Author: Josh Witten

http://www.thefinchandpea.com

Creative output, social media & the tragedy of the commons

Screenshot 2014-01-24 11.43.27

Ed Yong’s comment on Alexis Madrigal’s article at The Atlantic is spot-on.

Can you spot the fundamental flaw in the logic of self-justifying logic of the owners of @HistoryInPics*?

“Photographers are welcome to file a complaint with Twitter, as long as they provide proof. Twitter contacts me and I’d be happy to remove it,” he [Xavier Di Petta] said. “I’m sure the majority of photographers would be glad to have their work seen by the massives.”
-from “The 2 Teenagers Who Run the Wildly Popular Twitter Feed @HistoryInPics” by Alexis Madrigal

If you don’t tell people who took the pictures, how do the photographers benefit from having their work seen by the “massives”? Sure, having one’s work make an impact is a reward unto itself, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

When our artists can’t pay their bills, we get less art. Or as the internet would say,  “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

*In general, I avoid linking to folks that are making their bank on the backs of uncredited artists.

Don’t give your megaphone to just anyone

On the one hand, it has been a rough couple of months for science communication. We’ve been reeling from problem with sexism/racism/harassment to another. The reputations of even science communication juggernauts like Scientific American and Nature Magazine have not survived intact.

On the other hand, we seem to actually be talking about these issues publicly, which may be a sort of progress.

Established institutions, with their established audiences, retain the capacity to dominate such public discussions. In a must-read post (originally published last week and now republished on the excellent LadyBits), our Raleigh Sewer Tour buddy Anne Jefferson explains the problem of institutions, who claim to not be sexist or racist, providing a platform for bad actors to amplify their sexist and racist messages. As she lays out the problem, it is akin to the issue of false balance in journalism surrounding issues like vaccinations.

Anne also lays out three easy steps to avoid handing your institution’s supposedly progressive megaphone to a jerk. My favorite is tip #1:

If you receive racist or sexist material for publication, DON’T PUBLISH IT. Throw it out.

Due dosi di Brunelleschi

Il Duomo, Florence, Italy (Photo Credit: MarcusObal; CC BY-SA 3.0)

Filippo Brunelleschi is justifiably famous for his design of the dome of Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (The Duomo). Famous enough that my household contains not one, but two books about Brunelleschi and his dome, as I recently discovered.

The first is Ross King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, in which King follows the career of Filippo Brunelleschi and the long process that lead to the construction of what may still be the most impressive dome in the long history of human architecture. The story of Brunelleschi and his dome is gripping. If a book about early Italian Renaissance cathedral architecture can be called a “page turner”, Brunelleschi’s Dome deserves the title.

The second is Pippo the Fool, a children’s book written by Tracey Fern and illustrated by Pau Estrada. The books cover much of the same ground. Indeed, Pippo the Fool uses King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome as a reference (yes, it is a children book that lists its references – be still my beating heart). Pippo the Fool, however, is meant as a narrative illustration of an individual genius triumphing over the odds and bullies based upon Brunelleschi’s life; whereas Brunelleschi’s Dome is an exploration of history. Continue reading “Due dosi di Brunelleschi”

It’s Boxing Day. What are you going to do today?

Letter and drawing from Mary Anning announcing the discovery of a fossil animal now known as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus, 26 December 1823 (Public Domain)

Mary Anning described the discovery of a plesiosaur to the world in a letter from 26 December 1823. You were probably hungover.

*For the unfamiliar, Boxing Day is the day after Christmas.

From Wikipedia via Kind of A Menace via Scientific Illustration

The Red Nose Gene [Repost]

Rudolph's Family

Originally posted on 24 December 2012 when my now 5 year old was 4.

Tis the season…for my 4 year old to ask me to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer repeatedly during any car trip longer than 30 seconds. My apologies to anyone who gets caught in the crossfire. My singing does not get better with repetition.

My kids also love the Rankin/Bass stop animation classic film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. As you probably have come to expect, I have had a lot of time to wonder about how two seemingly normal reindeer could have a child with a glowing nose. Classic genetics is well-equipped to deal with this problem.

Both Santa and we should be very concerned about the genetics of red reindeer noses. According to Wikipedia, the Rudolph story dates back to 1939. There have probably been quite a few foggy Christmas Eves in the intervening years. According to the Pittsburgh Zoo, reindeer typically live for 10 years in the wild. While we can expect that Santa’s reindeer do a bit better than those in the wild, it is clear that Rudolph alone would not be able to “guide Santa’s sleigh” today. Given their success breeding flying reindeer, it is not hard to imagine that Santa’s elves could generate a stable of red-nosed reindeer. How they would go about doing so would depend on how, genetically, Rudolph wound up with that first Red Nose. Continue reading “The Red Nose Gene [Repost]”