Musings on my faith going into Holy Week 1/n

As I stand on the precipice of entering Holy Week, the holiest, most important time of the year for Christians that the rest of the world kind of (mercifully) ignores because it has only managed to co-opt the Easter Egg and candy part of things, which is literally the least important part, I have been reflecting, as I ought, on what my faith means. A kind of all compassing musing on what it is I believe, why I bother to believe it, and going all the way to "What do I call myself, since 'Christian Scientist' is something other than what I am?" I'm going to try to write as much of it as I can on this blog, because I feel it is important, but being musings I can't promise they will be thesis like. They may ramble a bit. Some may be long and some may be short. If you come here for physics posts, sorry not sorry for the theological interlude.

Holy Week, particularly in the liturgical tradition, throws sharp relief on a lot of doctrinal points that Christians tend to go 'yeah, yeah I know' at and non-Christians think we are crazy for believing. It can also bring up, if you run in the right circles, friendly debates about atonement vs. redemption theology, the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, and even the purpose of baptism, getting into the paedobaptism vs. believer baptism debate. The practice of Holy Week is designed to remind us, in case Lent did not, that we are broken, and that Christ died to heal that brokenness, and rose again to usher in the coming of wholeness.

That we are broken is something of which I have no doubt. I don't see how anyone can disagree with it. As my father observed, "The doctrine of total depravity has never lacked for outside proof"[ETA: This is apparently a quotation from G.K. Chesterton]. That Christ died to heal that brokenness I also have no doubt, though this is where a lot of the people I know think I've jumped the shark, so to speak. A fair number of my peers (and superiors and inferiors, I have no doubt) think that my faith is odd, nutty, a bit of a relic or even 'something [I'll] outgrow'. I have no problem with the ones who think the first two, I can understand, though not agree with the third and the  fourth I find unbearably patronizing, but that is neither here nor there. Christianity *is* weird. And a lot of humans have horribly twisted it and corrupted it and I desperately wish we could make those corruptions a thing of the past, though there is something to be said for the devil you know.

So let's get something out of the way before I get any father into recording my theological thoughts. Just make this the first post.

My faith is not just a comfort in bad time (though it is that), or a I'll-go-someplace-nice-when-I-die wishful thinking, or a philosophy, or a way to connect with a larger community. It is in a very real sense *everything* to me. It defines the universe, my place in the universe, the purpose of the universe and myself; it defines my relationship to God, between myself and my family, between myself and my husband, between myself and every human I will ever encounter; it determines my responsibilities to this world, and everyone and everything in it; it is the entire framework on which my life is built. If you striped everything else away, my faith remains.

"How can you be a scientist and a Christian?" is a question I have heard a (frankly) irritating number of times. From both directions, actually. Scientists who are atheists look askew at my ability to trust science if I also believe in a man-god, and Christians with whom I have strong doctrinal disagreements don't trust my soul to be saved if I think we came from monkeys. The question makes as much sense to me as "how can you be a scientist if you are a woman?". If I really believe that God created the universe, and he created us, how can I *not* believe that this universe would be designed in such a way that we, striving to understand it as we follow our natural, God-given curiosity and using the minds He gave us, could understand? How could I not jump at the opportunity to study a master-craftsman's work? If you think I'm crazy for believing in a Creator, or for believing in a Triune God, or a Savior or whatever particulars of my doctrine baffle you  to the extent you doubt my science, you are welcome to check my math. If you think I'm going to Hell because  when the math and science say the universe is 14 billion give-or-take years old, I trust that it's right,  please point me to the passage in the New Testament where this is named as a salvific issue. I'll wait.

That I am a scientist is not a stumbling block to my faith, and  my faith is not a stumbling block to my science. Though I wont go quite so far as Kepler to say that math is the language of God, or even as far as the Belgic confession in favor of natural theology, I will say with the psalmist that the "heavens declare the glory of the LORD" and with Maltbie D. Babcock that "This is my Father's world".

Publishing Research and other stuff

So I know the next installment of Basic Physics is several weeks overdue, but there has been so much going on I haven't had time to do it justice. So here's a post on what's been going on!

Firstly, my first paper got accepted for publication! This is a research project that I had been fighting for well over a year, and the results were/are really cool. It's also my first first author paper, which is a really big deal in the sciences (at least my branch of the sciences). I don't know of an equivalent outside of research circles.

I'm working on new but related research projects, which will hopefully bear fruit soon.

DH got a job in a city that is just far enough away to make commuting 5 days a week untenable, so we are slowly transitioning our lives to an apartment in new city, with me getting the house ready to rent out in our old city. So, ya know, that's a bit time and energy consuming.

I'm teaching half time this semester, which is great, but eats my Thursdays between prep and teaching and seminar and teaching and then eats a couple hours not on Thursdays for grading and getting lesson plans and weekly tests ready for myself and the other two TAs to use.

I have to write and present and get approved a prospectus/research plan by the end of the semester or get kicked out. It is the vaguest most important piece of writing I have to do to date.

I'm also attending the Frontiers in Optics conference in October! Which is going to be fantastic and exhausting and in Arizona! It's also forcing me to actually get some more 'professional' looking clothes, which for me basically means I didn't make them and/or I couldn't rake leaves in them. I am not going to be removing my earrings unless my advisor specifically says otherwise though. They are a part of me, and besides my hair provides decent camouflage.

I also seem to be morphing into a high classical-christianity Anglican instead of a good Calvinist-Presbyterian, and I have to write a separate post on that.

So you can see, there is A LOT going on my life right now, so if the postings are a bit thin on the ground, hopefully you can forgive me.

Cheers!

The problem with science communication

As a break from everything else that's been going on lately, I've been reading/watching a variety of what could be largely lumped as "science communication" blogs/videos. While I've been doing so, I of course have run across the odd "why do science communication?" post. The answers usually boil down to geekery ("because science is so cool and people should know it"), political ("If everyone were more science literate, they would vote X"), or humanitarian ("if people understood [this], they wouldn't be hurt by [that] or taken in by charlatans"). These are  by no means bad motives for doing these things. And I utterly agree that science communication is a critical activity in our day and age.

But, why? Why is science so hard to communicate that we need not only institutionalized communication (e.g. science class), but grassroots efforts, from blogs to podcasts to videos to local science festivals? Humans have been communicating stuff to each other for centuries. We have developed a wide variety of methods and tools for convincing people of things. Heck, we have a whole industry dedicated to it (advertising). Why does science communication seem so hard to do sometimes?

First, there is the sheer logistical reality of it. The better you understand a topic, let's say optics since I know that one, the deeper you've gone into it and the more that subject and it's prerequisites have become second nature to you. You now now Maxwell's equations almost instinctually. You have a gut reaction when you see velocities faster than \( 3*10^8 \ . You either stopped asking what was waving or have dug really deep into it, but either way you probably can't explain it in 100 words or less to the average person on the street.  On the other hand, the less you know the topic, the easier it is to explain at your level of understanding to someone who doesn't know much or anything, because you remember being in that state.

I have slowly started to realize this as I've been teaching problem solving sessions for the past five semesters. When I started out, I was not remotely confident in the topic. I had taken a few courses beyond the level I was teaching, but I knew I didn't really *know*, in the sense of understanding and internalizing, even basic electromagnetism. My algebra/calculus was shaky because I didn't do it all day, everyday, and hadn't really touched it in 8 months (I took some time off between undergrad and grad school).

So everytime I taught, I had very very detailed notes explaining the calculation to myself, because I knew I couldn't do it unprepared. My students were able to follow my solutions (handwriting permitting) because I wrote everything out, every single step, no "and it can easily be shown that", no "clearly, this equals". It was there. But my analogies to explain the weirdness of electromagnetism were terrible. I mean, really really terrible. Confused, convoluted, mixed. And I didn't have a sense of the background of my students, what they would or would not be familiar with.

Now, I do algebra and calculus for my PhD research. My dining room table, my chalkboard, my whiteboard, my desk, random napkins are full of equations. I sit and do page after page (and redo page after page) of math. I've gotten better at recognizing common algebraic patterns. I no longer have to FOIL simpler multiplications. I do not question the utility of sines and cosines. It's obvious! So my worked out solutions in class have started to skips steps. Bit by bit, I assume a higher level of math literacy from my students. My analogies and metaphors have, generally, become better. I no longer mix metaphors, I stick with one main metaphor throughout a topic, and I don't use analogies to things that my students have no idea what that is. So while my students feel less baffled by my words, I get a dozen of them before and after class asking how we got from point A to point B in an equation.

And this is I think a hurdle science communicators have to face.  The best ones are good in their field. They breathe physics, chemistry, biology, what have you. It's a core component of their being and they are excited to share it with you. But it also means that they are far away from the confusion and doubts of their audience. They need to practice that skill of empathy which, at least in pop culture, we famously lack. It's not an easy skill, to put yourself back at that point of confusion and try to talk to that person. It's like trying to teach a small child something that is to you so easy you don't think about it, like tying your shoes. The best thing is to have a non-STEM friend to test out your explanations on, but even they can be a biased sample depending on how frequently you try to explain your work to them.

The second problem, as the many youtube comment sections to these videos attest, is that science bumps up uncomfortably against areas of worldview and identity for people. The world is a big, nasty, confusing place and people build their worldviews and identities in a way that, fundamentally, tries to make them feel safe, even if it is a very weird and convoluted safety. For example, conspiracy theorists, whatever their theory of choice, want to believe that someone is in control. The idea that violence or disease or natural disaster  just happen, is intolerable. Far preferable that a malevolent and powerful group somewhere is in charge than we being hostages to fortune.

And this is even harder than empathy for confusion, because it does not require a  shoveling on of better explained facts, or more facts. It requires the mindset of a missionary instead of a teacher and it is a very different mindset. Its also a mindset that makes many scientists uncomfortable. Science isn't a religion, it isn't faith, it's fact. Facts exist whether you want them to exist or not. But science is increasingly touching areas of our lives that are not experienced as fully rational, where strong beliefs are preexistent and the science communicators job is no longer to make clear something that was not thought of or not understood, but to modify or replace beliefs. And it is a much longer process.

I feel it is important to note here that science communicators should also be aware of where to stop. There is a fine line between  teaching scientific truth and teaching your world view.  Most of the time I have seen science communication blow up is where that line is crossed. For example, please, by all means explain the correct mechanisms for evolution and the strength of evidence we have for it. The minute you say "See? You don't need a god to make this work after all" you have lost any ground or good will you may have gained.

I think we could borrow a bit from missionaries, modified to our needs. One of the classic techniques for missionaries is to talk to people, and begin from their starting point. The missionary can then more easily lead in small steps to the point where the next step is faith or not faith. I don't see why would couldn't develop a similar method for science communication where the problem is not information but belief. Again, using evolution as an example. Starting with something close to home (antibiotic resistant infections), moving further afield to elephants losing their tusks as a defense against ivory poaching, to dogs from wolves, making the gradual transition from 'microevolution' to 'macroevolution' to a final understanding that it is all just 'evolution'. But again, changing beliefs is not fast. It requires investment.

So, what is it that I am trying to say? Are we doing science communication badly? Should we stop doing it unless we can be just great? NO. By no means. What I am saying is that we already have a community of science communicators who are really good at what they do. Dr Skyskull has a great blog for weird physics, occasionally cats and horror. Myles Power has a bunch of great videos largely debunking bad science/logic in a fairly respectful manner even if his language is a little coarse to american ears. JimTheEvo has a really cool series on infection, evolution and human history*. My point is that we can be even better. Maybe by focusing our audience, maybe just by being more thoughtful. I think it might be time to move to the next level.


*I know they are all males. The women scientist blogs I read are less explaining and more linking to it things people would know. Powered by Osteons does a great job pointing out where bioanthropology intersects popular culture, for example.

School Related Miscellany

Today,  I learned two interesting facts about the progress on my PhD, from an administrative standpoint. The first interesting thing is that, credit wise, I could graduate in a year.  The second interesting thing is that I have six months to select and recruit a thesis committee, create and defend my prospectus.

The first news is good, if a little irrelevant. It means that publications, not credits, are going to be what stands between me and the piece of paper that gives me three extra letters after my name as well as the authority to teach at the college level. Publications are slightly more in my control, since if it came down to credits, I can only take so many at once.

The second new is not bad news, its just a little frustrating. I should have learned this last January. In theory I could have learned it from reading the course catalogue, but the program description is  written in a maddeningly opaque manner. I *think*, so long as I can corale the necessary professors in a reasonably quick manner, that it can be done by early fall. At least that is what I am aiming for, which means it will be done by the December deadline. So maybe I can graduate in like a year and a half? Fingers crossed? I'm still going to say "something like 3 years" to any relatives who ask. Last time I tried to give something more concrete they started sending me "congrats on graduating" cards severely prematurely.

In other news, my little brother graduated middle school today, on the high honor roll to boot! I know it's cliche, but I can remember when he was born, so it's weird to have him graduate middle school, be something like a half foot taller than me and sound exactly like my dad on the phone*. I'm so proud of him, and I can't wait to see what he does. Last I heard he was planning on doing chemistry for college, but no matter what he does, I'll be proud, and he will almost certainly be very, very good at it. He's already way better at music, math, drawing and writing that I ever was, and I haven't exactly turned out to be a slouch. It's exciting to see him at what could be said to be a midway point of his academic career, and for him to have reached it with such success. I can totally see him turning out to be some kind of renaissance man/scientist.

Anyway, that's the end of the week news from around here. I really need to get back to some good science blogging, but that may have to wait for next weekend.

*I now only have a 50/50 shot of correctly guessing who is on the other end of the phone when I call their household now. My sister and my mom have sounded alike for years, but now with my father and brother sounding alike, its just too much.

Update--Still here!

I know it's been quite a while (2 weeks? almost a month? something like that) since I posted anything here. It's not for a lack of ideas, I assure you, more due to a lack of time.

May seems to always be a bit of a crazy month for us. There's my insanity with end of the semester grading. Someone always seems to graduate, some  unforeseen event occurs and the transition to summer seems to take up a lot of time.

In mid May we took a long weekend and went up North to see my sister graduate college, summa cum laude and with more honors than I can remember. She had enough colorful ropes around her neck to tie back a house full of drapes or hogtie someone. We are, needless to say, incredibly proud of and happy for her. Not surprised, because she's just that kind of person, but still proud and happy.

Then she came and visited us, and for the first time since we came to NC she didn't have to help us move! For the 3 years previous, she had come down to help us move 1) to NC 2) from our first apartment to our second much nicer apartment or 3) paint our new house.  It was lovely to just be able to do sister-y things, like trying new restaurants, go shopping and hang out.

Big things are happening around our house. We finally got a new dishwasher to replace the one that had finally given up the ghost after 25 years back in March, and the new windows to replace the ones that are rotting out upstairs will be installed next week. We're hopefully going to finish all the repair work from last fall's adventure in faulty plumbing in the next few months. We might, fingers crossed, have the house ship-shape by fall.

Research is going fantastically. I even discovered that at some point last fall, I had done most of the work for project, which is like a time traveling gift to myself.

I have a lot of blog posts lined up for the rest of summer, so hopefully things are settling down now and I'll find time to write in the evenings more.

A Hectic Week

This week has been a rather hectic week for me, though not in crazy-running-around kind of way.

Teaching has been more time consuming and emotionally difficult because we had a series of schedule mishaps (including a snow day), combined with a class that seems to need a little more hand holding through the topics than usual. The result is I have to spend more time prepping, and a lot more time grading.

If a quiz is done correctly, it is usually obviously correct.

When it is wrong, it can be obviously wrong (blank page, doodles, completely unrelated equations, etc) or very very creatively wrong, or completely wrong in execution, but correct in the theory, or the execution is done completely correctly, but with the wrong theory. It can be very difficult to grade the creatively wrong quizzes.

In addition to teaching, on Wednesday, I volunteered to host a prospective grad student for the afternoon and evening. It was a lovely time, and I enjoyed it very much, but it did throw my usual schedule a little out of whack.

And now we are awaiting the arrival of the flight bearing my mother-in-law, who will be visiting a week. Her flight is unfortunately delayed, and we aren't sure if we should try to catch some sleep, or stay awake in case things change. We seem to have defaulted to the later.

A fitting end to a hectic, but good, week.

Puzzles are a lot like research

Recently I decided Dear Husband and I should take up jigsaw puzzles. It's a good hobby. It's relatively inexpensive, time consuming, can be done together, and it yields pretty pictures when its all done. Actually, its mostly the latter.

Our house has a lot of big, blank walls painted a cream color. Some have holes from where the previous owner hung pictures. We did not come to the house with a lot of pictures, and we are too frugal to buy real paintings. We could buy reproductions, but even those are somewhat pricey and it feels cheap to us.

 So until we can afford/find/agree on original art, jigsaw puzzles seem to be a good compromise. They are obviously reproductions. They are cheap. And, again, they provide hours of entertainment.

There are many ways of going about completing puzzles with lots of little pieces. There is the "Find all the Edge Pieces" method, which finds the borders and works its way inward. There is the "Hunt and Peck" method, seemingly preferred by my husband which starts with just putting together any pieces that fit. My method could be called "Divide and Conquer" or "Painstaking", which involves dividing up the pieces by come features (color and/or pattern) and focusing on getting all those pieces together. It involves choosing a piece, and trying every other piece to go with that piece until you have built up that entire section.

It is very slow going at first, but as you build up the sections you can begin to eliminate pieces from consideration on the ground of them not being the right shape, being too long, too short. Is it the fastest method? Maybe not. But it involves a lot less trying the same piece in the same spot over and over.

As I went, I realize that this is the same way I attack research (and most of my problems). Slowly and methodically. I think it confuses my PI sometimes why I insist on keeping constants, for example, running around and doing things piece by piece instead of lumping things together cleverly. I don't do clever lumping. My brain doesn't work like that.

It takes me time to get going. I am not fast at the outset. But I get faster and faster as I go because I can see pattern emerge specifically because I didn't lump things at the outset.

It's kind of nice for me to realize that I do have internal consistency in this. And it's nice to see the (more) tangible result of my methods in puzzles, even when the research is slower than molasses in January.

Some days are just weird

Today has been...odd.

To start out with, my phone perished after an unfortunate swim yesterday morning, and I couldn't get to the mobile store to replace it until the afternoon, so I was temporarily communication-less. I remember a time, not too long ago, when I did not have instantaneous communication with friends and family in my pocket. It's amazing how quickly we become used to things.

There have been some teaching difficulties this semester, which I spent a chunk of the morning working out, or at least starting to work out. Five semesters of teaching and this is the first difficulty of its kind I've faced.

My research has in a sense gone well recently. I have it all in a very simple form. Too bad the simple form makes far less sense than the complicated form. Still trying to figure out what to do with that.

Went to the mobile store to get my new phone, which was no problem from the point of replacing my phone (and getting it a protective cover), but I had made the reasonable-at-the-time choice of wearing my boots. If the temperature is below 60 as it was supposed to be today, they are perfect, since my feet tend to be cold. If, however, the temperature is about 60, as it turned out to be, my feet overheat very quickly, and make me feel very queasy.

 It's a family trait, and why I don't wear socks to bed.

The store was warm, and I was standing in the sun. I ended up cutting off the very nice, helpful associate who was helping me set up my new phone because I knew I would throw up on him if I stayed a frighteningly short time longer. I told him I could finish setting it up myself, got my stuff, and high tailed it out to my car, where I opened the windows, took off my shoes and spent 15 minutes cooling down. I drove home in my stocking feet because I didn't dare put my boots back on.

My husband had a late night at work, so I am all alone in the house with Penny this evening. Which is great. Except she has a huge amount of energy, even after playing outside all afternoon with the three dogs who live on the other side of the fence. And I have no energy. I am currently trying to work up the gumption to do the dishes, because our dishwasher is older than I am and finally retired. And any evening on my own is a little strange, even though I do it on a not infrequent basis. We are a family of routine, and it messes with the routine to not have Dear Husband home around dinner time.

So here I sit, in my comfy chair, hoping tomorrow will be just a little less strange.