Quiche Moraine

Rusty-red rocks against an electric blue sky were an exact color match for the mix of brilliant intellect I knew to be in Phoenix on Monday. I had just flown into Sky Harbor Airport from Minneapolis, and any Minnesotan will tell you that we don’t waste a day like that indoors. It was a sparkling spring morning alive with color and radiant sunshine. But I happily joined 3,000 other science fans inside a dark auditorium for a full twelve-hour day of physics, cosmology, biology and more.

You didn’t hear about it? It was the much anticipated and sold out public event called the Origins Symposium. The media may not report it, because they don’t get science. But regular, everyday people do and are hungry for it. We came to hear the new, and what we know will be stunning, discoveries about how the world works. We filled up the concert hall on the campus at Arizona State with anticipation.

Monday morning began with an amazing line up of rock star status scientists who spoke for an hour, one after another. Does lecture style delivery at a podium with PowerPoint visuals on a large screen sound boring to you? Not a bit—it was mesmerizing for five hours straight. Steven Pinker, Don Johanson, Brian Greene, Richard Dawkins, Craig Venter, and Lawrence Krauss presented their unique views on evolution, origins and their research with charismatic delivery. We laughed and cheered and bonded knowing we were witnessing an historic event. As the late afternoon panel of six, count ‘em, six noble laureates came on stage, we stayed right where we were. Ira Flatow, the nationally known science journalist and host of Science Friday, expertly juggled the egos and zingers that the physicists on either side of string theory tossed at each other.

Listening to these brilliant minds was like hearing a symphony performed by the original composer. The world of ideas and the appreciation of beauty is an aesthetic artists share with scientists. This trans-disciplinary approach is one that Michael Crow, President of ASU, and Lawrence Krauss, physicist and director of the “Origins Initiative” are developing. Along with college courses, the Initiative will also reach out to the public and journalists through workshops and future events.

Between presentations, I noticed how many in the audience were curious about the people around them. We found each other interesting and smart. We’re creating a trend, riding a wave of discovery, taking part in a cultural transition don’t ya know. Many people told me how relieved they were to see our intellectual lives respected after eight years of oppression.

So with spring and science in the air, I felt a little giddy heading back to Minneapolis. I’ll revisit my bookmarked pages at the Origins web site during the year, watching how the Initiative develops and hoping to catch next year’s big event.

Lynn Fellman is a Minneapolis artist and blogger, as well as an interviewer for Atheists Talk radio and one of science’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders.

I remember reading Finding Darwin’s God awhile back. The first half of the book was an excellent defense of evolution and critique of creationism. The second half of the book was a poor defense of god belief. I remember thinking that if Miller had only applied the logic from the first half of his book to the second half, he would be an atheist.

Humans have never wanted to go backwards. Less comfort, security, pleasure, utility, convenience and strength are not options most people will consistently choose in their lives, even if it is for the betterment of their own bodies or the environment as a whole. We’re wired to eat fat and lay around. This is why selling people on consuming less, conserving more, paying more and getting less has always been a failing political position, even if it’s the smartest long-term approach and the least costly one. The answer to environmental problems, then, isn’t to get people to drive less. It’s to improve our technology with more efficient cars or alternative, lower polluting cars. Or heating systems. Or packaging. Or water use.

“Let me put my cards on the table.” The marshal picked up his badge, returning it to an inside vest pocket. Then he fished in an outside pocket to produce a curved stem pipe and tobacco pouch. Taking his time, he casually filled the pipe, tamping down the tobacco with his index finger. Before striking a match he raised his eyes to Charley. “I’m looking for a Texan. He’s been involved in several bank holdups, and lastly, he was one of the gang involved in the train robbery at Mesquite, Texas.”

As a medical writer, I’ve noticed that most medical writers I meet are female. A quick Google search using the keywords‚ “freelance medical writer‚” produced seven female and three male writers (approx. 2:1 ratio) from the first 10 eligible results. While it is difficult to draw statistically relevant conclusions from such a small sample size, it certainly implies a trend.

The American Medical Writers Association is the leading professional organization for medical communicators, with over 5,500 members from around the world. The ratio of female to male members is 4449:1227 (approx. 4:1), mirroring the trend observed with the Google search.

Considering the times, you might think these two played cowboys and Indians after school, or war games, or maybe even ranchers and rustlers. Everybody else did, at least if they were boys. But these two developed their own game, an after-the-war game, and not even WWII, recently ended, but the Civil War. They never actually gave it a name. It was just the game they always played with each other.

After all, there was the same old perkiness in his step this morning, the same tugging-on-the-leash excitement he always had at going on a road trip, the same unquestioning loyalty and snuggliness, and even though he could no longer get into the car himself like he could just the year before, he gave every appearance of having a great ol’ time. Every bit of him this morning belied what I knew to be true, that the seizures were coming more and more often, that they twisted his little body into impossible contortions that would have done Linda Blair proud, and that each time wrenched a howl from him that broke my heart when I heard it, even jarring me from a sound sleep with only the memory of it in my ears and the dread knowledge of what it had meant.

But the day I got that radio was the day I heard what became my first favorite song, and the world made sense to me somehow, because I had a red, white and blue radio, and a song coming out of it that echoed an American national identity. My dad gave that to me.

If you recall all those burning oil wells after the first Gulf War in Kuwait, you will understand that many of those burning wells were gushing oil and gas. That’s why they continued to burn. This illustrates how many of the wells in that region are under pressure and how petroleum flows to the surface with no need of pumps. Iraqi oil fields are some of the least expensive places on the planet to extract oil.

Members have frequently commented on how much they have grown as photographers since joining the group and attending events. Over the last year, I’ve organized and attended all but one of the events, and I’ve found that I learn something new at each one. This is partly from other photographers pointing out something I’ve never thought of before, but mostly from answering questions that I haven’t had to think about myself.