Science and Truth and Greg Craven

Scientific investigation attempts to understand the natural world. The idea is that observing, measuring, and accurately predicting natural phenomena through repeated observation and manipulation will lead us towards Truth.

I am surprised that so many people and scientists believe that Truth is determined by a vote, as opposed to being a process and way of understanding. Can you find a single definition of science where it ends with ". . . and they all agree."?

That begs the question: What is the role of consensus in determining Truth? Since when is Truth a democratic process? If that were true, evolution would not yet be true. From a strictly scientific perspective: agreement does not equal Truth.

Now, moving on to more practical ground, science can help inform us of A LOT. Scientific inquiry is an epistemic powerhouse in terms of how to view and interact with the natural world. Science is also unable to answer many questions (further elaborated upon on Greg Craven's site: http://www.gregcraven.org/) .

When it comes to "controversial" topics such as human's influence in global climate change and evolution, I think that it is important to realize that "scientific fact" plays little to no role in what people think. The latest Gallop Poll that I read (early 2009) found that 39 and 29% of Americans respectively do and do not "believe in evolution." This is something that is beyond established in the scientific community.

What I think is happening with climate change is fourfold: (i) many scientists that are not directly studying climate change are wrongfully contributing to the problem by chiming in on the debate, (ii) scientists that are being honest are saying that we cannot prove causality (much like in the sense that it took DECADES to definitively link smoking to cancer), (iii) "scientists" are being supported by big industry that are opponents of acknowledging that that they are contributing to accelerated climate change, and (iv) many scientists are conflating their scientific inquiry with their beliefs that we humans are destroying the Earth--the very thing (natural world) that likely led them to where they are.

I think that to solve these issues, we must realise that ideas that affect other people (e.g., climate change, genetically modified organisms, evolution) that are cast as being scientific need more than science and to resolve them and that we must realise our subjectivity (e.g., we, as the academic elite prioritize differently than, say, those living in poor, urban environments).

I think the reason why Greg Craven was so successful because he was not putting up charts with projected global temperature change + / - 95% confidence intervals for the dozen or so models, but he took a humanistic approach being that this is a human-caused and -controlled issue.

Therefore, when dealing with social issues, we need to concentrate on social change and not just belabouring and degrading the point of scientific legitimacy. This is where many of the scientists and their liaisons (e.g., "Man-Bear-Pig" on South Park is Al Gore) are failing to make the connection.

Think about all conservation issues of which you are aware. If we really want to change things, how does practicing science really help? Shouldn't we be taking another approach? If you want to save the endangered house sparrow, you need not to study it to death and talk about how all ecosystems are going to collapse with its extinction (hyperbolic stance many scientists take), but show people (i.e., source of the problem) and help people understand that it is more than just another species of bird.

The founding fathers syndrome

One dawn, in 2006, I was listening to investigative reporter Amy Goodman on Democracy Now in Los Angeles as I commuted over 30 miles to work; she was interviewing the late Howard Zinn. That morning he said something that would open innumerable doors and allow me to ask questions in innumerable different ways:

History is important. If you don’t know history, it’s as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.

Zinn’s work has been well-known for simply and elegantly articulating the importance of the past in ways that resonated with all people. To those that whose voices and histories are suppressed, Zinn’s take on history was empowering and emancipating; a corollary is those voices that currently speak over and interrupt feel threatened. This is, perhaps, what made Zinn such a great historian, and why it is no surprise that his seminal book on north American history, People’s History of the United States (1980), has received such praise. The barrier that Zinn has been able to break through and expose to the masses is this: The powerful, broadcasted voices are the ones that have their voices heard and perpetuated through both space and time; the consequences of such proliferation leads to patterns of domination and subordination in groups of humans.

The dominant voices in the Americas, and arguably the World, are a product European colonialism and imperialism legacies and ideologies. These ideas rank identities by respectively rationing privilege and voice in the following order: class, race, and biological sex. In this system, ruling class has the most power, then males, and then the white race. Some identities are entitled to more power in certain cases; exempli gratia, white females are dominant over black males even though gender is ranked lower than race.

This system of elitism ensures that the dominant elements remain powerful and subjugates all that are less powerful; id est, it is a negative feedback system that self-corrects as to not deviate from the status quo. The mechanisms responsible for ruling white male stability are many. For example, very powerful mechanisms are economic and political models like capitalism that command the United States. In this model, it is very difficult for people to overcome systemic oppression if they are merely born in a lower class, a non-white race, a non-European ethnicity, a women sex, or a feminine gender. Among the multitude of repressive mechanisms ensuring the reining status quo, a subtler form takes place that is, perhaps, more controlling, but in a more indirect way—the past.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is infamous for characterizing the idea of thought control, especially by erasing history. The images portrayed by Orwell have ability to terrify every person in unfathomable ways. I think that the reason why this is such a powerful work is because people have felt and read about the distortions of the past, especially when it is shaped in a way to celebrate and demonize others. This idea also takes form in ways that are further subtle—distortion of the past by omission.

Many social movements have, whether explicit or implicit, been catalyzed by the omission of people’s history. For example, many diasporas and Pan-Africanism (Edwards 2003) seek to unify identities to collect lost pieces of their pasts. In the negritude movement, many of the celebrated figures, like Aime Cesaire, claim searching for their heritage as an impetus. Similarly, women in the United States during the second-wave feminism fought for their histories to be included in curricula at institutions of higher education. According to Susan and Lee (2004), during the second-wave feminist movement of the Sixties, there was not a single course offered on women’s studies until 1970 at San Diego State University, California. Further, to exemplify the degree to which inequality existed between men and women in the United States in 1970, Baumgardner and Richards’ A Day Without Feminism (2000), describes the biggest source of scholarship money then was the Miss America Pageant and many schools did not allow women students (Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard, West Point, Boston College, etc.).

The intersection of elitism with race and biological sex will be exemplified by the negritude movement in Francophone colonies during the interwar and colonial periods. Negritude was a movement for and by black slaves whose ancestors were stolen from their African homelands and shipped across the globe to be commoditized as a good for sale and trade, for which the owners of the commodities would economically profit. This form of economic gain was one of the most profitable in human history. Here, the labour and materials were nearly free, and the owners quickly became very wealthy. This systemically dehumanized blacks in order to rationalize the murder and torturing of other human kin. This corruption and rationalization furthered the power and voice gap between white and blacks, which turned into some of the ugliest scenes in human history. Negritude then arose after legal emancipation and blacks gained the economic and intellectual means of understanding their subordination and wanting to know their history. The story that follows has been written about the “founding fathers” of negritude: Leopold Sedar Senghor, Leon-Gontran Damas, and Aime Cesaire. The thought is that these intellectuals came together in Paris, France and synergistically drew upon other black movements (e.g., Harlem Renaissance) to lay the theoretical foundation for moving towards an egalitarian white and black culture whilst reconnecting with their African roots. This, like above, was to a good degree, born out of a yearning to know their heritage.

Although this story is wonderful in the sense of black men becoming empowered and emancipating themselves and other blacks from French and other white forms of oppression, it fails to truly be concerned with those ideals. That is, the “founding fathers” of negritude, failed to emancipate black women and left them behind. In Feminism and L’Internationalisme Noir: Paulette Nardal, Edwards (chapter 3; 2003) outlines black patriarchal repression of women by re-elaborating negritude, which includes the role of women. Paulette Nardal has, according to Edwards, and agreed upon by others (e.g., Sharpley-Whiting 2002), been “the most important connection between the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ writers and the Francophone university students who would become the core of the Negritude movement.” As it turns out, Nardal and her co-authored publication La Revue du monde noir, was the catalyst for the “founding fathers,” especially Senghor.

This phenomenon of emancipation of one group unfortunately failing to be in solidarity with others has repeated itself throughout history. For example, second-wave feminism in the United States was successful in working towards gaining equity between men and women. It is important to note, however, that the movement failed to include women of colour. This contradictory exclusion of the oppressed lead to the third-wave feminist movement, laid by Moraga and Anzaldua in This Bridge Called my Back: Writings By Radial Women Of Color in 1981.

In sum, European ideologies of elitism and domination / subordination are the historical way of thinking in areas they have historically colonized (most of the World). The powerful are the ones that consciously attempt to keep their positions of power using an array of suppressive mechanisms. One of the most damaging and subtle mechanisms is the omission of people’s history. This is a severe form of domination that has often been at the centre of social movements. This, however, is not confined to white ruling-class males, but can be found in women’s rights struggles and racial equity struggles. We see this in the Francophone negritude movement and second-wave feminism in the United States. Failure to include other subordinate groups can be very problematic because it is much easier in social movements to work in solidarity rather than having each group work towards emancipation. This means that a strong set of inclusive ideals is important in any social movement in order to work towards the ending of suffering for all oppressed people.

Bibliography

Baumgardner, Jennifer; Richards, Amy. 2000. A Day Without Feminism. In Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism And The Future.

Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Goodman, Amy. 2006. Democracy Now!. Braodcasted 24 November 2006.

Moraga, Cherrie; Anzaldua, Gloria. 1981. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color. Persephone Press.

Orwell, George. 1949. Nineteen Eight-Four. Harcourt Brace and Company.

Sharpley-Whiting, T. Deneean. 2002. Negritude Women. University of Minnesota Press.

Shaw, Susan; Lee, Janet. 2004. Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic And Contemporary Readings. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Zinn, Howard. 1980. A People’s History Of The United States. HarperCollins Publishers.

Science and ethics

Over the past month or so, I found myself really torn between science, individual scientists, and our role in this World.

I recently had an encounter with a prominent scientist that had, to put it lightly, some very problematic things to say about society, certain groups of people, and ways of knowing and interacting in this World. For a seminar at UNR we are reading this scientist's book, so I thought by subscribing to his blog, I would better understand who he is and his ideas better. It turned out that it has caused some great distress in my approach to knowledge and science as a discipline.

This scientist really bothered me because how he positioned himself as "public intellectual" that is there to "track down prejudices." Because of his power of having dual-Ph.D. and impressive academic standing and record, he claims in his writing that he is a man of the people. This pretentious display is SO wrong in SO many different ways.

First, he needs to realise that he has great power! People in power, whether it be police officers, politicians, CEOs, etc., have greater ethical responsibility and should be held more accountable for their actions given their disproportional impact they can potentially have--not to mention, the propensity that power has to corrupt!

Next, realising this power, he needs to really question what he is doing. It is especially surprising that SO little criticism and research was done in some of his works on this blog. For instance, he went on a tirade regarding spirituality, without doing his homework. I called him out because he essentially deduced and made up definitions of spirituality, and he said that in his "research" could not find what spirituality means in non-western cultures! Really!? I mean, if there is ANY arena that would yield poor examples of spirituality, it would be the Judeo-Christian belief systems. Nonetheless, much of what he wrote was holey.

I soon unsubscribed to his blog because dealing with man was not worth my time and energy.

BUT, now I have to read his book for the seminar and I am in a dilemma: What do you do with a person's ideas when, in their field of specialty, they are "experts," but in other fields have distorted and problematic ideas and Worldviews?


This dilemma is nothing new, but very important. When I think of some of the nastiest things scientists are directly responsible for (e.g., nuclear bombs, chemical and biological warefare, carcinogenic consumer products), I cannot help but acknowledge the similar arguments that could be made for advancing our knowledge and the consequences.

What I think is a HUGE problem amongst scientists (and others too) that could clarify what is happening, is that they tend to be highly disembodied. They think that what they study or work on is important to know, but fail to make the connection between their work and possible negative consequences.

What scientists do and say is VERY important and should be handled very delicately.


Without connecting what they do to the possible political, social, environmental, and cultural consequences, they are behaving selfishly and irresponsibly. I think that more discussion is needed about the role of the scientist in our society what what we are ultimately trying to accomplish.

Family values

My brother is visiting me in Reno from southern CA this week.

Having moved away (> one hour) from my family for an extended period of time (> one year) for the first time has been an interesting experience.

I have always been close to my family; it was always of the utmost importance growing up. My family would regularly visit grandma and grandpa on the weekend where it was also common to see my mom's brother and sister, and their descent-sized families.

Oh how I loved seeing the fam. Grandma would and still does stuff my to my brim with delicious foods, grandpa would be talking about the Dodgers, Auntie Noma would be her normal loving self, and Jerry would be on some new exciting kick.

Anyhow, with my brother visiting, I always start feeling a little reminiscent. One of the times that I remembered missing my family the most was when I spent three months in Panama. I wrote the following letter to my mom and my grandma about the soup, soupita, that those women have prepared for me hundreds of times throughout my life.

It is the letter that I would like to share:

Dear Bedoya women (Grandma and Mom),

It nearly brought tears to my eyes.

When at the market last week I haphazardly picked up an assortment of grocery items: a pound of rice, choyote, tomato sauce, lentils, platanos, onions, and so on. As the week went by, I hardly noticed the ingredients that remained, perhaps by fate, in the cupboard. This evening, when feeling hungry, I opened the cupboard and to my surprise, I had just the right ingredients to make the dish that defines my childhood, and most likely my existence. It is a dish that I have come to call my own; not by creating it, but devouring it.

I thought twice about tampering with the preparation that I hold so precious to my heart. My Grandma and Mom have perfected this dish, and I did not want to shame them. After nearly one hour of contemplation, I decided that I would take a shot, hoping that I would not do it injustice. I have made it before, but it usually is preceded with a frantic telephone call to my Mom asking for preparation instructions.

As I stepped into the kitchen my nerves were high and the air was thick. (The latter was a figurative and literal statement; in the tropics, like here in Panama, the air is completely saturated at 100% humidity.) I took the ingredients and the utensils out of the cupboards with an amalgam anxiety, curiosity, and eagerness flowing through my blood. I started.

Like second nature, I started to prepare the meal. My body was moving uncontrollably as my innate sense of what and how came together like a newborn foal instinctively knowing how to run after leaving the womb. I chopped! I stirred! I measured! I cried (onions)! The odor was a drug that sent my into a cooking trance!

When my trip was over, I leaned over the stove, spoon in hand. I dipped it. I blew softly. I did it.

Paralyzed, I wanted so bad to hug the both of you and tell you that I love you. I made it.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I made Soupita today.

Chris

Oh, and the picture is of my me and my brother with our two second cousins, Joey and Gia at my parents house about one year ago.

all about love

Monday and Tuesday I read a book that had recently found its was into my life--All About Love: New Visions, by bell hooks.

I was first exposed to this book in May when somebody I dearly love was asked to read it at a wedding. Apparently, she introduced this book to the groom nearly a decade ago and he had since incorporated the book into his relationship with his now bride.

When I asked Larry the role it played in his relationship, his response was touchingly beautiful. He said that they regularly read the book--when times are both easy and difficult--to reflect upon their love and use it to, for instance, remind them what love means to them, how honest they are being with themselves and each other, how they had spiritually grown through love, and so on.

Because the book played such an important role in their lives, they asked for a passage to be read at their wedding.

Incidentally and rightfully, this happened to be shortly before the wedding (a few days!). When driving from Reno to Boise for the wedding, we read the book aloud and searched for a passage and eventually found one that was very fitting for the occasion and for Larry and Kristen.

The short blips that was read on the roadtrip fascinated me and provided material for some insightful discussions. The only downside to that was that we did not read very much of the book, which was needed since deciding on a passage was time-sensitive.

My interest was piqued in the book, so I ordered a used copy for next to nothing.

I felt that this book was very touching. To me, hooks essentially calls for a love revolution. That is, she examines love in the many forms that we believe it to be.

She begins by defining love, since it has so many different forms and is considered to be undefinable by many. What she writes is that love IS NOT a noun, but rather a verb. This enables agency and acknowledges that love is not passive or fallen into, but something that is worked at. She further builds upon Peck's definition of love in The Road Less Traveled that "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." (Note: I liked the book so much that I already lent is away.)

Much of what is later written is built upon the work and responsibility needed for love to exist. This included a topic that hit home for me--familial love. As hooks worked through love as being emancipatory through work and responsibility, she describes that many of us do not love in our relationships that we have traditionally accepted as being loving. More specifically, she asserts that love cannot exist in the face of abuse. In my case, abuse manifested itself in my family by my father through occasional physical abuse, emotional abuse, and, most importantly, neglect. I have spent many of the latter years of my life dedicating a good deal of energy towards trying to love him, but there has been little-to-no attempt to reciprocate. hooks described that relationship simply as one that is very caring, but by her definition, not loving.

hooks also struck chords given that I recently began a romantic relationship. She discussed the importance of work, honesty, choice, power, materialism, spirituality, mutuality, community, and romance. Many of these issues I have been working very hard on. For instance, part of understanding the and working towards eliminating power dynamics in our relationship has been to identify realities and their associated privileges, such as our sex, education, lived experience, and race.

What I thought was most beautiful was her description of all of the potential that loving can have. From loving oneself, to romantically loving another, to the loving of others in community, hooks was inspiring and painted a picture of a possible egalitarian utopia with loving as the bond holding us together.

I used a picture of a family (I could not find a good photograph of a community) to hopefully show that when we think of love, that we have preconceived notions about what it should look like. I think that if we truly embrace loving as hooks suggested first and foremost, then we would see love first and the fact that there are two men second.

We only live once, so why not work hard?

Speak Your Mind . . . Reno

Yesterday was my birthday. I have annually taken that day to be completely selfish and spend the time isolated from family and friends to reflect up on the past year and plan what I want to do over the next year.

I have recently been reading a book by Michael Kimmel called The Gendered Society. It is a great book that looks at gender and sex in our society. Its thesis is antithetic to our socialization that the difference between the genders and sexes is immense. In fact, from what I have read and know, Kimmel's statement that there are larger differences AMONGST men and women is GREATER than BETWEEN men and women is right on.

Anyhow, for my birthday, I decided to spend the afternoon (1:30 to 8 PM) at Wingfield Park at a (mostly) local hip-hop show called Speak Your Mind. It was really nice to sit, listen to some good music, and read.

I had my face noticeably buried in Kimmel's book for a good portion of the show.

I was REALLY enjoying myself reading about men and women, how people are taught to send different messages, what it means to be male and female, etc. because I was in an area where there were people of all ages, races, ethnicities, classes, and sexual orientations. It was as if the book was highlighting and putting a good deal of meaning to all that I was experiencing.

I write that I noticeably had my face buried in the book because a person who was sitting in front of me, noticed, and when I was taking a break, asked me about it.

After looking it over, my new friend, whose name is Angel, looked it over and wanted all of the information! Angel and I discussed why we were both interested in the issues (e.g., gender and family, biology of the sexes) and I ended up giving the book away!

Angel and I further talked about Reno, the "cowboy" mentality, lack of cultural diversity, conservatism, etc. I have recently been struggling with the fact that I am one of a handful of people of color in my program, I have no gay friends here in Reno, and nearly of the people I associate with are white middle-class NPR acolytes.

So, to say the least, Angel was as prophetic as the name. Angel is an older black gay woman who shared similar experience when moving from San Fransisco to Reno decades ago.

Angel and I talked and tentatively made plans to see "her Reno," as she put it, which would liberate me of living in my mono'culture' (it is by mo means that I do not like my current community, it is just that there is much more cultural diversity that I have historically experienced and long for).

I really look forward to spending time with her and getting to know the more of the community that I feel has been missing during my two-year stay in Reno.

Much love Angel!!!

Panama in one photograph

In 2008, I went to Panama from May to August to volunteer as a research assistant on a seed-fate study that would put me in the forest canopy whilst in a basket hanging from a crane.

I remember being so excited for the trip; as this was my second time in Central America, and the first time was an AMAZING experience.

I went to Costa Rica in 2002 and took a fabulous course on tropical herpetology with the brilliant teacher, Greg McConnell. We spent one month on the eastern (Caribbean) dry side of the Cordillera Central (mountains that longitudinally bisects the country). We were mostly (except for coming and going and one weekend) in the forest, so our contact with Costa Ricans was minimal.

This trip to Panama, however, turned out to be a little different. I did spend a significant time in the forest, but I also spent time in the city with the Panamenos.

I had to travel quite a bit, and I traveled mostly by bus, but also taxi, foot, and with Panamenos that worked for Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI). In doing so, I had MANY conversations with the working class and saw much of what the cities had to offer.

In doing so, and by feeling the ominous presence of US, I had a very different experience.

The US only officially demilitarized Panama in 1999. That is, there is still a HUGE presence in Panama (mostly because of economically invaluable Panama Canal) in policy, history, currency, people's minds, economics, and politics.

I cannot begin to count the number of people that I met that would bring up, for instance, on December 29, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted 75–20 with 40 abstentions to condemn the 1989 US invasion of Panama to remove former CIA agent Manuel Noriega as a flagrant violation of international law. I would also like to note that Noriega worked with the CIA for over three decades (two were contractual).

To see and speak with the people about their traumatizing experiences of being occupied made me remember that all was not so cozy in Costa Rica as well. I somehow FORGOT that I was SHOCKED when I went there and saw how ugly American and other western influence looked like in that country. I remember during my three visits to town in Costa Rica events like pick-up trucks with megaphones blaring the Coke-A-Cola song and crawling to just lead kids enough to chase them and occasionally throwing the cans out of the back, and the overbearing advertising that was most burdensome than most sporting events that I have attended.

These scenes reshaped my view of what I do and want to do in the World, and I was upset with my memory for allowing my to selectively remember all of the awesome animals and plants in the rainforest. I will not do this again, with Panama or with future experiences.

I selected the picture above to represent my view of my trip to Panama for several reasons. First, the foreground sets the stage with the solemn Spanish statue and architecture reminding us of imperial Spain. The pillar is raised high and powerfully protrudes whilst penetrating the landscape, noting the power to persist time and weather. The foreground is what I shall remember, and not the barely visible background of remaining rainforest. Deforestation to supply our consumers with wood products, beef, coffee, bananas, and soy have left Panama like many other areas of the Global South, devastated. The tone and colour serve as an appropriate lens through which to witness repression of the Panamanian people and Nature. There are many other aspects of the photograph that are less conspicuous but important, like the Kuna-Yala (indigenous Panamenos) forced to sell trinkets in the city to gain their oppressor's currency to survive and a rooster atop the statue (why is that there and what does that have to do with Panama?). But the last main depiction I like to concentrate on is the man on the bench. To me, he man's look on the bench is a manifestation of what Marine General David M. Shoup best described (albeit about general US policy, but of Vietnam):

I believe if we had, and would, keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. That they design and want. That they fight and work for...and not the American style, which they don't want. Not one crammed down their throats by the Americans.