Poetry Notebook by Clive James

Source of book: I own this. A gift from my in-laws.

In case there was any doubt, I love Clive James. One of the first books I reviewed for this blog (back when it was just notes for friends and family posted on Facebook) was Cultural Amnesia, which in turn introduced me to a panoply of other authors and ideas. For me, James falls in that rare category of writer who could write about anything and make it interesting with his wit and broad knowledge. 

Poetry Notebook is quite different from the other, of course. Rather than short essays on cultural and political figures of the 20th Century, it offers reflections on poetry in general along with discussion of particular poets.

I should say at the outset that it was clear within a few paragraphs that James and I would agree on one central point: Robert Frost was a genius, and one of the greatest poets of all time. (The complete Frost makes James’ list of five favorite poetry books.) You may agree or not, but Clive and I have made up our minds. This isn’t for the reason many would give, which would be a dislike for modern poetry. James is a traditionalist in many ways, but this book highlights many moderns, and he praises them where due. His favorites skew modern as well. That said, James believes (as do I) that form can itself add to the music of a poem, and should not be dismissed as affectation or something that detracts from the real thoughts of the poet.

“The elementary truth that there are levels of imagination that a poet won’t reach unless formal restrictions force him to has largely been supplanted...by a more sophisticated (though far less intelligent) conviction that freedom of expression is more likely to be attained through letting the structure follow the impulse.”

Likewise, the idea that unpolished creativity trumps carefully honed skill is eviscerated by James.

There is a dangerous half-truth that has always haunted the practice and appreciation of the arts: too much technique will inhibit creativity. Despite constant evidence that too little technique will inhibit it worse, the idea never quite dies, because it is politically too attractive.

Blake goes on to mention Picasso - who had amazing technique long before he defied the conventions of art. (A collection of his sketches came to our city a decade or so ago. The man could draw as well as anyone I have seen.) I would also mention such musicians as Fritz Kreisler who cultivated an air of spontaneity, but who were true masters of violin technique. Go listen to a beginner if you doubt this.  

This book probably isn’t going to be particularly interesting for people who hate poetry. It might also be a bit esoteric for those who might enjoy a poem here or there but lack the knowledge of structure or the love for the sound of language that would make James’ observations make sense. For myself, I love poetry and language. I love how the best rolls off the tongue and sounds as it splashes upon the ear. I appreciate the craft that goes into making good poetry - and even bad poetry for that matter. I tried my hand at it in my teens, starting with a school assignment. Alas, although I could write poems that fit patterns and had the technical components in place, it was clear to me that I didn’t have the ear for the music. (Could I have become competent with practice? Possibly. But it surely didn’t come naturally at all.) James too has written poetry, although he doesn’t seem to think highly of it either. But James can wield the English language.

I made quite a few notes while reading this, and found that many of them were little snippets of wit and perceptive observations. In essence, what James is best at.

For example, in the opening section, while discussing his own attempts at abstract poetry - which he got published - he says:

[L]ike abstract painting, abstract poetry extended the range over which incompetence would fail to declare itself. That was the charm for its author.

Or this one, about his youthful enthusiasm for Ezra Pound, which faded as he grew older.

When I fell out of love with The Cantos I fell all the way out, but one of my critical principles, such as they are, is to take account of the history of my critical opinions, on the further principle that they have never existed in some timeless zone apart from the man who held them, but have always been attached to him, like his hair, or, lately, like his baldness. There is a promising analogy there, somewhere: my hair yielded baldness as my enthusiasms yielded disenchantment. First the one thing, then the other, and the second thing clearly definable only in terms of the first.

He has a real point there. For myself, I too have become disenchanted with many of my youthful ideas. But they too were me - the me I was then - and now my disillusion is often definable in terms of the first enthusiasm. A promising analogy indeed.

His dissection of Pound is worth the read. On the one hand, there are moments. (James’ central theory of great poetry is that it contains “moments” which affect the reader in some way. It is those that take the poem from competence to transcendence.) On the other hand, there are some clunkers. Like the line “Sunset like the grasshopper flying.” As James points out, sunsets aren’t like this, and the stab at the concept of evanescence is imprecise at best. The line obscures rather than enlightens.

“The answer, I think is that his main way to leave you wondering is to leave you puzzled.”

This is my issue with much of modern poetry - at least that by less skilled poets. There is a tendency to mistake vagueness for profundity. And they are not the same thing. As noted above, incompetence hides better in abstraction.

Traditionalist poets do not come away unscathed, however. Swinburne is described as “the most accomplished poet that I couldn’t stand.”

[Interesting side note: In This Side of Paradise, reviewed here, Fitzgerald’s self-absorbed autobiographical character turns from Chesterton to Swinburne as he “matures.”]

Journalists too get the barbs, with the editors of a certain newspaper were described as “the kind of journalists who aren’t talented enough to be terrorists.”

James’ humor is often dry, and his zingers can be thoroughly memorable. For example, his point that there has to be something to distinguish true poetry from poetic prose.

Usually, for evidence, we need a stanza...By that measure, the author of the scurrilous ‘Ballad of Eskimo Nell’ was a poet, but Jack London was not. They both wrote poems about the deadly rigours of the frozen North, but Jack London, though he longed for success as a poet, never wrote a stanza that anyone wanted to remember: his whole gift was for prose. Thus, poor guy, he was condemned to fame and wealth: a fate that most poets avoid.

Clive James is in his 70s, and has been more or less dying from leukemia for a few years. I say more or less, because he has far outlived his own expectations. As he said recently, “Still being alive is embarrassing.” And yes, he is still writing bits for The Guardian on Django Reinhardt and Keats and so on. What I find particularly intriguing, though, is his self-awareness of his age and frailty - and also of the tendency of critics to ossify as they grow old. Certainly, he thinks he has more to say now that he has experienced more, but he also realizes that there is more to come - even after he is gone.

As critics get older, they very easily succumb to the notion that there is no more room in the pantheon. But there is always room in the pantheon, because the pantheon is not a burial chamber for people who have said things, it is an echo chamber for things that have been said.

That is so beautifully put.

Another meditation on aging comes at the end, in the decidedly bittersweet reflection that he will never be able to do or write all he intends.

A dangerous point arrives when you tell yourself that you are still proud of your memory. It means your memory is failing.

I have seen this all too often in my elderly clients - it just goes with the job. The last stage before full dementia is often a clinging to the idea of a good memory. But this does bring to mind an incident from a long conservatorship trial I did a decade ago. This one doctor was called to testify about the mental capacity of a patient going back several years. The doctor bragged about his memory, but couldn’t remember diddly squat. The judge, in chambers with the attorneys after the testimony, confessed he was sorely tempted to say “I find that the witness’ memory is ’merely average.’”

Just a few more. James talks at length about the fact that few people, let alone artists of any kind, qualify as pure and good. All have flaws, sometimes glaring.

Luckily not even America - still a puritan culture in which an artist’s integrity must be sufficiently unblemished to impress Oprah Winfrey - has proved entirely devoid of critics and academics who can handle the proposition that the creator of perfect art might be a less than perfect person.

James doesn’t quote at length, usually just a line or two. But he does quote this one in full. It is by Samuel Menache, who I confess I had never heard of. But this poem is beautiful.

Cargo

Old wounds leave good hollows

Where one who goes can hold                               

Himself in ghostly embraces                               

Of former powers and graces                               

Whose domain no strife mars—                               

I am made whole by my scars                               

For whatever now displaces                               

Follows all that once was                               

And without loss stows                               

Me into my own spaces

I’ll end with some music, and a quote thereon. During his younger years, James would play disks at parties.

To sit beside the radiogram and load the discs was a position of power. It was an era when the female students were spraining their hips trying to dance to the title track of Dave Brubeck’s hit album Time Out: a few minutes of gyrating in 5/4 time could have dire effects on a foundation garment.

Without further ado, “Take Five.” Dance your undies into disarray. Or something like that.

The Taste of War by Lizzie Collingham

Source of book: I own this. This was a gift from my brother-in-law. (See my post on Dharma Bums for more about our mutual love for hiking and literature.)

I have been putting off writing this for a few weeks. First, I went camping, and that kind of got in the way. Then, I had a crazy Symphony week, so there just wasn’t time to sit down and sort out what I was going to say. The problem, in large part, is that this is a really big book, with a fairly broad reach, and that tends to make it hard to focus on a few core ideas. The book is 500ish pages long, plus extensive endnotes. 

Let me see if I can distill this down a bit. Lizzie Collingham tackles the role that food played in World War II, from the role food played in why the Axis powers started a war in the first place, through the difficulties the various players encountered in keeping their own populations - and armies - supplied with food, through the way starvation was used as a weapon, to the way the war changed forever how food was grown, processed, and consumed throughout our modern world. So yes, a huge scope, and far too much information to put in one review. Collingham is British, so she sometimes focuses on the British experience, but she does an excellent job expanding the view to a global one.

As a basic summary, I would say that this book is well researched, marvelously detailed, and sheds a light on World War II that augments and in some cases revises the dominant narratives.

First, while the causes of most wars aren’t exactly singular, there are some common threads. No doubt the economic hardships to Germany after the first World War were a significant trigger. But there was also a political philosophy which went beyond that of the Nazis which led inevitably to the war.

Germany decided that its goal was to become self sufficient when it came to food, rather than import food from elsewhere, like Britain. And not just Germany, but Japan too adopted this ideal.

There was a major problem, however: neither had enough land to be able to support their populations. In Japan’s case, it was at least arguable that had they embraced modern farming techniques, they might have been able to do it, but Germany simply didn’t have enough fertile land or a long enough growing season. Britain, for what it is worth, was even worse off, but chose to embrace a global marketplace and import food in exchange for other goods. Come to think of it, this is what Britain had been doing for the past several hundred years, so it came easily to them.

The solution to the problem? Well, since population shrinkage is rarely a popular suggestion, particularly since someone gets the task of dying, Germany and Japan decided that they needed more land. In Germany’s case, it is clear from internal documents that they always intended to invade Russia, and take part of the Ukraine in addition to Poland for themselves. For Japan, this mean Korea and Manchuria - and an empire in Southeast Asia.

This begs the question, naturally, of what was to happen to the people who already occupied these “new” lands that would would be conquered. Where would they go?

The answer to that is as ugly as it comes. Germany had long considered the Jews to be mere “useless eaters,” and intended for them to starve or flee. In fact, the “final solution” wasn’t really a surprise to many within the regime. If anything, execution was a better death than starvation. But it didn’t stop with the Jews. Not at all. Collingham pieces together documents from the Nazi era that paint a pretty clear picture.

The people occupying the land would be deported and enslaved - around 70 million people. It was fully expected that at least 30-60 million people, primarily those of the “undesirable” Slavic race, would starve to death. And that was fine.

Japan does not seem to have been as realistic. It appears that they expected that somehow they could “merely” enslave the Korean and Chinese populations, feed them less, and still have lots of food left over. In practice, of course, one would have the same result. Those deprived of their food would die of starvation.

One of the most shocking things in this book, though, was that these intended (and partially accomplished) atrocities didn’t just happen out of the blue. In fact, there was a clear blueprint for them which was cited by the Nazis as a great example of how they foresaw the plan unfolding:

The expulsion of the Native Americans from the United States.

Ouch.

Think about it: as we expanded into North America, the native populations were enslaved, deported en masse, and eventually succumbed to starvation and disease. (The numbers are staggering: 20-100 million for the entire new world, and easily 80% of the original populations. Even with the lower number, it comes in at the 7th worst death toll for conflicts in history once adjusted for world population.) The Nazis recognized this as a viable template for genocide.

On a related note, I do not want to create the impression that the evil was all on the side of the Axis powers. With the exception of the United States, no major player could feed itself, so hard decisions had to be made. Even for the US, how much to share and with whom was a question which was not necessarily answered in a just manner.

For England, the decision was made that hunger would be “exported.” That is, the colonies - particularly in India and Africa - would be cut back far more than for the homeland, with the result that starvation became rampant. India was hit the worst, because Africa was both closer to self-sufficient, and better able to conceal foodstuffs from requisitioning by the British authorities.

Although I admire Churchill, I must say I was repulsed by his statements on India. He considered Indians to be subhuman savages, and blamed them for their own starvation. In a sentiment that even now is echoed by the right wing here in America, he claimed that they would have been fine had they not “reproduced like rabbits.” As if reproduction were just a privilege for the wealthy or white.

As Field Marshall Wavell (one of the true heroes in the war) after he was appointed to oversee India (having commanded the forces in North Africa previously) bitterly said, “A very different attitude [exists] towards feeding a starving population when the starvation is in Europe.”

I won’t spend too much time in this review on the extensive discussion of battlefield logistics other than to say that it is fascinating reading. Truly battles may be won on tactics, but wars are often won by logistics. Whatever the contribution in weaponry and soldiers the United States made to the war, it was the logistics of supply that were its forte.

Likewise, the sections on how the various countries managed their own supplies through rationing and other means is worth reading. Any economist would recognize the problems caused by black markets and unfair apportionment of resources.

I do want to focus a bit, though, on some of the interesting points the author makes about malnutrition. There are plenty of tales of people dying in the streets of starvation. (Google the Siege of Leningrad, if you have a strong stomach.) It wasn’t pretty.

But I hadn’t realized the severe secondary tolls taken by malnutrition. It’s one thing to die from lack of calories - it’s ugly. But for far more, they died from the effects of insufficient nutrition. Diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and cholera are far more deadly for the malnourished. Likewise, one of the early signs of malnutrition is an elevated maternal and infant death rate. Thus, even as millions starved, even more millions died of disease as a direct result of malnutrition, and more mothers and babies died as well.

Before and during the war, scientific research turned to the requirements of nutrition. Many of our current standards derive from this era and the research which was done. The war itself served as a research study on a grand scale. Because of rationing and subsidies, for the first time in recorded history, some poor populations actually had enough to eat - and nutritious food.

The result of this research has been revolutionary. It turns out that, as the author put it, “It was clear that ill-health among the poor was directly related to deficient family income. The poor quite simply could not afford to buy enough good-quality food.” All it took to reduce maternal death rates, and rates of many diseases was to ensure that women got sufficient and good quality food. Who knew? Well, this was revolutionary in its time.

There were other interesting findings. Often the poor would consume enough calories, but they lacked other nutrients. Due to the gulf in income, the wealthy were able to afford meat, fish, dairy products, and fresh vegetables which were out of the reach of the poor.

Furthermore, the research identified three causes which still today are at the heart of the malnutrition problem: lack of proper kitchen facilities to prepare food, a lack of time to cook from scratch, and insufficient income to afford the more expensive but more nutritious foods.

Prior to this research, there was a general sentiment that malnutrition was the fault of the poor. They weren’t frugal enough, they were ignorant of nutrition, they were lazy and didn’t want to cook. Oh wait. That’s still how we talk about the poor. My bad.

This is still an issue today. A great example of how this plays out can be seen in McDonalds’ attempt to show that one can live on the current minimum wage. It has been pointed out - and indeed, it is completely obvious to anyone who can live on budget - that the plan for living on minimum wage has serious flaws. First, it assumes that the person receives government health care and food stamps to pay pretty much all of their food needs. Second, it requires a 70 hour work week. Third, the amount allocated for rent wouldn’t actually allow a person to afford real housing - at least in California. So, one could see all three factors: lack of total income for needs, probably no kitchen facilities, and a work schedule that leaves insufficient time to prepare nutritious food.

This research had a secondary effect. Because rationing and nutrition subsidies had a positive effect, leading many to experience a lack of hunger and malnutrition, a fundamental shift occurred. Maternal and infant death rates declined in England and the United States. Malnutrition related deaths of all kinds dropped. And people noticed.

Throughout the western world, the wartime introduction of planned economies, which accepted responsibility for the health and welfare of all a nation’s citizens, marked a decisive break with the past. In post-war Britain it would no longer be possible for a government, whether Conservative or Labour, to turn away from abject misery, declaring that it was the result of ignorance and, by implication, beyond the means of the government to rectify.

Perhaps the only movement in the western world that hasn’t accepted this is the current version of the right wing in the United States. (Even the Right, when I was a kid in the Reagan years, didn’t see the dismantling of the New Deal and the safety net to be a goal. But now, it appears that Ayn Rand economics has become the cause celebre - one of several reasons I left the GOP.)

The problem is this: prior to these programs, people really did starve, and people really did die of malnutrition-related diseases, and things got better once government stepped in and did some redistribution. For those who wish to reverse that, I have to wonder, “what is your plan to keep the gains?” Or do you, deep down, hope to return to the days of malnutrition for those who “don’t deserve it”? Just asking…

One final bit that I found interesting - and a bit humorous. Hitler was well known to eat an austere diet that would faze even some paleolithic sorts today. Not so for some of his underlings. This book tells of a feud between Goebbels, who wished to see the leaders embrace austerity in the name of victory, and Goering, who was legendary in his extravagance. His love for Horcher’s, a luxury restaurant infuriated Goebbels enough that he arranged for a mob to attack the restaurant. Goering, naturally, dispatched soldiers from the Luftwaffe to guard his favorite dinner spot. Ah, the politics of food…

This is an intriguing book on many levels. It isn’t an easy or light book, but it is well worth the read. Doubly so for anyone interested in history, warfare, economics, nutrition, or politics.

But I think what will stick with me the most is this: we still act in accordance with the worst of our human nature all too often. We can be generous only until our own luxury and privilege is threatened, and then we are all too eager to export hunger and poverty and turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellow humans. World War II was ugly on so many levels, but we should not forget that much of its evil wasn’t unique. It existed before the war, and remains afterward.

Past Perfect Present Tense by Richard Peck

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

My second daughter (the mouse and rat fan) introduced me to Richard Peck a couple of years ago, during a long camping trip. We listened to Secrets at Sea, which I thought was the sort of story you would get if Henry James had written a children’s book about mice. Not too long after, we listened to his other mouse book, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tale, which continues the theme of Victorian mice. These two books are fairly recent ones, and a good bit out of character for Peck, who primarily wrote about humans. In any event, the tales were charming and imaginative. A few readers of this blog suggested we explore his other books as well, which we did last year with Here Lies the Librarian, a tale of cars and feminism coming of age. Although my wife disliked the narrator for that audiobook, the kids and I enjoyed the story. 

I chose Past Perfect Present Tense for two reasons. First, it was available immediately from our library, without having to request it. Second, because it was short stories, we could stop in the middle if it was too long for our trip. (It wasn’t, though, so we finished it all.)

Richard Peck hasn’t written a whole lot of short stories. For the most part, he is a novelist, as he readily admits. There are thirteen stories in this collection, and they are all he wrote.

In addition to the stories, Peck has included his own introductions to the sections, and his musings on writing in general and short stories in particular. These are quite good, I must say. Here is the opening bit:

A story isn’t what is. It’s what if? Fiction isn’t real life with the names changed. It’s an alternate reality to reflect the reader’s own world.

But what is a short story not? It’s not a condensation of a novel, or an unfinished one. It’s not Cliffs Notes to anything. It has its own shape and profile. It’s not the New York skyline; it’s a single church spire. Its end is much nearer its beginning, and so it can be overlooked.

The short story is much misunderstood. There are even aspiring writers who think they’ll start out writing short stories and work their way up to the big time: novels. It doesn’t work like that. A short story isn’t easier than a novel. It has so little space to make its mark that it requires the kind of self-mutilating editing most new writers aren’t capable of. It has less time to plead its case.

I would agree with him that in many ways, writing a good short story is one of the hardest things to write. Or at least write well.

Peck divides the book into four parts. The first includes only his first story, “Priscilla and the Wimps,” which is about a large girl who takes on a bully and his gang. The second is stories set in the past, the third is ghost stories, and the fourth is stories set in the present day. In general, these stories are aimed at late elementary children or Junior High, perhaps. However, like most good stories, they work well for a variety of ages.

One thing I will caution, however, is that Peck isn’t squeamish. Ghosts require dead people, for example, and thus, people die in unpleasant ways. In one case, it is by suicide. Peck is not at all pro-suicide, of course, but be prepared for the discussion with the kids if you haven’t already had it. Likewise, for one of the stories set in modern times (“I Go Along”), there is a reference to sex, which surely would have made a few Victorians reach for the smelling salts. Actually, it is an amusing line, which caused my tween daughters (11 and 12) to give me an amused smirk.

Being juniors, we also figure we know all there is to know about sex.  We know things about sex no adult ever heard of.  Still, the sight of a pregnant English teacher slows us down some.

Some of these stories ended up being the starting point for full novels. In particular, “Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground” inspired Peck to write more about eccentric older women in A Year Down Yonder and A Long Way From Chicago, while “The Electric Summer” a coming of age tale set at the St. Louis World’s Fair grew into the longer work about the fair, Fair Weather.

I particularly liked “The Electric Summer,” I will admit. The young narrator manages to talk her mother into attending the fair, and the two of them have a grand time that the daughter did not expect. At the end, it becomes clear that both have changed. Life will never be the same for the daughter as she realizes she doesn’t wish to stay on the farm all her life, and the mother comes to peace with the knowledge that she will have to let her daughter go. All too often in fiction and real life, this transition is fraught. I liked that Peck captured the struggles of both characters yet turned the story to a mutual understanding rather than chasm at the end. I have children who will be teens very soon indeed, and my hope is that we can make that transition from parent and child to friends and allies as they mature.

“Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground” is a classic story of the cantankerous old granny taking on the condescending and gullible big city journalist. Peck wrote it for a collection that was themed as stories about firearms. I suspect Peck - who worried that the book would be full of testosterone-drenched tales of manliness - enjoyed tweaking the editor as much as granny. The theme of the ornery old lady returns in “The Three Century Woman.” My wife’s great-grandmother (who passed on recently at 102) was a bit like this sort, asking for a new chain saw for her 80th birthday, and living on her own out in the middle of the Texas hill country into her 90s.

These stories cover a wide variety of settings and moods, but throughout, the characters are memorable and full of nuance. One of the challenges of the short story form is that it is more difficult to flesh the characters out in a small space. Thus, words count, and the little details make all the difference.

Another thing that comes to mind as a positive for me is that Peck, regardless of who his characters are, roots for the little guy. He writes strong female characters and boys who have emotions and adults who treat children with respect.

I am a big fan of short stories, and I was happy to find Peck’s to be solid. Peck is one of those children’s authors that holds enough depth to appeal to adults. His writing is more literary than average, I would say. Not that this is the only sort of kids’ book that is worth reading, of course. But we have enjoyed a number of books during our travels that are like this, with some moral and psychological heft underlying the excitement of the plot.

One final bit about the audiobook. Peck himself reads the introductions. The stories are split between Paul Boehmer, who reads the books with a male narrator or perspective, while Lara Schwartzberg reads the ones from a female perspective. That these are split fairly equally speaks to Peck’s ability to write well either way.

We will undoubtedly be listening to more Richard Peck in the next few years during our travels. From what we have listened to so far, he is a good writer, adept in multiple genres, and with a good eye for character.

Bad Astronomy by Phillip Plait

Source of book: I own this.

If you haven’t already discovered Phil Plait, you really should. Seriously. Plait has worked as an astronomer (including research work on data from the Hubble Space Telescope), teacher, and writer. I read his other book, Death From The Skies a couple of years ago, and it was outstanding. I have even introduced kids to that book, because it is - in addition to an entertaining read - a fairly good basic introduction to astronomy and astrophysics.

I also should recommend Plait’s excellent video series, Crash Course Astronomy. These videos take the viewer from moon phases through neutron stars, black holes, and dark energy in a tour of the universe in 46 episodes. I plan to use them for my kids when we next do an astronomy unit. 

Bad Astronomy is actually Plait’s first book, and grew out of his blog by the same name where he debunked bad science and pseudoscience in the area of astronomy. These range from his opening chapter on balancing eggs on the equinox to bad science in movies. Along the way, he discusses questions such as why the moon looks bigger near the horizon, whether toilets swirl different directions in the northern and southern hemispheres (no), astrology, young earth creationism, whether the moon landing was faked (no), and which common idioms are actually based on truth.

Plait tackles two related phenomena in this book. The first is a general lack of scientific knowledge in the United States. It isn’t just that we do not know our science, but that we think it is okay to be scientifically illiterate.

To illustrate this point, Plait describes a news broadcast back in 1994 when Matt Lauer read a story about an experiment that the space shuttle was conducting in space. The experiment wasn’t that complicated (dragging a shield to clear small particles, then conducting tests in that ultra-vacuum environment), but Lauer clearly was just reading without having a clue what he was talking about. The other persons on the broadcast, Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel, made a joke about it. As Plait points out, these are three of the most famous journalists -  household names everyone knows. “Think about that for a moment: three of America’s most famous journalists, and they actually laughed at their own ignorance in science! How would this be different if, say, the report had been about Serbia, and they laughed at how none of them knew where it was?”

This is the problem. It is “cute” to be scientifically ignorant. (Also to be ignorant in math  - and the two are related.) I have found it frustrating when discussing topics which involve science, from “alternative” medicine scams to the age of the earth, that many, many people do not know basic high school level science, and don’t care. Shouldn’t this be as embarrassing as not knowing how to read?

The second phenomenon is that of blind acceptance of ludicrous claims. Plait is a big advocate for “scientific skepticism,” the practice of questioning whether claims are supported by actual empirical evidence. Don’t confuse this with philosophical skepticism (questioning our ability to have any knowledge of the world),  methodological skepticism (dating from Descartes, a doubting of one’s beliefs as a method of thinking about them), or even religious skepticism. I am, I am suspecting, a bit of a rare bird, because I myself am a big fan of scientific skepticism but am also a religious person. I believe my type was more common in the past, but things have gotten polarized as of late, alas.

Just for fun, I should mention that in addition to Plait, I am a fan of Mythbusters, the television show that tests urban myths and other claims using the scientific method. But scientific skepticism isn’t just a modern phenomenon. Sir Thomas Browne (17th Century), Michel de Montaigne (16th Century), Antoine Lavoisier (the chemist who named the elements oxygen and hydrogen), and Benjamin Franklin. The key essence of the philosophy is “prove it.” But it isn’t just skepticism. Scientific skepticism also fights against pseudoskeptics, like AIDS denialists and others who pretend to just be “asking questions” while really pushing an alternative to scientifically established facts.

Chief among these at this time are the anti-vaxxers, who Plait has done his best to debunk.

The point of Bad Astronomy isn’t to mock those who believe silly things. If anything, Plait is more generous, granting a certain sort of common sense to some myths. After all, things often do look a certain way, until one applies the scientific method to them. (For example, holding a pencil eraser against the moon at arm’s length demonstrates that the moon is the same size wherever it is.) One can particularly see this in Plait’s approach to young earth creationism. Here in the book - and also on his blog - he states up front that he is non-religious. But he doesn’t attack religion. In fact, if all my religious friends were as generous toward atheists as Plait is toward religious people, the world would be a far better place. Plait limits himself to debunking the scientific claims. His problem is when YEC believers misuse and misstate science to “prove” their points.

I have no intention of discussing their arguments based on the Bible. I leave that to experts on religion and interpreting various ancient texts. I also have no desire to insult, denigrate, or argue against anyone’s religious beliefs, as long as they do not use scientific data incorrectly to support these beliefs.

And then he goes on to tackle a few of claims made by YEC advocates, showing that they leave out crucial information, lie about what the data says, and fail (or refuse) to acknowledge any evidence that contradicts their beliefs.

I’ll admit that I firmly agree with Plait on this. I once embraced the YEC viewpoint. What changed for me was when I got far enough along in my science education to start evaluating the claims. I had already embraced an old earth by the time I graduated high school. Once the internet became available to me, I was able to search out additional sources, and the whole thing fell apart. There were too many outright lies in the YEC information. (Similarly, despite my family’s embrace of “alternative” medicine, I found that the materials often couldn’t even get high school chemistry right. It was obvious at some point that the whole thing was a highly lucrative scam.)

In a way, then - and this is the lawyer speaking too - what this world needs is a lot less credulity and a lot more skepticism. This political season has been ample demonstration of that fact, with so many willing to just accept what someone says without thinking it through and checking out the actual facts.

In summary, then, what this book does is make a compelling argument for actually testing and looking stuff up before accepting claims. Depending on one’s prior knowledge, this book could either be a revelation, or just a confirmation of one’s own research. In my case, I did learn some things. For example, I had not thought through exactly why there would be no visible stars in photographs of astronauts on the moon. (It’s all about photography and how bright the astronauts were in direct sunlight.) There are lots of fun tidbits for everyone. However, I think that the real strength of this book is going to be sharing it with my kids and with others who wish to understand why some things are simply not credible. One hopes it can be an antidote to the culture of “post first, question later - or probably never.”

And maybe, one can only hope, it can at least convince a few people that scientific illiteracy isn’t funny.

***

A few random things:

Seriously, Death From the Skies is really great. One of my 11 year old friends read it and discovered a thirst for more knowledge about relativity and astrophysics. Science is great stuff!

On a related note, Crash Course Astronomy is very, very good. I thought I had a pretty decent grasp of the basic concepts, but Plait includes so many things discovered just since we put the Hubble in orbit that prove the universe is even more amazing than I knew. Plait has that rare and invaluable gift of taking complex topics and making them understandable without dumbing them down. Obviously, this isn’t a graduate level physics course or anything, but for those of us outside of the scientific world, it is a great introduction to important concepts.

Also, Plait’s blog (Bad Astronomy) is now hosted by Slate Magazine. It is worth following for the astonishingly beautiful photographs of the universe he posts.

I also cite Plait to my friends who think all atheists are abrasive like Richard Dawkins. (No diss on Dawkins’ scientific work - he’s legit. But he is abrasive, and even other atheists consider him sexist.) Plait has such a sense of wonder that his love for his topics is contagious. He also is great at keeping his focus on things that can be proven or disproven, a distinction that all of us of whatever faith or no faith should keep in mind. There is far more we have in common anyway.

I read this book during our recent camping trip at Pinnacles National Park. Although I didn’t do a post about this particular trip, I have written several posts about past trips. Pinnacles is fairly close to where I live, and it is a truly magical place. From the soaring condors, so close to extinction when I was a kid, to the atmospheric talus caves, to the rocks and spires of a volcano, extinct for 20 million years, and displaced from a part of itself by 180 miles due to the movement of the San Andreas Fault. I have written about it a few times before, and you can find those posts here, on my National Parks and Monuments page. The geology of Pinnacles was one reason I rejected Young Earth Creationism. The natural history of the rocks is visible, and the forces necessary to drag the plates so far would have been too cataclysmic to have occurred instantaneously. 

This too is on point - particularly in light of the history presented in The History of Pi. Recently, this person was elected to the Texas Board of Education. Fact: I am a Christian. Also Fact: this is disturbing to me beyond belief, that someone who so flagrantly denies the validity of empirical evidence would be put in charge of determining curriculum. Phil Plait is right about the widespread acceptance of scientific ignorance. 

I have to mention this as well: Plait gives a shout out to the a number of great sources for further information. Among these is none other than Nick Strobel, who teaches Astronomy and other stuff here at our local junior college, Bakersfield College. The kids and I have attended some of Strobel’s lectures at the planetarium. He is great with kids, and an educator in the best sense of the word. My wife took a unit from him on the physics of Star Trek back when she was in nursing school. For anyone who believes the community college system - or state schools in general are inferior, I submit Nick Strobel, and many other outstanding educators who devote their lives to doing the hard work of individual education in places that give them no glory and often inferior pay. These are the good guys, and what they do for humanity deserves far more credit than it gets. (For what it is worth, Strobel is also in my camp on the YEC debate. He is a Methodist who vehemently objects to the teaching of literalist/fundamentalist doctrine as science.)