Teachers lie. It happens more often than you’d think. We don’t want to do it. It’s just that telling the truth is hard. We lie for a few reasons. First, we may not know the complete story. Often, as an individual or a scientific community, we just don’t fully know how something works. It’s hard to teach half-truths, and so we massage the story to make it complete.
Most of us acquire our science from others either through classes and textbooks or on TV shows We learn about facts that are generally accepted by the scientific community. Then these facts are integrated into theories that explain our world within some overarching framework. This static textbook view of science may include the histories of current theories and the explanations they replaced, but the information is presented as final, accepted truth.
We are in the middle of a pandemic, and many things have changed. One change is that public events are no longer happening. Gatherings and activities that increase contact among people are shut down, and that means some health initiatives have been shut down too. I have talked before about the efforts to eradicate various diseases that have long been scourges of humanity.
At the beginning of the Bible, God asks man to name all the animals. As a child, I had visions of the mammals I knew lining up and being given a name by Adam. This task continues today as scientists discover new forms of life – not just plants and animals but many more levels of complexity. We are living through one of these complexities right now, involving a small entity called a virus (SARS-CoV-2) that has upended all our lives with the COVID-19 disease.
I write this in late March, and we are two weeks from the end of classes for the term, followed by exams in April. On Friday the 13th of March, the university I work at, and most Canadian universities, canceled all live, in-person classes. At Laurier, we canceled classes for a week, and we were asked to develop an online plan for going forward. No face-to-face contact or meetings were permitted, but students had to complete their term with academic integrity and meet all the learning objectives in the course. This online process could take different formats depending on the nature of each course.
In December 1967, Christiaan Barnard carried out the first heart transplant. The patient died 18 days later of pneumonia. Today about 70 percent of patients survive more than five years after such a transplant, and over 50 percent survive more than 10 years. Given the compromised health of many patients receiving a heart transplant, these are remarkable survival rates.
-768x431.png?strip=all&quality=90&webp=90&avif=80&sharp=1)
Each year around the holiday season, faculty members across Canada are asked to review research grant applications for the three federal granting agencies. This past season, I reviewed three such applications, all from faculty requesting funds from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). A new part of the applications this year is an increased emphasis on how the applicant promotes diversity in the training of highly qualified personnel.
As we start a new decade, the 2020s, I find myself reflecting on the earth I will leave my grandchildren. In particular, I am contemplating our climate. Many scientists are concerned that current changes in climate are approaching tipping points. Tipping points are moments in processes when a change becomes self-reinforcing; after the tipping point, the process accelerates and becomes unstoppable. If we are indeed approaching or even crossing a tipping point in climate-related events, then changes that result may be irreversible.
In a remarkable study, a team of scientists have discovered that about 4,000 years ago it was the woman who left her family to cling to her husband. Using a variety of techniques, from carbon dating, DNA analysis, and isotope ratio measurement to analyzing archeological grave findings, the researchers were able to document a complex social structure lasting over multiple generations in the southern German region of the Lech River. It was only by combining these various techniques that scientists determined how these individuals lived.
“You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:13-14). In this psalm, attributed to David, he notes that our bodies, minds and souls are things of wonder and complexity. In this age of rapidly advancing knowledge, scientists are finding out just how accurate David’s description of our bodies is. We are discovering complex connections undreamed of even 15 years ago!
For quite a long time, we have known that the universe is expanding. The red light shift (a drop in value for light waves that are getting farther away, sort of like the drop in tone you hear as an ambulance passes you and the siren moves away) makes clear that galaxies are moving away from us.
-768x433.jpg?strip=all&quality=90&webp=90&avif=80&sharp=1)
University professors have three areas of responsibility: teaching, research and service. The amount of time given to these three large tasks varies with institution, ability and preference. At our institution, like many others, the proportions suggested are 40 percent each for teaching and research and 20 percent for service.
|
Uploaded
Failed
|
 |
