More Reality in Science

I am working on a paper with some colleagues. Trouble is that the data in the paper are very soft. Is there anything wrong with that? Is it wrong to publish data that are difficult to interpret and the suggest how e might interpret the data?

I wish I knew the answer. Trouble here is that the arguments are very statistical. If one does not reject the Null Hypothesis, does that mean that there is no difference between the data sets even if I, based on my judgment alone, feel that thee is a difference?

Imagine where the world would be if we insisted on such proofs for political decisions or worse made quarterbacks prove that their evlauations were correct?

Reality, von Braun and Justice Roberts

Something is missing. The Justice tells us his written memos from the Reagan or Bush I eras were lawyer work ... writings to support his employers. Fair enough? Isn't that why we employ lawyers?

Maybe fair to the employer, but how do lawyers justify their choice of employers? I think America was here once before .. at least in spirit. In 1945 we rescued Werner von Braun and his fellow rocketeers from the oncoming Ruskis. von Braun's missiles from the Nazi era were engineer work ... devices to support his employer.

There is, of course, real differences between the two situations. Reagan may have been senile but he was no Hitler. Bush I was not a Nazi either. Roberts' however does not take the road of accusing his critics of making odious comparisons. Instead, Justice Roberts appeals to the high ideals of the Law ... without the rule of law, there is no law. and Werner? Dr. von Braun's best claim is that science justifies itself. Our North Korean colleagues certainly show us that support for science does not undermine a fascist society.

Still, the scientific community is a lot more moralistic then our pin striped attorney friends. After WWII, many of the world's scientists condemned Heisenberg for working on Hitler's bomb. "Physics" unlike "the Rule of Law" may not be self justifying. I was personally criticized for accepting tainted research dollars from the Tobacco Institute. I guess my credentials as a working scientist permit me to be judgmental?

Roberts himself is not the issue for me. The issue for me is the Democratic Senators acceptance of Roberts' claim. Shouldn't someone of these attorney-legislators ask the Justice to explain the extent of his of isolation of attorneys from ethics? Why isn't it relevant to know Justice Robert's personal beliefs on murder of the unborn? Would the Justice rule in favor of infanticide simply based on Roe v Wade as a precedent?

I suspect Roberts' antagonists accept the arguments for legal immunity form the demands of morality. .. or at least they accept these arguments until our representatives someday sit as prisoners in Nuremberg trial of their own.

Reality in Science

The fundamental achievement of the West was a discovery ... the discovery that the universe is under gridded by a reality. Einstein said it best ... "God does not play dice" (or some such), he argued. Einstein's argument was against the quantum mechanical world ... a world where the laws of chance govern at the level of subatomic particles. This great man, however, missed the point ... quantum statistics itself is the reality. Some alternative world may have other laws, other stats, but we live within the confines of probability.

Photography: the poetry of reality

This essay is pompous, arrogant, even epistemological.

I am going to attempt to define a basic term. Not "good," "being" or" bad" but "photography". More specifically, "photography" as an art form .. akin to painting, music, acting, etc.

1, Photography is NOT technique. Mastery or methods do not define photography any more than canvas defines painting. A masterful picture of a corn flakes box, a technological feat but probably not an art form.

2,, Photography is not about light, cameras, or pixels. Most folks can recognize "photographs." However, this does not say much about how the images are made. Photographs, that is images that appear photographic can be made with an air brush. Cameras can be dipped n paint to "make" images. Man Ray used photographic film and paper to record shadows, making "Ray-O-Grams" ... was this painting?

So what is Photography about? a Zen answer might be "Photography is about what." That is Photography uses reality, elements of reality, elements of belief in reality ... the "what" we mean in the sentence, "What is that?"

Like the words used in poetry, the elements of a photograph limit the work of the phtographer. Where the painter has no limits in choices of image or tone, as a photographer I need to work with a limited vocabulary of real objects with realistic impact.

This image from Bremerton illustrates my point. Is this image "real?" Do you believe I "made" this with a camera? Or, perhaps is it a B&W drawing? If the entire image is real, is the seascape real? Is the seascape in color or is the real seascape a B&W mural? Maybe the foreground is pasted onto a seascape?

The image may be called a play on reality. This play on reality, like the poet's playing with the "meanings" of words is the essence of photography.

Rebuilding a Slum

The NO story is unfolding in a bizarre manner. Estimates of the costs of response to Katrina have risen to $300,000,000,000. That is 1/3 of a trillion dollars!.

Beyond all this none seems to have any sense as to what rebuilding might mean. NO was largely a slum. How do you rebuild a slum? Barracks? Public Housing? Is someone going to put aside money for rebuilding the (crucial) drug industry?

Has there EVER been a comparable problem? Responses to floods and tsunamis in the oceanic east have largely focused on rebuilding the homes of the coastal poor and, of course, the luxury hotels. Rebuilding the hotels is easy, but it is even easier to rebuild homes for people who are going to continue to live in a marginal culture. In contrast NO ONE believes that slum living is healthy.

What happened after WWII? Did we rebuild gypsy camps and impoverished areas of Germany or Japan? How did such areas do after the Marshall Plan?

Rebuilding a slum ain't easy. Of course you have to create some form of very low income housing. But what form and for who? Do single parent families qualify in the Bush era? Do gay partners have a right to a one bedroom apartment? And who is going to own this slum housing? Does anyone want to create the NO Soviet? Or do we have a raffle to decide which lucky person lives in the nelwy built ocrner apartment /c view and who lives in the basement?

Schools, food markets, banks, are all similar issues. The bottom line is that no amount of money can rebuild NO. Social decisions will have to be made and none of these are obvious or easy. Does NO become Venice West? ... a shell of a city maintained for tourists? Or does it become a corporate Kremin, antiseptically tied to big businesses and covnentions with little local housing?

New Orleans, the news real

Where are we? Some third world country, was it Louisinesia or New Bangleans?, is on the news day and night. We see poor (black) children, eyes full of despair while warm lords lead teen aged gangs on a hunt for helicopters to shoot down!

The only fair reaction to Katrina is that New Orleans, if you are poor is not a lot different than Bangladesh. Nothing, nothing was(or is) in place here in the US to deal with the needs of the underclass in case of a disaster. At best a feeble effort was made at a refugee camp in the New Orleans football dome.

Imagine the self righteousness of the US if Indonesia rounded up its poorest citizens after a disaster and placed them in soccer stadia .. w/o food, water or toilets. Pity? Outrage? Worse, imagine the UN making a contribution and the comments of our new UN ambassador, John Boltan:

"
For the United States, what is the importance of extending the United Nations Mission , I mean it’s a very small mission, there aren’t many people in it. What’s the Mission's importance to Seatle? : Well it has a variety of roles, but two issues that have been extremely important are assistance in the re-establishment of governmen. ----we’re --- happy that the government of New Orleans has welcomed the UN and other international assistance, recognizing that of course it is a fundamentally American process.
(adapted from a press conference).
New Orleans is really not so much a result of lack of preparedness for a disaster as it is a result of Bushist belief in a self-reliant society that ignores the needs of the less than affluent. Today, the rich poor gap is all too clear in New Orleans, but the more important gap is the ability of the less than affluent to get an education, get health care, avoid service in foreign wars or retire.

Rainier from Longbranch Marina

Rainier from Longbranch

A Beginning

As SJ starts, our vacation ends. We took the Aquila (our 34 foot Tollycraft) South this year to be closer to home. Our son, Hillel could only spend a few days with us and our daughter, Havi a few other days. New Orleans is said to be drowned forever, The Iraqis ... some of them .. wrote a constitution that pledges obedience to Shariah and Democracy, Renquist is dead, Bush isn't.