Category Archives: Passing thoughts

Some reflections on my fifth blogiversary.

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Five years ago today, I put up the first post on a blog that was mean to capture the overflow of discussions and ideas from my “Ethics in Science” class. Back then, I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d manage to maintain the blog through the end of the semester.

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It just goes to show you that you can’t always tell which of the things you try will become sustainable practices (although maybe the ones that don’t involve exercise equipment have better odds).
On the occasion of my fifth blogiversary, I’m reflecting on a question posed by BlogHer upon BlogHer’s 5th anniversary:
What are five opportunities you’ve gotten because of blogging?

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An open letter

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… to the student in my “Ethics in Science” course.
Today was our second class meeting, which is essentially the first real class meeting — the one in which, instead of just focusing on the overall arc of the course, and the assignments you’ll be doing, and the mechanics of finding the information you need on the course website, there was actual content to discuss.

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Spring term faculty meeting: it’s still an exploding monkey factory in here.

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(As before, I’m still not sure whether, in the metaphor, the factory is building monkeys or staffed by monkeys. Perhaps, really, we’re in the business of making educated monkeys, and the problem is that our administration views this as akin to making widgets. Anyway, the point is: Explosions! Chaos! Shrieking! Brachiating along the pieces of wreckage!)
We had our beginning-of-the-semester faculty meeting today, and I have to conclude that our department is in an abusive relationship with the university (and system) administration.
Why I’m convinced of this is the simple fact that we have little to no idea what will make them spank us, at least not in advance of being spanked.

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Civility and politeness.

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In a comment on a post at Henry Gee’s blog (I’d link the comment itself, but for the life of me I cannot figure out where the permalink is), Ed Yong offers his view on the relation between politeness and civility. Quoth Ed:

My objection comes when people mistake politeness for virtue rather than what it actually is – artifice masquerading as virtue. Politeness is what you teach children to tell them when and how to speak and behave before they are fully rational and capable of thinking through the moral consequences of their words and actions.

Adults, being (technically) able to do this should arrive at their words/actions through more sophisticated means. It’s the difference between “I won’t say that because it’s rude and is therefore wrong” and “I won’t say that because it has the following consequences and is therefore wrong”.

Politeness is a route towards true civility and not an endpoint in itself. It’s civility for beginners. The big problem is that when people forget this fairly basic difference and focus on the polite/pleasant aspect without the deeper, underlying stuff, all sorts of incivil behaviour goes unnoticed because it’s said under the veneer of politeness.

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New Year’s Eve gabfest.

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If I were not involved in preparing food for Casa Free-Ride’s New Year’s Eve celebration (after which, I will be joining my family members to celebrate and/or test our endurance in the face of fatigue — I’ll let you know afterward which of those it ends up being), I would totally be writing you a nice ethics-y and/or science-y post.
Since I’m not, and since you appear to have a moment to be reading this, let’s make it a party. Use the comments to share:

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Back to posting soon.

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… once my fingertips holler “Uncle!” and tell me to take a break from my new ukulele.
To help you pass the time, some uke players who are way better than the n00b that I am on day 2 of my musical odyssey: