Dull Public Service Announcement About Blogger Automatically Posting Links to Your Site on Others' Blogs (UPDATED)

Professor in Training, who is not dull, has observed that Blogger's Rolling Blogroll widget has malfunctioned. If you use the Rolling Blogroll widget, like everyone else and their mom, be advised that the widget can cause links to your blog to arbitrarily appear on the sites of those on your blogroll, even when you've done nothing to put them there!
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UPDATE:

FUCKING GOOGLE BLOGGER!!!1111!!!!111 ARRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!111!!!111

If links to ANY of my posts have appeared on your blog, especially my birthday post, please know that it really wasn't me being Diva Douchebag. Blogger has autonomously generated every one of those links. I have NEVER linked a post of mine to a post of anyone else's, relevant or irrelevant.

My blogroll is now temporarily disabled until further notice. I apologize for all this. It's back. Blogger did weird things while I put it back, but it's back. I could not stand not having a blogroll anymore.

Birthday! Yes, Mine!

I turn twenty-nine today.

This calls for some dress porn.

Nanette Lepore "Lucky Charm" Dress I've wanted for six months:



What I would wear on afternoon larks if I could make it from silk and printed muslin, choose different colors, add fine details, and convince fashionistas and designers to once again embrace the Edwardian tea gown. And regularly host a Care Bears Tea Party to boot:



What? I'm a romantic. I've always been a romantic. I like this about myself.

Besides. It's not like you've never yearned to prance about in an Edwardian tea gown. Everyone has. You haven't fooled me.

Readers, I appreciate every day of your support of my journey to Scientisthood. Your encouragement does not go to waste, and I hope that I may return the favor in full every time it is given.

A Last Observation of Inauguration Day

(Dr. Isis wrote a beautiful post about her observations of Inauguration Day. By request, I am posting my response to it here.

This post is NOT consistently diplomatic. HOWEVER, please do NOT read this as an invitation to a Political Flame War. Be forewarned. I have no interest in one. I will delete all trollish comments without response. Despite the volatility of my feelings, gratitude for the prospect of a better America for EVERYONE made real dominates them. I try, in my real life, to focus on the possibilities.

Okay. Seriously. After this, I disappear from the blogosphere, and I don't return until I complete a certain set of tasks. Why are you people so delightful to blog with? I'm like a crack addict now!)

I think many people possibly misread the enthusiasm Americans express for Obama. I voted for him and campaigned enthusiastically for him, but I never deified him, and neither did many of my fellow campaigners. The enthusiasm arose from what Obama symbolizes to us. Especially to those of us who opposed Bush's election twice and who have been dismayed by the fiscally irresponsible, anti-intellectual, xenophobic, quantity-over-quality, old-school imperialist, anti-Enlightenment, dominionist culture his administration represents to us. We're eager at the prospect of turning away from those things.
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I think Obama is just a good, smart guy in a messy business. I do not expect him to wave a magic wand and part the seas and "fix" America. I never did. Ultimately, I think whatever decisions we make as a country, good and bad, are our collective responsibility. Politicians do what we want them to do. This is still something of a democracy.

I remember vividly that, back in 2003, a good 80% to 90% of Americans in various polls wanted to wreak our fury over 9-11 by going to war. The Bush administration, like every other, did what pleased us at the time. I'm firmly convinced that we'd never have mired ourselves in war if people who wanted it had prioritized our long-term interests as a nation above instant gratification, and if people like me had worked harder to communicate our objections, instead of fearing to appear unpatriotic. Bush was a bad president because we let him be one. That's on us.

To me, and people like me, Obama symbolizes the prospect of unity and hard work among Americans, in an America in which science, manufacturing and diplomacy flourishes, and in which we achieve "national security" by strengthening the fort instead of abandoning it with broken windows and unsupervised bridges to go on military campaigns all over the frickin' world. However, we certainly do not think anyone can really achieve those things but ourselves.

In fact, lately, I've been more nervous than excited. I'm afraid everyone, including myself, will get lazy again, the way we did under the Bush administration, and the country will go down the tubes.

And, you know what? The race thing matters to me too. Obama represents a reason to "keep on truckin'". No matter how much I try to believe I have no need to discuss racism in the 21st century, the petty things sting me like hundreds of mosquitoes:

Yesterday night, some troll bopped on down to my blog to call me a nigger who would never amount to anything. For the record, I really loathe being called a nigger, every time it happens.

I've made the mistake on peeking at the Neo-Eugenics site, over which DuWayne recently expressed concern, that features the authors of The Bell Curve rambling on about how Negroid brains are on average three standard deviations, or whateverthefuck they said, smaller than white people's, which explains why we're stupid and can't enter professions like science, as well as how women of any color can't do math because you need man-sized brains for that. Incidentally, The Bell Curve came out when I was fourteen, and enrolled in a school where I was one of two black people there. I remember people not bothering to read it and still believing that it was "true". I remember only receiving religious reasons, voiced by my Catholic high school's principal, to condemn the book, when I was this borderline working-class kid who wanted facts.

I still regularly encounter patronizing whites (and, sometimes, full-blooded Asians) who don't mind casually entertaining the notion that my genetic material is crap-- and then accuse me of being "illogical" when I have the nerve to feel upset about it. As if one can't simultaneously manage volatile or intense emotional reactions to painful ideas and maintain an intellectual willingness to unconditionally examine the utility of ANY of them! 'Cause, you know, that would be fucking impossible! (There is a reason why I don't read Gene Expression, and particularly articles written by Razib, incidentally. But that's my thing, and I digress.)

In the 2008 election, for the first time, I refused to vote for any conservative candidates. Particularly Republicans. I am entirely socially liberal-- I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-stem cell research, pro-meaningful separation of church and state in every respect-- but I value fiscal responsibility and struggle with the idea of taxing the rich more merely because they're rich, and I had felt that Republicans provided important dissent over government spending.

But Republicans have made it clear that they don't give a rat's ass about financial responsibility, and, moreover, they've decided that I'm a nigger who doesn't deserve to be called an American. They have made that explicitly clear, particularly at Sarah Palin rallies. And you can bet your ass I'm still pissed the fuck off about it. You can bet your ass that whenever a white person tells me they voted for McCain, I think, "Well, sure, you're white. Of course you don't have to care. You don't have to care at all. You're probably not even aware that you don't care." You can bet your ass that I think the difference between most Republican whites and people like DM and CPP is akin to the difference between the whites who sat on their hands during the bloody marches of my father's segregated teenhood and the whites who, for some crazy-ass reason, got up when they could have just chilled in their dining rooms and joined those marches. I noticed how all-fired important it became to Republicans to be The Party for American Whites.

Well, in my family, we ultimately ignore stupid racists and keep our eye on the prize, as Dr. Isis says. Dad's always reminding me that it was far worse when he was my age. And Obama can be seen as a symbol of this productive attitude. But Republicans can still suck it. We may be "niggers" to you, but he's still your President, motherfuckers!

You know, when I first came to this thread, all I wanted to say was that, yes, deification of anyone is bad, but I don't think fervent enthusiasm or admiration of President Obama always arises from deification. Which Dr. Isis already said, more or less. So, now, I've a) written you a novel and b) voiced my dislike of specific people's blogs when I want to be a science blogger and therefore generally prefer to keep my dislike to myself. And I've blogged about politics. I've been doing this lately. I have been blogging too much. I need to quit for a few days.

Conscientiousness

. . . I need to foster it.

I volunteered to participate in someone's psych research. I took a "personality test", for which I received results afterward. It tells me I'm neurotic but open-hearted. I know you are all as shocked as I am.

Equally shockingly, it adds that I've run low on "conscientiousness". I'm honest, but I grow discouraged easily, and I lack the propensity to see things through. I lack persistence. This bodes ill for my career as a scientist. This calls for a dose of "fake it till you make it".

I plan to absent myself from the blogosphere for a few days. I need more time to work on my timeline of goals for the next year and a half. Besides. I know you've all been wondering what the hell I actually plan to do in order to become a scientist!

(At least, I hope you've been wondering. I flatter myself that you are wondering.)

If you haven't already, read Eppendork's posts on amateur science, here and here. I sense a post coming on titled, "What's Wrong with Hacking Genomes in Your Garage? Especially Since Today's Science Is Allegedly an Aristocracy". Okay, maybe I'll shorten it. The title, I mean.

Happy Inauguration Day!

I love you all.

Part 2: Method and Theory in Archaeological Science

Behold! I have finally returned to my Method and Theory in Archaeological Science series. Though I did not want this delay between posts, I had no choice but to “job hunt” and mercilessly modify my blog design before I returned to them. You know how that goes. Thanks for your patience.

Since I began this a month ago, I’d better review. My goal is to discuss the concepts from this Philosophy of Science course that are germane to all science. Dr. Method and Theory insists that good concepts are the key to doing good science, and I agree. Plus, good concepts in science double the hilarious fun to be had. It’s true. Cross my heart.

In Part I of this series, I noted the importance of distinguishing formal scientific theory from explanatory scientific theory. I said that formal theory deals with nouns and explanatory theory deals with verbs. Then I deliberately moved on to explain why everything is way more subjective than we tend to think it is. When Karl Popper said, “All observations are theory-laden”, he was right.

(Don’t worry. “Method and Theory in Archaeological Science” is not an ode to Karl Popper. Popper was wrong about a lot of other things. Don’t let the quote distract you.)

Next, I gave you a definition of common sense, the human faculty that has helped us survive over the course of our evolution but gets in the way when we’re not escaping tigers and ravaging chicken with our teeth and bare hands and we want to practice the civilized art of science. HAHAHAHA! Okay. I mean, common sense, as previously defined, gets in the way when we want to do science. However, no one can divest herself of common sense.
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Incidentally, this is what Popper really meant when he said, “All observations are theory-laden”. He used the word theory, which I will define presently, because he didn’t know any better. He really meant everyone’s observations are cryptically biased by whatever common sense they happen to possess. He only didn’t say it that way because he tended to screw up like that. I would have never made this kind of mistake.

Anyway, that’s where I ended Part I. Onwards!

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve used “measurements” and “descriptions” interchangeably in Part I. I was trying to convey the idea that you can think of both qualitative and quantitative assessments as “descriptions” as well as “measurements”. (Fail! I know.) Again, this is important because scientists must understand that even though the physical world exists apart from their perspectives, they cannot observe it that way. Their challenge is to get better and better at making their biases explicit, thereby producing data that works under an empirical standard.

Of the systems of knowledge available to people, science is the only one that does not allow its practitioners to generate units of measurement from common sense.
Scientific units of measurement are always derived from theory.

Theory: a system of classes and laws that provides the basis for the explanation of phenomena.

Class: an intensionally defined unit of meaning.

Intensional definition: the necessary and sufficient conditions for membership rendered as a set of distinctive features which an object or event must display to be a member. You must spell “intensional” as it appears here. Don’t let Microsoft Word get you down.

Note that classes are not the same as groups. By these definitions, an example of a class is “atoms”, while an example of a group is “dogs”.

Scientific laws: logically coherent relationships between classes.

Empiricist, philosophical, religious and mystic explanations of the world are common-sensical. Scientific explanations of the world are theoretical. This is the fundamental reason why people can only build airplanes and make vaccines with scientific knowledge. It’s not that the other systems of knowledge lack value. In fact, even though the other systems of knowledge compete with science to explain the world, they often inspire strategies and creativity crucial to the development of science. (NO WONDER IT’S SO DARN INTERESTING JUST TO BE ALIVE!11!!!!ELEVENTY!!!111!!) However, they ultimately can’t help you understand stuff completely outside of your head.

At this juncture, I anticipate several protests from my readers:

“Wait a minute, Juniper. You just lumped philosophy with empiricism, religion and mysticism. But didn’t you say Method and Theory was a Philosophy of Science class?” Yes. All I meant by that, however, is that all science begins with ontology. Most of us have been given the impression that science is just a bunch of measurements of stuff, and the units by which scientists measure are totally objective and were magically conjured by a bunch of extra special old white dudes. We aren’t usually taught that science is a worldview designed to increase the power of our explanations of the world.

Incidentally, the idea that science is just a bunch of measurements is what Dr. Method and Theory calls systematic empiricism. Coriolis, if you’ve had the patience to read this far, this is what I meant by “empiricism” in this post. I didn’t mean that empiricism has no place in science. Without empiricism, we know, scientists wouldn’t be able to falsify their hypotheses, and “scientific explanations” would cease to have the lion’s share of explanatory power.

“Wait a minute, Juniper. If English is common-sensical, what good are all these definitions you keep giving us anyway?” On one hand, they aren’t good outside of this discussion. I was just playfully harshing on good Professor Popper. In class, Dr. Method and Theory deliberately provided a glossary to make key terms in his class monosemic. First, in a class meant to train you to think like a scientist, making key terms monosemic is the next best thing to discussing everything in math, the only language in which all rules are explicit and governed by logic. We can’t (yet) talk to one another in math (about any historical science), but we can work to maximize the precision of our definitions, to ensure that we’re actually talking about the same things. Second, Dr. Method wanted to teach us why monosemy is key in science. Monosemy in physics and chemistry means that every physicist and chemist in the world agrees upon the definitions of their units of measurement. Which, incidentally, have no more than three dimensions.

On the other hand, I apply Dr. Method and Theory’s definitions to my examination of everything. You would not believe what I have been able to comprehend with these tools. I leave it to my readers.

Back to monosemy. Do biologists possess a monosemic definition of “species”? What about “biochemical pathway”? What about archaeologists? Do they possess a monosemic definition of “artifact”? Do anthropologists use a monosemic definition of “culture”? Do psychiatrists use a monosemic definition of “Type 2 bipolar disorder”? What about “clinical depression”? Does DrugMonkey think physiologists have monosemic standardizations of “blood pressure” and “cholesterol levels”?

“But, Juniper, do we care what DrugMonkey thinks?” Shush. Of course we do. Stop being rude. Besides, you’re missing the point. Biology, archaeology, anthropology, psychology and psychiatry are all historical disciplines. They all seek scientific explanations of phenomena that must attend to the dimension of time. Ever wonder why people generally think of physics and chemistry as the “hard sciences”? Because today’s physicists can’t pull definitions of “elementary particles” out of their butts. Physics and chemistry are twice as old as the historical sciences, which, arguably, Darwin jump-started the way Newton and Leibniz jump-started the former; it’s easier to think in three dimensions than four. If you are a historical scientist, remember this the next time a mathematician tells you that a discipline like psychology will never be a “hard science”, and the field is full of women because the material is easier for them to grasp. Too bad the human lifespan isn’t three youthful centuries long.

“Wait a minute! This sounds weird. For example, ‘artifact’ isn’t, like, the same thing as ‘element’. When you call something an artifact, you’re just describing an old object.” Yeah. Descriptions are measurements. “Artifact” is a common-sensical archaeological measurement. You can tell pretty stories with common-sensical measurements, but you can’t produce scientific explanations with them.

“Fine, Juniper. So how do we get monosemic units of measurement?” Formal theory. You can think of the monosemic units of measurement as the “nouns” to which Dr. Method and Theory alluded.

I wanted to end this post with further discussion of the distinction between formal and explanatory theory, as well as an introduction of evolutionary theory as explanatory theory. However, I have realized for some hours now that I took really, really, really crappy notes in Dr. Method and Theory’s class. So this series is more ambitious than I originally thought it was. I probably need Dr. Method’s help. I was a totally annoying archaeology student, but I babysit his family’s cat and dog, and his wife is one of my closest friends, so if I scrupulously try not to waste his time, he might talk to me. Might.

I have a lot of work to do. You all are lucky that I’m such a Super Nerd and I love writing about this stuff. Or possibly cursed. Whatever. So long as I enjoy myself. :)

This Post Has No Interesting Content. Don't Read It.

I chained myself to my desk this week. I thought I could beat myself into submission motivate myself to write the cover letters that I need to write for my current job search quickly. Cover letters are important, but so is science blogging the rest of my life. I thought, by forbidding myself to do little else, I'd finally tricked myself into blazing through that most unsavory of tasks--selling myself-- and would get back to blogging the good stuff lickety-split.

LOL! Right now, I'm too demoralized to admit to you what a fruitless week this has been. Suffice it to say that I Failed. I haven't written my cover letters. I haven't returned several emails and phone calls from friends, including one who's had a very bad time of it lately. I kept thinking, "What if I call now and say something stupid?" I have not jogged this week. I've barely left my room. I've buried said room in dirty laundry. The immunology lab that accepted my application a month ago for a job I'm miraculously qualified to do and desperately want to have with the dorkiest of passions still has me officially "Under Review", and I don't know if that's good or bad. My right eye has turned ruby red. My MacBook's glare has destroyed what remained of my ability to clearly see objects more than two feet away from my face. I fear I'm too incompetent to get my act together to return to school next year. I want to shower before I get bagged and carted out of my house as a Hazardous Material, and I want my irritation over that government scientist's blog that I consulted for career information only to find it politically unpalatable to subside already. And I want an escape plan! NOW! What the fuck am I waiting for? Dude, we're halfway through January already!

I refuse to work on my computer today. Maybe, if I step away, sanity will return this weekend. I'll see you then.

Thanks,

Juniper

P.S. Eppendork, ScientistMother, Biopunk and Candid Engineer-- I love you guys! Coriolis, your question will be easier for me to answer when I post my next Method and Theory harangue review. :)

DIABOLICAL BLACK KITTY STRIKES AGAIN!

Today was a crazy, off day. On top of that, Diabolical Black Kitty, whom I love, nonetheless decided to pee on Dr. and Mrs. Method and Theory's bed-- like, right before they got in from a nine-hour car trip. That's Diabolical Black Kitty's modus operandi. Get you to trust her by following you around adoringly for weeks and then quickly turn the house into a giant litter box and bite you till the blood beads up for good measure once you've pronounced her reformed.

Needless to say, I left for my own home long after I'd originally planned.

If I haven't answered your comment yet, and you actually care, it's only because I work on too many things simultaneously and I write totally, totally slow.

Oh, Please Remember to Read the "Why Writers . . ." Posts in Order

It will reduce the intensity of the headache, as well as the level of exasperation, that I would have engendered in you had you read the three posts backwards.

No, I Haven't Forgotten About Method and Theory

For those I haven't scared away yet: it's coming.

Why Writers Can Be Great Scientists, While Mathematicians Can Be Horrible Ones, Part 3

I last saw her this past April. Her husband, an engineer with a savvy passion for politics, had asked me to re-register as a Democrat and help nominate him as a delegate for the Convention. This invitation delighted me, especially because, in 2004, I’d foolishly told him that I wanted some guy named Barack Obama to run for the Presidency in 2008—to which he replied, “That’s NEVER going to happen in a MILLION years!” He was campaigning for Obama now. I drove across “town” via the wretched 105 to the caucus, where my calculus teacher spotted me and leapt forward with joy.

I had been nervous. What if she didn't want to see me? She beamed at me unfeignedly, though. Her auburn hair fell in thick tresses around her pretty face, and she looked five years younger than when I'd last seen her.

I was happy to see her happy. She was about to take a whole series of courses in math she hadn't used since grad school, she said. She had obtained permission to teach half-time the next school year. She and her husband had bought a vacation home in a state she loves, and she fervently looked forward to spending the summer there. She had many plans, and none of them were dull.

How about me? What had happened to me?
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My mother had gotten breast cancer. Her illness revolutionized our nuclear family dynamics for the light-years better, but she had nearly died and I didn't want to talk about it.

Tiny One? Tiny One worked as an editor of medical journals in a city hundreds of miles away. She had a head for business, though, and I suspected that she would develop into a promising entrepreneur. Currently, she lived with an Irishman, whom she would probably marry.

I had studied archaeology for two years. I had been to Easter Island. I had taken this awesome course called Method and Theory. I had comprised one point of an inappropriate "love triangle". "Love triangle" is in quotations, because I never dated this professor. He ultimately chose his undergraduate lab assistant over me, consummating their relationship and running away with her mid-academic year. Yes, I was sick of forging abusive emotional ties with men named after archangels who wound up with Last Unicorns named Pauline. I'd try harder next time. I had fought with the Dean over the cancellation of certain important classes. He disliked me. A lot. Did I mention that I'd taken this course called Method and Theory? Did she know that the practice of science actually begins with ontology? All science. Most people confuse science with empiricism. It's so much more than that, though, and, if they only knew how truly splendid it was, they would ask--

"So you've graduated?" my calculus teacher asked.

"No," I chuckled. "I decided to be a geneticist instead, and I quit."

Thoughtful silence.

"Everyone should pursue what they really want to do," she said, cheerfully. "Even if they would be way better at something else."

This. This right here. This which she's always been saying to me. This which I'm sick of believing. Of all the limits my calculus teacher has tried to impose on me, this is the one I most want to defy. So, above all else that I wished to tell her and never did, this is the thing I most want to get into my time machine and say:

STOP TELLING ME THAT ENGLISH MAJORS CAN'T MAKE GREAT SCIENTISTS.

Yeah. I'm better than writing than I am at math. Okay. Except I don't suck at math; you told me so yourself. You know why I don't suck at math? Because I'm not just any writer. I'm a gifted writer. Yeah. I said it. Motherfucking gifted. How many gifted writers have you heard of who weren't crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy smart? Yeah. I thought so. Because that would be bleeping impossible. I am smart enough to understand anything with effort, and you know it.

The ability to write extraordinarily well is dependent on a whole suite of character traits and skills. What makes you think that science doesn't require the creativity that gifted writers possess? Did you think science was solely comprised of quantifying things? That's empiricism, not science. Suck on that, all you jerkwastrels who insist otherwise in countless classrooms across America. Between the conflation of empiricism with science, eugenics, and history books that made the second-grade Juniper shamefully ask, "Why did only white people do all the smart and interesting things?", it's a motherfucking wonder I've gotten this far in the first place!

No one denies the crucial function of math in science. "Math, Queen and Servant of Science". Of course. But not for the reason that you think.

What makes you think that mathematicians are necessarily better scientists than writers? Gawd, some of the most superstitious people I know were rated talented mathematicians at Cal. "I asked God a question," the Crazy Math Guy told the undergrad Juniper solemnly, "and, at the moment I asked it, a leaf fell conspicuously from the tree I stood under." He was as susceptible to "magical thinking" as my English major ass. By the way, he hates science. He likes puzzles (including those of math, physics and twisted human relationships), psychology and art, and he loathes endeavors like archaeology and genetics. FSM knows why, but he does.

Math is simply a language in which, uniquely, all rules are made explicit. The cognitive skills required to master mathematics are no more or less important to science than those required to master a common-sense language-- this last in which most rules are cryptic, and intuitively as well as logically grasped. Dude, how is either one of these abilities not a valuable tool with which to answer questions about the physical world?

Almost every time I have talked to you about science, you have turned the conversation into an ad hoc assertion that you would make a "better" scientist than me. Who says? And what the fuck does that have to do with anything anyway? Look, I am not you. I do not view every single human interaction as a competition for some finite amount of some ineffable something that will prove the victor "superior"-- whatever the fuck that means!-- to the person with whom she's interacting. Why the fuck would anyone as wonderful as you want to do something so boring, anyway? Why? You're not a boring person. You're not even a petty one, deep down.

You know how I became an archaeologist? I can't believe I'm about to tell you this. I was surfing the biology departments of California universities and colleges. I wanted to know what it would take to prepare me for a career in biology.

I hardly knew where to start. Except for me, there are no academics in my family, and, at the time, I didn't know post-baccalaureate programs even existed. I thought I would have to take an entire B.S. worth of biology, chemistry and basic physics classes one at a time, while I held down a nine-to-five to pay the bills, and I grew older and more hopeless every minute.

While I surfed, I stumbled upon a website discussion of "evolutionary archaeology". I had never heard of it, and it was very interesting, so I paused to read it.

At this point, you entered the downstairs study, something happened, and I wound up allowing you to decide that, since I did not want to pursue the more "suitable" career of science writing, I would make a better practitioner of a "softer" science. Especially archaeology! Why, I would make a fine archaeologist!

And therefore study genetics from afar. Well, maybe that made sense. I hadn't majored in biochem as an undergrad, and I had missed the boat.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHLOL! The irony of this is that, were archaeology (and anthropology) a real science, then it would be harder than astrophysics! That's because archaeological science requires the generation of four-dimensional theory-derived analytical units, to enable practitioners to scientifically measure time as well as space for the purpose of answering archaeological questions. Dude, the theory doesn't even exist yet! As in, no one has been able to articulate a true archaeological theoretical framework. Even biology, a historical science, and therefore a science concerned with the dimension of time, doesn't have four-dimensional units yet. Why do you think that today's biologists constantly bicker over "species concepts", while today's physicists and chemists never bicker about what an oxygen atom really is?!

(But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was supposed to save that shit for my Method and Theory series. Oh, well.)

Dr. Method and Theory is a fucking genius, and, two hundred years from now, scientists will wonder how anyone had the gall to stash him at a substandard university without a doctoral program when he was obviously the Charles Darwin of the science of the fate of the human species and he ought to have been whisked posthaste to a Research I and given his own shiny lab and made to collaborate immediately with talented anthropologists and geologists and chemists on numerous projects. "People sure were morons in the early twenty-first century. Yep." If I were in this solely to impress the Person du jour, I would have remained an archaeologist and studied under Dr. Method and Theory forever. Seriously.*

I have been raised all of my life to impress people, without a clue to my purpose or the importance of my peculiar efforts. It made me, for awhile, a proud, predictable snob, who only did the bidding of people of weak character while hurting and betraying the people of strong. It also hampered my ability to ask and answer questions about how the world worked.

Genetics--biology-- was the first thing I couldn't quit wondering about, for reasons completely unknown to myself. For the entirety of seventh grade-- despite the sarcastic male teacher I was scared of-- I drew Punnett squares in notebooks and tried, tried, tried, to get my mother and father to feel the sheer wonder of them. I just wanted them to feel it, if they didn't understand how they worked. At night, I talked about chromosomes to Tiny One. I walked around the park mouthing words like "endoplasmic reticulum". Why were the plant cells different from the animal ones, anyway? "Do you know the chemical formula for urine?" I couldn't help asking one of my playmates, amidst our latest game of "Orphaned Magic Princesses". She stomped off in disgust.

No, I will not put this into my Statement of Purpose, and, no, I don't think these experiences "count". They're examples of my disjointed, not fully conscious thoughts about a subject I assumed I could not make a career of. If anything, they just prove what an idiot I am. I kept having this floaty experience with biology, with this fixation on genetics, for years. A girl with more gumption would've figured it out long before I did.

By my second year of archaeology graduate school, I found myself crashing an upper-division seminar in medical genetics that I had no business being in. I had my rationalizations, but, really, if pressed, I couldn't justify my presence there. I also attended section. During a discussion of articles on investigations of "good" and "bad" cholesterol, the TA held up her hands, walked to the board, and drew sequences and illustrations of "relevant biochemical pathways". I sat there and wished desperately that I could read it. I don't think I ever wanted something like that so badly in my life. I'm going to regret making this public in six hours.

I dedicate the profanity in this series of posts to Comrade PhysioProf, who once wrote this:

[B]eing a successful scientist ain't fucking rocket science, and doesn't require "genius" or any other type of magical intellectual prowess. It is a profession like any other, and the skills necessary to succeed can be learned. I consider this an important point to convey as an aspect of making science much more inclusive to people other than well-off white dudes.

Why is it so wrong for me to think I can do this? I only want to do this because I want to do it. I don't think I'll cure cancer or win a Nobel Prize, and I don't think I'll sell pop sci books at the rate Jared Diamond does. I don't even think I know how to go about learning how to do this; I'm certainly not cherishing a conviction that I'll be a Master of the Universe one day. I just want to know how certain things work.

This is a degree of sense and humility that I've never before possessed in my life. And, now that I've finally, finally, finally rolled this stone off my chest, maybe I'll stop having degrading fantasies of knocking on Calculus Teacher's door years from now and bellowing, "I love you! And I owe you so much! But, before I repay you, I just want you to know that I earned a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Stanford, and I now work as a virologist for the Department of Defense! And my IQ is ten whole points higher than you thought it was!11111!!!!!1111!!!!"







*Incidentally, Dr. Method and Theory doesn't know that I think this.

Why Writers Can Be Great Scientists, While Mathematicians Can Be Horrible Ones, Part 2

If you asked my calculus teacher to describe that time, I think she would tell you that I mistreated her. She had rescued me from my dysfunctional family and welcomed me to her home. She generously let me live there for free for several months. She and her husband cheerily invited me along to dinners, concerts, and plays; I would have been happy to stay home and play with their shih tzus. An excellent seamstress who makes costumes and who once made herself an ethereally lovely emerald green satin evening dress with a Mandarin collar, she taught me how to sew with a machine. Dude, she even gave me a sewing machine. Not one of the flimsy modern models with which halfhearted amateurs console themselves , either. A genuine dressmaker’s model with old-school metal parts instead of designer plastic ones. Even Tiny One, my younger sister, covets it; she tried to get me to sell it to her, and only gave up because I was affronted.

She took me to Mass with her, in the year I tried to convert to Roman Catholicism. She offered me rides in the Dark Days When I Didn’t Own a Car in Los Angeles. She invited me to Thanksgiving dinner and made me an elaborate green Christmas stocking, on which a strawberry blond angel hovers lovingly over a decidedly brown-skinned Baby Jesus. I love this stocking. “Do I say things about black people that I shouldn’t?” she asked me once, anxiously. “I want to know, before I get really bad.” We went shopping together and watched movies together. She treated me with the generosity she had always shown me, both when she tutored me after school as a teen and when she flew all the way to Cal upon learning that I’d been hospitalized under suicide watch. Why would she do all this, if she didn’t love me? If she loved me, why wouldn’t she want me to succeed?
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Yet I was a surly, distrusting person, who didn’t help out with chores as often as I should have and who frequently suppressed my anger until I exploded and no one knew what I was talking about. I said hurtful things. Worse, I believed that I was the one who was wronged! This was shamefully ungrateful. “After all,” righteously said one of my teacher’s indignant friends, “if she doesn’t like it so much, why doesn’t she move?”

If you asked me, I would agree. Wholeheartedly. I would add that I owe my calculus teacher and her husband one of the greatest of my debts, and I eagerly await the day when I can repay them in full.

I would also add that I was a poor communicator—unmedicated, to boot— when I lived with them. Were I transported back in time, I would sit my teacher down and say, “I am so incredibly grateful to you. This is why I want to tell you that sometimes I can’t help feeling like you’re trying to tear me down. I only think this because I’m a hypersensitive nerd who’s read way too much Ayn Rand and who paradoxically feels that in spite of her 'superiority' to everyone else, she is the most unlovable creature she knows. Please know that I’m very sorry that my feelings tend to make me treat you unfairly, and that your willingness to hear this confession will help me to consistently treat you with the openness and respect you deserve.”

I would have told her, too, that I knew that she especially hated to be pitied. I sincerely didn’t pity her. I meant every compliment I paid her. I envied her unusual mathematical aptitude. I admired her for withstanding a lifetime of cruelty dealt her for being overweight. I detested the cultural attitudes that have somehow led to the overwhelming conclusion that no woman can be beautiful-- something's always lacking. So it pissed me off when she thought I was being obsequious when she put her appearance down and I refuted her. When I compliment you, I mean it, because when I don’t like someone, I simply don’t say anything. (Unless I get pushed over the edge.) A fat mathematician packing two master’s degrees, a pronouncedly hourglass figure and the face of an Eastern European pageant queen looks very different from the rotund, haggard Albertson’s employee who glared balefully at her in the parking lot on Tuesday. Or, for that matter, that hideously mean sorority chick from Study Abroad whom everyone thought was hot and whom I secretly thought was totally fake and gross; if she hadn’t blond hair, too, no one would have given her a second look. But I digress.

No, I would’ve admitted, I don’t like it when white women who aren’t thin tell me that while their ideal is Hugh Jackman, they’ll settle for black men, because the Hugh Jackmans of the world exclusively pursue the Last Unicorns of the world, while all black men, with their penchant for the voluptuous, also prefer white women whenever they can achieve them. You have no idea how many white women have actually said this to me.

First, it makes me want to yell, “Well, Tiny One and my size-zero-without-fucking-trying ass are dating all the hot white men you really wish you were with. Oh, and my skinny black dad married my skinny Korean mom. Oh, and I ate six pieces of pepperoni pizza and a whole fucking pint of genuine chocolate Haagen Dazs for dinner, and, after I digest all this and shit it into the toilet, I will still fit into my motherfucking jeans without a hitch.” Ha ha! Juniper Shoemaker’s Malicious Thoughts!

Second, it devastates me. Black Americans were this continent’s Untouchable Caste for hundreds of years, the “social line of demarcation”, and the legacy of slavery, even in its last vestiges, constantly shocks me by manifesting itself in diverse insidious ways that inculcate self-loathing in men and women of all colors.

Yeah. I hate that shit. And nothing grieves me more than feeling forced to witness self-loathing that I have no power to mitigate. But I could’ve been kinder about it, since you have been my friend. I have said my share of racist things about white people, and you have forgiven me.

For inadvertently reducing my parents to racial stereotypes and dismissing my uniquely close-knit nuclear family as dysfunctional, I would say, I can forgive you, because you didn’t mean it. I know that you are the accidental last of five children and you have had to compete for attention in a way that I never have.

Moreover, I know that you are fearfully, fearfully clever, and that you are fully aware that you preemptively snark at everyone you encounter, lest they get a chance to pity you. You are so clever that you confirmed this for me yourself. Additionally, I am a big gal and I can handle being abruptly and passive-aggressively told, on multiple occasions, that I’m “short” when I’m 5’7”, and that boys don’t chase girls “with no boobs to speak of” (tell that to them!), and that I will never meet a man with whom I can have a happy marriage, because they don’t exist. With effort, I can handle constantly being told that I could very well die tomorrow-- which, along with everyone else, I already know-- and that life will disappoint me.

With more effort, I can handle your announcements that my parents are smarter than me because they worked their way up from destitute, neglectful families, while I have always lived in a loving home in which I wanted for nothing. I know you think that people care that while your husband and I went to competitive Research I universities, you attended state schools on full scholarships, because your parents told their five children that if they wanted money for school, they would have to earn it themselves. Who wouldn’t be defensive?

(But, by the way, can you please be proud of your tremendous accomplishments without pronouncing them superior to mine, and without deriding my parents for providing for me? Especially my parents! As Mrs. Method and Theory* said, “Why is it superior to have five children that you can’t afford? Juniper’s parents had childhoods so hard that they didn’t want their daughters to have any of the same experiences, and they worked really hard to materially provide for them. I personally have more respect for that.”)

With even more effort, I can handle your limiting my IQ to 140 even though I’ve never even taken the fucking test, and I can handle your delusion that I resent my dearth of musical talent. Yeah, I have no musical talent. I can’t sing at all, and I never played instruments with artistry. WHO THE FUCK CARES? You know what? It’s a fucking relief, to have a list of things that I TOTALLY SUCK ASS AT in addition to a list of things I do incomparably well! It’s wonderful to go to the theater or a concert and marvel at the beauty of the singer’s voice, or the proficiency of the pianist on the floor! You just want to hear it—you don’t fucking care who’s doing it! And you, being loaded with talent yourself, surely know what the fuck I’m fucking talking about!

(Yes. I did say, “with even more effort”. )

If I had a time machine, I would return to that time and say all these things. And I would say all of it, because my high-school calculus teacher is an extraordinary person, who is still young even as my twenty-eight-year-old ass types this, and who can achieve whatever the fuck she strives to achieve. Therefore, she doesn’t deserve to be spared. Or pitied. Definitely not.

At this point, Valued Reader, you probably think that I and my calculus teacher aren’t friends anymore. Actually, we are. We rarely spoke during my time in grad school, but we remained friends.





*Mrs. Method and Theory is a stellar academic in her own right. I just haven't figured out what to nickname her yet.

Why Writers Can Be Great Scientists, While Mathematicians Can Be Horrible Ones, Part 1

When I began this blog, I swore that I would lay my heart bare. LOL! I mean that, but it still sounds dumb. I decided to disclose all the important but embarrassing things about me, even if that meant causing Dr. Isis to think that I’m not that great after all. I have lots of reasons for this disclosure: I understand things better when I must to explain them to a wide audience; I don’t want anyone, even a blog reader, to admire me because they think I’m some wicked popular bad-ass with a retinue of clever, handsome suitors and a sterling academic record; I’m sick of being ashamed of myself. I also tend to hold a grudge. This last is why I’m writing about my high-school calculus teacher today.

Before I tell you about her, however, I have to give you grim background information. Mental illness and a lack of mentorship have characterized the last ten years of my intellectual development. For now, I’ll tell you about the mental illness.
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Until two years ago, I refused to seek treatment for what all of the physicians I’ve consulted call serious depression, and what one psychiatrist called Type 2 bipolar disorder. It’s probably largely hereditary and somewhat trauma-induced. I’ve struggled with it since age sixteen, and I was once hospitalized for it in undergrad. I have only recently agreed not to secretly quit my antidepressants again, because I have manic breakdowns and grow angrily suicidal when I do. Every time, man! No matter how long I manage to hold out before that happens. Incidentally, I have no idea how to write about my depression myself without a voice inside screaming, “You fucking loser! You fucked up!” So this paragraph stays as it is, and I hope you’ll keep it in mind if you read on.

(By the way, I was so shocked when Candid Engineer wrote about receiving treatment for anxiety. Candid Engineer writes entertainingly and masterfully, which is why I keep reading her blog. But she deeply intimidates me. Truth is stranger than the fiction of stereotypes (I’m black and Korean and I know!), so I figured that Candid was this unshakably confident blonde with the looks of a varsity cheerleader at an all-white prep school and the brain of Richard Feynman, who never bored men by being anything but tomboyish and sexyfun and who never cried in public. Certainly, she would never understand “mental illness”, let alone have it. She’d probably sneer at the very idea. “There’s no such thing as depression. There’re no excuses or made-up diseases. There’re just losers and winners. Liberals are ruining this country!” I’m telling you, my jaw hit my MacBook keyboard when I read that post.)

(Yeah. I know that’s some scary crazy projection, by the way. I do that. I’m way better about not doing it now than I was when I was young, but I still do it sometimes. Again, I have to warn you that you shouldn’t read this blog if weird dorky insecure people who reveal too much about themselves make you uncomfortable. But I digress.)

My high-school calculus teacher rescued me when I returned to Los Angeles from Berkeley. I had been truly brilliant and I was supposed to have made something of myself. Instead, I wasted my scholarships and my parents’ money on an English degree I didn’t really want, and spent my time as the hanger-on of a bunch of rich white drama kids whom I never could please. I’d baffled my professors and grown bitter, unfocused and alone. My little sister no longer saw me as a god, and I’d broken my mother’s heart. Worse, the things God denied to me in high school—the boyfriend, the intellectual adventure, the popularity, the self-actualization—and that I’d expected to be rewarded with in college—because that’s what college was, right? A reward for being good—had not come to pass. As bereft as I had ever been, I’d lost the only thing that had kept my chin up: proof that I was gifted and had no ordinary future before me. I was nobody, and I wanted to die. This is not an exaggeration; this was what I felt and how I thought. I warned you that I once believed in magic.

I hid in my parents’ house. One day, my mother, with whom I had an almost classic Asian-immigrant-mom-and-Asian-American-daughter relationship, looked at me with what I interpreted as loathing. “You’ve ruined your life,” she announced.

I didn’t expect to care. To my surprise, though, I still had one grain of sand from Fantasia. I wanted to make something of myself, and I believed, deep, deep down, that I still could. I was twenty-three. I wasn’t dead. What if my mother no longer wanted me to succeed? What would happen to me if I stayed? Would she stop me?

My eyes widened and I backed out of the room. My poor mother caught my hand.

“I say stupid thing,” she pleaded. “I just want to talk to you.”

As evidenced by the reasoning I’ve just divulged, I was in no state to be reasonable. Or fair. Or even communicative. “NO!” I screamed. “NO!”

I pried her fingers from my wrist and swatted my mother’s arms. My mother slapped me, hard. It was my fault, so I began to cry. I can’t hit my mother, I thought.

It was the only clear thought I had. So I spit in her face.

It was only much later that I found out that this was worse, and that I’d’ve been immediately disowned for this, were I in Korea. Now my father arrived, stricken, and tried to interfere, but I ran out of my parents’ house. My parents lived within a gated community that was succumbing to the gang wildness outside. “I was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer and save them from this,” I thought. “I was supposed to be the accomplished honorary white person, a glorious defiance of the stupid, fat, ugly and lazy stereotype, and instead I’m going to have a tedious, ignominious, working-class life like thousands of blacks and Latinos everywhere. I’ve had every opportunity to succeed, I’ve had every advantage, and I’ve let everybody down.”

It was at this point that my calculus teacher rescued me. She drove all the way to the projects where I stood, picked me up, and took me back to her house in the Beach Cities, where she and her husband offered to let me live in their guest room. I eventually took a corporate job nearby and stayed for about a year and a half, after which I left for my archaeology master’s degree program.

It Works! Happy New Year to Us!

It works! The internet works for me again! The router for the home phone, wifi and TV in Dr. Method and Theory's home, where I have been happily sitting Diabolical Black Kitty, immediately crashed after I posted a comment to Dr. J and Dr. A's blog, because Service Provider committed Epic Fail. Were I Phizzle, with Phizzle's mad skills, I'd've busted that shit open and fixed it myself. Being myself, however, I wisely refrained from all and any invasive solutions and let a technician correct things instead.

Anyway, I want my readers and friends whose emails and comments I haven't answered yet, to know that I wasn't dissing them.

As usual, this Tortoise has been working on several posts at Tortoise speed. I expect to post something tomorrow.

Happy New Year, everyone!