Washin the Dog

It was Jean Arthur who told me that you had to learn the rules before you could break them. That was the takeaway from her magazine writing seminar I took one Wednesday night about 3 years ago. It just so happened that was the night that I decided to go back to school. Reading Doug's post about the future of English majors definitely reinforces the notion that writing is still relevant. But the type of writing this guy was talking about was storytelling. How odd is it that it is THAT - simple storytelling that is in demand. Yet storytelling seems like such a silly, informal thing. It certainly isn't taught in K-12. Read stories - oh certainly, but writing stories - no way dude. You keep that crap to yourself.

Even in the writing program here I have had few opportunities to truly tell stories. The exceptions have been this class and my Writ 201 class, unless you include poetry. But poetry doesn't exactly sell iPhones. Or does it?

Anyway, breaking the rules. Yes. I've seen it. Though if it's well done, I think a reader should barely notice it. To me it should "work" so well that the alternative - following the rules would sound silly or be less powerful or not be as funny. But what strikes me as odd is that most of what we have read so far is remarkably "normal." I suppose that many of the rules of writing don't change all that much from genre to genre. Good science writing is good writing. Dyson quoting Einstein says "One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility" (161). I suppose you could say the same thing about writing.

I suppose I don't yet know the rules or this would be easier to write. I did notice that a lot of these pieces are written in somewhat short, choppy sentences. Perhaps that's the way many scientists have been trained to write - heavy on the nouns, short on adjectives and concise as possible. There also seems to be a lot of first person...a LOT. I's and we's abound in many of these pieces. But I wouldn't call any of this daring. In fact, even the short, choppy sentences seem well-suited to the excitement that scientific discovery demands.

I suppose the rules really depend on the genre. Most of these writers wouldn't be caught dead without a clear thesis starting out their journal articles, but have no problem starting en medias res for a popular piece. I imagine the rules shift must be something of a shock for some of these folks, just like not using adjectives would be a shock for most of the folks in this class.

Pushing Back

Our guest speaker yesterday was nothing if not thought provoking and enthusiastic. I loved the theories and examples. Totally interesting. It definitely got me thinking on a deeper level about the rhetoric of science and about how interesting rhetoric is in general. And, as always, it got me thinking about how we push the boundaries of rhetoric.

The example of the evolution graphic has been bouncing around my mind ever since. What a great example of the social mixed with the scientific to create a huge racist mess! I wanted to explore this a bit and I hope at least someone sees this and comments because I'd like to know if anyone else has an opinion on this.

The claim made by Prof Mike (can't remember his last name) was that this image is in fact racist. It shows the dark monkey progressing into the white, upright modern male. The enthymeme here (sorry to get all rhetorically geeky here) is that the dark monkey represents a black person - coming from Africa, dragging knuckles, immersed in nature but ignorant, primal, incapable of intelligent thought, destined to become something more, but not there - yet. Of course, the result is this perfect, pink male - muscular, clean shaven and modern. We are to assume that he has unlimited mental capacity merely by the shape of his body. He is healthy, confident in his posture and has no need for a spear, as his mind is capable of taking on any threat to his livelihood.

Ok, I bought it hook, line and sinker at first. There's a rhetorical strategy in Prof Mike's presentation at work here, kind of running parallel to his ethos. It has to do with coming to the realization that we (I at least) missed this completely. The shame of not knowing drives us (me) to accepting his supposition almost immediately, much like we accept all the knowledge imparted upon us during a class. It's new, it's interesting, it's a perspective that we've not yet seen. And it was an incredibly powerful point - that a humanist "sees" these things. We see the rhetorical implications of racism in a piece of scientific rhetoric that most evolutionary biologists wouldn't. Cool! Lightbulbs, fireworks, pride in my chosen profession - chalk one up for the humanists. If evolution is superior to creationism then finding the flaws in evolution is superior even to that.

But then I started thinking about it. And it actually took on an even deeper meaning, which I believe Mike was probably trying to impart upon his doe-eyed crowd - keep looking - deeper. If science seeks to freeze words down to a solid state, don't just cool them off. Boil the fuckers!

So what about the image? I see science, sort of. Not entirely accurate science, but a representation, surely. Racism? Let's take a closer look. The dark monkey-looking creature on the left. Do we buy the enthymeme equating it to our African brothers? Does it subtly represent the black man? And where does that association come from? Mike would tell us to look back at the earliest associations of black people and monkeys. I recall some of the images from our past, pictures of the "negro" population depicting huge, apelike lips and thick brows. Does the image on the left, by itself or in the rest of the image follow that logic? Perhaps. But to me it just looks like a primate of some sort. Forgive my ignorance of taxonomy. Certainly the progression takes us from dark to light. But what if the opposite were true? What if this image portrayed a progression from dark monkey to dark man? Is that not also racist? Is that simply destroying the enthymeme and exposing it for what it really is? Monkey = black man, no matter how far they've evolved? Does not this image, the way it is represented above actually give balance to the idea that we ALL came from the same place. Does not it give credence to the fact that black = white, monkey = white man (I know, I know, we didn't come from monkeys!). Perhaps, on a deeper level, we are rejecting it for altogether different reasons.

Pretty fascinating to think about. Also, I notice that they are progressing toward the sun, judging by their shadows. Is that some sort of "getting closer to God" thing? And if they are evolving, what is next? Or are we too humble to suppose that? Can we only look at the past and see where we've come from? That seems to run counter to the spirit of science. Should we just scrap the image? Has it run its course? Is it representative only of a former time in science, when its prose was purple, careless, imprecise? Or do we keep our monkey to man? Or does it evolve, much like the rhetoric of science. Will the white man turn Asian, American Indian, then perhaps African over time? Or will we lose our fascination with the human form and simply focus on brains. And what would that look like? It sure would make for a crappy t-shirt.

"The Truth About Organics"

Organic Food - saving the planet and our bodies or a multi-billion dollar a year farce? Of all the things we do, nothing is as important as what we put in our bodies. For me that usually means a grain and plant-based diet low in dairy, eggs and meats.  And I try to eat organic food whenever possible.

My philosophy, which I believe many healthy eaters share, is that consuming organic, whole foods is more nutritious, lower in chemical residues, and better for the environment.  But two studies have recently come into the mainstream media that contradict at least the claim that organic foods are more healthy than "conventionally raised" foods.  The first to cause a stir was a study conducted by Stanford University.  I actually did my first (practice) news brief on this study.  The second study just came out the other day in the journal Pediatrics.  It confirms what the Stanford study says - that basically little is known about the health effects of organic food and what is known is usually presented as conflicting information.


I'd like to approach this from a different angle than what I've seen so far in the mass media. I'd like to analyze the science that's out there and then talk to perhaps any number of people - organic farmers, doctors, scientists and try to get at the truth, rather than the sensationalism, of what is known and not known about organic food.

I think this is super-timely and certainly relevant. And I think it would be a pretty interesting thing to research and share. Based on the timeliness and the broad appeal, I think it would be a piece that could go into something as prolific as a Newsweek (which is now only online) or a TIME. I'm not saying that I could get published, just that I think a piece like this could/would be appropriate and have the broad audience that I think this piece could appeal to.

I don't know, I think maybe it would be fun, too, to try to imitate that style.

I'd love to hear what y'all think and any suggestions.

Bobbin' and Weavin'

I think I found the Dittrich piece particularly fascinating. Of course, it was also the longest. I liked how he wove the characters in and out of the story. He did it in a way that made sense, but at the same time kept me guessing. Who exactly was this piece about? Henry, the grandfather or Annese? It's really about all three I suppose. He introduces Annese in a way that makes him seem kind of creepy "the laboratory at night, the lights down low...teases apart a crumpled slice of brain" (46). It sounds like the start to a Frankenstein movie or something. I suppose he's also introducing Henry, or at least his brain, the subject of the science of the piece. Again, pretty creepy. But it's certainly different. In fact, the whole piece is very different. He uses excerpts from interviews, a time frame that spans back to the 1800's and lots and lots of brain science that he is able to condense down to be pretty decipherable. In a way, you're almost always meeting new people in this, which I think is interesting because it's kind of like Henry's life. Everybody's a new face, yet he takes it all in stride, kind of like I was able to in this article. I often get confused when a lot of characters are introduced in a short(er) piece, but this seemed like it was easy to follow, even though it shouldn't have been, with all the jumping around. I don't know. Somehow it helped that it circled back continuously. I thought Perutz used a creative way of introducing Hodgkin, with a newspaper headline: "Grandmother wind Nobel Prize" (168). The rest of the piece I thought was kind of just fluff. I don't know, it just didn't resonate that much with me. I'm sure she was a remarkable woman, but (maybe for the first time ever!) I found the science more interesting I think. "Uncle Tungsten" was more interesting from a human perspective. I could picture him tossing around the shiny metal. Sacks's description of his enthusiasm was well done: "'Nothing in the world feels like sintered tungsten'" (215). And I like how he's introduced and simultaneously described - by his nickname. As a short piece, though, it was kind of a weird shift from UT to Scheele. I get that you can extrapolate someone's personality by their choice of heroes. But I would have rather stuck to UT. It was a weird ending.

There's No Science Like Snow Science

Super late, but still relevant, here's what I'm doing for my interview. Karl Wetlaufer studies snow. He studies what? Snow. Snow? Yes, snow. What exactly is there to study in snow? Well, it turns out snow is a pretty fascinating subject. But what really makes snow relevant to humans is that it eventually melts and becomes streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs and oceans. Little of our earth is dry land. Most of it is covered in water, either in the form of oceans or, the part that Karl enjoys, ice and snow. Karl is a grad student here at MSU, but he's taking on a big project. He has successfully completed the first phase of the largest known study of snow water equivalency in mountain basins. Essentially what he did was sampled the snow pack over a 200 square kilometer area within a 1600 meter elevation variation. That's a pretty big space. But what he's doing with the data is even more amazing. He's going to use his results to create a model for snow melt and runoff that would allow other scientists to take a few measurements within a given basin and predict how much water would flow out of the mountains and into our streams, rivers and reservoirs. Ultimately, these measurements could be used to make plans on how we use water resources, which and how many crops to plant in a given season, etc. Imagine if a farmer could predict exactly how much water he would be able to pump each season. Karl thinks that's pretty cool. And so do I. So we got a chance to talk about it. Here's the questions I had prepared for the interview, but, as Hancock suggested, I really used them more as a guide and let the questions "arise naturally" (60). 1. The first thing I asked Karl was "what is your approach to science?" He just kind of looked at me and said "you got anything easier than that?" It was then I knew this was going to be more fun than I thought. So I rephrased and he seemed to take it a lot better: "how do you 'do' science?" "What is your scientific process like?" 2. "What is it that gets you excited about science in general and this project specifically?" 3. Why "Snow" science? 4. How did you get involved in this particular project? 5. What was it like to design the study? Explain the process. Where did the funding come from? At what point did you seek funding? 6. How did you go about collecting data? 7. Once the data was collected, what do you do with it? 8. He's in the statistical analysis phase of the project right now, so I asked him what kind of statistical method he was using. This was where my understanding admittedly took a wrong turn. But I took good notes, so I think I might be able to figure it out! 9. What are the limits to the study? 10. Why is this important to a. the scientific community, b. to society 11. What are the next steps, if any? 12. How will you communicate your results? These, of course, led to a lot more than twelve compact answers, and even led into a huge discussion about how there is a lack of connection between scientists and the outside world. Since Karl isn't done with his data analysis, I will probably have to look at his work as a "if this-and-so is true, that could imply this-and-exciting-that" (56) as Hancock puts it. We definitely discussed implications and hypotheticals. It's kind of like looking at the picture on the puzzle box and then looking at all the pieces all broken and mixed up in the box itself. Right now it isn't pretty, but you can see where he's going. And I think it'll make for an interesting story, since what makes Karl interesting is less about statistics and more about how he collects his data. Curious? You'll have to read my paper! ;)