A little reading is a dangerous thing

I’ve been reading more than posting for the past week, and have a collection of odds, ends and lint to pass on.

I have a love/hate relationship with the New Yorker. It’s just too much reading for me to keep up with. I have stacks of New Yorkers dating back to 2003 that I’m trying to absorb and throw out; meanwhile the onslaught of new issues continues. But once in a while an issue like that of Feb. 12 arrives, and I remember why it’s worth the guilt (and magazine-strewn living room). Larissa MacFarquhar’s profile of philosophers Paul and Patricia Churchland not only dwelt at length on one of my favorite topics, the mind-body problem, it was also the sweetest academic Valentine’s tale. As I recounted to one of my friends, “they work together, they publish together, and they’ve been married forty years. I didn’t know that was possible.” (I have more than one acquaintance who refused to date within her field, because the job prospects for similar pairs dwindle to near-nothing). The Churchland profile was followed by a lovely little fable from Primo Levi which revisits similar themes of language and consciousness and the arcane rituals of scientist families. It couldn’t have been a happier pairing. And then the next article was on Alfred Wallace. I love you, New Yorker. At least today I do.

Unfortunately the Churchland profile isn’t online (update: a pdf is now available – see this post on Neurophilosophy). But I found several promising articles from the Feb 19 issue, which of course I haven’t received (I’m as culturally and geographically remote from New York as it’s possible to get within the mainland US; I never get my copy until the cartoon caption contest is long over. Waah). Anyway, there’s an article on poetry and money by Dana Goodyear, which is not only amusing, it quotes the dad of a guy I knew in high school (I guess one is never all that remote from New York). The poetry angle reminds me of a random opinion piece from yesterday’s NYT, about how WB Yeats’ “Second Coming” lends itself to sound-bytes on Iraq. That’s. . . disturbing.

Back to science. Hop on practically any science blog to read about the mind-boggling Marcus Ross, a PhD candidate in paleontology who does not (as a young-earth creationist) believe his own thesis. Most of us have at some point doubted our PhD theses, but this guy has a preternatural gift for delusion compartmentalization.
I have defused strict creationists by pointing out that it doesn’t matter in lab if evolution explains biology because evolution actually happened, or because God carefully arranged it so it looks like evolution happened (but it really didn’t). Either way, science works. But I wasn’t, ummmm, serious about that second possibility!

Then of course I’ve been following Edbloggergate. Just depressing, all around. It makes one wonder if it’s safe to be honest on one’s blog – or to blog at all.

Luckily, if one is depressed, or finds oneself using the third person excessively, there’s always Havidol (Side effects may include mood changes, muscle strain, extraordinary thinking, dermal gloss, impulsivity induced consumption, excessive salivation, hair growth, markedly delayed sexual climax, inter-species communication, taste perversion, terminal smile, and oral inflammation. Very rarely users may experience a need to change physicians. Via Boing Boing)

With all this reading to do, it’s no wonder I didn’t finish The Structure of Scientific Revolutions last night (that’s not a joke; Kuhn is surprisingly lucid). More art coming tomorrow, I promise.