, poetry, and competitive board games are far less common here, while the chance of meeting a classmate who speaks English as a second (or fourth) language has skyrocketed. In one interesting and important way, the schools are quite alike: The vast majority of students enjoy talking about ideas. Both schools purport to teach their students principles vital to the proper ordering of human lives, and such principles call for probing discussion. Despite this common desire to discuss ideas, the two schools foster dramatically different conversations amongst their students. As this semester passes, I have become increasingly convinced that this can be traced to the different vocabularies in common use at each school. The differences in word choice are so great as to constitute two different languages. Continue reading

The Proper Understanding of Grades

2014-7 Unhappy Student

This past year I tutored a high school freshman in introductory science.  We will call him Adam.  Adam struggled mightily with most of the subjects he was taking at the time, and seemed much more interested in slacking off and relaxing once he got home rather than putting in the effort to study and do his homework.  I was even privy to several of the rather unpleasant adult “tantrums” he would throw if he realized that he was expected to work with me for longer than he initially expected.  Naturally, I tried to impress upon him the importance of working hard, Continue reading

An Attempt at Informed Reason against Uninformed Foolishness

2014-5-22 Zoos img01It has become apparent to me lately that a growing number of people seem to be in favor of no longer keeping animals in zoos or aquariums and instead releasing those that are currently in captivity into the wild.  Perhaps this is due to such films as Blackfish (which, according to at least one of the former Sea World trainers that they interviewed, portrayed the opinions of the trainers inaccurately), or due to a greater awareness of the decreasing population of animals in their natural settings.  Whatever the cause, there are several very good reasons as to why shutting down zoos and aquariums and releasing these animals into the wild is an extraordinarily bad idea.  As a biologist, I feel it is my duty to inform people of at least a few of these reasons so that they will, at least I hope, turn aside from this folly.

Just the other day, I happened to run across an image on The Meta Picture that I had clicked on because I saw a beautiful white wolf and was curious to see what the caption on the image said. Continue reading

An Englishman Abroad

unnamedIt is often when we are abroad that we see the best and the worst of people. There is a reason for the enduring stereotype of the Ugly American, after all. Even at our best overseas, we are a rough-and-tumble sort of people, and it shows: rougher, simpler, more violent, more enterprising. Indiana Jones might be an excellent example. But let us examine the virtues of another stereotypical nationality in the larger world. Let us examine and appreciate the abiding image of the Englishman abroad.

We all have a picture of what this looks like in our minds, this creature from the days of colonialism, when the Empire was still at its height. Continue reading