My one goal this week of getting over a cold has been accomplished. However pleased I am at this success, I am equally pissed that, contrary to common (my) knowledge, nose blowing does not help you get over a cold faster, but can give you a wicked sinus infection.

Moving on.

I watched a very interesting show on the Science channel yesterday about how violent geologic events shaped the earth in the past and how they continue to muck it up for us today. The narrator, Patrick Stewart, was prone to anthropomorphizing earthquakes as “ruthless” and volcanoes as having “Klingon-like ferocity.” Yeah, so I made that last one up, but my favorite anthropomorphism, and one not limited to this program, is “nature giving up its secrets”. I imagine a dusty basement room, light streaming in through a tiny corner window, the mid-ocean ridge quivering with fear under intense interrogation by two scientists…

Wayne’s World Alternate Ending Music

Bad Scientist: "You expect us to believe that you’re just a mountain range that happens to sit on the junction of two tectonic plates? We’ve seen the lava, haven’t we Jim? (Jim nods slowly) We’ve got fish who’ve seen the steam vents (motions to a large aquarium). Why don’t you give it to us straight, and make it easier on yourself, huh?" (Bad Scientist menacingly waves a model of a deep-sea submersible in front of the suspect)

Mid-Ocean Ridge: "Alright, alright! I’m formed by the spreading of the plates…I…I mean…when the plates spread, lava comes up from below the crust and slowly builds up into a mountain range. That’s it, I…I swear!"

Good Scientist: (Speaking to ridge) "You just saved a lotta lives pal, you oughta be proud. Real proud."

Wayne’s World Alternate Ending Music

Me again.
Come on. Isn’t science interesting enough that it doesn’t need human emotions and motivations? Do we really need to “penetrate the secrets of the deep”, as sexy as that sounds? Let the facts speak for themselves and leave the metaphors to poets and moody, brooding twenty-somethings. That goes for you too, Richard Dawkins. Don’t think that just because you’ve cleverly allegorized all of evolution using yet another 600 year-old allegory that you’re any better that Captain Picard1.


That’s all.

1http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/writings/ancestorstale.shtml