Skating perilously close to burnout

And the semester hasn’t even begun! I think it’s clear that I’m in a fragile mental state.

Here’s the deal: I’ve been building up some enthusiasm and momentum for my genetics course. The last couple of weeks, I’ve made significant progress, using the experience of the last few years to build it up more flexibly and better able to cope with the awkwardness of teaching during a pandemic, but also looking back long-term on what works and what doesn’t. The last couple of days, in particular, I was rather happily rewriting the first couple of weeks of lecture, tweaking lab exercises, building up a library of problem sets to assign, etc., and looking forward to trying new ideas in the classroom. I was streamlining all the stuff students have had no problem with in the past, and expanding bits where I’ve found conceptual roadblocks before. It was productive work.

And then, I get an email telling me that my syllabus must incorporate PSLOs and CSLOs, and I’m sent a handy-dandy link to guide me step-by-step through adding these statements, if you already know all the PSLO/CSLO jargon. These are statements used by assessors in evaluating what general skills students learn in my course, they’re important for accreditation and assessment, and some of my colleagues worked very hard on them in committees around campus. I understand why they’re important and appreciate all the work other faculty have put into formulating them.

I hate them. It’s bureaucratic noise. I know very specifically what my objectives are in genetics, but now I have to reformulate them in the broadest, most general context to satisfy administrators, in a way that isn’t going to be at all useful to my students, and package them up in boilerplate bloat to tack onto my syllabus, which is just yet more verbiage the students will find irrelevant and won’t read.

OK, though, it’s part of the job. It’s drudgery, but I’ll derail what I was doing and switch to this task today and get it done. I admit I spent a good twenty minutes yesterday tearing at my hair and cussing furiously at my computer screen, but I’m a big boy, I’ll buckle down and get it done.

This morning, I drag myself to the computer and calmly and unproductively stared at the screen for a few hours. I am unable to proceed. I get nothing done. I pulled up the university’s list of these biology PSLO/CSLO thingies and let them suck all the inspiration and enthusiasm out of my brain. I can’t even warm up to actual genetics, and there I even have a little to-do list of specifics to get done before classes start. I have all these back-up plans in case we go into lockdown, for the inevitable result of having to cope with students requiring prolonged absences, for doing labs online (the worst possible thing that could happen), but I was totally unprepared for the university to reach in and crush all the joy out of my heart with these chains of bureaucracy.

That’s partly me, I know. It’s why I say I’m so close to burnout — in a normal year, I’d just roll my eyes and get on with it. I just don’t feel like I can do it right now.

You know, this university has done as little as possible to adapt to the terrible circumstances the faculty find themselves in, I would have thought they could at least stop pestering us about our TPS reports.

I think what I need to do is just say fuck it, and go spend a few hours in the lab doing worthwhile things, like washing glassware and feeding animals and scrubbing spider poop off the floor of containers and setting up a few more bottles of flies, and then maybe go for a winter walk. Maybe by this evening my brain will manage to regenerate some of the enthusiasm that has been recently vaporized. It would probably be for the best if I just ignore all official university email for a while.

Clearly, I must assert my claim to the throne

I stumbled across this old photo on the web, and at first I wondered why a random website would have a photo of my great-grandfather…and what’s with the uniform? He was a dairy farmer!

Then I discovered that it was actually King Haakon VII of Norway.

H.M. King Haakon of Norway’, 1942. From ‘Calling All Nations’, by T. O. Beachcroft. [The British Broadcasting Corporation, Wembley, The Sun Engraving Co., Ltd., London and Watford, 1942]. Artist Unknown. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

I think the passing resemblance is sufficient cause to claim a link. More evidence: Norway already has a king, King Harald V, and he doesn’t look much like his grandfather. I, too, don’t look much like my great-grandfather, providing further proof. I guess I’ll be nice and not usurp the throne, as he seems to be doing a fine job, but you know, if ever you’re looking for another heir, Norway, I’ll be available.

The environment defines my plans for the day

After my successful foray into the world of walking yesterday, I’m thinking today might be a good day to cower in my office: it’s -18°C out there, the snow is coming down, and we’ve got blizzard conditions. The spiders are warm, my lab still has no running water, and I’ve got to prep the first couple of weeks of lectures for genetics. It’s also snug and warm in my home office, and these fuzzy slippers are kind of cozy, and I’ve got a big cup of coffee. What more could I ask for?

Fallout from the MacDonald/Philosophia trash trickles down

The journal Philosophia is only beginning to reap the consequences of publishing an anti-Semitic article by Kevin MacDonald. The editor is digging in, but one associate editor has already resigned over it.

Philosophia is edited by Asa Kasher (Tel Aviv). In response to questions about the publication of these articles, he wrote that the papers were refereed prior to publication, but that it was “a mistake” to publish them, explaining that he was “not aware of the general background of the debate” and that he is “sorry for treating the discussion as an ordinary philosophical debate.” He added that further comments from him may be forthcoming.

Yesterday, Moti Mizrahi (Florida Institute of Technology) who was until last night the associate editor of Philosophia, wrote on Twitter: “I had nothing to do with the publication of this [McDonald’s] paper in Philosophia. I’ve asked the EiC to reconsider its publication in Philosophia.” Later in the day, he announced his resignation from the journal.

The ADL has also denounced it. The author of the ADL’s article on MacDonald, Marilyn Mayo, has a good take on the issues.

“It’s not about censorship, but looking at what someone is saying and whether you’re validating views that are antisemitic or racist or promoting ideas that have proven to be conspiratorial and not true,” she continued. “Of course, in academia there is understandably a drive to present all different kinds of views, and that’s understandable — but it is also incumbent upon institutions and journals to vet what’s put out there or put it in context.”

“proven to be conspiratorial and not true” is the key phrase there. Academic freedom is important, but it’s not freedom to publish lies as if they are true.

Elizabeth Holmes goes down, but not as hard as she deserves

Huh. The jury actually found Elizabeth Holmes guilty on some of the counts.

A federal jury found Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes guilty on four of the 11 charges for a fraud scheme, delivering a verdict on the long-running controversy over her role in the now defunct blood-testing technology start-up and marking a big win for the government in its years-long probe into the entrepreneur.

The jury of eight men and four women returned their verdict on the seventh full day of deliberations. They found her not guilty on four counts and deadlocked on three counts. Holmes was acquitted on all counts involving patients. Holmes faces the possibility of jail time over the convictions, although a sentencing hearing has not been set at the time of the verdict.

That’s what I find interesting: she was found guilty of crimes against investors, but not crimes against all the people who were misled by Theranos’s claims. It was all those gullible Silicon Valley venture capitalists who were hurt, not all the people who went into Walgreen’s and got misleading, false test results. I guess that sort of makes sense, since Walgreen’s doesn’t care about their customers all that much — they sell homeopathic remedies, after all, and didn’t question the likelihood that a company with Henry Kissinger and George Shultz on the board might not have any medical competence.

I’m not surprised. It’s clear that the US government (even the judicial branch!) is in the pocket of the corporations, given their current policies which are all about putting the peasantry back to work no matter how sick they are. Even the Democratic party cares more about the health of Wall Street and Silicon Valley than of the citizenry.

Man, Holmes was such an obvious, unqualified phony from the get-go, yet she was briefly a billionaire. I am persuaded that Silicon Valley is mainly a pool of stupid people.

The Kent Hovind Challenge!

I got tired of Kent Hovind constantly demanding that I, and other people, debate him, so I offer an alternative.

If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, you can get the gist from the title screen: I tell him to go read a book. Or you can read the script, down below.

Dang, he beat me to it. Hovind issued his own challenge this morning: it’s to have a debate, with idiotic creationist YouTuber Standing For Truth as the moderator. In other words, the same as he always does.

Forget it, my challenge is better.

[Read more…]

Easing back into the flow

You know, I’ve been crippled up with tendinitis for a while, but I got the pain managed fairly quickly, and have since been in heal and repair mode, avoiding putting stress and strain on my ankle. I have not been happy about this, as you might guess. Today I took the bold step — actually, a whole bunch of steps — bundled up, put on a pair of loose fitting boots, and walked a couple of kilometers in -20°C weather.

I made it! I’m in even worse shape than I was before, so I’m a bit worn out, but I didn’t break anything, no tendons ruptured, I’m feeling no pain. I’m on the road to recovery! I just have to keep walking regularly, and next thing you know…the spring field season! Spiders re-emerge! I’ll be out in the weeds again, finding spiders while the ticks find me. It’ll be fun! As long as I don’t break anything again.

Hello, your name is Kent Hovind, prepare to be laughed at

Kent is back, begging for attention. Here are a couple of comments he left on my YouTube channel. I’ll respond to them here and be done with him.

Of course you don’t recall, Kent — but I’ve got the receipts. Also, it’s Coyne, not Coyan, so I think it’s safe to assume you haven’t already read Why Evolution is True, which doesn’t surprise me at all. You don’t read anything about the science you disparage, let alone even popular summaries. You’re a know-nothing.

Why should I “debate”? I can talk about evolution and science without asking you to jump in and provide commentary from an ignorant point of view. You’re adding nothing to the discussion.

I accepted an invitation to debate in my callow, foolish youth five or six years ago, when you were getting out of prison for tax dodging. You didn’t accept my insistence that you couldn’t profit one-sidedly from it, and it was you that refused.

Again, you can’t respond in a debate on evolution. I’ve seen you at work. You’ve got nothing to offer other than mischaracterization (“you believe you evolved from a rock”, for instance), incredulity (“how can you believe you’re related to a mosquito?”…because the molecular evidence shows that we are, I’d say), and ignorance and stupidity. You have nothing to add. Nothing.

Fuck off, you vapid, clownshoe-wearing racist, misogynist, criminal fraud.

Hey, Kent, crazy idea here: you don’t need me, either. Go read Why Evolution is True all by yourself, and go through it, all by yourself, chapter by chapter, making video rebuttals. You know, kinda like how Aron Ra went through your videos chopping ’em up. Do it!