Fuji Lozada's Fieldnotes

Anthropologist at Davidson College

YWW: Overview

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In my class Science, Policy, and Society, we encountered the “big blue marble” effect in our reading of Paul N. Edwards’ book on climatology A Vast Machine. We also talked about the intersections of science and religion through Ian Barbour, Steven J. Gould, and many others who we have read throughout the term.

The above excerpt (a kickstarter project for the whole documentary) shows this intersection, for those who directly viewed the earth as a big blue marble and some who viewed it indirectly through live video; think of it as the science-based deep ecology approach.

Thanks for pointing out this video, Guven Witteveen

YWW: what most schools don’t teach: code.org

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In Science, Policy, and Society class today, we talked about parameters and tuning in climate modeling, from Paul N. Edwards’ A Vast Machine. I did a rant about the three books that essentially created environmental studies as a recognizable academic discipline, a policy issue, and an element of popular culture: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, The Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, and the Brundtland Commission’s Our Common Future.

Edwards’ whole book is essentially about climate simulation models – especially how models have come to dominate the world that we live in today. One thing that mystifies understanding modeling, however, is that our students largely do not know how to code. At a liberal arts college, many faculty are coming to believe that technological literacy, like our traditional writing requirement, should be incorporated into our college curriculum. Here’s a nice video that argues the point more coherently – thanks Vanessa W.!

YWW: Selective Attention Test

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In class today, we talked about issues of objectivity (again!), but this time from the perspective of numbers (Porter and Rotman articles). We started off class with a question about the following quote:

“…science enshrines objectivity, meaning (here) not truth to nature, but impersonality, standardization – reducing subjectivity to a minimum” (Porter 1999:402)

But even when the issue of subjectivity is parceled out, there are still limits to the idea of aperspectival objectivity – limits created by human perception. We clearly understand, from our reading of the excerpt from Gould’s Mismeasure of Man (optional for the STS class, but required in intro) that the GIGO (“garbage in, garbage out”) rule is in full effect in science. In the absence of cultural causal factors like racism, however, humans still have limits in their observational skills. Here’s a classic experiment that demonstrates these limits.

In other words, what we’re thinking about — what we’re focused on — filters the world around us so aggressively that it literally shapes what we see. (NPR)

Here’s a link to an NPR article that brought this issue back up: Why even radiologists can miss a gorilla hiding in plain sight.

YWW: Beautiful example of telling a story with visuals

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Heddling from Cotton Road on Vimeo.

Here’s a clip from a forthcoming documentary called Cotton Road by Laura Kissel of the University of South Carolina. I met her this fall at Fudan University, but unfortunately missed her screening because of a trip.

To me, this clip demonstrates how best to tell a story with video. Notice how close she gets to the activity, the different perspectives, the pace of the shots, and the natural sound.

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Men’s Lacrosse at Davidson

The Davidson College Men's Lacrosse team is a member of the Southeastern Lacrosse Conference (SELC) and competes in Division II of the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association.