Keep an open mind!

I wonder sometimes, why it is that the people who tell me to “keep an open mind” have theirs utterly closed to the possibility that they might be wrong. An open mind, of course, is willing to follow the available evidence, even if it disagrees with one’s assumptions. An open mind is not one that keeps an issue open after every bit of information says “case closed.” But of course, as I have heard it most frequently, “keep an open mind” is used as a synonym for “agree with me!”

An open window can be a good thing, but a window which cannot be closed is just a hole in your wall. There are times when it is ok to shut the window. You can always open it up again if the evidence says you should.

Anyway, today’s verse:

They told me “keep an open mind,
And you will see—the world’s designed,
And everything that’s in it.
The folks who say mutation’s random?
Open-minded folks can’t stand ‘em
Even for a minute!
You see the touch of God each day
In every strand of DNA
Unless your mind is closed;
When looking at genetic blueprints
Clearly, there are You-Know-Who-prints
For those so predisposed.”

I told them “really, no offense…
I’ll need to see some evidence.”

They told me “keep an open mind,
And never heed the double blind
Experiments of science;
The open-minded person knows
You cannot trust what science shows—
The truth is in defiance!
It’s science that is always changing;
Scientists keep rearranging—
How could it be true?
So put your trust in common thought,
Which needs no facts at all—well, not
In my considered view.”

I told them “that’s a lame pretense…
I’m waiting for your evidence.”

They told me “keep an open mind
While we stick pins in your behind
To fix your aching head;
We’ve got to re-align your back—
Don’t be alarmed to hear a crack
Or have some herbs instead!
Now take a draught of this solution,
Infinite in its dilution,
(That’s what makes it strong!)
So many cures that fit your Karma,
Hard to see just how Big Pharma
Always gets it wrong.”

I told them “you may not commence
Until you show me evidence!”

They told me “keep an open mind—
Our brainwaves, if they’re all combined,
Can lead to lasting peace;
And simply wishing hard enough
Brings health and love and other stuff,
They’ve known since Ancient Greece!
The figure of the Oracle
Was not just allegorical—
It works! Just take a look!
The truth is, if you wish and pray,
It might just happen, come some day—
And Oprah likes the book!”

I told them “here are my two cents—
Please wish and pray for evidence.”

They told me “keep an open mind;
Though in this lifetime you’re confined
Within your mortal part,
In death you find a pure release
And living on in love and peace,
The you inside your heart,
You’ll leave behind this thin façade
To gaze upon the face of God
If, meekly, you submit;
Each death, each illness is God’s will
You can’t reach Heaven’s gate until
The mortal world you quit.”

I told them “such a moral sense!
If only you had evidence!”

She told me “keep an open mind,
And while our bodies are entwined
Our energies commingle.
Don’t roll your eyes, I do implore;
I speak, of course, in metaphor–
And by the way, I’m single.”
From one to ten? She’s my eleven;
Better than some made-up heaven,
Wondrously mundane!
And best of all, I think you’ll find,
Much better than an “open mind”
She keeps a working brain.

Juxtapositions (I just love that word)

Shelley, at Retrospectacle, once again has captured my attention. Plague week continues, of course, but another post will not be denied attention–how often do you get the chance to watch an egg-sized cyst, full of tapeworm larvae, being removed from a 16-year-old girl’s brain?

Yeah, I know, cool!

Cool…because the girl lives, and makes a full recovery. Because she lives in this century, rather than in a century when people saw the plague as God’s wrath, treatable by prayer, bleeding, herbs, mercury, or lucky charms.

You can complain about modern health care all you like. I take a bit of a wider view. It has saved my life on more than one occasion, has saved my son… There are old cemetaries in this area that are practically littered with infant and child graves, many where the child had not lived long enough to be named. Follow the link. Watch this huge cyst being removed from this girl’s brain. Be grateful to medicine, science, education… you live in a very good time to be alive.

A golf-ball sized hydatid cyst
Is not the sort of thing I’d list
As one I’d like to try.
Indeed, I’d rather think it marvy
Not to host so many larvae–
I’m not that kind of guy.

In juxtaposing these two posts
Where humans serve unwilling hosts
To tapeworms or bacilli,
And treatment may be surgery
Or bleeding, charms, or mercury,
You make my spine go chilly.

I won’t say much, but I concede
That in the past, I’ve had the need
To seek a doctor’s care;
I’m fine, of course, but even so,
I think: It’s not that long ago
My “treatment” would be prayer.

This girl here in your video
(My daughter’s age, I’ll have you know)
Is lucky as can be–
To live in this, the present day
Where science, not the church, holds sway
I hope that you’ll agree.

For her, and for my daughter’s sake
I’d like to take this chance to make
A science-based reply;
For researchers, for doctors, nurses,
Not for priests, or prayer, or curses
The stakes are much too high.

Oh, rats!

From the fleas of rats and mouses
To a plague a’ both your houses,
If we can’t blame sheep or horses, then we gotta blame the Jews
When we found a small bacillus,
Not a god, had tried to kill us
It’s the sort of information anyone can surely use!
If you wish Yersinia pestis
Not to kill you, our request is
That you clean the fleas from bedding, and the rats from in your larder
But if you’re afraid of science
And you’d rather put reliance
In the methods of the church, then their advice is: Just pray harder!

Shelley at Retrospectacle has begun a week-long series that I am very much looking forward to–that’s right, it’s Plague Week!!

I have always been fascinated by The Plague; no matter how I have tried, I don’t think I can wrap my head around what life must have been like during such horrible events. I hope that the avian flu does not give us the chance to find out.

Of Trees, and Life, and Fun

Clicking in through a post at The Loom, I was led to a wonderfully inspirational site, the Interactive Tree Of Life! For some people, a site like this puts them immediately in mind of Darwin. Others, Linnaeus. Others, Gould. Others, others.

Not me.

Me, I see a site like this and immediately think of Ogden Nash. Naturally.

Nash wrote classic little verses inspired by various animals. Here, for instance, is a site that presents the Nash classics “The Octopus”, “The Panther”, “Centipede”, “The Firefly”, “Ant”, “The Cow”, “The Turtle”, and several others (although, if memory serves, “The Eel” as presented on this site is incomplete). They are wonderful little pieces, unmistakably and marvelously Ogden Nash.

One notes, however, that they are limited to animals. The Tree Of Life site reminds us of just how narrow a focus that really is. So, as I said, I look at that interactive site and wonder what Ogden Nash would have thought of it. I make no pretensions about coming even close to Nash, but I thought I’d take a stab at a few. Each of these is represented on the site by a number and a picture, with links to source articles for information.

My point is not that this is any sort of high art–rather, my point is that the stereotype of the expansive vision of the artist, and the narrow focus of the scientist… are stereotypes, not reality. The tree of life is awe-inspiring, all the more so because it is not a fiction, but well-documented reality.

Oh, yeah, the verses…

Escherichia coli 562; Shigella flexneri 623

Escherichia coli and Shigella flexneri
Are technically different—but really, not very.

Porphyromonas gingivalis 837

Porphyromonas gingivalis,
To tell the honest truth,
Attacks the oral cavity—
The gum, and bone, and tooth;
I did not heed my mother’s word—
She warned me (quote: “Forsooth!”)
But I chose not to brush or floss,
And now my thmile ith looth.

Pyrococcus furiosus 2261

Remember the movie “Some Like It Hot”
With Marilyn, Tony, and Jack?
This archaebacterium’s like that a lot
(But it doesn’t have Marilyn’s rack).
But in sea-water heated to 100 C
It can still make a go at mitosis—
With habits like this, this creature must be
Pyrococcus furiosus.

Oryza sativa 4530

Oryza sativa (the Latin for “rice”)
Is genetically simple, which really is nice;
The genome for corn is some five times as big
And for wheat, roughly forty times larger—you dig?
But rice is a staple for billions, you know,
And the template for much of the grain that we grow.
So we study Oryza, my favorite crop,
To find out the genes behind “snap, crackle, pop!”

Drosophila melanogaster 7227

Geneticists love this little guy—
In my kitchen, he’s a disaster;
We both agree, the dude is fly:
Drosophila melanogaster!

Gallus gallus 9031

Nine-oh-three-one, or Gallus gallus
Comes as quite a shock:
The picture shows (no, not a phallus)
One fantastic cock!

Rattus norvegicus 10116

Rattus norvegicus, Norway Rat,
Is cute as a bug, and that is that.

Cryptosporidium hominis 237895

O Cryptosporidium hominis!
It’s never good to see ya—
For countless anno dominis
You’ve brought us diarrhea!

Wigglesworthia brevipalpis 36870

Wigglesworthia brevipalpis (How I love that name!)
Isn’t as cute as kittens, but it has a claim to fame—
It lives symbiotically, in the gut of the blood-sucking tsetse fly
(You’d think D.I. would eat this up, but they don’t even want to try.)
The tsetse fly carries trypanosomes, which kill both man and cattle;
Without ol’ Wiggly, the flies are sterile, and that is half the battle.
The genome project could help in this, but just you keep in mind,
There is nothing we can do if it’s intelligently designed.

No vaccine for arrogance…

Orac reports on the latest pinhead celebrity to jump onto the anti-vax bandwagon. Yup, it’s that walking, talking hairpiece, The Donald.

The anti-vax pinheads are a group I find particularly annoying. My aunt had polio. My grandparents’ generation saw the Salk vaccine for the wonder that it is, and saw polio for the danger it is. Have we forgotten so much so quickly?

When polio was something that
Your friends and family got,
Damn right you’d wait in line to get
That magic-seeming shot.

When infant graves were commonplace,
Each parent knew the cost;
A victim of our own success,
Perspective has been lost.

But now that science gives our lives
More health and fewer pains,
True geniuses like Salk give way
To Trumps with shit for brains.

I’d bet if Trump was suddenly
Confronted with, say, cancer,
He wouldn’t hesitate to look
To science for an answer.

But ignorance and affluence–
A potent combination–
Are threatening the future of
A younger generation.

With every anti-vaxxer voice,
Our children’s risk enlarges,
And science must–for all our sakes–
Defeat these Trumped-up charges.

Please, Australia!

Deep-Sea News reports that my cousins the Giant Australian Cuttlefish may be in serious trouble. It seems they had the lack of foresight to evolve in an area where featherless bipeds would eventually discover uranium, copper, and gold. As of this writing, the link to the original Australian source is down, so you will have to settle for the condensed version on DSN.

Australia is evidence: memories don’t last–
They ought to have learned from mistakes in the past;
The hull of a ship carries passengers, too
(Ask any whose job is to clean off that goo–
Green algae, and seaweeds, and mussels and such
Which can kill off the locals–it doesn’t take much).
This plan should be dropped like a really bad habit,
If Aussies have learned from the tale of the rabbit;
There’s a reason, you see, for the rabbit-proof fence:
Once you bring bunnies hither, you can’t send them hence.
They devastate flora, and quickly outbreed
Their marsupial neighbors–a problem indeed.
Or look to the waters at Port Philip Bay
Where another invasive is living today;
The Northern Pacific Sea Star is its name
At that bay, there’s a full hundred million to blame
For destroying the natives, both mollusks and corals–
When species collide, we get more than mere quarrels.
From foxes and cats, who are powerful killers,
To carp and salvinia, waterway-fillers,
From cane toads to mynas, to red fire ants,
Once here it’s too late, so you can’t miss your chance.
These cuttlefish giants are beautiful creatures
(Just look at the picture! What beautiful features!)
I hope that Port Bonython learns from the past
And decides that they want their Australia to last;
Ecosystems are fragile–we know they can break;
I’m begging you–please don’t repeat your mistake.

(Now, go to this page, download Michael McRae’s delightful illustrations, and use them when reading my verse to children.)

Photo from The Cephalopod Page… which I also cannot get to link. Bad day for linkage…

…and special thanks to Pod, of Podblack Blog

Knit me a brain!


A tip of the cuttlecap to Shelley of Retrospectacle for reporting on the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art

We’ve got sweaters to mend; we’ve got socks we can darn,
So pull up a chair, and I’ll spin you a yarn;
It’s a song with a Scarecrow-of-Oz-like refrain:
Please pick up your needles and knit me a brain!

I’ve knitted my bones, and I’ve knitted my brow,
But I’ve never seen brains knitted—up until now;
With each neural pathway a separate skein,
It’s Art and it’s Science, so knit me a brain!

Two hemispheres knit, and then reaching across ‘em
A beautiful, zippered-up corpus callosum;
Such fine application of knit, purl, and chain,
I want one myself—so please, knit me a brain!

With the brain’s convolutions appropriately gyred
This fabric creation has got me inspired!
My love for this art, I can hardly contain—
So how can I get one? Please knit me a brain!

Some people may tell you I’ve gone ‘round the bend
That the stuff ‘twixt my ears needs some decades to mend.
I could use some new grey-matter; mine’s gone insane,
It would not go to waste, if you’d knit me a brain.

You can see for yourself—why, just look at the time
I must take to obsessively put things to rhyme;
Something’s wrong, and I think that the answer is plain:
I need a replacement—so knit me a brain!

Estro-Blaster, Help Me!

Another comment on Pharyngula… Seems the Estro-Blaster people are preying on men’s insecurities to sell snake-oil. (Freudian imagery intended.)

There is something in the waters
That can turn my sons to daughters?
I’m so happy that this flyer came to tell me of this fact!
Every smoothie that we’ve blendered
Means they’re halfway to transgendered!
Every second now is precious—it is time for us to act!

Time to panic, and I’m thinking
That the water I’ve been drinking
Is a chemical castration, and a feminazi plan!
I drink water like Niagara
As I wash down my Viagra;
Now I see why it’s not working, and I’m still a little man.

Time to buy some Estro-Blaster
And to hope the mail comes faster—
‘Cos I’m worried that perhaps it may already be too late:
I’m not thinking with my penis,
I’ve abandoned Mars for Venus—
And I find I’m moody, ‘bout a week before I menstruate.

creationist museums

I took a walk through time and space—
Through several million years—
I found that some things never change,
Or that’s how it appears.
Stupidity’s a constant
(Hey, I call ‘em as I see ‘em);
I noted Man’s is not the sole
Creationist Museum.
Seems everywhere I looked around
In present or in past,
I found museums touting God—
And all of them half-assed.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised
Or find them each defective;
Each species must be Number One
When seen from their perspective.

The early primates said:

God created Lemurs, and
The world was truly blest;
“Descent of Man” is apropos—
He’s clearly second best.
The perfect form’s arboreous,
As anyone can tell
When apes descended from the trees
Things really went to Hell.

The early tetrapods said:

Acanthostaga sits supreme
As God’s most perfect beast;
To get from them to humankind
Just go from best to least.
Look inside our holy books
And find revealed—the Flood;
God’s favorite creatures, thus, must live
In water and in mud.

The early chordates said:

God created Amphioxus,
Perfectly designed.
Mutations and deformities,
And now we have Mankind.
With notochord, pharyngeal slits,
Their form is most divine
Then vertebrates just messed it up
And now they have a spine.

The prokaryotes said:

The truly blest bacterium
God’s chosen form of life
With billions of them in the gut
Of Adam and his wife.
The heaven-blessed prokaryote
Is God’s Most Perfect Form,
And mammals are just one more way
To keep us nice and warm.

Kitzmiller v. Dover

I am writing this while watching, so I apologize for the incompleteness of my verse. It cannot, within the timeframe I would like, adequately address this wonderful program. Full Disclosure: I watched the trial as it progresseed, and read the transcripts as soon as they were made available; my verse here cannot possibly be the product of tonight’s show and nothing else.

I am, of course, speaking of today’s NOVA program about the Kitzmiller v. Dover “Panda Trial”. NOVA’s program is very well done. Nobody is belittled, nobody is made fun of…but nobody is let off the hook. Kudos to PBS for this program.

It’s not a polished verse, but anyway…

Though the trial is two years over, we once more revisit Dover
Where I.D., no more in clover, gets to hang its head in shame.
They all know about Miranda rights, have read their propaganda,
Largely thanks to them, the “Panda Trial” has since become its name

The attempted execution of the thought of evolution—
Well, good thing the constitution has a First Amendment Clause
No establishing religion as state-sponsored—not a smidgen,
But creationists’ clay pigeon was flung up to test the laws.

Wait—“creationist”? Let’s edit, and forget we ever said it
From now on, no God—we’ll credit some “intelligent design”.
Take the book, and cut and paste, look all innocent and chaste,
If we’re properly two-faced, then everything will turn out fine.

In a science education, by the laws of our great nation
There’s no room to teach creation, so that isn’t what they tried;
I.D. theory’s new position is a fossil in transition—
No God there, by definition (well, there is, but it’s denied).

Evolution’s only theory—wait right there; I know you’re leery,
But although you may grow weary, there’s a point I have to make:
Theory, see, in terms of science, means remarkable compliance
With the evidence; reliance on which isn’t a mistake.

See, Your Honor, see us pledging that we’re telling truth, not hedging,
Doctor Forrest says we’re wedging, but she’s biased, don’t you know?
But the trails of cut-and-pasting are quite clear. Now time’s a-wasting
And that bitterness you’re tasting? That’s the taste of “time to go”.

When Buckingham requested science texts that had been tested
And were legal, one suggested text was “Pandas”, so it seems.
The Thomas More Law Center had decided they would enter
(Both as lawyer and as mentor) to the district of their dreams.

There’s no question that “Kitzmiller versus Dover” was a thriller
When a witness who’s the pillar of the church once took the stand,
Testimony he provided, well, Judge Jones himself decided
Was much more than just one-sided, but a lie that he had planned

The bacterial flagellum—irreducible? Yes! (Well, um,
Close enough that we can tell ‘em that it must have been designed.)
If one protein is subtracted, function surely is impacted
Yes, the battle is protracted, but God’s fate is intertwined!

Many lies had been related, both explicit and unstated;
In his comments, Jones berated the defendants for their acts.
For religion to be winning, if it took a little spinning
Can you really say it’s sinning if you simply change the facts?

…and the fall-out? I suppose, at least it didn’t come to blows,
And the trial did expose a very real and potent threat;
When it suits their own desires, the religious can be liars
When it comes to setting fires, that is one we can’t forget.