Phallacy

Emily Willingham's Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis is not what I expected. Based on the cover art and the subtitle, it seemed packaged as a popular science book, so I thought it would be a little biology, some interesting research anecdotes maybe, and (of course) the mandatory discussion of bedbugs and slugs ("traumatic insemination" is an extremely clickbait-y phrase).

The book did include those things, but they were side notes --- its true focus was humans, and particularly the way that we (esp. in the west) have structured society in general and scientific research in particular to ignore things that are female-affiliated, even when that is an obvious detriment to scientific knowledge and research advancement. Plus there was an always-uncomfortable, but straightforward and unforgiving, broad consideration of toxic masculinity.

I think in retrospect that it's mostly "life lessons" and only sort of tangentially about "the animal penis", especially since the book itself contains so many descriptions of ways that various animals transfer gametes that are not a penis. The tone overall was straightforward but wry and unquestionably a woman's voice: it unflinchingly and repeatedly drew parallels to the animal kingdom and pointed out how hollow and stupid and full of preconceived notions those parallels were. It was sprinkled with absolutely fantastic footnotes and asides. Willingham has a wonderful authorial tone and a gift for introducing neologisms and puns, casually adding references to popular culture and ancient history, and overall just making me wish that I was her friend so we could cackle together.

My notes overall ended up being mostly phrases or sentences that just struck me as awesome:

• simile used when discussing evolution: "You can be as fragile as a dictator's ego and still have attributes that prop you up, keep you alive in the current environment, and lead you to successful reproduction." (p 14)
• "When it comes to evolutionary studies of sex, gender, and genitalia, guess who the "winners" are?* [footnote: *Men. It's men.]" (p 15)
• "In this work, they used what they called "haptics" and every one else calls "dildos"" (p 30)
• "Lest I come across as unamused and far too earnest, I do think that genitalia and fart jokes can be hilarious." (p 46)
• "Frogs collect of an evening round the pond," (p 65)
• "Given that the human penis couldn't stab through a perfectly ripe avocado," (p 77)
• "The genre of "arthropod (and invertebrate) sex films" is small but mighty." (p 77)
• "This is a very fighty kind of bird, considering that they all apparently agree to go condo together." (p 84)
• "Who hasn't needed, at some point, to reach a neighbor with a lengthy protrusible organ, even if it was just spraying them with a water hose? If you're a barnacle, ..." (p 86)
• "[footnote: *The noise that they make is called "orgling."]" (p 106)
• p 132 she discusses her previous teaching and describes herself as showing slides and "intoning" and then says "I was obviously electric in the classroom."
• some great neologisms like "intromittens" (used frequently) and "tuatararium" (a terrarium for tuatara, p 216) which often is accompanied e.g. by "[footnote: *Yes, I made this word up.]"
• on p 288 I was caught off-guard by the phrase "squad goals" used w.r.t. mites
• "got his Twitter account... suspended for violating Twitter rules, which we all know is almost impossible to do if you're a white male." (p 243)
• "Lest I attract unnecessary derision (only necessary derision, please), no, I do not really think that..." (p 257)
• "This particular, not especially long (in words, but oh, the psychic pain lingers) paper uses the word "penis" more than a hundred times and the word "phallus" sixty times." (p 268)

Overall the book was interesting and suggested new ways of considering and engaging with these issues, and I liked it. I probably wouldn't have read it if not for the squid on the cover, though, so I know my own vulnerabilities.

This post's theme word is lepodactylous (adj), "having slender fingers or toes." I will not be able to consider mittens for the lepodactylous without thinking of arachnids.

Arts et Métiers

I'll probably never stop singing the praises of this museum, it is delightful and its subway stop is decorated to match.

Oh, the riveted faux-brass panels were not enough of a clue?

The entire thing gives the steampunkiest impression, and it is heightened by the fact that all the M11 trains that pass through the station carry the smell of burning sawdust. Mental associations to workshops, handmade items to solve technical problems.

Apparently I always take a photo from this exact location.

To go with the everything-is-gears theme today, I bring you this: a thrilling printing press, I believe in several colors, on display in the museum.

If ever I possess property, space, and money to spare (any eligible landed bachelors out there?), this will get a high priority. Although of course it comes after my Jacquard loom, which I'll be building from first principles (until it becomes ridiculous, then I'll look up historical examples).

This post's theme word is agglutinate, "(verb tr., intr.) to form words by combining words or word elements; to join or become joined as if by glue; to clump or cause to clump, as red blood cells" or "(adj.) joined or tending to join; relating to a language that makes complex words by joining words or word elements extensively. For example as in Turkish." What agglutinated monstrosities, what delightful conglomerations of gears and mechanisms you have!

Sonic screwdriver science

I was surprised to see this giant bronze woman holding a sonic screwdriver, wielding it quite fiercely at a (bronze) parchment in front of the Hôtel de Ville.

From this angle, it really really looks like a sonic screwdriver. I just couldn't come up with anything else it could be. The seated, naked, generic statue lady didn't have a lot of context clues. The Wikipedia page was not a huge amount of help, since the building is coated in statues.

On further examination from another angle, she is wielding a compass and considering some... academic thing... on that parchment. Her partner statue was wielding a pen on paper, which gives enough of a clue to sift through the photos and uncover that she is La Science, science embodied.

My high school draw-this-with-a-compass puzzle-solving practice might pay off when I take up modeling.

I'm glad to see that, at least in science-abstraction statuary, the gender imbalance is working in my favor.

This post's theme word is armsceye (or armseye), "an opening in a garment for attaching a sleeve." Science is not bothered by petty details of armsceye; she has long since transcended clothing altogether.

Courtship tokens

My desk already had fun math puzzles, as decoration and to occupy my hands and mind while I spin my brain-wheels on research problems.

To these I now add recently-received wooing tokens, these two octopuses.

As far as romancing goes, I cannot think of a more attractive feature than access to a 3D printer and willingness to print tiny, creepy cephalopods.


This post's theme word is cumshaw, "a gift or tip." This cumshaw octopus collects scrimshaw.

Blindsight

Peter Watts' Blindsight is a novel set ~75 years in the future, when advances in neurology and computing have merged to reshape all of human civilization into something only distantly recognizable from the present day. Many people semi-upload themselves and live entirely in a simultated "Heaven", enabled by post-scarcity redundancy of human labor. AIs and AI-like bio-machine hybrids exist, as well as quantum computers and engineering projects on the scale of "seat an energy collector just above the sun and shoot a beam of energy anywhere in the solar system."

So when the entire planet gets paparazzi-ed by alien probes, of course a ship of computer-augmented humans are shot off to see if they can make first contact with whatever's floating out there. Humans, and one genetically-reconstructed "vampire", a formerly-extinct humanoid predator who hunts humans and is allergic to right angles. The book is full of flavorful tidbits like this, keeping the reader off-balance: there's a sense of the riotous diversity of an actual future Earth hovering in the novel's background, weird and akilter and intellectually tempting and forever out of reach. (I went back over my highlighted sections and they seem spoilery or like punchline-giveaways, so

We readers are helped to bootstrap by the fact that the main character, Siri Keaton, is recognizably somewhere on the Autism spectrum (although I don't think it's ever put in those words), and spends a lot of time figuring out what people mean and putting them inside a meaningful context. Also, this is his job --- he is a professional interpreter-and-explainer of complicated ideas.

And there are a lot of very cool, complicated ideas.

The characters and plot are great but Watts' science background shines through the novel, piercing it with incandescent rays of awesome descriptions of how the brain works to build the experience of consciousness. Magnetism, evolution, genetics --- this book s a post-Halloween intellectual goodie bag. I don't want to spoil any bits, but I give it my wholehearted recommendation. The ending was so outrageously magnificent, so transcendently thought-provoking, that I completely forgot all the awesome bits at the beginning of the book. On rereading, the details surprised me and slid into place in the larger picture, invoking a level of delight that was missing on my first pass. (There were also some parts that sounded like dangerously stressed-to-breaking metaphors for science and complicated ideas, which on rereading are not actually being abused in the way I initially thought.)

I've started in on the sequel, Echopraxia.


This post's theme word is xerophyte, "a plant adapted to growing in a very dry or desert environment." Whales might have trouble understanding xerophytes, but they apply for research grants anyway.

Métro Arts et Métiers

Arts et Métiers not only has the coolest museum, it has the coolest subway stop. It's like the inside of a Jules Verne novel.

Apologies if this is a repeat, it's just so cool that I want to tell people about it.


This post's theme word is numismatics, "the study or collection of coins, currency, notes, and similar objects like medals." The steampunk submarine was numismatically decorated, with copper fittings offset by framed pennies.

Année du tournesol

It's the year of the sunflower.

Can you locate Ernie?

The convenient sunflower map --- a pleasingly-abstract thing, resembling an extensive Venn diagram or perhaps a postmodern self-portrait of the artist as a very hungry caterpillar.

The Venn diagram style of planting made some of the intersectional plants hard to locate, and apparently also hard to reach with nourishing sunbeams.

The Ernie sunflowers were crowded out by their much taller neighbors.

This post's theme word is boscage, "mass of growing trees or shrubs." The sunflower boscage brightened the surround.

Manhood and the gender-parity inflection point

Ack. Here's an article on manhood, with many not-what-I-expected statistics that women are out-earning men, adapting to new social and economic standards, and leaving them behind. Yes, that's right.

It's interesting and befuddling that, in low-income settings, women are so outperforming (and outnumbering) men, while in high-income/status settings (the technology sector comes to mind, as well as higher education) women are discriminated against and an extreme minority. Is there an inflection point,* somewhere on the socioeconomic scale, where men and women have achieved parity?**

I recoil at the suggestion that school needs to be made more "boy-friendly", probably because every other article in my inbox is about how science education needs to be made more "girl-friendly". Dissonance! Although I am soothed by the author's explicit mention that suggested changes to the classroom are "all helpful, and all things that might be appreciated by girls, too."

The article jumps all around, from broad and depressing statistics to accessible anecdotes and prescriptive suggestions from Sweden***. The takeaway message was bafflement, and the unusual and welcome thought that my worldview had been slightly widened to include a world with the statistics and anecdata of this argument. I'm also puzzled why the article is  framed as if gains for women equals (necessitates, requires, produces) losses for men.**** Why must it be a zero-sum game of employment?


This post's theme word is inosculate, "to join or unite." It's intransitive. Who would want to inosculate home, health, and fate with an unpleasant, violent, ill-mannered, uneducated partner?


*An intermediate-value-wish like this one seems unlikely, because the statistics probably aren't dense enough to be continuous. Big discontinuities at: high school diploma, college diploma, parents' socioeconomic indicators, etc.

**On the one hand, I'd like to live at that point, where men and women are equally employed, equally caretakers, equally-represented, equally successful. On the other hand, I probably don't want to move down the socioeconomic scale to reach that point, if I am currently above it.

***This is the parallel of Godwin's Law for articles on issues of economy, family, employment, education, health, or any other aspect of society: the article will, eventually, hold up Sweden as an example.

****On the other hand, the article illustration of a see-saw has a man on one side and no one is playing with him on the other side; yet he is still, inexplicably and in defiance of physics, up.

Confounding science with science

Scott Alexander is resplendent in this blog post about science, statistics, confirmation bias, control groups, and the study of whether psychic effects are real. If that list of keywords is not enough to hook you, I really knew the article attained a blazing level of reading delight when I reached this paragraph:

Then there’s Munder (2013), which is a meta-meta-analysis on whether meta-analyses of confounding by researcher allegiance effect were themselves meta-confounded by meta-researcher allegiance effect. He found that indeed, meta-researchers who believed in researcher allegiance effect were more likely to turn up positive results in their studies of researcher allegiance effect (p < .002).

Everything about it is a delight. The layers of meta-analysis. The English noun-phrase-constructing rules that permit the construction of a sentence in which the prefix "meta-" appears five times, variously modifying words which themselves are modifying other "meta-"-modified words.

I wonder if the same researcher bias/confounding exists in fields where the experiments are entirely done on computers. Can researchers' belief in the effectiveness of certain machine learning techniques affect their experiments? What about physics simulations? I don't see how, but of course I deeply believe in the inviolable sanctity of mathematics. This is an opinion founded in my acknowledged bias. Maybe coders would self-sabotage by writing bad code, so that experiments run slower? ... but in the end this wouldn't affect the actual outcome, just the agony and feasibility of running the experiment many times.

On a larger scale, I am supremely happy that scientists are using their scientific reasoning to criticize the very practice of science itself. In the same way that I frequently remind myself that the basis of the field studying privacy is "trust no one"*, it would be nice to have big science conferences where we all get together and just shake our heads at how unreliable the current practice of science is. Apparently. I mean, check out this conclusion:

But rather than speculate, I prefer to take it as a brute fact. Studies are going to be confounded by the allegiance of the researcher. When researchers who don’t believe something discover it, that’s when it’s worth looking into.

... which sounds convincing. 

But.

You know what?

I'm skeptical. 

This post's theme word is obverse, "the more conspicuous of two alternatives or cases or sides." The skeptic and his obverse performed a coordinated, randomized, double-blind study.

*Or, as I memorably put it during a job interview, "We've known for a long time that almost everything is impossible."

Ramen results

Early results are in for the 2014 Experiments in European Poverty Living (while I wait for my salary to begin).

This morning the experimental subject awoke with abdominal pain, likely from spasms of the stomach and other digestive tract muscles. Subject could not decide if the nerves were reporting hunger or imminent vomit. Nausea and digestive confusion continued for a period of time. After some [details redacted] incidents and a cup of plain yogurt, subject reported abatement of symptoms of sickness and restoration of normal operating condition.

These results strongly suggest that the brand of ramen noodles available in France should not be eaten. Perhaps it is suitable as fertilizer, an unscientific hypothesis shamelessly offered alongside an equally unscientific refusal to repeat the experiment.

Subject reports delight at writing in the third person.


This post's theme word is merdurinous, meaning "composed of dung and urine." A sample sentence is mercifully omitted.

Science museum

I spent a fantastic afternoon in the science museum. I have a new favorite dongle. It's the Jacquard loom! I must have watched the workings of the loom for 30 or 40 minutes. It's fascinating.

Top half of a Jacquard loom.

Bottom half of a Jacquard loom.

Another level of the museum featured large machinery.

Notice the rails on the floor? I hypothesize that these were used to move the machinery into the museum.

 The rails continue throughout, even passing through this atrium where Foucault's pendulum used to hang! (It's now in a display case, with a replacement pendulum hanging there. I also saw the place in the Panthéon where the pendulum hung, but that's under construction now.)

Just look at those gears!

Honestly, this museum was the most fun and interesting one I saw the entire trip.


This post's theme word is tyro, "one who is beginning to learn something." Although I have several degrees, I often feel that I am merely a tyro.

Guilt about racism

Racism is bad. We all agree on that. I want to mention two leisure activities --- the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the movie District 9 --- which made me feel personally guilty about racism.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks describes Rebecca Skloot's journalistic and emotion-heavy research into the immortal cell line derived from Henrietta Lacks' unknowingly-donated-to-science cervical cancer cells. The book has two tones: the first, a factual historical narrative describing scientific research, blends via description of Henrietta Lacks' health and life into the second, a first-person account of Skloot's research efforts over many years, which extended to a very personal relationship with Lacks' descendents.

The science part was interesting. All the emotional parts --- and this includes parts with scientists being manipulative, deceitful, and exploitative --- made me feel guilty. As a child of privilege, as an educated person, as a scientist, as a human being, the story made me feel guilt. About my own luck, by chance of birth, to have avoided those circumstances. This contrition is reinforced by Skloot's own similar feelings, which she explores at length.

By the end of the book I was having flashbacks of District 9 every paragraph or so. That kernel of an interesting idea, that intriguing nugget of science (or science fiction) was the bait to lure me, yet again, into this abstract feeling of shame and iniquity. Yes, I see that thing you're showing me! It's bad! I want to change it! Yes, 30 seconds later I still feel bad about it!

What purpose does all this remorse-mongering serve? Highlighting awareness? We get it, we're aware of racism. I just wanted to read about cancer research, I just wanted to see alien technology; is there some need to crush me with guilt? Skloot seems to derive some catharsis from writing every twinge of contrition, every individual malfeasance; perhaps bringing unpleasant history to light can shape future history for the better.  District 9 is the bigger culprit here, because I guess the producers weren't sure the audience would pick up on the analogy that confining aliens to a ghetto was like apartheid confining people to a ghetto. So they drew the analogy in every. single. scene. Is this a movie about historical atrocities or about futuristic atrocities? I can only effect one of those. Sure, you're winning the battle for hearts and minds, but there's no opposition and you haven't told us what to do to win the battle for... you know, the actual battle.

In the end I'm forced to blame myself (touché) for enduring. I read the entire book, I sat through the entire movie, I caused myself to have the experience which gave rise to these feelings which I do not enjoy. I'd much rather live the life of the mind, where all recreational (and employment-driven) media consumption is stripped down to its essential ideas, without the dross of attendant emotions.

Of course this "dross" is a main purpose of recreational media. (Thank you, Prof. Lynn M. Festa's "Sex and Sensibility in the Enlightenment", for teaching me all about experiencing emotions as a cultural pastime.)

My recommendations: read some interviews with Skloot, you'll get the main points. And watch District 9 at home, with the fast-forward button handy.


This post's theme word is comminate, "to threaten with divine punishment" or "to curse." Those who have not watched District 9 are roundly comminated.

Framing mathematics

No, not framing it for a crime. I just read the article A Revolution in Mathematics? What Really Happened a Century Ago and Why It Matters Today by Frank Quinn (math professor). It establishes a surrounding explanation for how modern mathematics came to be structured as it is. In the process, it contrasts two ways of thinking about mathematics: the "old" style, and mathematical sciences, wherein math relates to observable facts and is intuitive (but often yields incorrect results), and the "new" style, which he calls the "core" of mathematical research, wherein math is the study of abstract rules which do not relate to reality (but whose results are provably, rigorously correct).

It is fascinating.

I had never paused to consider the evolution of my discipline. Yet Prof. Quinn highlights and summarizes my experience of grade-school math education: everything seemed much clearer and more reasonable when -- finally! -- worked as abstract symbols according to rules. This is how I learned geometry (my first proofs!), trigonometry, and calculus. I cannot imagine attempting to learn calculus through intuition. What terror! (Does this infinite series feel like it converges? What's your hunch about the derivative of f(x)?) And of course now in retrospect I think of the math I learned earlier -- multiplication, fractions, arithmetic -- in the more advanced terms I learned later.

The article was summarized for me by this: "the old dysfunction was invisible, whereas the new opacity is obvious." Yes, math is opaque; I've studied for years and this is the first thing I'd admit. And my topics are squarely in the "new/core" section: I've done research in precise definitions, logical proofs, completeness. Carefully justifying each step is a technique that I use in my dreams. Math for me has always been its own arena of knowledge, one of three (the humanities, sciences, and math), each with its own methods. Even though we use the science word "discovery," a mathematical discovery is nothing of the sort. And as a grad student, I am amazed at what other grad students do as "research."


This post's theme word is anemometer, "an instrument for measuring the speed of wind." This magical anemometer predicts the trends in sociology research!

Netflix overfitting

How can you tell that I've been watching movies on R.'s Netflix account? One glance at this screen should explain it:
That's right: the top two recommended categories are "British period pieces featuring a strong female lead" and "critically-acclaimed mind-bending movies." This screen made me laugh for several minutes. Netflix is parodying my own preferences back to me with a straight face!

My comments are thus: (1) machine learning should be applied to more areas of my life. It is obviously useful, hilarious, and interesting. Also, (2) I am not terribly worried about the filter bubble so bemoaned on BoingBoing. Partially because I am aware of the automated personalization that is happening around me, I'm not worried about being trapped in a bubble with only my own viewpoints mirrored back at me. I constantly tweak my catalogued "browsing behavior" to see what sort of changes it induces in automated systems. For example, I rated a lesbian romantic comedy/thriller (season 5) as five stars on Netflix just to see how that would affect the action/adventure/scifi/British-period-...-strong-female-lead balance of recommendations. (This was also a joke on R., who didn't know I had done this and was quite puzzled by the temporary diversion of his Netflix recommendations.)

I think Netflix overfitting is an interesting case of the filter bubble. As long as Netflix's genre suggestions are interesting, I always find something I'd like to watch before I get to the point of browsing all videos, or looking one up by search. So most of the time, Netflix's suggestions are good and I watch them and like them and so Netflix is working me into an overfitted profile. Hence "British period pieces featuring a strong female lead."


This post's theme word is prolepsis, "anticipating and answering objections in advance" or, apparently, "the literary device of referring to a thing by its future state." Certain applications of predictive machine learning seem to evince prolepsis.

Gleimous, gloppy goo

The engineers in the basement have set up a giant pit of goo. This is the type of viscous slime which is liquid when allowed to flow freely, but becomes firm when compressed. A handful of this glop is a 3rd-grade fun activity; a ridiculous vat is a university engineering project. Plus they colored it blue.

The engineers are taking turns running across it. With many small, quick steps, it is possible to cross as if on a solid. However, those who step too heavily or linger too long begin to sink, and this stuff is sticky and reluctant to release its gooey grasp on their shoes. The whole floor is lightly tinted blue with the footsteps of the failed goo-walkers.

[Update: photos and video now added below.]

The tub of goo.

Translation: chemical engineers in their final year of undergrad are responsible for this exhibit, made this sign, and are not very good at manual kerning.


One student runs across the puddle.


Another student runs across the puddle.

This post's theme word is gleimous, "full of phlegm." He marveled at the vast expanse of gleimous gunk.